CROSSFIT VERVE has 4 teams competing in the CrossFit Cherry Creek Triple Threat. If you are looking for something to do in the beautiful weather, stop on by the heat times are listed above. Here are the workouts:
Event 1
6 minutes to:
Run 1,000m
5 minutes to:
Row for max calories
4 minutes to:
Do max burpees over the rower
3 minutes to:
Do max heavy rope single unders
Event 2
10 minutes to find your team’s highest total:
Clean
Snatch
Shoulder to overhead
Event 3
2 rounds for max repetitions of:
1:00 max box jump overs (30/24”)
1:00 max alternating arm dumbbell snatches (70/50#)
1:00 max shoulder to overhead (155/105#)
1:00 max goblet squat (32/24kg)
1:00 max chest to bar pull-ups
1:00 max wallballs (30/20# to 10/9’)
1:00 rest
Event 4
For time:
100 GHD sit-ups
75 front lunges (135/95)
50 thrusters (135/95)
25 ring muscle-ups
Floater
As many reps as possible in 4 minutes of:
1 tire flip
1 tire jump through
CrossFit Cherry Creek
2422 South Trenton Way, Denver, CO 80231
Rower powered electricity coming to you courtesy of the 5:30am class.
Hold on to your butts folks. . . we got a lot of stuff on the calendar this summer.
*Verve will have one 7am WOD Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Verve will be closed the rest of the day for a seminar.
*Verve will have two off site swim WODs Saturday morning at 9:30am and 10:30am @ Glenarm Rec Center. Please sign up on MBO.
Glenarm Rec Center 2800 Glenarm Pl Denver, CO 80205 Click here for a map
*CrossFit Cherry Creek is hosting the Triple Threat competition this weekend. Verve has 4 teams competing on Sunday only. Stop by and do some cheering!! Click here for directions and information.
*Verve will have it’s first event of it’s Summer Nutrition Series Saturday June 27th at 2pm @ Verve. It will be a lecture on the topic of your choice presented by Clara Wisner. Be sure to Vote for the topic you want to hear about. The voting box is at the front of Verve with your topic choices. The lecture is open to everyone at no cost.
*Verve will be hosting an i99 clinic Sunday June 28th at 12pm. More details will be posted next week along with a link to register.
*Verve is hosting the CrossFit Football Trainer Course Saturday and Sunday July 11th-12th. Spots are still available. For more information and to register, click here.
*The O2X Summit Challenge will be August 15th at Winter Park Resort. Verve trainers are signing up a team and looking to make some wagers against any other Verve teams that sign up!! For more info, click here.
*Front Range CrossFit is hosting the first annual Do More Charity Challenge October 3rd-4th. It’s a 6 person team competition. Verve will put $600 towards registering a team. Click here for more info and rules.
PEPE LE PEW – Stinky CrossFit accessories and how to clean them!
We LOVE our accessories – knee sleeves, shin guards, weight belt, wrist wraps, and 4 pairs of Nano’s!! We wear them as often as we can. The problem is we become sweaty messes during our workout and our accessories absorb nearly every drop of it. What can we do to ensure that we don’t offend our fellow gym mates and the homeless men on the corner? Here are some tips and tricks for staying so fresh and so clean clean:
#1 – When taking your equipment off, turn it inside out! Delay, for as long as possible, throwing those accessories straight into your gym bag. Moisture hangs around when in enclosed places. When moisture hangs around, bacteria and mold and goodness know what else flourishes. When those nasty things flourish, the stink begins!
#2 – Wash you accessories when they start to smell. There are several ways to go about this:
-Simply add these items to a basic load of laundry. If you are washing your shoes, include them with a load of towels so you don’t bang up your washer. If you are washing your wrist wraps, put them in a delicates bag so they don’t become entangled or stuck to your other items.
