Press Gang

There are a few “rules” of the body that may be applied across multiple applications and body systems. One of these rules is; tissues that are moved into a loaded or biased position first, experience increased relative tension, load, or positional significance throughout the subsequent remaining movement. This is a fancy way of saying that your body’s soft tissues (muscles, tendons, joint capsules, etc) undergo tensioning in the order in which they were first loaded. Kelly Starrett, San Francisco CrossFit

Tonight some of you might have heard me tell you ‘bum back first’ at the start of the dip for your push press. This is because the tissues that are moved first take most of the load. If you start a push press  (or squat) with a forward movement of the knees, the load is taken by your quadriceps (the big muscle at the front of your thigh). Even if you then load your hip and hamstrings (big muscle at the back of your thigh) the forces and tension on your knees will increase. Not fun for your knees. It also robs you of the explosive power generated by a powerful hip extension. The image below shows why.

Image courtesy of the CrossFit Journal

Whilst the above diagram shows good hip function, it isn’t the ideal depiction of the dip of a good push press. Kudos points if you tell us why in the comments. You can probably work out the answer if you look at Nicole’s beautiful push press dip.

CrossFit HQ's Nicole shows how it should be done

Push Press – Work up to a 3 rep max.

Run 200m
then
21-15-9
Wall Ball
Knees to elbows
then
Run 200m

In other ‘press’ news, it was great to see a photo of our Ladies WOD on the main CrossFit site yesterday.