How to Increase Performance and Decrease Injury Risk in CrossFit – Part 2
In the previous post, we explored how including multi-planar, unilateral (single-limb), structural balance, and tempo exercises in your training can correct imbalances and asymmetries, increase stability and neuromuscular control, and bulletproof muscles, joints, and connective tissues. Now it’s time to explore how several other kinds of accessory work can augment these benefits, boost CrossFit workout performance, and improve resilience.
This second installment of this two-part series will discuss how to:
Develop Strict Strength
Manage Load and Intensity
Find a Mobility Focus
Continuously Work on Technique
Prioritize Two Recovery Pillars
Develop strict strength
A quality that’s closely intertwined with tempo training is strict strength. An Industrial Athletics blog post stated that “Simply put, strict strength is the ability to move your body through space using only the muscles required for that movement. There is no swinging, no building momentum, everything other than the working muscle stays static.”
CrossFit is “constantly varied, functional movements, executed at high intensity” and states that no aspect of functional movements is more important than their capacity to move large loads over long distances, and to do so quickly. Do work and do it quickly but without sacrificing technique and consistency.
In CrossFit, there is a need to perform movements quickly to keep intensity high. This often involves using dynamic movements like kipping or barbell cycling full-body movements. This makes movements “easier” so that you can move fast.
With these dynamic movements though, there’s a need for a base level of strict strength to have control, but a lot of new athletes gloss over this because they find it easier to emphasize dynamic movement instead. This applies most to the gymnastics exercises. When people first start, they get excited about these because they’re fast and fun, and soon start geeking out about the technical aspects of kicking up into a handstand and the kipping motion in pull-ups and ring dips.
As I wrote about going quickly and bouncing in the previous post, it’s easy to get comfortable using momentum for these gymnastics moves and building up the number of reps you can do. But as a coach, I often see athletes performing these movements who can’t yet do a strict handstand push-up or pull-up. That was definitely me for a while. When you add fatigue on top of volume and uncontrolled intensity, bad things are likely to happen. Excessive strain on supporting tissues, joints, and muscles will eventually lead to nagging injuries if athletes are not working on building strict strength in these positions.
Similarly, some CrossFitters can put a lot of weight overhead in push presses and jerks but are using the power from their legs to do so. They may have shoulder pain in the overhead position or when bringing the bar back down because they haven’t developed enough strength or control in their upper body to handle the descent. Barbell cycling in exercises like thrusters, push presses, and touch-and-go deadlifts make this worse, as you’re going right into the next rep and never having to produce force from a dead stop.
This can create a problem when you find yourself in a situation where you have to do heavier single reps or a strength workout that emphasizes strict variations of several exercises. It can also show up if a dynamic exercise is included late in a WOD, during testing, or when competing in an event like the CrossFit Open. There might also come a time when you go for a PR in an exercise where you’re not controlling the weight on the way down and it injures you.
The fix is very simple:
Add a few sets of strict strength work, like a strict wide grip behind the neck press or pause squats, before or after a workout
Switch out dynamic variations for strict ones, such as doing strict pull-ups instead of kipping or dumbbell Z-press instead of kipping handstand push-ups
Dedicate one day of your training week to building strict strength. This could be a strength day focused on single limb and tempo work.
Focus on doing individual reps without using momentum. It will eliminate weaknesses in certain stages, increase stability, and improve neuromuscular control. If your strength piece for the day is deadlifts, work them from a dead stop each rep and control the weight down to the floor.
Manage Load and Intensity
When you first started CrossFit, you were probably stoked to try all the different WODs, enjoyed the camaraderie of being in a group environment with new people, and got positive reinforcement from improving in each exercise. That first class has turned into a few workouts a week, and soon enough, you might have started training almost every day.
CrossFitters tend to be competitive, and when you’re training with friends you want to beat them of course! So you push yourself, go hard and fast, and get hooked on that feeling of an adrenaline surge during your WOD and being wiped out afterward. However, even as you build up your work capacity and develop a bigger engine, it’s going to be difficult to sustain this rapid pace over time.
