By: Coach Bryce Chilton
CrossFit covers pretty much all aspects of fit
ness. It’s not just about speed, or proper technique, or skill, or moving heavy weight, or intensity, or endurance. It’s about all of the above and so much more. That’s why seasoned long distance runners, bodybuilders, and cardio queens all find a challenge in CrossFit. One thing, however, is certain across the board… CrossFit is not just about moving, but moving well.
The majority of any CrossFit coach’s job is not only motivate athletes to push themselves, but to teach proper movement. CrossFit is all about functional fitness, therefore it’s about moving the body in all the ways the body was intended to move. As a trainer, I am always looking for ways to help my athletes improve in all aspects – everything from gymnastics to lifting.
However, I was finding that though me and other ones of my fellow coaches were giving quality instruction throughout the class period, I was still seeing some of the same weaknesses continuing to manifest themselves in our athletes.
I knew there wasn’t a problem with the coaching and I could even tell that our athletes were teachable and ready to learn. That’s when I realized that sometimes people just aren’t making the connection between what the coach is saying and actually doing it. And I realized that it’s not because they don’t understand the concept, but more because they have spent too much time in incorrect positions. They aren’t used to feeling what being in the correct position feels like. Even during a Metcon, sometimes athletes are unable to recognize what is going wrong and translate a cue from a trainer into corrected movement.
Again, this is not the fault of the coach. Often, even when the coach spends extra time outside of class instructing the athlete and correcting movement, and even seeing some improvement, when the athlete is placed in the position where he/she is focused on doing the movement for time or intensity is added, it distracts and takes the athlete away from our very foundation which is mechanics, consistency, intensity.
You have to be functional to actually have functional movement. And that takes not just the mind understanding a concept of proper movement, but the body actually learning a new way of doing things at the most basic level.
That’s when I began to think it over… There had to be a way to work on the basics of quality movement without taking from the class experience. We needed to be able to break down the fundamentals of good movement and retrain the body without the pressure of a running clock, the need to add weight, volume, or intensity.
So what was I going to do to fill the gap?
I came across an article that talked about the fact that even Rich Froning still practices the air squat. He often does a simple 10 minute OMEM of 10 air squats. That’s when I realized I need to make this kind of thing applicable to the every day athlete. Rich Froning is at the highest level and it’s because he is such a good mover. If the one of the greatest still practices the fundamentals why don’t we?
The best in the world master the mundane.
Enter… Movement therapy.
Movement therapy is designed as an add-on to the basic warm-up and the whole goal of it is to build awareness. Body awareness. This is not about speed or score, it’s a time where you can solely focus on your body and your positioning without the pressure of being in the middle of class. It can be used for anything from gymnastic movements to the basic squat. And it doesn’t take long!
Again, this is something you can add onto any warm-up.
A basic general warm-up takes roughly 8-10 minutes. Coupled with movement therapy, your whole warm-up is around 13 minutes which still leaves more than enough time for class. And even though it’s a little extra time, this is incredibly advantageous to every single athlete. It’s time well spent. Through this I wanted to push people towards that “aha” moment that is more that just the brain understanding a concept, but actually learning with their bodies and finding that place where they know and feel “this is right”, so the body actually knows and learns that connection of where it’s supposed to be.
So what does movement therapy look like?
I’ll give you an example of what we did here at Premier! I designed a four week cycle that focused on the basic squat. Here’s what it looked like:
We added a 5 minute OMEM at the end of the warm-up portion of class every day.
Week 1: 5 min OMEM of a squat with a 15-30 second hold at the bottom with a counter balance. If the athlete is able to hold a proper position without the counter balance, it could be dropped after the first minute or two. If not, keep the counter balance the entire time.
Week 2: 5 min OMEM of tempo squats – 3 seconds down, 2 second hold at the bottom, 1 second at the top. Complete 5-10 reps each minute with counter balance, drop if/when proper form can be maintained without it.
Week 3: 5 min OMEM of 10-20 air squats, according to the athletes ability. No emphasis on pace, just focusing on the movement. Again, use counter balance to begin with, allow athlete to drop if/when proper form can be maintained without it.
Week 4: On the last week of this cycle, we thought we’d have a little fun with it. We used the song “Flower” by Mobey. Every time the song said “bring sally down” everyone squats. You hold that until you hear, “bring Sally up.” That means that sometimes you’re doing squats quickly, and sometimes you’re holding it at the bottom for a while. It gets spicy fast. On the very last day of our last week in the cycle we used the same song and format, only this time, everyone had to do it with wallballs. Even spicier!
All of our members saw amazing results over that four week period that translated into heavier squats, more efficient wall balls, better mobility, and overall greatly improved movement. You’re probably thinking, “But it’s only five minutes!” Exactly. It’s so easy to add onto a warm-up without taking anything away from normal class progression. And it adds up! If you do CrossFit three days a week, that’s working 15 minutes a week on movement therapy which means that in course of 30 days you’ve spent an entire hour solely focusing on the position of your squat. And you are learning in a very active way, where you’re whole body is engaged in the learning process.
This also gives the chance for coaches to make corrections on the most basic level without the athlete feeling the pressure of needing to move quickly or put on a heavier load.
And you can do this with anything, not just squats! The idea is to focus on different parts of the same movement or position. You focus on several different aspects and then bring it all together. We are currently in the middle of a four week cycle devoted to building body awareness in the hollow and superman position. As we work on this and develop comfortability in these positions this will translate to gymnastics movements and help.
Movement therapy is such an excellent way to see huge improvements in all athletes at any level. None of us are above returning to the basics and finding ways to become better. If we perfect movement on the most foundational level, we will be able to build upon that with speed, intensity, weight, and volume.
When when you try movement therapy?