Monday, October 12th, 2009

Does anyone have shoulder pain from impingement out there? Does anyone know what impingement in the shoulder is? I ask because I am a nerd when it comes to corrective movement. When I say corrective movement, I don’t necessarily mean awesome technique, although it has something to do with it. I am talking a little more along the lines of posture first and then bodily movement second.

For instance, bad posture can lead to different injuries over the long run if not corrected. It cause the body to move in a way that it was not supposed to move. After time, the body breaks down and pain occurs. Where the difference of technique and corrective movement comes into play is when an exercise like the front squat requires the body to move in a specific way to be successful but doesn’t mean that movement is healthy for the body. In order for me to clean a barbell into a full squat and then stand up with it, I am going to need to have the elbows high and the torso as vertical as possible. This may put me into a position where my knees shoot forward even though my heels are firmly rooted into the ground. If you have the capacity to sustain these forces, your body will be okay. This doesn’t mean it won’t injure later on but only that at the moment your body will be okay. On the other hand, if you don’t have the capacity or if you already have knee pain, that forward translation of the tibia pulls on the quad (rectus femoris) which crosses the knee joint and inserts into the tibia (shin), in a manner which is not consistent with proper function or movement. This is where the pain comes from. In order to alleviate this pain, we need to refrain from squatting like this until the injury heals from icing and proper movement. I am not stating that the clean and front squat are not safe. I am just saying that if knee pain already exists, you need to squat in a more efficient way of having the lower leg perpendicular to the ground so that the quad has some slack and doesn’t pull on either its origin or insertion point on the bones.

Long story short, I put together an article of sorts on shoulder impingement. I took some stuff from Kelly Starrett and did research of my own. I have been interested in corrective movement for a long time. I have always believed that if pain exists, you can more than likely look elsewhere on the body to heal yourself. In other words, if you have low back pain, the last place you’d probably pay attention to is the low back. It more likely exists from hamstring tightness, in-active glutes, quad tightness, and weak abs. Same goes for the shoulder. Shoulder pain usually exists from tight hips, weak abs, poor posture, and in-active glutes. Anyways, click on the link below for the article.

Preventing and/or Decreasing Shoulder Impingement

Today’s WOD (091012)
“Nate”
20 minutes of:
2 Muscle-ups
4 Handstand Pushups
8 2-pood KB Swings

Rounds completed: 17 (gotta get better)

Sunday’s WOD (091011)
Pull-ups
2 rounds at 75% of max reps pr. PR is 60 reps so 74% is 45 reps.
Did one round without breaking up. Didn’t attempt the second round.

followed by,

“2 minute defense”
5 rounds of:
1 Power Clean
3 Hang Squat Cleans
2 Jerks
200 foot run

After the five rounds, rest 2 minutes. Repeat once more.

Total time: 8:43

Saturday’s WOD (091010)
Overhead Squat 6×3 with last set being 92.5%
Last set was 208

followed by,

42-30-18 reps for time of: (did this with a team of 4 other people, they all did 21-15-9 reps)
Box Jumps, 20 inch box
Burpees
Ball Slams, 20 pound ball

Our team finished in 9:2something (didn’t break up anything except for one drop on the ball slams)
I felt like I was going to throw up.