Performance: 5/3/1 “1 Week”
75%x5, 85%x3, 95%x1+

Fitness: 2×10
Linear Progression

Post loads to comments.
LBBSQ e6/6
____________

5 Rounds NFT of:
15 Unbroken Wall Ball 20/10, 14/9
15 Unbroken Box Jumps 24/20

Work on how efficiently you can cycle these two movements for. Plan on them coming up in the Open.

Burpee cascade

Happy Birthday to Dave E and Shawna S!!

TODAY is the March Meat+Fish CSA Pickup!

Curious about meditation and want to incorporate it into your life? 

Vajradhara Meditation Center in Prospect Heights will be conducting a special meditation workshop upstairs at CFSBK on Sunday, March 23 from 2-3:30pm.  The class will include teachings, a guided meditations and a Q&A session. Taught by a qualified Western teacher, the meditation class will be easy to understand and emphasize how to meditate and practice in our NY urban environment.  

Teachings will discuss both mindfulness meditation (becoming aware of what is already true moment by moment and developing a more balanced understanding of self) and contemplative meditation (an investigative style of meditation where the goal is to arrive at a wisdom conclusion and then meditate on that conclusion in order to transform the mind at a deep level).  

Suitable for both beginners and more advanced meditation practitioners. No need to wear anything special, or bring anything…just dress comfortably. 

This is a free event, to register, please RSVP in the comments section so we know how many to plan for.  UPDATE: we’re at capacity, but do still comment (with your full name) if you are interested in joining the workshop and you’ll be contacted if there is space!  

__________________
Reaching My Autistic Son Through Disney NYT

Whitney and Mirko want you to take your shoes home!
Please take them home by this Friday at the latest. Abandoned shoes will be sent to Dimension X (eventually recycled)
As a reminder, only Olympic weightlifting shoes are allowed in the coat room and we now ask that you your name on them clearly if you wish to leave them at the gym. The front desk has gel pens you can use to label your shoes.
If you can’t make it to the gym by Friday, please email cfsbkfrontdesk(AT)gmail.com so we can put them aside for you.

• Speaking of Front Desk, please welcome Mirko B, Josh S and Jess M to the Front Desk staff starting this week!
• Reminder that CFSBK is hosting The Brooklyn Get Down this Saturday evening! This event is both a fundraiser for local charities and a homage to all the fundraising CFSBK has done for the comminity through our Fight Gone Bad events.
• There is a new post on Inside the Affiliate called “Failing, Bailing and Training Culture at CrossFit Affiliates” Check it out!

14.2 in The Books

Congratulations to everyone who participated in 14.2. Many folks got their first overhead squats at 95/65 while others got their first chest to bar pull-up still others were perhaps unable to post a single rep.. which is ok! 14.2 was a bit of a gut check for lots of folks and left you nowhere to hide in those three minute windows. Take what you can from the experience and move on to 14.3

Week 2 CFSBK Men’s Leaderboard
Week 2 CFSBK Women’s Leaderboard

Hit it and Quit it
The Open schedule gives us 5 days to complete each workout.  Some people notoriously attempt the workouts 2 (or more!) times in that window to try and get a better score each time. In our opinion, unless you’re on the chopping block for making it to regionals it’s best to “hit it and quit it”.  First off, lets put the Open into perspective. For most of us mere mortals this is an annual benchmark where we can see how we do versus our friends in the gym and strangers across the globe. It’s cool to see where you’re at but in terms of actual placement, the stakes are pretty low.  If you’re sitting at say 1,511th place in the North East re-doing the workout and moving up to say, 1,432th place does little more than to stroke your own ego… sort of I guess. Going into the Open with the mentality that you might re-do the workouts will only weaken your initial attempt at it. Take the time to plan your strategy, watch other folks do it to inform your perspective and then give it everything you’ve got one time.  Don’t give yourself the easy out of a “re-do” just because you can. It makes about as much sense as doing “Fran” Monday day and then seeing if you can shave 3 seconds off your time on Wednesday. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

The Open is awesome and one of my favorite times of the year. I love seeing everyone come together to compete and see how their training over the last year has paid off.  Have fun with it, hit each workout hard and move one to the following week.

Still Some Room To Get Strong

There are a few slots left in Coach Jeremy’s upcoming Strength Cycles, if you want to dedicate some time on your strength, strike while the irons hot.

Strength Cycle A: Novice PM
Dates: March 17th, 2014 – May 9th, 2014
Schedule: Monday, Wednesday at 7pm, Friday at 6pm

Register here (Only 5 slots left)

Strength Cycle B: Novice AM
March 17th, 2014 – May 7th, 2014
Monday and Wednesday 6:30am

Register here (Only 5 slots left)

Both cycles will wrap up with a CrossFit Total on Sunday May 11th, 2014.
____________________
I only got 306 fewer reps than Talayna CrossFit Games

2 Rounds for As Many Reps as Possible of:
2 Minutes Push Press* 135/95
1 Minute Rest
2 Minutes Toes to Bar
1 Minute Rest
2 Minutes Double Unders
1 Minute Rest

Jerks are no reps on the push press station. Focus on staying tight and keeping your midline as you press out. The load should be such that you can perform 10 unbroken and perfect reps of fresh.