-Use special detergent to help kill the bacteria living in your goodies. Tide, OxiClean, and many other companies make detergent especially for sporting goods. These detergents have special cleaning agents added to help kill the smell-creating bacteria (that’s a technical term).
-DO NOT put any of the items in the dryer. My suggestion is to place them outside on your patio so they get some sun. Sun is also great at bleaching out any stains you may have on your shoes!
-If you don’t want to stick your items in the washing machine, you can wash them by hand using the following method courtesy of CrossFit Invictus:
Boil Your Knee Sleeves *wrist wraps, shin guards, weight belts included
– Boil your knee sleeves in a pot of hot water for about 5 minutes. -Remove the pot from heat. -Add a small amount of dish soap to your sweaty neoprene mildew broth. -Allow your knee sleeves to cool in the pot. -Rinse your knee sleeves off and allow them to air dry.
Another Method: Hot Water and Vinegar Soak Before Washing With Laundry
The idea here is to use two methods for killing mildew and whatever else might be growing in your knee sleeves: heat and distilled vinegar. Bleach and other chlorine-based cleaners are not recommended for knee sleeves. Bleach can possibly weaken the textiles that comprise your knee sleeves.
– Heat up a large pot of water. -Pour into a large bucket. -Add 2 to 4 ounces of distilled white vinegar. – Add your knee sleeves and allow them to soak for at least 10 minutes. – Add your knee sleeves to a normal load of laundry with chlorine-free detergent. – Allow your knee sleeves to completely air dry, you can leave them outside in the sun to speed up this process.
We love and appreciate each and every one of you, but please take a little time this weekend to make sure we don’t offend anyone’s nose!
VERVE UPDATE:
The gym will closed for a seminar this weekend, but we have many fitness options:
-Classes at Verve will be happening @ 7am both Saturday and Sunday
-Saturday, there will be Pool WOD’s @ 9:30am and 10:30am at the Glenarm Rec Center
-Sunday, Verve will have 4 teams in the CFCC Triple Threat @ Cherry Creek CrossFIt. The competition begins at 8am and ends at 5pm.
1st Annual Front Range CrossFit “Do More Charity Challenge”, October 3-4th, 2015
What’s that you say? Another opportunity to put my hard earned CrossFit skills to use in a competition? So much more room for so many activities.
Front Range CrossFit is hosting the 1st annual Do More Charity Challenge October 3-4th, 2015. You may have already seen some flyers hanging around Verve about it. The goal of this blog post is to provide a bit more clarity on the challenge and to get you guys excited to participate in it. While it is a team competition, a huge part of this challenge is raising money for a charity of your team’s choice.
The Team: The team needs to consist of 6 people (3 men, 3 women) with a combined age of AT LEAST 225 years. That is an average age of 37.5 years. Now, instantly some of you may be slightly concerned about how to make this happen, that’s where a better understanding of WHO can make up your team comes into play.
Each team will need to have: a) At least 1 male and 1 female that can do all the movements that showed up in the 2015 Open’s RX division. This includes muscle-ups, HSPUs, chest to bar pull-ups, etc. b) At least 1 male and 1 female that can perform most CrossFit movements/ basic gymnastics, i.e. chin over the bar pull-ups. A good idea would be an athlete that can do most WODs RX. c) 1 male and 1 female that can row, burpee, jump, deadlift, and carry objects.Simply put, the team does not need to be made up of all the best CrossFit athletes you know. The team can have your best friend, who doesn’t do CrossFit but is a triathlete, on it. The team can have your wife, who is not a member of Verve but regularly runs 5ks, on it. Your power lifting friend, the former collegiate rower, you name it. You can pull your teammates from anywhere you wish, this is a competition where the best CrossFit athlete may not actually be the make it or break it member of your team.
