FITNESS AUTHOR
Jarod Carter, PT, DPT
YOUR JANUARY MOVEMENT ASSESSMENT n Too much time off could lead to an injury or two.
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t’s that time of year again — when most people have made resolutions to live a healthier life, work off the indulgences of the holidays and get back into shape. Of course, by April, many of those best-laid plans will be largely abandoned, but it’s not just willpower that will keep many from achieving their 2021 fitness and health goals. There’s another powerful, yet easily avoidable, reason that makes people unable to fulfill those resolutions. If you’re currently working to get in better shape but haven’t been consistently exercising during the past couple months, there’s something you need to know. Every January, gyms, running trails and bootcamps see a flood of new people who haven’t exercised regularly for at least a few months. Similarly, every January through March we see a big increase in patients at our physical therapy clinic who were injured in pursuit of the noble resolution to make
JANUARY 2021
the new year a healthier one than the last. One of the most ironic components to these resolutionchallenging injuries is that most of them could have been easily avoided if the predisposing factors were identified and addressed ahead of time, and most of those injury predispositions are easy to identify with a simple movement assessment. In other words, the most common injuries that derail people from their New Year’s fitness resolutions can usually be avoided, and in many cases, it doesn’t even require a healthcare professional to do so. In fact, although it’s no substitute for the trained eye of a good physical therapist, you can actually perform your own self-assessment for many of these common predisposing factors to injury. This short movement assessment will not identify every possible exercise-related injury predisposition; that would require
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the help of a trained professional. However, it can bring to light some of the most common things that land people in my physical therapy clinic.
1) Overhead Reach
This movement will primarily help you detect rotator cuff impingement or other shoulder movement problems that are the source of many weight-lifting injuries, especially with overhead lifts and pull-ups. A pinching or painful feeling when reaching overhead, or even just a lack in the full range of motion, can indicate that you are set up for some level of shoulder injury. Shoulder impingement/injury has always been one of the top three most common injuries amongst CrossFitters.
2) Back Extension and Flexion
As a former springboard diver, this one is near and dear to my heart, as we would go from extreme back extension into extreme flexion for our hardest backward spinning and gainer dives. Most people don’t have to go anywhere near those extreme ranges of motion in their sport or in the gym, but mild to moderate limitations in those movements can still lead to a variety of injuries, especially if you lift moderately heavy weight.
3) Body-Weight Squat
It always amazes me how many people think that they squat in a balanced, symmetrical way, but when they watch themselves do this quintessential, functional motion in the mirror, they realize they are overloading one side more than the other. In addition,