Post reps per movement and Rx to comments.

CFSBK Athlete Of The Month

Laura McElherne

As the competitive season for CrossFit gets into full swing with the Open, we get to know one of our members who’s been steadily upping her strength while becoming more competitive on metcons within the gym as well. Laura’s unassuming attitude, quirky sense of humor, and quiet demeanor belie her intentions…she wants to beat the person ahead of her. This determination and her eagerness to be coached along with her friendliness on a barbell rack caught our eye. Let’s get to know a bit more about the gal we coaches have called “Strong Laura” for a while now.

Fox – How did you first find CrossFit?

Laura – A friend had started at The Black Box: CFNYC and was getting super buff. I was immediately intrigued and started watching the mainsite videos. I remember watching a video of The Bear Complex and thinking about how badass all that barbell work looked. Soon after that, I started straying from my hamster-wheel cardio workouts and trying to do CrossFit at the Park Slope NYSC. I would grab like a 5 pound body bar and practice the clean and the snatch in a hidden corner of the gym so nobody could see me. I bought a book called The New Rules of Lifting for Women and started to learn to squat and deadlift from it. I was also doing a lot of yoga, but I was frustrated by how little I was improving. Plus I was smoking like a chimney. I’d be the person you’d see having a cigarette right before entering the studio and then lighting up again, all zenned out, as soon as I was out the door.

Fox  –  Reformed smoker, I get it. No judgement. I also remember that Bear Complex video, classic! That was big weight back then, now it’s toy weight for those guys. I’m pretty impressed that you actually squatted and deadlifted on your own, too. What brought you to CFSBK?

Laura – Well as I was trying to do CF on my own and had brought my squat up to a staggering 85 pounds, I was also talking non-stop to Andrew, then only my boyfriend, about it. I’d avoided joining due to the cost. For an early birthday present in June 2012 he finally had heard enough and bought me the Foundations course, and also did it with me. We scheduled a private cycle with McDowell due to schedule constraints and it was great. I’m pretty sure that Andrew figured I’d move on from CrossFit after finally trying it, and I’m pretty sure I planned to go back to NYSC a little better equipped to keep training on my own. None of that happened. I quit smoking, joined SBK, and quit NYSC.

Fox – Ha, awesome. Aside from getting to snatch more than a 5 pound body bar, why did you end up staying with us?

Laura – I started to progress where I’d stalled and was learning new skills. I was never athletic, always super uncoordinated, and this was the first time in my life I started to feel like I wouldn’t be a wimpy klutz forever. My first double under felt like a miracle. So did my first handstand. It was also really inspiring to see women doing pull ups and know that if I kept working at it, someday I could do them too. I’m still not great at any of those movements, but I know that if I stopped coming, I would never get any better. Beyond that, I figured that if I was going to be spending 3-5 days a week going to the gym for an hour or more, I might as well talk to people and have fun with it, instead of just zoning out on an elliptical or hiding in a corner with a barbell. I never really knew anybody in classes I attended before unless I brought a friend, the environment simply didn’t foster it. Now I train among friends every time I’m here. Plus I really love the programming here, and the way the coaching staff brings it to life. You guys never seem to be phoning it in like I’ve seen in other classes I attended at “globo gyms”. I swear I’m not just sucking up!

Fox – “Suck Up Laura” is going to replace “Strong Laura”! Kidding. We always like to hear that we’re doing the job we strive to do. It’s so true that you can and should have fun with this stuff. How did you develop such a sunny outlook? Where are you from originally?

Laura – California, naturally. Santa Clara, in the Bay Area, to be exact. My parents are still there and I love to visit when I can. I moved to New York in 2005 to attend NYU for Art History. Now we live in Flatbush which is great. Aside from some great food we have sooo much space. Enough space in fact to keep up with my vintage chair collection. We have 12 chairs in our apartment.

Fox – Are they human sized, or this part of some dollhouse hobby? 

Laura – Nope, all full sized. It’s embarrassing. I just love collecting junk. In my defense, it feels like a way to keep my love for art, craft, and design alive, even if the art history degree didn’t translate into a happy career. I now work in social services. I’d been working for some galleries and an auction house and felt like my soul was being sucked out of me. I started volunteering to distract myself from the misery of my old job and eventually landed my current gig as an analyst with Street to Home – Brooklyn/Queens. I work on policies to promote continuous quality improvement and evidence-based best practices, ensuring that we’re complying with our city contract and fulfilling our mission to end street homelessness. I love my job, but I do still crave art in my life. In addition to the chair hoarding, I also make ceramics—hand-thrown vases, planters, mugs and such–and I’m constantly doodling, lettering, and painting. And I love to cook. Andrew and I are sort of foodies I guess, so eating out at new hot spots and tasting new cuisines also satisfies some of the thirst for all things creative.