The Workouts: There will be 8 scored events with 7 of those events being workouts over the weekend. The 8th event is actually how much money your team raised for your charity. Of the 7 workouts there will be 3 x 2 person events, 2 x 4 person events, and 2 x 6 person events. Everyone on the team will compete in 4-5 events over the weekend. In the 6 person events, they have been designed so that everyone, no matter the skill level, will have to do work. . . and not just a few reps either, a lot of work.
The Charity: Each team gets to pick a charity they want to compete on behalf of. So, for example, your team chooses to compete on behalf of The Denver Dumb Friend’s League. Prior to the actual event, your team will be working to raise money, all of which (no matter how you place in the competition) will go to DDFL. How much money you raise is a scored event, so if you raise the most money, that’s a first place score before you even broke a sweat. At the completion of the event, 1st through 10th place finishing teams will be awarded prize money that goes directly to their charity. The opportunity to raise a good chunk of money for something you believe very strongly in exists. Charities need to be registered at coloradogives.org.
How To Register: You can go to frontrangecrossfit.com (click here), to register your team and your charity. Team registration costs are $600. Verve will be putting $600 towards this event, so if enough of you get together and form more than 1 team, we will simply divide the money between all interested teams, team members can cover the balance.
If you need more information you can read the flyers posted in Verve or feel free to email me, courtney@crossfitverve.com. There is no reason we can’t get at least 1 team registered for such a cool event and a great opportunity to workout for something greater than ourselves.
We have 2 swim WODs this weekend, Saturday June 13th, at The Glenarm Rec Center, @ 9:30am and 10:30am. If you can get in a pool and get from one end to the other without the assistance of the wall or the lane line (or a lifeguard), you can come. You do not have to be the best swimmer, we will warm-up with technique work, and finish off with a workout that involves you getting in and out of the pool. Sign up on MBO.
This is the last week of our 4 day/ week Oly cycle. Next week class will be held on Monday (snatch 1RM test) and Thursday (c&j 1RM test) only. There will be no specialty classes the week of June 22nd-26th. Starting Monday June 29th we will begin a 6 week Hotdogs & Cupcakes powerlifitng cycle. This is only 3 days/ week, M/T/Th @ 5pm. Stay tuned for more info about this cycle in next week’s blog.
The man, the myth, the legend; Dan Pope picking up rocks on the beach
Most of you know Dan Pope. He’s a CrossFit Verve trainer and coaches classes on Tuesday evening. If you haven’t met him be sure and introduce yourself. What a few of you know and many more will know after reading this is that he’s a top notch physical therapist and has a website dedicated to all things fitness. From mobility to progressions to ways to improve your gymnastic and Olympic lifting movements, Dan’s website; FitnessPainFree.com is a great resource.
Dan has been creating content for the past 7 years so you can imagine that the stock pile of worthwhile reads is pretty damn endless. There are also plenty of videos for those of us that are visual learners and require a demonstration.
I’ve asked Dan to provide us with a few examples of his research and writing so that we can bring them to our members via the Verve Blog. Here is one such article that I found particularly useful given my terrible sleep habits. Enjoy and please visit his website FitnessPainFree.com.
And I think you can guess what those 2 things are… Get everything else out, that means phones, ipads, computers and televisions.
2) Keep Your Bedroom Dark and Cool
Invest in some nice and heavy black out blinds. Make the room a bit cooler at night with air conditioning. No lights or electronics should be showing at night. The amount of light your body is exposed to can effect cortisol and melatonin levels, 2 hormones vital for sleep and alertness. Bonus points if you can expose yourself to some early morning sun to get the cortisol levels going.
3) Set the Same Sleep Time Every Night
Adriaan explained that going to sleep closer to when the sun goes down and waking when the sun rises can also be beneficial for cortisone / melatonin cycles. He recommends getting to bed before 12 (Obviously the sun usually sets before then in most areas). A steady bed time and rise time will help regulate your sleep/wake cycle.
4) Slowly Calm Down Before Bed
The idea is to slow down a bit before it’s time to sleep. This means several hours before bed to stop using electronics. Dim the lights some or potential use candles. Do things that help you relax, potentially try meditation.
