Hey Flexi-kids,
Today we are going to skim the surface of the dreaded jumper’s knee (aka. patellar tendonitis)
First, it’s not actually a tendon. It’s a ligament. It is you know. Patella to tibia is bone to bone–ligament.
Let’s start with this assumption: Pain and force reduction are the only ways your body can tell you your mechanics are off.
Is your knee hot? Start by looking carefully at your movement. Can you change the offended tissues? A little, ice and fish oil will help for sure. But what you can really do is feed slack to the offended bits. Start by mobilizing the tissues above and below the problem area.

Knee pain can be super-multifactorial (it could even be your over extended back) but drink a ton of water, take your fish oil and take a crack at it.

Test: Squat and dip and drive like a push press
MWod: 2 min each calf
2 min each hip in lunge
2 min each hamstring
Retest: squat/run/jump/ pain?

Rock that fight gone bad push press.

kstar

Hey MWod Mob,

Good work this last month. The Pr’s you all have been sending and posting are freakish.
Today we are talking about some shoulder positioning required for the Sumo High Pull in the upcoming Fight Gone Bad fundraiser. We’ll also cover a great low back recovery trick. And, a little hip torture.

Ps. Jason is O.G. Crossfit. He was doing bodyweight thrusters when all y’all were still doing “weight” and “cardio”.

Kstar

Happy One Month Anniversary Mwoders,
To celebrate, let’s perform a retest of our 10 min squat.
Perform this Mwod after you train today. Some easy, back-relaxed squatting will help turn around your back from the mid-line-stabilization heavy “Michael” on the main page today.

And as a listener request: A quick option to help with those pesky shoulder impingements.

Test: How does your back feel after a heavy extension biased work out (like heavy snatches) or Michael.
Mwod: Accumulate 10 minutes in an “ass to grass” squat. Let your back relax.
Retest: How’s the bottom of your active squat? Do your heel cords feel better? How about your back?

Kstar

Hey Mobility Minions,

Happy monday to you. As a special treat, I’m going to show you a technique for dealing with glued down heelcords that may just rival the fear of being water-boarded. I’ve swam some serious Class V in my day, and I’m going to say this is worse.

As often as I can, I’m going to grab people having problems and try and get them to treat themselves on the spot.
Today is an example.

The Monday bonus clip is San Francisco Crossfit’s answer to: 1) not opening the hip at the top of the burpee, 2) teaching the athlete to rapidly open and close the hip in the air, and 3) adding a little “cool Flipper dolphin action” to a set of warm up burpees.
We make it a contest of awesomeness because we can.

Finally, we should just say outright that when you are working with a partner, agree on a safeword. We happen to think
“brisket” is the best safe word ever.

Test: Good morning exercise:
Mwod: 1)Toy with the partner heel cord mob
2) See if you can’t get some lacrosse ball on your feet work today at your job
3) Hit that hipcapsule stretch 2 min each side
4) Try that combo extended lunge/with knee falling out position. 2min
Re-test: Good morning/dead lift/ Squat etc.

And now, unleash the dolphins. (ps. It’s harder than it looks….)

Hoody-dolphins-make-me-cry-star

Hey Supple Warriors,
Today we are going to tweak the couch stretch and explore some ugly areas of the lower leg.
The goal: Try to work in the business while watching TV. Yeah, it turns out that commercials are really just little time packages of pain. I know watching TV isn’t “paleo”, just think of it as another element of Starrett-Paleo. Paleo/Zone with dessert AND TV.
I digress.

Seriously, the point is to try and find opportunities in your day to day life where you can sneak this mobility crap in.
I like to think about it as: Pain makes you beautiful.

Test: Can you squeeze your butt to control over extension/loss of position of your lumbar when under extension load?
MWOD: See if you can spend 2-3 minutes tweaking with the coach stretch.
1 min each on the front of your lower legs
1 min each with your elbow on your inner lower leg

See? Have you cake and tear open your hip capsules too.

Kstar

Hey Mwoders,
Hope your champagne friday was the bomb.
Today we are going to talk a little about the proximal (close to your butt) hamstring. Tight upper hammies are difficult to load effectively and lead to a whole chunk of downstream movement problems. Look, your glute/ham complex is the thickest rubber band in the body (and most powerful). We need to be able to really load that puppy up if we want a good return on our money.

