In 15 Minutes, work up to a heavy single of:

Fitness: Power Clean + FSQ + Split Jerk

Performance: Clean & Jerk
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Front Squat

Fitness:3×3 Across
Add 5lbs from last weeks front squats.

Performance: Work up 90% of projected 1RM (based off the 3RM) for 3 singles
Rest 2 minutes rest between sets. You should not be failing today.

Post loads to comments.
C&J/FSQ e5/6

Behind the Desk: Ruth Party!!

Here is the next installment in our new series called Behind the Desk, about our beloved and much appreciated Front Desk staff. These CrossFitters take care of the important duties of checking in our members, handling walk-ins, tidying up after classes, and so many other things that it would take forever to list them. They are the glue that holds this gym together!

 

Full name: Ruth M. Pardee (prounounced “Party!!” with two exclamation points.)

Where were you born and where did you grow up: Born and raised in Berkeley, California

First album that you loved: The Shrek soundtrack

What are you up to when you’re not at 597 Degraw Street: I work part-time for a small tech company. Other than that I love to go out to movies, go on bike rides, and cook.

“Ask me about that time I…”: Broke my nose while attempting to shoot a rifle. More me being stupid than an actual good story…

Earth is about to implode but aliens on a previously undiscovered planet named Euripides want to preserve one artifact from humans. What would you offer them? A Steinway grand piano (art, craftsmanship, and technology)

Favorite shade of blue: Teal

Favorite lift: Power Clean (from the floor)

Tough Titsday Powerlifting Meet Tomorrow

The TTD Powerlifting meet is happening tomorrow starting at 2:30pm. All are welcome and encouraged to watch some of CFSBK’s strongest women hit the platform to test their strength. Excitement and awe inspiring performances guaranteed!

The Details:
Each woman will have 3 attempts to hit a max single in Squat, Bench and Deadlift, in that order. All lifters will make their attempts in each lift before moving to the next. First, second and third place winners will be awarded in each weight class based on total combined weight of best lifts.
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Tissue Repair 101: What Should You Be Doing? Tabata Times
A lifelong fight against trans-fats NYT

Underneath The Hoodie: Robert McDowell Myers

By Kate Reece

Vital Stats
Height: 6’1’’
Weight: 200 lbs
DOB: September 24, 1979
Born and raised: Roanoke, VA
Place of higher learning: (mostly) Radford University

Ask him to recite a Jim Harrison poem from memory about a dog on a short leash and hear traces of a southern accent protract his vowels. Stand with him at a party, and listen as he describes which section of the crowd he’d pick to paint, based on the contrapposto of the subjects or the contrast of the lighting. Ask him to open your beer with a rolled-up magazine, or do a lick on his guitar over a ii-V-I chord progression. Actually—don’t ask him to do any of those things, because he’d immediately sense it wasn’t an original request and be irritated—quietly irritated. Instead, watch the man in action, shredding through a workout after coaching. Or remember him pedaling 100-plus miles through Southwest Virginia’s Mountains of Misery, then riding a quarter of the Tour de France’s mileage for 21 afternoons in July of 2010 (post-CrossFit at 7 am and work during the day). And remember the young man picking strawberries with his mother, jumping at any chance to toss a football with his dad in the backyard, stocking shelves with his grandfather at their local grocery store, and proposing to Ellie June on the coast of California (who fell for him when she learned about his love for Joni Mitchell). To know Robert McDowell Myers is to know dignity, in its silliest, most fun and fun-loving iteration. To know his life is to know adventure.

The boy was born on a Monday, the cusp of autumn in 1979, in Roanoke, Virginia, a small town that epitomizes the term “small town” (current population resting at less than 10,000). But his story starts earlier than his birth, reaching back to his namesake. Both sides of his family can be traced back to the beginnings of the state of Virginia, and his great great great grandfather on his mother’s side was named McDowell Fitzgerald, which was going to be his name. Instead, he was named after his father, Robert. McDowell goes by his middle name to prevent confusion. His parents, “Bobby” and Rosanna, met as teenagers in the early 60’s at a church in Roanoke. In 1972, after Bobby finished his time with the Navy (during which he helped build McMurdo Station in Antarctica), they were married, and soon had their three children—Caroline, McDowell, and Livingston.

McDowell’s story also starts on the land, the idyllic backdrop of his home. The yards of his parents’ house and dad’s father’s house blend together, and both houses are next to his aunt’s house. Behind the three houses, big open fields sprawl wide, some cattle populating one section, with a vast swath of woods framing the underbelly of the horizon. It was there that he would learn to run and play with his brother “Livi” and a couple cousins (who remain McDowell’s best friends), along with some neighborhood kids. They constructed log cabins out of felled trees, hiked around a nearby reservoir, and built fires in pits they dug in the woods. Television held no singular intrigue; it functioned solely as space to let McDowell’s mind rest and process the day’s activity, which often was spent daydreaming and entering the space of his imagination, in the safety of his portion of the earth’s wilderness.

