WODdoc Episode 153 Project365: 3-Step Strict Press; Featuring Sheila Barden

Today, I was fortunate enough to stop by Crossfit Pasiac Valley and see one of my good friends Sheila Barton. Sheila who??? Yeah that’s what they were saying before she set the world record in Nasty Girls V2 at regionals this year. Funny little background story… Sheila is a patient of mine and one day we were chatting so I asked her… hey so whats your favorite WOD anyway?  And she is like duh, Event 3 at regionals.  If you ever watched this girl do pistols you would know exactly why too.

Anyway, today we are taking a look at shoulder arthrokinematics. So there is no doubt shoulders get hurt a lot in crossfit. We love to say… bad form.. terrible this.. terrible that… but, what happens when the athlete is taught correctly and doesn’t have atrocious form. The culprit can be a dominance pattern. Trust me, trap dominant athletes are not a rarity in the crossfit world. Enough meatballs haven wandered into boxes by now.

Ideally we like to see scapular movement like in the pictures below. Note that as the arm abducts the scapula rotates toward the outside of the body. This allows us to keep some room and stops the arm bone from slamming into the acromion process above.

Now, imagine reduced or even worse no scapular rotation.  This is exactly what happens when we run into trap dominant athletes. Athletes that really fire off their upper traps hike their shoulders. Hiking pulls on the upper inside corners of the scapulas and reduces their abilities to upwardly rotate. With reduced upward rotation we get reduced space between the humeral head (top of arm bone) and acromion process. Basically we start smushing some stuff together = impingement.

Today’s WODdocket:

Perform 3 sets 5-8 reps of 3-step strict presses.

1. Press

2. Draw Shoulders Back and Down

3. Lower Weight.

– Reps are perform slow and controlled. (use lightest wt possible that promotes shoulder hike).