5) Sleep 7-9 hours per night
Getting enough sleep has a myriad of benefits including improving efficiency and productivity. The amount of sleep needed probably differs from person to person but I doubt some people operate best on just 4 hours. Sleep can be trained. Get in bed at the same time each night. Stay in bed until your chosen wake time regardless of whether or not you’re actually asleep. Eventually you’ll be sleeping the prescribed times.
6) Keep a Notebook by the Bed
Many people have difficulty sleeping because they can’t control their thoughts at night Write them down (to do list) and make an effort to complete them the next day.
7) Snorer Leaves the Room
Having a sleeper next to you who can’t stop snoring does not help sleeping at all. Adriaan’s recommendation was to have the snorer leave the room and sleep elsewhere.
8) Taper Water Before Bed
For obvious reasons. Peeing 7 times per night because you drank a gallon of water before bed time isn’t good.
9) Limit Alcohol Consumption
Alcohol can help relax your body and prepare your body for rest. However, too much alcohol can disrupt sleep as your body is processing the alcohol.
10) Take Naps of 20 Minute or Less (Stay in Phase 1)
Our sleep occurs in cycles. We slip into deeper sleep cycles as we sleep for longer durations. When we first fall asleep this stage is closest to our normal brain activities and as we sleep further the brain activity changes. This is why you may feel groggy after a several hour nap but feel ready to go after a shorter nap. Keep your naps between 10-20 minutes to minimize this effect. Also keep in mind that if you take long naps during the day you may disrupt your sleep cycle at night. Again, you may have to find what works best for you.
The theoretical hierarchy of athletic development.
GET EXCITED FOR VERVE’S SUMMER NUTRITION SERIES!!!
During CrossFit’s Level 1 Trainer Course, participants are taught about the theoretical hierarchy of athletic development, represented by the above pyramid. Starting at metabolic conditioning, each of the levels of the pyramid are explained, with the bottom level left blank and saved for last. Now, since I’ve already posted the picture, this is a little anticlimactic, but it may still come as a shock for some to know that the foundation for our athletic performance is nutrition. What most might realize but often times choose to selectively ignore, is that nutrition plays a significant role in every aspect of our life, from how well we sleep, how well we can concentrate and remember details, how our skin looks, how long we live, and how active of a life we live.
How many of you hear the word “diet” and instantly think about some sort of short term program that monitors what you consume for the purpose of losing weight? The word “diet” has been given a bad rap. A diet is simply the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats. We can choose a diet for ourselves that helps us lose weight, helps us perform physically better, or simply keeps our health markers, such as cholesterol and blood pressure, in a healthy range. We can opt to change our diet several times throughout a year depending on changes in our goals or we can choose to keep the same diet for a lifetime. The question becomes, what diet do I need? What diet will help me achieve my goals?
Verve is working to bring you a Summer Nutrition Series. Once a month for the next several months Verve will be hosting an event, a lecture, or both, with a nutrition theme. These events/ lectures are open to Verve members and the public, so bring your family and friends. Our first lecture will be brought to you by Verve’s very own Clara Wisner. Clara is currently in school to become a Master Nutrition Therapist (MNT) and just received her Nutrition Therapy Practitioner (NTP) certificate.
“I am a person who is passionate about changing the health of the world and the practice of medicine. I want to effect change in the world through changing the standard of health care from generalized to personalized, from conventional to functional and from a segmented view that only puts bandaids on symptoms to a whole person view that takes into account physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.”
