CrossFit challenges you to push through barriers that would otherwise stop you from achieving the results you seek, requiring motivation and dedication. The program is designed to push your limits, but never beyond your limits. To help you avoid injury, the intensity of the workouts are always relative, meaning that they are tailored your capabilities. Actually, CrossFit can be of great benefit to those who do suffer a higher likelihood of injury, because it can help you work on remedying their causes.

At Outlier, we have several patrons with back problems, and we recently had one come in for a session after he had expressed concerns about injury. We taught him a pre-workout routine designed to draw back his shoulders, improve his core, and gradually alleviate some of the issues with his back. The routine also helped him with improving his posture and techniques during his workouts, so that he could attain better results and be more comfortable with the weight-bearing exercises.

We taught him three major exercises, designed to draw his shoulders back, push his chest forward, and strengthen his core to correct an imbalance in his back muscles.

• First, we had him lie on the ground with a crossball placed in the middle of his upper back, between his shoulders. He then swept his arms across the floor, up over-and-above his head, hands coming together on the floor behind him. In that position, he should have felt his back pinching the ball, as he shoulders bent back around the crossball. After doing the movement ten times, we had him squat — the results, a straighter back, were already visible.
• Second, we attached two gymnastic rings to a squat rack and had him, with feet firmly planted on the ground, hanging on them at an angle, with back as close to the floor as possible. We then had him pull himself with his arms, bringing his shoulders back as the lifted his upper body towards the rings. This exercise helps with opening up the chest and working out the core, in an effort to straighten out the back.
• Third, we had him lay face-forward on a GHD and do modified glute hamstring raises (GHRs). We modified it for the purpose of the routine — to draw back the shoulders and open the chest —, and we asked him to swing his upper body down only as far as his back remained straight. GHRs work out an area from the hamstrings to the lower back, helping to reverse muscular imbalances.

All of the elements of the pre-workout routine come together to help improve posture, expanding the chest out, bringing the shoulders back. Our client felt immediate results, feeling the pressure on his lower back relieved. His technique during the Workout of the Day that followed was also much better: his shoulders were no long as rounded, his back was straighter, and he kept his chest forward more consistently.

Even with the improvements that can be achieved through workouts like these, it’s always important to remember that CrossFit demands relative intensity. In the case of an irregularly shaped spine, you might have to lift less weight when completing some of the exercises during your Workout of the Day, at least at first. But, this doesn’t mean you can’t develop your physical strength, flexibility, and endurance. You can still challenge yourself and optimize the different domains of the body; you can still be an outlier.