I sit here and gingerly type with with a very sore and unstable right shoulder. It is not something I am proud of and from what I hear, some people in the ice house at Canada Olympic Park thinks it is somewhat hilarious, but yes I caused a subluxation to my right shoulder. How did I do this? Well, for a matter of fact it was during a Muscle Up! Que the… Haha Crossfit chants.

I did not acquire this injury due to Crossfit. I got this during a muscle up. If people think that this is purely a “Crossfit” exercise then why do we still train our athletes with cleans and snatches. There is no exclusivity in exercises. I got hurt doing a complex movement improperly… without proper progression… and most likely without a proper warmup. Let’s just say in the last few months I have put the cart before the horse.

Let’s back up a few months.
I had come to the conclusion that I do not have the time to train as I once did; for an hour and a half to two hours four times a week. I do not have to move the weight of a small car off a child so what was the purpose of lifting be so heavy as to sacrifice form. I am training to slow down the clock. I want to look good naked. I want the function to demonstrate exercised with proficiency and at least look like I know what I am talking about. I was neglecting areas of my fitness such as cardio and mobility for other areas. I was becoming the athlete I preach against. Do as I say, not as I do!

So… It was a time change. Do things that make me uncomfortable. Become a little more well rounded. Try the things that I was normally skipping because I was not immediately successful at them. In the process I was hoping to challenge my thought process, and expand my ability to be creative as a coach. So I started juggling again… poorly. I was practicing hand stands and double unders (once again, just an exercise).
And since I was not bad a pull ups, why not progress. What could go wrong?

Well, my ego for one. I want immediate satisfaction of success from an exercise. I want to be great at it. Did I learn the proper progressions? No, just got to the bar and attempted to rip off a few muscle ups. And yes I was getting them, but then the day a week ago occurred. No real worry, concern and that lead to me getting sloppy. So I caused a subluxation to my right shoulder. THERE ARE NO BAD EXERCISES. THERE ARE IMPROPERLY COACHED EXERCISES AND IMPROPERLY SEQUENCED. PERIOD. Exercises are not exclusive to a type of training. We have to constantly look at what is the adaptation that you are looking to achieve.

So is this a set back? Yes, to some degree. But in reality this is more of an opportunity to have a hard reboot. Pull the plug on my old training regimen and start over again. I did this a few years back when I broke my hand. I regrouped, reorganized and refocused. This is a chance to practice Kaizen… Japanese word meaning “continuous improvement” or “philosophy of improvement”. In the end this will workout for the best, but just too bad it took such a drastic measure to achieve something that was in the works. Lets see that I am not practicing this “kaizen” again in four years which seems to be the case. Ha!

Yours in Fitness,

Jeff Osadec, MKin CEP CSCS