Welcome back to part two of the four part series on shoulder archetypes in the CrossFit athlete! I’m a Doctor of Physical Therapy that has been working with and part of the CrossFit community for the last five years. If you are a CrossFit athlete in the Wilmington, NC area, follow along to learn more about shoulder mobility requirements and drills to create healthy, pain free shoulders!
Just a quick review: what is a shoulder archetype? An archetype put simply is the shape of your shoulder at the end position of a movement. The four shoulder archetypes are overhead, front rack, hang and press. In this post, we will do a deep dive of the front rack archetype.
Similar to the overhead archetype, the front rack requires a degree of shoulder flexion and full range of motion into shoulder external rotation. Here’s a quick test: place your arms in a goal post position. Does one arm rotate further back? Do your hands fall in front of your ears? If so, keep reading for some mobility drills to improve your external rotation.
When we think of a front rack, we think of front squats or catching a clean. A less obvious example of a front rack is holding a plank, either on elbows or forearms. Some common faults we see in the front rack shape are elbows dropping below our shoulders during a front squat, or elbows flaring out during a plank, resulting in the shoulders internally rotating. When this “elbow flare” happens, we are losing end range external rotation at the shoulder which is its most stable position. The other important piece is how the archetypes interact. If you don’t have a good front rack, what is your thruster going to look like? How much more efficient could you be if you could achieve this shape?
Maintaining the front rack shoulder archetype requires a combination of shoulder mobility, stability, and strength. Athletes who cannot achieve this position are at a higher risk of injury, particularly to the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. Inadequate shoulder mobility can lead to further compensations in other areas of the body, including extra stress on the upper and lower back, which can result in inefficient movement patterns, decreased performance and lost gains!
Here are my top 3 mobility drills to improve your front rack archetype:
Once you’ve opened up your shoulders, give these challenging stability drills a try!
Thanks for reading, stay tuned for next month as we dive into the hang archetype!
In good health,
Dr. Eliza Cohen, PT, DPT, CPT, NTP
Conquer Movement - Wilmington, NC