1-1-1-1-1
Work up to a heavy single or attempt a PR today.

e8/8
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In 4:00, complete as many reps as possible of the following couplet/rep scheme:
1 Power Clean 185/125
5 Burpees
2 Power Cleans
5 Burpees
3 Power Cleans
5 Burpees
4 Power Cleans
5 Burpees
…

Rest 2:00

7 Intervals of Row for max meters :20, rest for :10

Post how for you got in the ladder as well as your best and worst rowing score.

Congratulations to all the new PR’s achieved by folks who participated in the Total yesterday!

• Also congratulations to all the lifters who competed in the USAPL Meet yesterday. Meet details and videos to follow!
• Good luck to Mary M, Alex B, Alex N, Joe W and Brad D who will be representing CFSBK at today’s Subway Series competition at CrossFit Queens!

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Alan Cheuse, Novelist And Longtime NPR Contributor, Dies At 75
Another CrossFit Ad: CrossFit Accolade
A 17th-Century Stanchi Painting Reveals the Rapid Change in Watermelons through Selective Breeding
I’m Google continues rolling along since 2013

Back Squat 1-1-1
Press 1-1-1
Deadlift 1-1-1

Post loads and the sum of your best lifts to comments.

Athletes will have 30 minutes to establish a 1RM Squat and around 20 minutes each for the Press and Deadlift. Please come in with an exact or ball park figure for what your opener will be in each lift. The coaching staff will assist you in planning your warm-ups and making sure your numbers make sense. Each class today will take about 90 minutes to complete, please show up a little early and do a general warm-up on your own. One of either gym will be available for you before class.

12.09.12
Christian Reiss concludes his 8 week Strength Cycle with a CrossFit Total. Here is his attempt at topping the gym leader board… will he make it?

• Color us bummed, there is no Yoga for Athletes today! Instead check out Active Recovery at 11 and 12. We can tailor the class for folks who are going to Total. 
• Despite the extended class times, all classes will start on the hour as normal.

Spotting Technique

Everyone’s last warm-up and all three squat attempts must use spotters. We will discuss the details in class but below are some key points and good examples from Friday mornings group class.

Key points
Spotters should move with the bar and each other through the lift.
Stay close enough to be effective but not so close you interfere with the lift.
If the barbell starts going back down and/or someone says “Spot!” the lift is over and hands go on the bar.
The lifter NEVER BAILS THE BAR when spotters are present. They are there to protect you, don’t endanger them.

• What good squat spotting looks like.
• And here is an example of what it should look like when someone misses an attempt

In case you missed it, we also made a video about how to spot the bench press recently, however will not be necessary today.
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Happy lifting everyone!

“While I was away in Spain, I visited two CrossFits, one in Madrid (CrossFit Maherit Rio) and one in Barcelona, (Reebok CrossFit BCN). Both were great and had very intense classes. It was great to see people from a different culture have the same obsession as we do. I’ve attached a picture to the email. I figured it would be cool to show CrossFit South Brooklyn go global!”-Bea M

News and Notes

• There is no Yoga for Athletes this weekend as Coach Whit is away. Why not check out Active Recovery at 11 and 12 instead?
• Don’t forget about the CrossFit Total tomorrow! Class times will start at their normal hours but plan on being at the gym for around 90 minutes to complete your lifts. The previous two days of blog posts have plenty of information regarding what the CFT is and how to approach it.
• Did you lose something? Check out the most recent photo from the lost and found bin and claim your gear!

Dude, Where’s My 1RM?

By Coach Jeremy 

Everyone has had the experience:  it’s the 2nd attempt of a Crossfit total or your working up to a new 1RM on singles day, you load up the bar with a weight equal to you your existing 1RM, you get psyched up, unrack the bar, go into the hole, and……nothing.  It doesn’t come back up.  Why?  Did you get weaker?  Are you doing something wrong?  Why can’t you do what you’ve already done?

 

Think of a 1RM not so much as a measure of strength capacity but as an act of strength performance.  Veteran lifters will speak of owning a weight versus hitting a weight.  Owning a weight means that you can get under a bar just about anytime you want and move that weight (assuming a proper warm-up and having not done back-to-back hero WOD’s that week).  Hitting a weight is a much less reproducible feat.  It means that on a day where you felt good, were well rested, timed your eating properly, had your weight belt sitting just right, heavenly bodies were aligned properly, and you managed not to fuck anything up,  you were able to squeeze out a higher weight than ever before. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that a weight that you have only hit isn’t something that you can just do on command.  It’s an act of strength and will; repeating it doesn’t just happen.  No sprinter expects to hit a PR every time they run a given distance, not in competition and especially not in training.  There is no reason to just assume that every time you get under a barbell you’re going to PR.

