Tell me if this sounds familiar: You’re an avid CrossFitter whose favorite time of the day is hearing the words “3…2…1…GO!”. You’ve been training hard since the end of this past year’s CrossFit Open and eagerly awaiting the announcement of 22.1. Everything has been going great, but your shoulder is starting to feel a little cranky. You think to yourself, “It’ll just go away on its own”. A few weeks pass and the random band warm-ups you saw on Instagram aren’t really helping like you hoped they would. Your coaches are even starting to notice you grimacing after hopping off the pull-up bar and missing snatches you normally hit with ease and begin to offer some modifications. While you appreciate that your coaches are looking out for you, you’re reluctant to modify your workouts because you don’t want to lose all the progress you’ve made.
Starting to ring a bell?
A couple of weeks pass and at the behest of your family/friends you decide, “Maybe I’ll get it checked out to see what’s up”. You make an appointment at your local PT clinic and on the day of your initial exam, it goes a little something like this:
Therapist: So what brings you in today?
You: Yeah, so I’ve been having some shoulder pain lately. I do CrossFit and I think all my extra skill work on T2B, muscle-ups, and snatches is starting to catch up to me.
Now, if you’re lucky, your therapist has at least heard of CrossFit before and they don’t automatically start demonizing it on the spot. If you’re even luckier you managed to walk into a clinic that has access to a barbell and a pull-up bar for you to demonstrate some of the movements that have been giving you difficulty. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. That isn’t to say that a PT who doesn’t know the difference between a snatch and a pistol wouldn’t be able to help you, because they very well may be able to, but they probably aren’t the most ideal person for you to work with in order to achieve your goals.
Here at Barbell Physical Therapy and Performance, we speak WOD lingo fluently. We understand and take the time to discuss your recent training, and have access to all the equipment you would find in your home box to aid us in coming up with a game plan to get you where you want to be.
If you are looking for help with an injury, request a free phone consultation with one of our Doctors of Physical Therapy by clicking the button below!