Remember when your mother told you to eat your veggies?  Well you need to still do that and a good dose of foam rolling everyday will also do your body a world of good.  Foam rolling offers many of the same benefits as sports massage but without the cost!  Can’t beat the price as we have a variety of rollers in the gym for your use.  Foam rolling not only stretches those sore muscles and tendons but also breaks down soft tissue adhesions and scar tissue.  What are soft tissue adhesions?    This is when your muscle tissue and connective tissue get stuck together which can cause restricted muscle movement.  There is also pain, soreness and reduced flexibility and range of movement!!!! No we do not want that in CrossFit!  Use those rollers to find the sore points on your body and roll them out.  Use them before, during and after your workout depending on how you are feeling that day.  Please ask your trainer for various roller exercises if you are unfamiliar with where to start but here are a few to try:

• Back of the Legs – Sit on the foam roller with arms stretched behind you, hands flat on the floor. Place the roller under glutes, hamstrings or calves.  Roll that portion of the body only, not the entire back of the leg for a few minutes before you move down to the next body part.
• Quadriceps – Lay on the roller with hands or elbows on the floor, much like a plank or pushup. Roll back and forward from him to knee on the front of the leg at first, then further out and in to get the entire quadricep.
• Back – Say ahhh to this one. Lay on your back with the roller under your upper back. Bend knees and place feet flat on the floor.  Raise hips into a bridge and place hands behind head. Roll over the upper part of your back to work out pain in this always tense area. Roll slightly to the side outstretching arm overhead to target the lats as well.

Please check the gym desk for sweatshirt signups.  There are several options and colors for you to choose from.  Note:  if you have already signed up previously, please re-check your order as this is thru a new supplier.

Options are Sport-Tek hoodie or half-zip for $40 or Port & Co hoodie for $22 or full zip for $25.  These are unisex sizing.  Order goes in April 23rd

Ahhh, the right of passage at CrossFit that is “tearing” one’s hands.  It ranks up there with “what’s your Fran time?” It seems people have been tearing a bit more than usual at CFSJ as of late so I thought we’d take a moment to discuss this form of hand abuse and see what can be done to stop it from happening to you.

First, tearing is really not cool.  Nothing seems to be more counter intuitive to the idea of CrossFit than being proud about the fact that you have just sentenced yourself to a few missed days at the box.  I get that showing off how you endured through the pain to complete a WOD appears to show great “Intestinal Fortitude” (WWE word I believe), and this would be true if you were at the finals of the Games, but making these sacrifices on a Tuesday night or even at a benchmark WOD really has no benefit.   With this in mind, the most important piece of advice I can give is to STOP working if you are developing a tear.  Give up one half of a WOD so as to save 2 or 3 more.  For most of us, the pain of missing a few days is much harder to bear than the pain associated with torn skin.  But what if you didn’t notice the tear because you were so focused?  OK, I can buy this so read on…

If you do tear your hands, there are lots of ways to try and mitigate the damage done both in terms of your actual skin and time lost at the box.  Now I’m not a medical Doctor, so please just assume all of these are general remedies that many other people use.  Your results may vary.

1. Keep the flap of damaged skin in place.  This provides some additional protection for the damaged skin underneath, especially if you plan on toughing it out during the healing process.
2. Apply topical ointments to help clean and protect the wound so it can heal quicker. You may even want to try and use Super Glue to put the torn skin back in place and provide an additional protective barrier.  It may sound crazy but it’s actually a pretty well documented use.
3. Use gloves or tape until the wound is fully healed.  You don’t want to prolong this process and keep you from getting back to your regular routine.

Generally speaking it’s not a good idea to cut the damaged skin off but I do know some people swear by this along with salt baths and other tricks to get that skin back as quickly as possible.  Of course, the best option is to just properly prepare and maintain your hands for CrossFit so that a tear doesn’t occur at all.  I certainly can’t guarantee you will never tear during your entire time at CrossFit but these additional tips can provide some preventative maintenance.

1. Keep your calluses sanded down and smooth.  Big, thick and rough calluses are really easy to tear.  You want that hard buildup for protection; you just don’t want them to be out of control.  You can use a pumice stone in the shower to help with this.
2. Make sure your hands get the moisturizer they need when away from the box.  I usually wash my hands after a WOD and also use some chalk.  The more you wash your hands, the dryer they will get.  Chalk also causes hands to dry out so make sure to use a hand lotion or cream on a daily basis to replenish the natural oils you sap up during other parts of your day.
3. Try gloves, tape or other forms of hand protection.  There are a whole bunch of options out there.  If you tear frequently try out some grips, gloves or tape and see if any of these feel OK for you.  I have small hands and found the grips were too thick for me to “feel” the bar but a pair of batting gloves has worked quite well.  Many people also like to use a few well placed pieces of tape for protection.  In trying some these out before you get into a heavy handed WOD you can ensure a level of comfort when you do need to go to it.
4. Watch your chalk use.  Chalk is certainly something most all of us use at one time or another but over chalking will result in more tears.  As Lance says “in the battle between your skin and the bar, the bar usually wins”.  I put quotes on that but I am not actually sure he says it just like that.  We all know though that Lance is not a fan of heavy chalk.

In addition to this, you may want to consider altering your grip.  As I was writing this blog up, someone passed along a very thorough article on tears that also includes some feedback on how to best grip bars and such.  It also has more information on taping and some of the remedies I describe above.  You can check it out at the following link if you’d like to read more on the subject.  Thanks to Stefano for passing it along.

http://www.fitbomb.com/2011/09/crossfit-hand-care.html

The bottom line is that tears are no fun.  So stop as soon as you detect one and use some preventative maintenance to keep them from occurring.  If you do endure one, take proper care so you can get back to the box sooner rather than later….

If you ever hear Grace Meraz ask “Tennis anyone?” while at the box, just politely decline unless you enjoy the taste of defeat.  Grace is a USTA 4.5 singles player and co-captain of the Stanford Taube team along with being a member of CFSJ.  Grace and her team recently competed in the USTA National Championships and took the crown! What is truly inspirational about their win is that they were complete underdogs, yet they beat out 76 other teams in NorCal to make it to Nationals and their road to victory was fraught with high drama as they pulled out match after match.

Grace in action!

CrossFit has its roots in being a training method for other purposes though the “sport of fitness” is now the main driver for many of us.  Grace is a good example of someone who has taken the benefits of CrossFit and applied them to other sports and activities.  She notes that other players have taken notice of her increased speed and agility.  Her own confidence in her game has also increased as she now knows that she can “get to any ball on the court; I just have to go for it”.  Her friends/teammates lovingly tease her and say, “You run like dude, but in a good way”.

Grace serving

Grace notes that trainers at CFSJ have been great in helping her maximize tennis-specific benefits in her workouts by modifying exercises, where appropriate.  All her hard work at the box definitely paid off at Nationals where she sometimes played 2 matches a day in 90 degree weather.

“I was very tired, but in shape enough to last through the last match and still run down shots…”

If you have goals for other sports while also attending CFSJ, let a trainer know and they can help you as well.  We’re super thrilled to have worked with Grace on her training and wanted to take this time to congratulate her on the Nationals win!

Grace at the National Championships