CrossFit Athletic Group

CrossFit is made of functional movements - which are defined a few different ways, but in essence they come down to movements that are likely to be useful in real life. Deadlifts, running, box jumps, and burpees are all very clear examples of this. Handstands? Snatches? Well, you have to do a little more digging to find the function in those. One of these "fringe" movements is a wallball. Squatting happens, using your hips to pop something over your head happens. But what could possibly be held in the hands in the sagital plane, squatted down all the way, then hoisted 10 feet in the air?

A child, as it turns out, is the correct answer to that - as I found out to my horror last week.

For Mothers and Father's Day this year my sister took all the home videos from VHS and converted them to DVDs; Sarah's videos were set up for my mom on Mothers Day and mine were set up for my dad on Fathers Day. I didn't see mine until last week and aside from a very embarassing rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, those were the two clips that caught my attention the most. 

First off, what the hell, dad!? There's an electric line right there! Secondly, my range unfortunately never extended much past where it was in the second video. Thirdly, everything we do in the weight room is an exaggeration of reality. That means we overemphasize things in the gym (feet together, neutral midline, ankle range of motion, etc.) on purpose so that when they come up in real life, they're more likely to be on the favorable side than the unfavorable side.

For wallballs, we exaggerate two things: loading order and core-to-extremity. Loading order: keep on sending the hips back back back so they do most of the work as opposed to the knees. Core-to-extremity: extend the hips all the way before the arms start pushing; the legs are stronger than the arms. On the slow-motion, you'll notice my dad do both - the loading order well and the core-to-extremity really well. On my basketball shot (for lack of a better term) it's the same. Though the exact specifics of a wallball will never be replicated in real life, the principles will.