The forgotten exercise in CrossFit

If you have been doing Crossfit for any amount of time, you might be leaving out an important part of training to help minimize shoulder pain and pain with overhead lifting.  This article is not meant to point out problems with CrossFit, but to make athletes aware of some exercises they should be doing on their own to supplement what's prescribed in the WOD's.

We can break down exercises into the horizontal and vertical plane.  Further we can put them into categories of pulling and pushing.  Below are a few examples to help clarify what i am talking about.

1. Vertical Plane-
   1. Pulling : Pull-ups, dead lifts, Cleans
   2. Pushing: Press, Jerks, Squats, Hand stand push ups
2. Horizontal Plane-
   1. Pushing: bench, push ups, burpees
   2. Pulling: ring row (only prescribed as a scaled version of other lifts)

As you can see there is one of those categories that lacks an exercise targeted at building strength.  In order to have good technique for pain-free overhead lifting, you need to have good motor control of the shoulder joint and a strong, stable shoulder girdle.  A lot of people's jobs consist of sitting behind a computer all day, usually in a poor posture of rounded back and shoulders.  These same people tend to have chronic mid back pain and between the shoulder blades.   This pain tends to come from a weakness in the rhomboids, mid- and lower traps.  It can lead to poor motor control of the shoulder girdle, which can lead to further problems down the road or when they try to go lift overhead.  Below is a video of one exercise that can be supplemented into your workouts to help fight that chronic mid back pain, and missing exercises in your CrossFit WOD.