So, I am now officially a certified Crossfit Level 1 coach. My class had the distinct honor of having Coach Glassman visit and speak with us. Among his recommendations was the one for someone to start blogging about their experiences with scaling Crossfit and implementing it with Seniors who have ortho/movement limitations.
So, since the majority of my clients are over the age of 60, I decided to give it a try. I started this morning with a 72 year old client who has a meniscus tear, arthritic knees, spinal stenosis, and a repaired rotator cuff (2008). She has been training with me for a year and a half now, and has shown improvements in ROM and some moderate strength gains, using more "traditional" rehab methods and NASM-based exercises.
We warmed up on the bike, which is not a piece of equipment organic to most Crossfit affiliates, but given her meniscus issue, the exaggerated flexion at the knee caused by the rower is undesirable. Plus, the spinal stenosis is problematic in someone inexperienced with the rower. We decided to save rowing instruction for a separate day.
After a five minute warmup, we began with some glute bridges and Y's and T's to warm up and increase mobility in the shoulder and hip joint systems. We then proceeded with 2 rounds of PVC OHS x 10, wall push ups x 10, and PVC DL x10 She performed all of these motions successfully, and was particularly adept at picking up the DL. It helped quite a bit in getting her to understand spinal extension, and we got way more spinal extension in this exercise than we have in the past with other exercises. We then moved on to 2 rounds of step-ups on a five inch box, since box jumps are obviously out of the question at this point, and probably always will be. We did each leg x 5. This one was tricky, since foot placement and pressure was critical to avoiding knee pain. Our final exercise was the scaled muscle up that Andy Stumpf suggested at our cert this weekend. We tied 5 lb plates to the opposite ends of a set of rings, and she sat on a plyo box and pulled the rings to her, using the same motion that the muscle up requires, rather than pulling her body to the rings. Surprisingly, this was her favorite exercise!
Overall, I'm really happy with my first attempt at implement a scaled CrossFit workout with my older clients. I will continue to blog my attempts and efforts!
I would be interested in hearing more about your experience with seniors. I am a new affiliate owner in a small town. Much to my surprise, seniors are very curious about CrossFit and if they can do it. My answer is always yes, of course. But, my coaching experience is not with seniors and I am finding I am struggling with scaling down that far. The Muscle up progression is very interesting. I would like to see a pic of how it works.
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