– Clara
Clara will be providing a lecture on Saturday June 27th, 2pm-3pm @ Verve. The topic will be of your choosing. Clara wants to know what you want to know. She has put together several topics, from which the members of Verve will pick their first Nutrition Lecture in this series. Your choices are:
1) Basic Nutrition and WOD Recovery: A paleo approach to eating for health and specific key nutrients for recovery for the average WODder
2) The Keys to Detoxification: How to set yourself up for more energy, better sleep, and glowing skin
3) The Truth About Weight Management: A new perspective on how we gain and lose weight, and what it means for you
Starting today, a box will be set up out front with the above list. All we ask is that you simply put the number of the lecture you want to hear about on a piece of paper and place it in the box. We also ask that you only vote once. We will collect votes Monday June 8th through Friday June 12th, so you have a few days to think about it.
We are excited to kick of the summer with some great information. . . so you better pick wisely. I’m kidding. . . sort of.
In Teams of 2 perform the following: 100 Deadlifts 135#(95#) 100 Wall Balls 20#(14#) 50 Hang Power Cleans 135#(95#) 50 Toes to Bar 25 Shoulder to overhead 135#(95#) 25 Syncronized hand release push ups
Shelle working on her 3RM back squat with Meghan and Stephanie spotting her. Team work makes the dream work.
So much room for so many more activities!! Verve has a ton of stuff coming up. . .
*Saturday June 6th @ 8am Verve is hosting a community WOD. This is the best opportunity for anyone who has been wondering about this fun thing called CrossFit is and what Verve is all about.
*A foundations class will start the following Monday, June 8th, for those wanting to get started at Verve after the community WOD blew their mind!! Foundations runs M/T/Th from 7pm-8pm for 2 weeks.
*Verve is hosting the CrossFit Level 2 Seminar June 13th & 14th. Verve will have a 7am WOD at Verve both days, and closed for the remainder of both days. Wanna sleep in? Saturday we will have 2 pool WODs at Glenarm Rec Center @ 9:30am and 10:30am. Sign up on MBO.
*The Cherry Creek Triple Threat team competition will be going on June 13th & 14th at Cherry Creek CrossFit. Verve has several teams signed up, stop by and cheer them on!!
*Verve will be hosting several nutritional lectures/ events over the summer. Stay tuned to Monday’s blog for more details.
*Verve is hosting the CrossFit Football Seminar July 11th & 12th. Go to Verve’s events page for more information and to register.
4 Rounds
With a 4 minute clock:
Row 500 meteres (400 meters)
With remaining time as many reps as possible of
Burpee box jumps 30″(24″)
rest 2 minutes between rounds
IT Band Syndrome and what to do about it – Anna Mattson
Many of you squatted some impressive weight yesterday! A little feedback I received was that you were experiencing some knee pain or hip pain; I even heard some people say they had IT Band Syndrome. I wanted to take a chance to discuss what exactly is IT Band Syndrome and some great mobility drills to help ease the discomfort. Please note, the site below refers to runners and cyclists, but IT Band Syndrome can happen to anyone who squats, runs, jumps….. So CrossFitters are included in these statements.
WHAT IS IT BAND SYNDROME – (courtesy of medicinenet.com) Iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS or IT band syndrome) is an overuse injury of the tissues located on the outer part of thigh and knee. It causes pain and tenderness in those areas, especially just above the knee joint. Iliotibial band syndrome is more common in runners and bicyclists. The iliotibial band is a thick band of tissue that begins at the iliac crest in the pelvis, runs down the outer part of the thigh, and crosses the knee to attach into the top part of the tibia or shinbone. The iliotibial (IT) band helps stabilize the outside part of the knee through its range of motion. When the knee is flexed, the IT band is located behind the femoral epicondyle, a bony outcropping of the femur or thighbone at the knee. The IT band moves forward across the condyle when the knee is extended. There is a sac or bursa that allows the band to glide across the condyle, but should inflammation occur in this area, the increased friction from repeatedly rubbing the iliotibial band across the bony condyle can cause pain, especially along the outer (lateral) aspect of the knee joint. If the symptoms are ignored, the inflammation can continue and scarring can occur in the bursa, decreasing knee range of motion and causing increasing pain with decreasing activity.
