Communicate with Your Coach

Even with almost a decade under my belt of teaching other people how to exercise, when I started CrossFit, I listened. Just because I had learned to move one way, or read an article / watched a video about something, didn’t mean that I knew the prescribed movement pattern and method for the exercise in CrossFit. Some of it was a no brainer – I never worked with a barbell doing power or Olympic lifts so all of that was new to me. Of course I’m going to listen because those barbells are serious business. So is getting up on the rig. I mean, what kind of normal person just swings around on a bar like you did in elementary school? So I was all ears.

But with other things that I had experience with – like squatting, or overhead pressing – I had to adjust and improve. And every time something didn’t feel quite right, or I had a question about the coach’s correction during a class, I talked with them about it. Questions like…why is it safe to go past the hip crease in a squat? What if my shoulder hurts when I press the bar overhead? Most of the aches and pains I felt during movement were a result of weakness and muscle imbalances, or lack of joint mobility or stability. And all of that can lead to improper movement patterns that overtime, lead to stress on the body, pain, and injury. Once I worked to correct those issues, movements got easier and things made more and more sense.