It would be hard to expect any kid of McDowell’s youthful energy to settle down in a classroom, and Rosanna now enjoys telling the story of the week he began kindergarten. He hopped on the bus behind Caroline, his older and wiser sister, went to school, and had a fine and uneventful day. When he arrived home, his parents both looked at him anxiously. “How was school?” Rosanna asked. “Fine,” McDowell replied, shrugging. Both of his parents appeared deeply relieved. The following week before a long Labor Day weekend passed easily enough. But when next Tuesday rolled around, Rosanna went in to wake McDowell up (he woke himself up before the rest of the family on the weekends, so eager to play) and failed. He simply refused. His refusal did not come from an attitude of petulance or laziness. Rather, he had a precocious sense that certain things mattered more than others, and he could summon little interest in the things he felt were less important. Of course, he went back to school, but he would never be a consistently excellent student, except in the subjects that captivated him and felt meaningful on a deeper plane.

McDowell’s life became filled with his family, sports, and music. His parents had signed him and his siblings up for a sport every season as soon as they were old enough, and all three proved to be exceptional athletes. McDowell mostly played basketball and baseball, along with whatever else was in season. He also started racing mountain bikes when he turned 14. Then there was his guitar. At 15, he taught himself to play from a Neil Young book with his father’s acoustic dreadnought (he was raised on the four Bs: The Beatles, the Band, the Byrds, and the Beach Boys, along with other 60’s rock and roll). Learning to play music certainly didn’t help him focus more on school, but even when his parents grounded him, they never took his guitar away or told him he couldn’t play.

For a boy with such courage of his convictions, coupled with an easy talent at most things he set out to do and a sometimes-quick temper, it might have been easy to develop into a wild card, with a passion of the undisciplined sort. Especially as a young male, he needed boundaries—an example of what it looked like to wed masculinity with fundamental goodness. McDowell’s whole huge family contributed to shaping him, but he grew up reading a plaque hanging in his father’s office (which now hangs in Livi’s office), bearing a quote from Act 3 Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It”: 

Sir, I am a true laborer. I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good…

Those weren’t just pretty words. McDowell’s father is notorious for his “stare”—a look he gives that communicates you damn well better shape up. The Myers’ family edict was simple: Don’t be a jerk. And what’s more: Do good. Bobby’s father was a labor leader, and Bobby followed in his footsteps as business manager at the Laborers’ Union, with a jurisdiction covering Virginia and North Carolina. No slight task in an area that generally despises unions.

McDowell likes to say that if he had been forced to do manual labor his whole life, he would have had a different appreciation for school than he did—the kind of insight that reveals his pragmatic instincts toward compassion, and awareness of the privilege that accompanies the hand he’s been dealt. He bounced around between colleges, never far from home and never quite sure what he wanted to study, always playing music. He was good at showing up for class, mostly out of respect for the professor’s job. He eventually settled on studio art—oil painting and photography—thinking he might go into photojournalism. Throughout college, he gave guitar lessons (and some mandolin) and played bluegrass on the scene in Southwest Virginia with a group of older guys he met at festivals and in bars, who had been playing their whole lives. Between semesters, he helped out at his grandfather’s store and worked various construction jobs. Eventually, he became a field representative for Laborers Local 980, talking to contractors and guys on the job, checking on them and dealing with any grievances. After college, McDowell started working full-time with the Laborers’ Union, training workers to enhance their skills when they were unemployed—work he would do, and do well, for the next eight years.

In 2005, a few years out of college, the boy had become a man (though you should ask him about the “retirement community” he lived in). And then came Ellie June. McDowell‘s cousin Bland went to school at Johns Hopkins, where Bland met a girl named Jen (who he would eventually marry), who happened to be friends with a girl named Ellie. McDowell, who had been going up to Baltimore to hang out on the weekends, first noticed Ellie talking to one of his friends across the room at a bar—a tawny-haired, ballerina-limbed, stunning woman. Aww, shucks, he thought, figuring she was taken. A couple weekends later, they both ended up at the same house party. McDowell was leaning against the refrigerator in front of Ellie, and Jen asked Ellie if she had met him. “Yeah,” Ellie fired back. “He’s the guy that’s full of shit.” McDowell flashed her a grin. Here we go, he thought. This is gonna be fun.

Fast-forward a few more weeks to MerleFest, an annual bluegrass festival in North Carolina. Ellie and one of her friends were going, and McDowell, Livi, and Bland had been going for years, so they all decided to share a campsite. The weather wasn’t great but that night, they sat in the front of the crowd watching the band, and they both happened to look up at the sky in time to see a shooting star gleam past. Later, they were all dancing and Ellie put a flower in her hair. As the party died down, they held hands for the first time. Ellie remembers saying to her friend, “McDowell’s going to be such a good friend. I can see us being such good friends.” McDowell, of course, had other designs. Five full years later, they were married, in June of 2010, and moved into his great-grandparents’ old house at the base of the Appalachians.