What is the IT Band?
Now that you know where / what the IT Band is and what the syndrome encompasses, what can you do about it? Roop has done it again with an awesome video with LOTS of good mobility drills. If you were in my class last night, you had the “pleasure” of going through a couple of these. YOU’RE WELCOME!
Try these drills out, especially the one with the plunger, and let me know how they go!! Do you have any go-to mobility drills to help you squat?
VERVE UPDATES:
-Tomorrow will be a Free Community Workout at 8am. Bring friends and family interested in CrossFit!!
-Shaina, Danielle, and Maddie are hosting a COMPETE AND DRINK FOR MS fundraiser on Saturday night to help raise money for Bike for MS, a foundation near and dear to their hearts. Here are the details: Saturday, June 6th – 4pm @ Mile Hi Spirits 2201 Lawrence St, Denver, Colorado 80205
A portion of the proceeds from the drinks and the all of the proceeds from the tournament will be donated to the cause. Here is the link to the event for more details and to let them know you will be going. Hope to see you all there.
Cornhole Tournament – teams of 2 ($10 donation to participate)
Flip Cup Tournament – teams of 4 ($20 donation to participate)
Jeremy taking a break between sets of ring push-ups.
Yo, what’s the deal with rhabdo? (part 2)
In yesterday’s blog I discussed what “rhabdo” (short for rhabdomyolysis) is and defined some commonly used terms (eccentric vs. concentric movement). I used an example of how someone may get rhabdo with the jumping pull-up. That again is only one example. There are other causes of rhabdo, as well as several risk factors that can predispose us to getting rhabdo. Those risk factors include, but are not limited to, severe trauma, burns, heatstroke, seizures, viral infections, alcohol/ drug use, some prescription medications such as statins for high cholesterol, and, of most concern to us in the Crossfit community, intense muscle exertion.
So how do we, as much as we possibly can, work to prevent rhabdo in our athletes? One way is scaling. Crossfit is infinitely scaleable. Scaling does not mean we are weak, less of an athlete, or somehow inferior. Scaling is a tool used to help us grow as athletes, increase our strength and capacity, and keep us safe. If you are new to Crossfit, fresh from the foundations program, you may be given fewer rounds, reps, or weight. If you were once a collegiate athlete and find yourself de-conditioned and getting back into working out, you may be given fewer rounds, reps, or weight. If you are recovering from an injury, along with the above, you will also get modified movements to support your rehabilitation. All of this can, and should, be done at an intensity level relative to your abilities.
There is, however, the possibility of over scaling and, in doing so, yet another way to get rhabdo. I will again use the pull-up as an example. There are workouts that literally contain hundreds of pull-ups, i.e. “Angie”. An athlete who has never done more then 50 total pull ups in a workout before decides they are going for all 100 today. They grab a band and at 3,2,1, go, they’re gone. Somewhere around pull up #40 they are beginning to fail and they are no longer able to get their chin over the bar, so they grab a bigger band. The bigger band helps them start moving through pull ups again but the new pull up momentum is short lived. The athlete is again failing and can no longer pull their chin over the bar. So the athlete yet again grabs a bigger band, and the cycle continues. This is called progressive scaling. This athlete has gone to failure at every scale used to get through a volume of work literally double anything they have ever done before. This is a recipe for rhabdo. This athlete was right to grab a band for their scale, but this is a case where this athlete needed to be scaled on their reps as well. Muscles fatigue during workouts, it’s okay to adjust a scale or add one during a workout to account for this, but as athletes we cannot go to total muscle failure and progressively scale through it. There was a post written on a Crossfit discussion board about progressive scaling along with “Top 10 ways to avoid giving a client rhabdo”. It is directed towards the Crossfit trainer, however it is a good read to understand why trainers do what they do. Click here to the article.
