It does the body good. Crossfit year two

It's coming up on two years now that I've been doing this Crossfit thing.

Some call it a cult, some hate it with a passion, most that do it, love it. A lot. I'm in that camp.  I love the community, the bond of shared suffering, the intensity but mostly the focus on good body position and full range of motion (which you don't have to focus on, but I choose to).

I don't defend it to be clear. It's not the be all end all, but it definitely works for a wide range of fitness goals, mine included.  And as Kiza loves to say, the best fitness program in the world is the one you stick with.  So from that point of view, Crossfit is the best fitness program for me (and many others).

One of the biggest things it's done for me is identify my deficiencies. I was going to say weaknesses, but that's not right. I have some mobility limitations that I sort of knew about, but Crossfit really exposed in a "you can't hide from this anymore" kind of way.

I've been working on it for a while now, but not with any focus, or systematic methodology.  Enter 2013: the year of mobility.  I hit something of a plateau late last year, partly due to my limitations and the compensations my body found to accommodate them, so I decided to go see a physiotherapist to figure out exactly what's wrong and hopefully fix it.

Rob Crispo, my physiotherapist, has helped me enormously already. He told me you can only compensate for so long until things start to break down.  Thankfully I had decided to do something about it before things broke down.

I've worked on my shoulder joint sitting in it's socket properly, hamstring flexibility, lower lumbar engagement, thoracic spine mobility and a all kinds of stretching and mobility exercises I would have otherwise never even heard of. (ever hear of a Brettzel?)

I'm already making progress, but I need to keep my focus.  It's too easy to let you ego get the best of you and go too heavy instead of focusing on form (there is a time and place for that, but for the most part form should come first).  And now I'm starting to get sore in all new places, places that should be working, but haven't been because I've been compensating.  This year has to be about proper movement patterns above all else.  I need to keep my eye on the prize; I have no doubt I'll see progress as my body position improves.

So this is good.  I can't wait to see how this year 3 of Crossfit turns out.