Going Overhead

Posted by Andy on September 17, 2009 - Posted in Movement There is 1 comment, Add yours!

In Crossfit as in life we are often required to go overhead.  The movement should be the same whether we are doing heavy presses or placing an enormous box of old college textbooks on the top shelf in the garage.

We are constantly reminding our athletes to maintain a neutral low back position and stabilize the spine under load, task, or intensity.  This is most commonly cued by telling you to pull your belly button to spine, pull your pelvic floor up, and anchor the bottom of the rib cage.  When doing presses however many of us break at our rib cages and hyper-extend our low back as the bar gets overhead.  This is not only a weaker position, but one that sets us up for potential injury.  In other words if you want to press more weight overhead then you need to keep that neutral low back position and spine stabilized throughout the movement. 

Take a look at the picture below.  Notice anything strange?  Let me help you out – that huge hyper-extension in my lower back and break at my rib cage is not good.  Presses should not look like this. This position is dangerous and weak.  This is also what my press looks like if I don’t mobilize my lats and triceps prior to pressing.  Some of us (myself included) struggle with this positional fault not because we aren’t fighting like crazy to keep our back neutral and midline stable, but because we literally don’t yet have the range of motion required to go overhead. 

The shoulder mobility circuit we go through as part of every class certainly helps open up the shoulders, but some of us need additional TLC to improve our movement.  Our friend Kelly Starrett, physical therapist extraordinaire, from San Francisco CrossFit has provided us with two epic stretches to help us on our mission for better movement.  Check them out at the links below:

http://sanfranciscoCrossFit.blogspot.com/2009/02/your-poor-lats-instructions-for-care.html
http://sanfranciscoCrossFit.blogspot.com/2009/02/ummm-youre-overhead-break-is-on.html

After taking the picture above I did these stretches for a total of 3 minutes.  Now check out my overhead position.  Not yet perfect, but noticeably improved.

How do you know if these are the right stretches for you to be spending your precious time on?  Always test then retest.  Pick a movement and try a few reps.  Do your stretching and retest.  Did you notice any difference?  You should notice a difference if you doing the right stretch to address your limitations and if not we need to try something else.  For me these stretches obviously make an enormous difference and are part of my daily regimen.  Shoot for 90 seconds per stretch.  Each time you stretch.

Generally we don’t recommend folks do static stretches prior to our workouts and during heavy strength work, but if you literally cannot safely get into the correct position then by all means spend some time prior to class opening up these ranges.  If you have serious movement limitations then you need to make these stretches your daily friends and check them out several times a day.  It is not weird to wake up, shower, grab some coffee, and spend a few minutes mobilizing your lats and triceps no matter what my wife says.  Trust me.