Should you unfortunately get rhabdo, here are a few signs and symptoms: 1) pain out of proportion to the amount of soreness you would expect, often coming on much faster than you would expect after a workout, and often accompanied with weakness, 2) swelling of the body part involved, either with or without pain, 3) decreased urine output or darkened urine the color of tea or coco cola. If you have any of these signs and symptoms you need to get to a doctor and determine its extent and treatment.
Listen to coaches when they caution about rhabdo, and do the appropriate scale in the workout. Again, scaling is a way to help build appropriate volume on high risk movements. The moral of the story . . . don’t mess with rhabdo, it’s no joke. And wasps nests, don’t mess with those either, it wasn’t in the story but its just good advice.
A little mother/ daughter bonding time during a Verve workout.
Yo, what’s the deal with rhabdo? By Courtney Shepherd and a bunch of people that have an “MD” after their name.
The other day Verve had a WOD programmed that contained GHD sit-ups. While briefing the workout I mentioned the importance in scaling the GHD sit-ups because, if not done correctly or done in a volume beyond our capacity, we can set ourselves up for the potential to get rhabdo. After I said this someone in class asked “what is rhabdo?”. Valid question. I know personally as a coach I made mention of it often in workouts where the risk for it is greatest, however I was awakened to the idea that merely mentioning it does not mean you as athletes understand the concept, or what the true risk actually is. Henceforthly I will be taking the next 2 blog posts to thoroughly inform you about the infamous “Rhabdo”.
Rhabdo is a key word we like to shoot across your bow as a warning when certain movements show up in WODs. Those movements include, but are not limited to, jumping pull-ups and GHD sit-ups. Rhabdo is short for rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdomyolysis is the breakdown of muscle fibers that leads to the release of muscle fiber contents (myoglobin) into the bloodstream. Your blood filters through your kidneys, this is where waste is removed from the blood stream for you to later pee it out. When the myoglobin is released into your blood stream, it will eventually be filtered through your kidneys. This is a problem for your kidneys. Not only is myoglobin tough to filter but it also breaks down into substances that can damage kidney cells, and in essence destroy your kidneys. Just so you know, you really need your kidneys. Kidney destruction can lead to total kidney failure, and without any treatment, can lead to death. Yeah, I said it, death. This stuff be serious.
In the words of Keanu Reeves, whoa.
So how does this relate to our crossfit WODs? Rhabdo may be caused by any condition that damages skeletal muscle, especially injury. When the topic of rhabdo comes up you may hear the words “loaded eccentric movement”. Eccentric muscle contraction is the muscle activating while it is lengthening under load. I will use the example of a bicep curl. If you extend your forearm at the elbow while holding on to a dumbbell (loading), your muscle is activating/ contracting as it lengthens (the mind blowing concept here is that “contracting” does not necessarily mean “shortening” of a muscle). The opposite of this is concentric movement. Concentric muscle contraction is the muscle activating while it is shortening under load, the curl.
So now let’s apply this information to the jumping pull up in crossfit. The concentric movement on your bicep would be the jump and pull to get your chin over the bar. This movement is loaded with your body weight. The eccentric movement would be the decent back down to your starting position with arms locked out and knees bent in jumping position, again this movement is loaded with your body weight. “Eccentric movements are particularly stressful for muscles because the muscle cells are lengthening while trying to contract. This “stretching” increases muscle tension and predisposes the muscle cell to injury.” (Dr. Will Wright, The Crossfit Journal) During a jumping pull up it is important to have a controlled decent, meaning no rapid dropping creating a jerking pull on the arms/ shoulders nor do we want a slowed negative decent. It is also important to move through a full range of motion, chin over bar and back to locked out elbows.
There are several other causes of rhabdo as well as several ways to aid in preventing it. Stayed tuned for more info.
To be continued . . . .
Information in this post was found at: Medline Plus Muscle Physiology The Crossfit Journal, “Rhabdomyolysis revisited”, Dr. Will Wright