 

We should also consider that not every one’s best event in lifting is the 1RM.  Consider again, sprinting.  All sprinters are fast, that’s why they are sprinters.  However sprinters have different specialties, some are better in a 60m dash, others are better at the quarter mile.  If we took a random group of sprinters and tested their best times at a series of distances, say 60m, 100m, 200m, and 400m, we would probably find that the rankings would look very similar across the events: the faster runners would tend to do well at all of them.  However, you would also expect to see some shuffling of rankings based upon the individual strengths of the sprinters.  Some are better at accelerating, some run the turns well, some finish well, etc. To bring this back to lifting, imagine a group of powerlifters from the same weight class.  If you tested their 1RM, 3RM, and 5RM squat you would see something very similar:  The strongest lifters would tend to be at the the top of each ranking, however you would also see some move up or down the leader board as the reps changed based upon their individual characteristics.  This is relevant to us because the better you are at an event, the 3RM versus the 1RM for instance, the more likely you are able to reproduce your best effort.  We should test our strength at 3RM’s and 5RM’s for precisely the same reason that Track and Field tests more than just the 100m dash as a measure of speed.

 

Weighlifting, Powerlifting and Crossfit Total’s are all tests of 1RM. This isn’t because 1RM’s are magical, it’s just that they are easier to quantify, they are the highest weights (and everyone wants to see big weights), so they lend themselves to being tested. All this being said there is certainly nothing wrong with going after 1RM’s and when game day comes, you want to break some records. Set yourself up for success by working hard at a good program, resting up in the days leading to the event and getting your head inside your lift when you get under the bar.  Once the day’s lifting is over, let it go.  A sprinter isn’t suddenly slow on the day they don’t PR; you’re not weak on the day you don’t either.  Allow for the fact that not everyday you try to PR is going to be the perfect day to demonstrate that amount of strength.

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Ronda Rousey on her physique
Hottest Subway Stations in NYC Mapped
Scaling the Hollow Body Position\
Man buys 10,000 negative and discovers incredible street photographer from 50s and 60s

Fitness and Performance
Snatch 1-1-1-1-1

Work up to a new 1RM or heavy single for the day.
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“OPEN Workout 14.1”
As Many Rounds as Possible in 10 Minutes of:
30 Double Unders
15 Power Snatches 75/55

This workout has appeared twice in the CrossFit Open, most recently in 2014. The top scores in the world are are listed below. To see a side by side comparison of these incredible performances, click here.

Dan Bailey: 10 Rounds + 11 Double Unders (461 Reps)
Samantha Briggs: 10 Rounds + 22 Double Unders (472 Reps)
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75 Hollow rocks in as few sets as possible

Post workout results to comments.

Flashback to the set-up for one of last year’s Subway Series events held at CFSBK.
CFSBK currently has 23 athletes signed up to compete this year and there is still plenty of room left! If you’ve got questions about the Subway Series, post to comments and we’ll do our best to answer

• Tuesdays “Keep Hope Alive” CrossFit commercial with CFSBKer Constance T has racked up over 40,000 views in the last two days alone! Thanks for sharing everyone! It was also shared on Huffington Post!
• We need Judges and a score keeper for our Subway Series event on 8/23! Judges are expected to monitor range of motion and reps for each workout. DO will do a session to review movement standards and protocol before the event. The Score keeper needs to do data entry on the scoring system and should be comfortable with spreadsheets. Please email David (AT) CrossFitSouthBrooklyn.com if you’re interested.

Preparing to CrossFit Total

By Coach Fox

        “What are you hoping to hit for the CrossFit Total?”. When your mate asks you this question you may exaggerate a bit but when it comes time to get under a bar you’d better have a plan. Here’s how.

1- Take it easy in the gym or rest completely for a day or two prior to doing a CFT. If you were going to total on a Saturday it would be a good idea to work at 70% or so effort on Thursday, rest completely on Friday (maybe some light mobility work or active recovery type stuff) and go for it on Saturday. Make sure your nutrition is in line with your goals. Do you want to perform well on the total? Do you think that boozing it up the night before and eating offensive (for you) foods will help, or hinder, that performance? If you take your training seriously and want to better yourself then act like it.

2- Have goals. Know what numbers you’d like to hit. You can take numbers that you’ve been working at recently and extrapolate 1RMs using a nifty 1 Rep Max Calculator. Preferably you will have some rep maxes in the 2-5 rep range since the further away you get from that the less reliable the predictions become. If you haven’t been training long and don’t yet have any 2-5 rep max then use the CF Total to establish those and wait until next time around to do 1RMs. There is still so much learning to do on the lifts and hence no sense hitting 1RMs with such little experience, ego be damned.

3- Have a plan. Map out your warm ups. Today is not the day to be doing a metric ton of warm up reps. Let’s take a hypothetical lifter with a previous 1RM of 355 hoping to establish a new 1RM on the squat of 365lbs, his or her time under the bar should look something like this.

45×5, 135×5, 185×5, 225×3, 275×3, 315×1, then

1st attempt – 335
2nd attempt – 355
3rd attempt – Set a new 1RM at 365

Establishing a new 1RM of 185 with a previous best of 177.5 might look like this.

