WOD
Teams of 2
AMRAP in 22 Minutes:
10 Calorie Row,
10 Russian Kettlebell Swings 70/53,
10 Toes to Bar.
One partner works while the other rests.
Tuesday Night Musings by Coach Manny.
Scaling is good.
What’s up Helo Family! I want to start off by telling you about my last injury. I hurt my hip/hip flexor doing walking dumbbell lunges while I had one dumbbell overhead and the other dumbbell in the front rack position. As I was standing up from a lunge, I felt a pop in the front of one of my hips. I got it checked out and the doctor said it was just a muscle strain and to take it easy for 4-6 weeks.
I decided that I was going to go the full 6 weeks just to be safe. I did 6 weeks of wods avoiding anything that involved extending my hip. After that, I started testing out movements. I was feeling pretty good and was able to perform just about everything but at a lighter weight. Over the course of a few weeks, I worked my way back up to an “RX” level. However, after a few weeks of being “back”, my hip would still flare up during wods or with certain movements. I came to realize that my hip remained a lot weaker after the injury and I needed to take a step back. So I did. I have been scaling all of the wods since and have been doing my best to rehab my hip to rebuild the strength I need, so in the future I can perform the way I want to.
With that said, scaling is not a bad thing. A lot of athletes feel like scaling is cheating or like they are not doing the same amount of work that everyone else is, or like they are outcasts being put in a corner because they aren’t doing what everyone else is doing. They don’t want to scale and perform the wod as if they aren’t hurt (or don’t want to admit they are not strong enough to do the required weight yet). But then they end up hurting for the rest of the week and maybe even end up having to miss a few classes, in order to feel better. If they would have just scaled, they would have gotten a great workout in, built that strength or promoted positive stimulus in their body, and would have likely been able to come back and do the wod the very next day.
The point of scaling is to keep you safe as you learn new movements or give you time for your body to adjust to new loads, so you avoid injury, and yet still get in a great workout. So if you are learning something new, or dealing with any kind of injury, you just have a bad hip, knee, shoulder, or have had some kind or surgery – whatever the issue is, just don’t be afraid to scale. Talk to your coaches at the beginning of the class so that you can work together to find an appropriate scale that not only gives you a great workout but that lets you walk out the door happy with your effort and able to come back for more!
Thank you for reading!
Sincerely,
Coach Manny
Attention: Alecio will be contacting people for the two Ragnar teams that we will have running this year! The house has been rented, now it’s time to commit to a team! This year Helo will not have a Ultra team, but I would like to recognize what 4 of our runners did last year. Ben, Travis, Jake H. and Devin all ran the Ultra. That meant that they each ran 30 miles, in the mountains on some pretty technical terrain, and they finished 2nd Overall amongst some very fast teams. Well done boys!
