IR

One of our members came up to me a few days ago and mentioned that she had canceled her membership at the Sports Club LA. She explained to them that she was a Crossfitter now. They responded by urging her to be careful, claiming that CrossFit was dangerous and that a lot of people get injured participating in our program. I would expect nothing less than a globo gym taking a shot at CrossFit, but find it necessary to defend our program to all the naysayers. First of all, a globo gyms primary goal is to get you to sign up for a long term contract that you will never use.  If you do show up, they encourage the use of non-functional, single joint, isolation machines, which promote segmentation of the body and certainly do not make us more fit in any sense of the word.  These machines do however ensure that members do not get injured on their own property, releasing them from any liability.
I also had someone recently approach me and try to argue that there is something fundamentally wrong with a common exercise used in CrossFit, which may result in injury. I explained to him that the exercise wasn’t the problem, but a lack of efficiency in any movement may result in injury. For example, in a medicine wall ball, by holding the med ball too far out in front and letting gravity pull the chest down, the lumbar curve is surrendered, which can leave the low back prone to injury.
I just wanted to touch on the injury topic and the importance of efficiency for a moment. Some people play soccer, some rock climb, some run and some mountain bike for fitness, we CrossFit.  The truth is injuries happen in all these sports, more often in others than CrossFit, and if you think the risk isn’t worth the reward you should hang up your inov8’s right now.  All those years of working out at the globo gym, sitting all day and moving improperly for years, has set our bodies up for injury. When we first embark on our intense fitness program, which is CrossFit, we are trying to relearn fundamental, everyday movements such as picking up something properly (the deadlift).   Our inefficiencies in these movements may sometimes lead to aches, pains and minor nagging injuries. But if we didn’t have these nuisances, we wouldn’t be forced to address our imbalances, which would ultimately cause much more damage down the road if not dealt with.
There is no doubt that the key to fitness is intensity, but it’s equally important to constantly work at becoming more efficient with each movement. Efficiency with movements ensures that our bodies remain healthy and injury free so we can continue to hit that high intensity and further our fitness level.
Listen to your coaches, we have the experience, we know how to move and we know how to get you moving better quickly.
It’s okay to scale back the weight and become perfect movers first, it’s going to make you a better Crossfitter in the long run. Stretch with authority during class; don’t just go through the motions. Do mobility/flexibility work on your own and work on perfecting movements with the PVC pipe. Use the tools that we give you to make yourself better movers in and outside of CrossFit and stay injury free.

Strength
Power Clean
3-3-3-3-3

WOD
3 Rounds
10 Medball Jack Knives (20/14)
20 Push-presses (95,65)
30 Sit-ups