CrossFit Maroubra

Why you should train for obstacle races. Graeme’s rant for this week.

Last weekend I went to Centenial Park to see what might be in store for our members for the Spartan race in March. Whilst I didn’t see anything that should worry us too much, it became obvious anyone without skilled instruction might be setting themselves up for injury.

There was some instruction given but not much follow up or checking to make sure movements were correct & safe. For Kettlebell clean & jerks, there were any number of poor variations, non-active shoulders & arms going everywhere. It wasn’t hard to see the potential for shoulder injuries there.

On to Sandbag & partner carries & I didn’t see if any lifting instruction was given on maintaining midline but again there were lots of back injuries waiting to happen.

A modified burpee, called a grunt (WTF?) did have some instruction; it was to go weak & drop. The position demonstrated had feet together inside arms & knees well forward of the toes, jump back & jump in again to the same position resulting in weight on balls of the feet & knees well forward, then jump up. You don’t have to do CrossFit to know this is not a good place to put your knees.

I have to say there were many people doing things correctly and they were on the whole from gyms who practice functional movements, use kettlebells & odd objects like sandbags. CrossFit Shoalhaven stood out in their kettlebell group among the few who displayed good form.

So the lesson is to listen, learn the technique, be strict on yourself in getting it right & minimise the risk so you can maximise the fun.