Not all fun and Games. Results.
Not all fun and Games (SPOILERS)
What a tough year for some of the athletes at the Games. Seeing Justin not at his peak, after the bike accident from day 1 was a big bummer. Seeing Khrenikov break his left foot on the final day just hours away from possibly standing on top of the podium…
But this is the nature of sport. Every sport has injury potential. From my 10 years of sports rehab one of my favorite questions to ask my clients was, “which sport do you think has the highest injury rates???” Only one person got it right out of hundreds of people I asked over the years. Hint: it is NOT CrossFit.
The nature of our sport is that we do a lot of different styles of movements. We have high skill / low weight one day, monostructural, I.E. running only, the next, or low skill / high weight another day. So injury can happen. But we can do things to avoid that possibility. Things like warming up even before class, if necessary. We try to make sure that our warmups line up with the movements we are actually doing in the workouts. But there are some things you personally might need to spend extra time on before the class starts. That being said everyone that is doing class should participate in the group warmup.
Something that is often missed is cool down and post WOD mobility. Doing simple 10 minute routines can change how you move which means improving your overall injury avoidance. Sleep, let's not forget to sleep. This one is major. One of my past clients and friends (a 9 time Games competitor), during The CrossFit Games season, would get extra hours of sleep daily. But even in the off season, she always kept sleep as a major priority.
And finally freak accidents that occur. Those are much harder to avoid. Obviously, we try our best to avoid things that are inherently risky. But, some of the activities we do in life come with risk. Including working out in the gym. To reduce our risk at the gym here are some things we can do to improve safety.
Keep J hooks on the rack at all times
Keep personal bags tucked away on the shelf or cubby
When using a rack, step back far enough to have space to bail
Make sure there is nothing in your bar path when doing barbell movements, including your own plates which could cause your bar to bounce in an unexpected manner.
One of our athletes got hurt this week in a freak accident, landing on a loose jhook. So bummed for them. Not their fault, not anyone else's. But let's work together to prevent things like this.
Games Results (SPOILERS)
Were any of you surprised about the results? I expected Roman to win, but was hoping Justin and others would make it a good fight. Really bummed for both of those guys. I am so happy for the wonderful Canadian contingent that won. Velner is the man and Jeffery Adler works harder than most people know. He is VERY proud of the fact that he doesn't wear a belt for most of his lifts. Funny guy.
I also was hoping for Horvath to win, but wasn't expecting the competition to be so tight between so many of the ladies. What a fun year. I honestly was saying this was going to be a year that people might have said didn't count because Tia wasn't there. I happily retract that statement. It was electrifying at times to see how hard these ladies went for it.
Oh and I am so glad Warda, Monica and Sarah were at the games representing us so well. They are going to be on like 10 different videos in the next few weeks, haha. I bet they are excited to bring back some of the knowledge they have gained.
Keep building,
James and Bre Cooper