45×5, 75×5, 105×5, 125×3, 145×1

1st attempt – 165
2nd attempt – 177.5
3rd attempt – 185

This is obviously subject to change depending on how the warm ups feel and how the 1st two attempts go. Maybe you have more in you than you and the 1RM calculator thought you did, but maybe you don’t. As Rip says “Don’t be pig-headed. If your first attempt tells you that you need to lower your second, do so, without a misplaced sense of diminished self-worth. It’s a test, and it’s designed to measure what’s there, not create something that’s not. That’s what training is for.” There is a world of difference between training and testing, but that is an entirely different topic. Just remember that today is a test day.

4- Realize that the press is a finicky lift. Gains made are often small and hard won. To go from a 1RM of 85 to 87 represents a 2.5% increase. If you have been training long enough you may (read should) be thankful for this type of increase. My point is to say that you should not be greedy with the press. Instead be frugal and take small rewards. Also, don’t overdo the warm ups as this lift fatigues quickly. Usings the example above of hoping to set a new 1RM of 87, here’s a possible warm up scheme.

33×5, 53×3, 63×2, 73×1, 77×1

1st attempt – 81
2nd attempt – 85
3rd attempt – 87

5- The deadlift will be largely warmed up by the squat and will not need a lot of warm up reps on it’s own. Here’s an example of the above 365 squatter hoping to establish a new 1RM of 405 with a previous best of 395

135×5, 225×3, 315×1, 365×1

1st attempt – 385
2nd attempt – 405
3rd attempt – Go for it, it’s the last rep of the day!

6- You need to rest between attempts (possibly 3-5 minutes) and if you are doing the CrossFit Total in a group class, you also have time constraints. During the warm ups is not the time to dilly-dally and wonder what you should load on the bar next. Having a plan allows you and your rack mates to move smoothly through the warm ups and into the reps and allows time to rest between attempts. If you don’t have a plan you will also cost your rack mates valuable time…don’t be that guy or gal.

The CrossFit Total should be a fun day where you get to move some heavy weight around but that doesn’t mean don’t take it serious, too. Approach each lift with intent, unrack each squat from the uprights with authority and readiness, set up with a BIG BREATH for all your attempts today. And if you don’t 1RM but gave your all, then celebrate that as well and live to lift another day. You’re a TFBA for showing up regardless.

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An interesting look at the Games programming from The Outlaw Way
The Timmy Brothers: Water Makers

3-3-3
Work up to a heavy triple, 5-15 lbs heavier than last week’s 3×5. Use this number to help plan your attempts for this Saturday’s CrossFit Total.

e8/8
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As Many Rounds as Possible in 7 Minutes of:
14 Kettlebell Swings
7 Burpees

This is a workout many of you did in Foundations as it’s used at the end of class three. If you’ve been a particularly pious note taker you could look back and compare performances! Pick a kettlebell load that allows you to perform unbroken or 2 sets on the swings. Move consistently but push the tempo. This workout pace should make you feel like seven minutes can’t come soon enough.

Finish with an 800m Row or Run

Post workout results to comments.

Bonjour CFSBK,
Pierre D. and I (Bob S) happened to both be in Paris at the same time so naturally we met up to wod together at CrossFit Original Addicts in Paris. This photo is taken with Sammy the head coach at the box right after 12 minutes of 30 seconds on and 30 seconds off of burpees.

CrossFit Total this Saturday

Don’t forget that we’ll be running the CrossFit Total this Saturday during group classes. Class start times will remain the same as usual however each class will take about 90 minutes to run. Lifters will have 30 minutes to squat and 20 minutes each for the press and deadlift. Try to get to the gym early to do some DIY general warm-ups so that we can hit the ground running. We’ll have more information tomorrow about how to make the most of your CrossFit Total, but for the time being we recommend you read the PDF below to see exactly what the Total is, what the rules for each lift are and some context to make the whole enterprise more rewarding.

The CrossFit Total by Mark Rippetoe

Still time to sign up for the 2015 Subway Series!

Another year has gone by, and it’s time once again for an NYC affiliate throwdown: the fifth annual Subway Series! All NYC affiliates are invited to participate—the affiliate with the best overall score at the end of four events wins the Subway Series Trophy and bragging rights for a whole year!

Event Schedule
Sunday, August 2nd, 9am: CrossFit Queens
Sunday, August 9th, 12pm: CrossFit Virtuosity
Sunday, August 16th, 12pm: CrossFit Long Island City
Sunday, August 23th, 12pm: CrossFit South Brooklyn 

Scoring
Scoring will work “Open-style”: top 3 male and top 3 female athletes from each affiliate will score based on their place finish in each event. Athletes may score in any event regardless of attendance at other events. 

The ultimate series winner will be the affiliate with the least points after all 4 events have been completed. In the event of a tie, a 5th tie-breaking event will be held. 

As last year, an Rx division and Scaled division trophy will be awarded. 

Registration
All athletes MUST register for each individual event in advance via EventBrite in order to participate. Each event will be capped at 100 total participants, so we strongly advise you to register ASAP. These events sell out quickly. 

REGISTER HERE

If you have questions about the Subway Series, email Coach MeLo at Melissa [at] CrossFitSouthBrooklyn.com.

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Road to Conviction Episode 1: It’s Almost Symbolic CrossFit