Doing CrossFit and doing a lot of lifting can tear up your hands and wrists and elbows. Here are a couple of exercises to help you rehabilitate and rejuvinate yourself. This series will increase the bloodflow and mobility to the forearms, wrists and hands. Give it a try.
Forearm Blast from Force Distance Time on Vimeo.
Post thoughts to the comments.
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Tagged circulation, forearms, hands, mobility, rehab, wrists
This is a drill from Raphael Ruiz for building strong ankles and fixing Navicular Drop.
Here is some more information on Navicular Drop.
I have been really into Jill Miller’s Yoga Tune Up lately. Jill teaches what one could describe as “forensic yoga.” She looks at a classical yoga pose and then disects it. She determines which muscles need to work and which need to mobilized. Then sets out a methodical practice of strengthening and mobilizing and preparing the body for the pose. It’s an amazing practice and creates a much deeper understanding and embodying of the pose.
Jill’s methodology is similar to Kelly Starrett’s Mobility WOD. In many ways one could describe Mobility WOD as forensic bodywork. The mobility WOD uses exercises found in CrossFit for it’s starting point instead of yoga poses. So K-Starr looks at a squat or a press and disects these movements and provides a plan for achieving better positions for greater efficiency and safety in the exercises.
The great thing about both these programs is that they offer a plan: an organizational scheme. As teachers they know where they want their students to go and formulate a plan for getting the student there. Also they both think outside of box. Often practitioners of a certain modality limit themselves within that modality and don’t look at other useful techniques. However, both Jill and Kelly are quick to use whatever methods are at their disposal to get the job done: rubber bands, therapy balls, kettlebells. The ends justify the means.
Assuming there is another level, what is it? And how do I get there?
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Consider what you have created for yourself: your job, your family, your home. Consider what you would do to protect it. Consider what it is like to want Freedom so bad that you would go to war for it; that you would stand up and declare before all, that you are willing to pledge all you had for Freedom.
Every year I make a plea that you should read the Declaration of Independence. There are few documents in history as powerful and thought provoking. While destiny may govern the unpredictable occurrences that flavor our lives, ultimately our lives are a product of our own creation. We can choose how and with whom we spend our lives and are limited only by our willingness to sacrifice what we have for what we could have.
Take the time once a year to read the Declaration of Independence and reflect upon all you have and all you could have if you are bold enough to declare yourself free and act on it.
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“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.”
Self-awareness is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom and is what takes us up the evolutionary ladder. So why does it so easily elude us? As someone who teaches people how to move, I am constantly confronted by people’s lack of physical and mental awareness. Also on a day to day basis I am confronted with my own lack of awareness. By practicing regularly, I seek to become more aware of my actions in and out of the gym. I find it to be difficult but rewarding.
The physical practice of yoga is said to be preparation for being able to sit in meditation (a pure awareness practice). My teacher Edward Clark used to say, “Evenly metered movement coupled with evenly metered breath creates and evenness of mind.” CrossFit is also extremely good at creating a state where awareness can flourish. In the midst of a WOD you are brought to the edge of your physical and mental limits and thus given an opportunity to practice your awareness. However, high intensity workouts can often have the opposite effect on some people because they tend to shut down and tune out the pain or discomfort. A teacher must have multiple strategies on hand for teaching awareness to people that respond differently to stimuli.
As a teacher I observe my students during class and note whether or not they can pay attention to me, whether they can stand still when needed, whether they know where their bodies are in space, where they focus their eyes, whether they carry themselves with composure. This helps me with my awareness as I become more attuned to my students and also I become more aware of how I comport myself in front of them. If teaching is about imparting knowledge, then first the teacher must offer the knowledge and, second, see if it has taken hold in the student. Many teachers speak but don’t observe whether their words are absorbed by their students.
For some people weightlifting is a random occurrence of movements that may or may not result in the barbell arriving at some position in space at some time in the near future. When in fact weightlifting is an organized series of muscular actions that result in a specific and immediate movement of the bar to an exact location in space. In order to master weightlifting there has to be awareness of where you and the bar are at all times. The paradox is that in order to cultivate this awareness there has to be a certain sense of calmness in your body and mind while at the same time exhibiting an all-out physical and mental effort. My teacher Glenn Black says, “In order for conscious relaxation to happen we must resist the temptation to do what we have always done. Resist the temptation to go forward and rest comfortably in place.” Many lifters are so focused on the end of the lift that they do not begin by setting up properly. Many lifters are so focused on the amount they are lifting instead of the quality with which they are lifting. What needs to be cultivated is an understanding that with improved awareness comes improved technique and with that comes bigger lifts.
Stretch, lift or meditate: do whatever it takes to cultivate greater awareness.