If you are interested in learning more about CrossFit, please read the following documents

Follow the links to read two very informative and interesting articles published in the CrossFit Journal:

WHAT IS FITNESS?
WHAT IS CROSSFIT?

Per the CrossFit Decatur website:

This is not intended as a diagnosis or treatment for any injury. These are fast fixes for common issues.

Shoulders are a tricky joint with a wide variety of anatomical variance. The shoulder has the greatest range of motion in any joint across the entire body. This range of motion allows us to carry out basic functional movements: pushing, pulling and throwing. With that consideration, we spend a great deal of our time in our workouts performing and strengthening these fundamental movement patterns. Show your shoulder and the muscles responsible for it’s movement some love. Developing a self maintenance routine can save yourself precious time and money at the Doctors office.

Two particular muscles account for almost 80-90% of all shoulder problems: the infraspinatus, and supraspinatus. Let’s focus on the infraspinatus. The infraspinatus is one of the four muscles that comprise the rotator cuff. It covers most of the scapula or shoulder blade on the dorsal or posterior surface. It is responsible for external rotation (place your arm by your side, bend the elbow to 90 degrees and rotate away from the body; this is external rotation).
Activities such as driving with hands on top of the wheel or working at a computer without elbow support are known to exhaust and shorten infraspinatus since it’s in a continuous state of contraction. For my personal CrossFit endeavours, I find that activities like high volume Pull-Ups and Burpees overload my infraspinatus. This leads to a dull ache deep inside the shoulder joint, and I can feel referral pain in the front of my shoulder. These are classic myofascial referred pain sites and symptoms for a fired up infraspinatus.  A little trigger point therapy and self massage relieves the built up tension and can help restore length to the muscle. With some active self therapy the symptoms and referred pain patterns tend to disappear in a matter of minutes.

Here’s the quick fix:
There are 4 common trigger point sites found in the infraspinatus. Take a lacrosse ball and place it below the spine of the scapula in the lower 2/3 of the shoulder blade and trap the ball against a wall or by lying on top of it on the floor . Roll the ball back and forth until you find the trigger point site (most commonly in the area with the thickest musculature). The sensation you’re looking for may be best described as extreme tenderness on the borderline of pain. Depending on how shortened the muscle has become you may feel referred pain to the front of the shoulder. Once a particular site is found roll the ball across the affected site approx 6-12 times. This would constitute one treatment and the treatment should be performed upwards of 4-6 times daily. A backnobber or theracane is also very useful for this type of self massage, and I find it more convenient when I want to do some work at the computer or do some treatment while watching a movie. Once again locate the trigger point site. For self massage it’s best to perform short strokes and move crosswise with the grain of the muscle. In the case of infraspinatus this would be in a direction from shoulder to spine.
Beyond trigger point therapy or self massage, it would be ideal if we all took 15 minutes post workout to ice our shoulders down after any WOD that contains overhead work. Cold therapy will reduce inflammation to the muscle tissue. Less inflammation= less pain.