While there is the annual Open, the everyday crossfitter doesn’t have a competitive season like most other sports. This means there isn’t that building phase during preseason training, maintenance when the competitive calendar is underway, and then an offseason break. As a result, there’s not time to restore and recharge built into your training. Failure to manage load and intensity can lead to overuse injuries, performance plateaus, and even adrenal fatigue and other hormonal issues.
I’ve learned the hard way that I can no longer go all out in every workout. Instead, I look at the whole upcoming week and pick and choose my spots to reduce speed and intensity slightly. Sure, in a benchmark workout or other testing, you can give 100 percent to assess your capability, but for most training sessions, you’ll be better off dialing it back a bit. If you keep testing yourself, your body will eventually say “No!”
So you don’t get to this point, you can think back to why you started CrossFit in the first place. It was probably to be stronger and healthier for life. In which case, making small gains over the long term will be more sustainable than pushing yourself too hard for daily wins and PRs. To better regulate your intensity, you can use the rate of perceived exertion (RPE) scale of one to ten. I try to aim for most WODs between a six and an eight, which means that if you had to repeat them right away you could, according to Dan John in Attempts. Then pick the WODs you want to go all out for and get that PR.
Find a Mobility Focus
Most CrossFitters like to use a foam roller before and after class on big muscles such as their glutes or quads or do the same shoulder stretches with a band. This is fine, but adding more targeted work based on what you’ve just done and the capabilities you’re lacking will be a smarter use of time. For example, I see a lot of athletes who lack mobility in the front rack and overhead positions and so they rely too much on using momentum or defaulting to brute strength in exercises like front squats, cleans, and thrusters.
If that’s you, then you’d do well to start working on your shoulder mobility specifically for lats, pecs, and thoracic extension. You can use exercises during a dynamic warmup to activate optimal movement patterns for overhead pressing that includes soft tissue work but also gaining strength and control at your end range of motion, which will help you gain and maintain mobility over time.
It’s better to pick a focus area and spend time there until you see improvement rather than always switching things up or simply chasing soreness.
Just doing banded shoulder stretches might be improving your range of motion temporarily, but without structural balance, you won’t be able to take full advantage of this.
Try movements like overhead carries or an eccentric calf raises to improve your muscle control and stability within that range of motion. Whenever you’re moving through a full range of motion slowly, you’ll have an opportunity to notice wobbles or sticking points, which can inform your mobilization strategy going forward.
Following a targeted plan for a joint like the shoulder for a few weeks can reduce pain, improve mobility, and boost performance. Check out my training programs for more.
Continuously Work on Technique
Anytime you’ve been doing an exercise for a while without encountering output or injury issues, it’s easy to get complacent. When you have sufficient strength to get by and are competent enough in your form, you might mistakenly think that there’s nothing left to work on. However good coaches and athletes know that working backward to observe and correct technique errors is beneficial.
If these are left unnoticed or unaddressed, they can lead to injury because there are more stressors on certain body parts than others. Or if you get to a higher level of CrossFit, you can hit a performance roadblock because bad habits are the limiting factor. At some stage, you can’t just rely on strength or power to express your full physical capabilities. So you need to be humble enough to let others critique your technique and offer correctives. Skill development/acquisition will also train your brain.
Technique consistency is a building block of CrossFit and should come before you add intensity and volume. This is why elite Olympic lifters still perform complexes with an empty barbell at the start of most sessions. Doing likewise doesn’t just let you continually hone technique, but also informs you where you’re at on any given day and sets expectations for the rest of the workout.
Prioritize Recovery
Even if you check most or all of the boxes in these two posts, it will be difficult to get the results you seek if you’re not eating enough or your sleep is poor. You cannot out-train issues in either of these areas.
The tendency in recovery is to overcomplicate things with new gear, the latest fads, and fancy techniques. But going the other way and simplifying will have a greater positive impact. So by all means take at least one true rest day each week, manage your load and intensity, and do accessory work in all the categories I suggested. But also prioritize getting consistently solid sleep and eating well.
Another reason to invest time in these two areas is that rather than seeing small marginal gains, they can lead to significant ones. Eating well will provide the fuel for optimal performance and adapting to the training stimulus. High-quality sleep improves physical and cognitive output, stabilizes your emotions, and reduces the risk of you getting ill or injured. So when considering recovery, start here.
If you missed part 1, check it out here.
