Everyone of you have woken up with aches and pains in the morning. Tough workouts, mental fortitude, and friendly competition will occasionally lead to soreness, tenderness, tightness, and sometimes, overuse (which can then lead to injury). The challenge is to know your body well enough to differentiate between the types of discomfort you work through and the types you back off of.

There are many factors that go into how quickly you recover from minor injuries (ones that don’t require surgery) such as active rest, full rest, sleep, mobility, recovery (w/foam rollers, lacrosse balls, theracane, contrast therapy, etc. And there are many consequences to allowing inflammation and overtraining to lead to injuries such as muscle strains/pulls, tendinitis/tendinosis, and worse.

The Whole 9 Life blog did an excellent post about 9 Things to Do When You’re All Banged Up. In it, Dallas wrote:

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of information out there about how to exercise, but far less information about the application of proper rest and recovery techniques. I see more sub-acute and chronic injuries resulting from inadequate recovery from exercise (especially with high-intensity programs), than resulting from an acute or traumatic incident. The primary fault lies with inadequate or improper recovery from exercise, not the type or intensity of exercise. (To put it another way, it’s not that you’re hurting yourself doing pull-ups – more often than not, it’s because you’re not properly recovering from those pull-ups.)

I believe that a high intensity exercise program is both effective and sustainable life-long, when combined with good nutrition and recovery practices. So I find myself educating my PT patients about nutrition, sleep, active recovery techniques, and stress management practices as often as I do about the physiology of connective tissue healing, lumbar stabilization, or biomechanics.

Listen to your bodies. If you feel anything beyond general soreness, let the trainers know and we’ll gladly sub equally (if not more) challenging movements to allow you to heal up. Don’t trade a 3 day recovery for a 3 week injury.

WOD 06.03.11

Press 5×3 or Wendler

CF Games Regional WOD
21-15-9
Deadlift (315/205)
Box Jumps (30/24)

Standards:
Athletes will perform 21 deadlifts then 21 box jumps, then 15 deadlifts and 15 box jumps, then 9 deadlifts and 9 box jumps. Athletes begin behind the line. At Go, athletes move to the barbell and begin their deadlifts. Their result is the time to complete the entire workout. There is a 12min time cap. If an athlete cannot finish in the time cap, their score is the time cap plus a one second penalty for each rep not completed.

Deadlift:
The barbell begins on the ground and must touch the ground between each rep. The athlete’s knees and hips must be extended at the top, with the shoulders behind the bar. The athletes hands must be outside their knees. Any grip is permitted. Dropping the barbell is permitted but not required. Chalk and any injury prevention/protection such as tape are permitted. Sticky substances, wraps, or anything used for advantage are prohibited. Belts are permitted.

Box Jump:
Athletes must jump from the ground onto the box with two feet. They must reach full extension ON THE BOX. Reaching full extension only in the air is not permitted. In other words, the athlete’s knees and hips must be fully extended while both feet are on the box (the entire foot on the box is recommended but not required). Both jumping and stepping down are permitted.