At Rise Physical Therapy we think there are many great things about CrossFit:
- Community: When you sweat, and challenge yourselves to your limits with others, it breeds a deep sense of belonging, comradery, and friendship.
- Dynamic: Constantly changing workouts that challenge every body part
- High Intensity: Allows for a fast effective workout that works multiple muscle groups
- Multi-Dimensional: incorporates strength, cardio, power, plyometrics, flexibility, and agility
- Functional: Able to strengthen the body within daily functional movements
Negative stigmas for CrossFit
- Poor Coaching
- With the quick rise in popularity of CrossFit many boxes opened up quickly and had poorly trained coaches. As CrossFit has become more standardized coaching and programing has significantly improved in recent years. Some gyms are even staffed with highly trained strength and conditioning coaches.
- Intensity Leads to getting hurt
- While this can be true with any exercise the risk can be significantly lowered with proper coaching, training, and injury prevention techniques
- Causes Rhabdo
- Rhabdomyolysis is muscle breakdown that causes the release of myoglobin into the bloodstream. If you have too much myoglobin in your blood, it can cause kidney damage.
- The risk of rhabdo can be significantly decreased by:
- Avoiding the overuse of ibuprofen or other drugs that negatively affect the kidneys
- NOT overtraining if new to CrossFit
- Avoiding alcohol and staying hydrated
Keys to prevent Injury: Form, Mobility, and Stability
Form
- Too much exercise too soon dramatically increases the risk of injury
- Beginners start easy and build once skills and endurance have been established
- Increasing training volume/intensity above your normal level increases risk of injury
- Develop the skill before advancing load or intensity
- Kipping pull ups
- Heavy Back Squats
- Snatch
- Cleans
- Everything is scalable - make sure to listen to your coaches
Mobility
For optimal performance it is essential to have adequate joint mobility and muscle flexibility to allow for safe and pain free range of motion. Mobility requirements:
- Shoulder and thoracic mobility for overhead lifting
- Hip External Rotation for squatting
- Wrist extension and triceps flexibility for front rack position
- Ankle dorsal flexion and calf flexibility for squatting
Stability
While overall strength and mobility are important for performance and injury prevention you must have appropriate function of shoulder and hip stabilizer muscles to improve lifting and decrease injury. Areas of focus:
- Shoulder rotator cuff strengthening and scapular stabilizers. Focusing on upper back and the muscles that attach to the shoulder blade should be key.
- Lateral/Outer hips. The Gluteus Medius controls knee and pelvis alignment. Having weakness here can lead to poor ability to perform an appropriate squat, pain with jumping, and pain with running
Here are exercises that can help with improving overall mobility and stability to allow you to perform better in the Box and reduce risk of injury:
CrossFitexercises
About Rise Physical Therapy
Hi, and welcome to Rise Physical Therapy.
Rise exists because we believe there is a demand for honest and ethical therapy that truly makes a difference in people's lives. After years of working in healthcare, we realized that the industry had lost it's focus on the patient. So we decided to start our own clinic and focus on providing our patients the very best in one-on-one physical therapy. We wouldn't have it any other way.
Thanks for swinging by the site, and we hope to see you soon.
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Most common questions about physical therapy
1. What is physical therapy (PT)? – Physical therapists, sometimes called PTs, are experts in the musculoskeletal system, meaning we know your muscles, bones, joints, tendons, ligaments and how they operate as well as anyone. We play a critical role in the recovery and rehabilitation of the injured, hurting, or those suffering chronic conditions. Becoming a Doctor of Physical Therapy (the only type of PTs we hire at Rise), requires over seven years of education.
2. Is PT covered by insurance? – Almost all insurance plans give you an annual allowance of PT visits. For our current patients, that has typically meant a copay of around $15-$30/visit. Sometimes it’s lower, or even completely covered by insurance. Depending on your plan you might pay a bit more, such as when your plan has a higher deductible. If you are unsure, give us a call and our insurance experts can help you figure it out. You can reach us at (479) 595-8667.
3. Do you need a doctor’s referral for PT? – No referral is needed – you can come straight in to see us without having to go to your doctor. Years ago a referral was required, but studies like this showed it was dramatically more effective and cheaper for patients to be sent to PTs first. The state of Arkansas has not required them for over 20 years (since 1997).
4. Does physical therapy work? – The only question that matters. Here’s what a recent large study found: “In the year following their initial complaint to primary providers, the sample of people in the study who went to physical therapy directly spent an average of $1,871, compared to $6,664 for those who were first sent for an MRI. The patients who received physical therapy first were less likely to receive surgery and injections, and they made fewer specialists and emergency department visits within a year of primary consultation.” [link] So not only does it work, it saves you money over the long run.
5. How much does PT cost? – We actually went ahead and ran the numbers on this one. If you include all of our past patients, the average payment after insurance was $19.25. So anywhere from $15 – $30 is a fairly accurate estimate of how much you’d be looking at paying per visit. That said, some patients actually get PT completely covered by insurance so you may end up paying $0.
6. What is the difference between a PT and a chiropractor? – There are quite a few, but the biggest difference is in the way the professions approach the practice of medicine. Physical therapists strictly use evidence-based (scientific) treatments that are focused on healing the patient permanently rather than temporarily dulling pain. At Rise, we are all about educating you on how to treat and address your issues on your own with stretches and exercises. On the other hand, Chiropractors tend to focus on pain relief techniques like spinal manipulation (adjustment) that are performed on an ongoing basis. It just comes down to what you desire in a treatment.
More questions? Read through the rest of our frequently asked questions here or give us a call at (479) 595-8667.