So here’s to your primary engine being a little easier to fire.

Test: Row (on an erg or upright) using good technique see how hard it is to arrive at full compression with hammies and glutes fully loaded.
Mwod: 1) Contract relax that high hammie 2-3 minutes each side. Keep seeking our difficult ranges
2) Active Tack and Stretch that high hamstring tissue while seated. 1min each side
Re-test: Try pulling your 500 m split now.

Position is power. Don’t go into the tunnel blind and backwards.

Part 1

Part 2
Here is a reshoot.
Sorry about the hand held video action.

Kstar

Hey Good Mwoders,

Today we are back with a mission to improve your neck positioning (and by default deal with your tight necked self).
If you are a modern athlete, then chances are you are a badass olympic lifting–texting on your iphone fiend.
And I have three words for you: Tight neck.

Test: Move your neck around in a bunch of cardinal planes. How loose does it fee? Can you see how a tight neck could make your shoulder position more sucky?
Mwod: 1) 2 minutes each side doing Hand behind back stretch while working on your neck.
2) Open up your thoracic spine on the paired lacrosse balls. 1-2 min
3) Practice a little overhead lat stretch 2 min
4) Try and staple that lacrosse ball to the wall with your chesticle (pec).
Retest: How awesome do you feel?

Bonus: Some of you Mobility Kids noted that you had a pinchy feeling in the front of your ankle while trying to stretch.
Well hold on to your butts, because our very own Osteopath Jedi, Jami Tikkanen, from Crossfit Thames has sent you a fix.
Remember, Jami is a Finn living as an Englishman, so be warned that these are “foreign” mobs.

Kstar

Thursday

Hey MWod Mob,

Welcome to the session that should be named after that FAMOUS Eddie Murphy SONG “in your butt”. Or “How to make yourself feel like a wolverine is gnawing at your pink bits”.

I know right? Stoked to start! Let’s Go!

Test: Kettle bell overhead position. Like they would judge you in the games. Note how you much you overextend.
Mob: 2 min each Glute with the ball.
1 min each Psoas
3 min each hip messing about in the cross legged hip mob.
Retest: Hollow rock positioning? It’s the same as overhead btw.

Homework: What is the TFL? What big muscles attach to the Iliotibial band–ITband.

Kstar

Wednesday

Welcome back supple giants!

Today’s Mwod is all about your heel cords. Did you know that simple bodyweight loading of the heel cords in movements like the box jump can create forces upwards of 16x bodyweight? That’s one big tendon. So how the hell do athletes rupture this beast?

Two words. Dedication. In my clinical practice, I have never seen a tendon rupture that wasn’t preceded by a good old fashioned bout of junky/inflammed tissue syndrome (JITS tm).

Today we are going to create some range in those bad boys so that they won’t end up shredding due to tightness

10 min cap
Test: Leg Straight, eyeball your dorsiflexion (don’t let your knee bend)
MWod: 2 Min of loaded ankle mobility work done before your training. If you are performing the Mwod not in the same hour as jumping, go ahead and squat the whole five minutes. If you are doing the squat before training, only 2 min. Save the balance for POST jumping/training.
–Free up the skin on your heel chords. Take as much time as you need. Remember to test to see if it makes a difference. We usually get upwards of 10 degrees from this alone. (fascial release with percussion…)
–Contract relax your calves with a straight leg bias. Calf stretch on the wall.
Re-test: You should weigh less than a slice of bread…

If I described YOU in the junky tenon arena, take it seriously. Ice that thing and get the swelling down. Limit your crazy loading until your tendons are like those of a baby cheetah.

Kstar

Hey Mobile Ones,
Today we are going to look “the opposite” corners of your shoulders.
Correct positioning of the shoulder in ring based movements is vital.
Poor positioning will result in very compromised work out puts. The rings give us much less slop, and really exaggerate poor mechanics.

Test: Ring dip/Ring Pushup/Ring Hand Stand
Mob: 8 min total 4 min each side with Flex/Er and Ext/IR
Retest: Is your pre-moving positioning any better on the rings?

Kstar