Physical Therapy and Proper Rehab for CrossFit Injuries
As a CrossFit athlete in Minneapolis and physical therapist by profession, I greatly appreciate the benefit this style of training can provide someone in their health and fitness goals. I also understand from the healthcare side of the coin how easy it can be to be battling injuries within the sport of CrossFit. I wanted to talk today about how I help my CrossFit athletes as clients of mine in the physical therapy space, best rehab out of their injuries!
The most common areas injured in CrossFit are the shoulder, knee, and low back. A lot of times, we can contribute injury to a multitude of factors, but today I want to focus on training volume. Injuries usually occur when we have a spike in volume of training or a spike in load. Imagine taking time off for a vacation, and then returning to the gym. This return should be a gradual ramp up in activity, not an immediate return to where you were before vacation.
If you DO happen to get injured though, this is NOT a time to stop training. It actually is best to modify your workouts and continue going to the gym because you can still get positive adaptations to uninjured areas as well as the injured area when dosed appropriately! So, how do we do that? The biggest factors to modify when returning to CrossFit from injury are volume, load, frequency, and range of motion.
Volume can be characterized by what is done IN the workout. You can change your rep schemes to modify how much you are doing that day. Load is the amount of resistance (weight on the bar, dumbbell/kettlebell, etc.). Briefly decreasing this will allow you to return to your desired weight faster! Frequency is how OFTEN you go to the gym. Maybe building more rest or active recovery days in are the right choice for you. Range of motion is a big one for me as a physical therapist. If you have hip pain with squatting, lets squat to a box or a bench as a brief modification. If you have shoulder pain with pull-ups, we might change your pull activity or do box or band assisted for a short period of time. If you have back pain with deadlifting, we might STILL deadlift, but pull from weight plates at an elevation versus the ground. All are viable options I use in the clinic!
Take this into consideration if you are injured in any sport, as it can apply across the board. If you have questions on how to keep exercising without eliminating activity all together, that’s where a trusted physical therapist comes in! Reach out and I would be happy to help modify your workouts in the short term to allow you to get back to how you want to move in the long term!
Have more questions about how physical therapy can help CrossFit Injuries? I would be happy to chat further about how Loon State Physical Therapy can be your teammate in getting you back to moving and feeling your best! Call us at (612) 405-8503 or book with us online for an in-person or virtual appointment.
Until next time!
Andrew Eccles
Owner and Physical Therapist at Loon State Physical Therapy