Fox – How did Andrew and you meet?

Laura – At a bar through a mutual friend. Romantic, I know. I was coming out of a long-term relationship, as was he, so I thought we would just have a summer fling and keep things casual. Andrew described me to his friends as “Fake ID” for the first month of our relationship. But eventually, we started spending more and more of our time together, and I realized that I actually kind of loved the guy. He lost his father about 6 months into our relationship, and working through that tragedy together really drove home how much he meant to me. We were married in September last year.

Fox – That’s nice to have such a positive takeaway from a sad loss. And to progress from booty calls after meeting in a bar to husband and wife is a great journey. Congrats!

Laura – Thanks! Fun fact about Andrew and I and that bar: Andrew is 10 years older, and the name of the bar was Lolita. Total Humbert Humbert.

Fox – Ha! You guys seem to have a great sense of humor. Alright, last stock question. What should we look for in a future Athlete of the Month?

Laura – First of all, someone who knows the value of being a nice person. And secondly, someone who challenges themselves. I know that when I see people working hard, lifting heavy, and going fast, it inspires me to do more.. I especially love the women who buck the “don’t lift heavy or you’ll get bulky” BS, and who aren’t concerned with what society says is beautiful. Those women are role models.

Fox – As are you Laura. Thanks for sitting down and sharing. 

_____________________
Don’t forget to submit your 14.2 scores to the CrossFit Games site by 8:00pm this evening.
Failing, Bailing, and Training Culture at CrossFit Affiliates  Inside the Affiliate 

Performance: 5/3/1 “3 Week”
70%x3, 80%x3, 90×3+

Loss of a neutral back position will automatically end your rep out.

Fitness: 1×5 Linear Progression
Add 5-10lbs from last week’s exposure.

Post loads to comments.
DL e5/6
____________________

3 Rounds for Time of:
Run 400m
21 Kettlebell Swings
12 Burpees

Post time and Rx to comments

Roy and Brian putting the work in

• Today is the last day to sign up for the Fish CSA. Get on it!

Don’t Throw Your Stuff Out… Repair It!

Pop Up Repair is an intervention in the cycle of use-and-discard consumerism. For four weeks in June 2013, a group of theater artists activated a storefront repair shop, fixing household objects brought in by members of the community. The pop-up shop is the experimental first step in a larger research project investigating our relationships with the objects we use every day: what they mean, what they’re worth, and why we repair and reuse instead of buying new. We open in Brooklyn NEXT WEDNESDAY, March 12th. We will tackle household items of all kinds – chairs, lamps, phones, toys, jewelry  spoons, spatulas – if you can bring it, we will try to fix it! Prices usually range from $10 – $80, though it depends on your item. Bring it in and we will give an estimate.
Check out their website here and take your broken stuff to 540 President Street, Lower Level, off 4th Avenue where they’ll be from 12-7pm for three weeks only.
___________________
Olympic Weighlifting Level Standards Cathletics

For as long as possible:

From 0:00-3:00
  2 rounds of: 
  10 overhead squats, 95 / 65 lb.
  10 chest-to-bar pull-ups

From 3:00-6:00
  2 rounds of:
  12 overhead squats, 95 / 65 lb.
  12 chest-to-bar pull-ups

From 6:00-9:00
  2 rounds of:
  14 overhead squats, 95 / 65 lb.   14 chest-to-bar pull-ups

Following the same pattern until the athlete cannot complete the perscribed work in the allotted time frame. For the full rules and standards, click here. (You’ll have to click on the Week 2 Tab)

For the folks not registered for the Open we’ll also be offering a 9 minute AMRAP version of this workout scaled for your needs.  If you’re registered and know you can only complete a couple reps of this workout, you’ll do as much as you can Rx’d to get a score then will modify for the remainder of the workout.

Post reps completed and Rx to comments.
_________________

3 Rounds NFT of:
1:00 Row
10 Strict Dumbbell Presses
15 V-Ups

Coach David’s video submission for 14.1 (113 Reps)

• Don’t forget about our Free UFC screening today starting at 2:00pm. The gym will supply some beer but everyone is welcome to BYOB. Dogs, babies, non-CFSBKers and imaginary friends are all welcome too! The card should go through until 5:30pm or so.
• Don’t forget we have Yoga with Whitney H at 10am and Active Recovery at 11 and 12pm today!

CFSBK Powerlifters Competing Today

Today 5 CFSBKers will be competing in the USAPL Guerilla Fitness Raw National Qualifiers. Each athlete will have three attempts at a 1RM Back Squat, Bench Press and Deadlift.  Best of luck to all competing under the watchful eye of Coach Jeremy

Lifters
Uzef G
Paul J
Nicole A
Rob I
Becca W

Tomorrow is the last day to sign up for the Fish CSA