CrossFit Athletic Group

Since the Summer, Wesley and the north wall of our gym have been getting to know each other really well through repeated ground ball practice. This makes me happy because practicing by yourself is quickly becoming a lost art.

My dad would applaud his technique here: glove is getting dirty, meets the ball out in front of him, legs bent, feet staggered ready to make a throw. The issue here is this picture was taken just minutes after yesterday's deadlift workout and my eyes were conditioned to something else entirely.

Yup, you guessed it: His back. WWW has been keeping his spine position on his mind every single time we've done a deadlift, and his form is showing... on deadlifts, because, again, he's thinking about it. When fielding a baseball he has much more important things to think about.

One of the main purposes for me coaching you guys is help develop good habits, meaning doing something without thinking about it. In the end, you need to be able to move well without being coached.

Keeping midline stability means your spine is in a good position to perform the movement you want over the course of an infinite number of reps. It has to be good technique for 1 rep and also 1 million reps. A flat back is one of the most fool-proof ways to keep midline stability.

Keeping a flat back means you will be safe, and it also means you will be able to produce the most power. So no, Wesley will not injure his back when fielding ground balls. At least, I wouldn't expect him to. But what I do know is he usually has to throw the ball after he fields it, sometimes as hard as he can, and his throwing velocity will definitely be compromised if he starts his throwing motion with a rounded back. And then there's the chicken-neck habit - that won't get him injured in a deadlift, but it might cause him to miss a grounder.

The interesting thing is, Wesley has probably done 5,000 deadlift/squat/clean/snatch reps in here with a flat back in the year he's been here, not to mention just as much mobility on the hips and hamstrings. So why is the habit not built yet? Simple: he hasn't done enough reps. How many reps will it take? No clue. The best anyone can do it guess. We have to appreciate how deeply engrained movement patterns can be and how many reps are needed to override them. But in the meantime Wes needs to use every movement, every opportunity he can to practice those good movement patterns until it eventually becomes a habit. We'll know it when we see it.