CrossFit: A Chiropractic perspective

In ‘chiro world’ CrossFit is notorious for the ‘injuries’ that supposedly come with it. A very myopic and unfounded statement if you ask me!

(If you’re at all worried though, I’ll give my 3 safety tips for every CrossFitter at the end of the article)

Most of the time, when someone walks into the clinic with an injury after a class, it’s a chronic build up of dysfunction, NOT a result of simply ‘doing Crossfit’.

Would you rather realise that your body doesn’t work right doing functional movement and exercise and fix that, or sit on the couch and develop metabolic disease? CrossFit allows you to perform functional movements that translate to everday life. What’s wrong with that?

I guess you could argue that Crossfit adds intensity to these functional movements, dramatically increasing both your margin of error and injury potential. And it’s 100% true.

But the same can be said of any athlete in any sport. Increasing intensity leading to increased rates of injury is a common fact of every competitive sport.

If you have functional problems, injuries can happen. That’s normal. The question should then be not whether or not to do CrossFit, but how do you fix your functional problems?

How I learnt to FIX these functional problems

Four years ago, I had my first CrossFitter walk through my clinic door who started to explain their elbow problem. He said that he felt it start to niggle at him after doing a load of ‘kipping’ pull ups.

‘Kipping’ pull ups???? What on earth are they?

At that point I had vaguely heard of CrossFit and all I knew was that it was intense. As a Chiropractor, I assessed the problem for what it was – a bit of tendonitis – looked up the mechanical chain a little, used Active Release Techniques, Dry Needling and some taping and that seemed to do the trick.

Before I knew it, he referred two or three of his friends from the same CrossFit gym.

Then those two or three referred another two or three each..

The impression that I got from them was that it looked and felt like some sort of ‘cult’.

Little did I know that CrossFit was going to bridge the gap between all these different training modalities and blend them into a training regime and furthermore a competitive sport.

After about three months of treating CrossFitters, I understood the names of movements and to an extent understood the movements and how they would blend.

BUT, the day I really UNDERSTOOD CrossFit was they day I joined a class and actually gave it a go. I started to deconstruct the mechanics of each movement and analyse what was happening to the body. To this day I still hear patients that are seeing me for the first time, tell me that they were seeing a Physio who told them to stop training OR to stop wearing ‘those shoes’ OR saying that “CrossFit, well that’s why you’re injured”…

Over the past 4 years I have been able to perform each movement, be it gymnastic; an olympic lift; powerlifting; functional movement; corrective exercise; and in turn, deconstruct each one. That’s what it takes to understand the CrossFit injury that’s walking through your door and that’s why integrating clinics with trained practitioners into the CrossFit facilities has been so successful.

 What are my 3 safety tips for every CrossFitter:

1.  Have an assessment of your body within your first 6 weeks of CrossFit:

–  Not by your Chiro/Physio who has been treating you for years. The person who your coaches recommend you to see to get assessed! I guarantee your Physio/Chiro who doesn’t know what CrossFit is, has no clue what you’re about to embark on.

2.  Just 5 minutes of mobility and activation before and after your workout:

–  Seriously, just 5 minutes. If you train 5 days per week, and accumulate 5mins before and after class, that 50 MINUTES of mobility by the end of the week. It’s just sheer stupidity if you don’t.

3.  If you have a niggle, GET IT LOOKED AT ASAP:

–  You’re not tough if you push through the pain. You just have an ego, arrogance and ignorance. Get your niggles sorted early as it’s the first sign that you are dysfunctional, so any more function on top of your dysfunction just makes the problem harder and harder to fix – and then don’t complain to me that treatment is ‘costing me a motser’

-Nick Papastamatis