Rewind a couple years to early 2008. McDowell, active as ever, was still biking and exploring the mountains. He wanted to find a way to get stronger, but he was reluctant to train at a regular gym, because, “Well, it looked like a whole bunch of no fun.” So Bland called him up one night and told him to check out this website, Crossfit.com.  McDowell did, and they completed their first WOD the next day, in an empty garage space at his office, with a set of dumbbells, a barbell, and iron plates. 7 am workouts pulled from Crossfit.com, plus some Olympic lifting cycles, quickly became their routine. They polished off their homemade gym by building their own squat stands, kettlebells, medicine balls, and a pull-up bar (ask him about these), and installed rings stations. Livi and one of their cousins, Chris, joined them, along with Ellie when she finally moved to Roanoke. McDowell found that the sense of fresh pride he felt in finishing workouts, especially the long and brutal Hero WODs, began to have practical applications with his career and how he carried himself. His familiar instincts kicked in; this felt right. He knew they’d found something special.

His instincts led him far enough to get his Level One certification, in the interest of setting himself up to eventually work in the field. He told a coach at his certification in Charlottesville that he and Ellie were thinking about moving to New York and the coach told him to check out CrossFit South Brooklyn, mentioning some good things about a guy named David Osorio. Ellie had found CFSBK on Google Maps even before the coach mentioned it, and when she read through the blog, she knew, These are our people. (She also knew that if they didn’t move close to a gym, in the absence of the mountains, McDowell “might lose it.”)

And move they did, in pursuit of new career opportunities and experiences they wanted to have before starting a family (including the NYC music scene). McDowell’s first class at CFSBK was a noon-er with Fox, and he got on the leaderboard for Annie (Ellie also quickly got up there, almost a dozen times). After his second visit, David invited him to the Competition Class. About nine months later and almost two years ago today, he spoke to David about coaching. He and MeLo started at the same time, in early 2012. He had finished the last of his work with the Laborers’ Union, which he kept doing remotely after moving, and none of the other positions he’d applied for in his line of work panned out. This, yet again, felt right. He still plays music daily, in the privacy of his apartment in Carroll Gardens, and has seen some of his favorite musicians perform in historic venues around the city. He and Ellie aren’t sure where their journey will take them in the near future, but they’re enjoying the ride—and we’re glad to have them as such an integral part of the staff and community at CFSBK.

(And now he does cool shit like this.) 

Parting Shots
How he likes his eggs: homemade eggnog
Favorite book: Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath
Favorite lift: Snatch
Pets: Three cats, named Mallory, Tessa, and Hobbes
Something he’d like CFSBK members to know: He is never responsible for the country music—so stop accusing him. If he picked, you’d be listening to Coltrane.

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Bartendaz: Mind Up CrossFit Journal
The Best Kept Secret: Why people have to squat differently The Movement Fix
Total nerd actually owns his own computer

Fitness: 5×5 Assisted Chin-ups

Performance: 1RM weighted Chin-Up

Post loads to comments.
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For Time:
Row 1500m
then, 21-15-9 Reps of:
Dumbbell Push Presses @45% bw
Box Jumps 24/20″

Post time and Rx to comments.

The one and only JMD

Heavy, A Response

By Margie Lempert

“How did your squats go?” I ask.

“Heavy. More weight than last time. But heavy,” you say with a mixture of disappointment, exhaustion, and maybe even a hint of disbelief. 

As if you wish, you think, you expect that your increase in weight will feel lighter by virtue of the fact that you got a little stronger. And that’s your goal: to be strong enough that heavy weight feels light.

Well, I think you’ve got your goal backwards.

Weight should be heavy. You should be required to push. Getting strong is hard work, as Mark Rippetoe often says. It is a commitment; not something you suddenly arrive at, but rather a slow, deliberate journey that becomes more challenging over time.

Stress adaptation – a fundamental principle of physiology. When you tax your body it rises to the challenge by growing stronger. Your bones get denser, your muscle fibers increase their contractile potential, and your ability to recruit those muscle fibers becomes more efficient. Increase weight, increase capacity; increase capacity, increase weight. It is a harmonious vertical see-saw.

Once you gain enough technical proficiency to use loads that stimulate growth, you are at the glorious beginning of not just building tolerance for, but ushering in struggle. Struggle signifies progress. “Feeling good under the bar” means you gave it a fight, and are rewarded with the tired satisfaction of getting your reps done. It does not mean an effortless set of 5 where you barely breathed hard and didn’t ever once ask: “Is this rep gonna happen?”

Sure today’s weight will feel light one day: when it’s your warm up on the way to lifting something heavier. Relish heavy weight, it never gets easier. And you shouldn’t want it to.

Speaking of heavy.. the TTD Powerlifting Meet is happening this Sunday at 2:30pm. This event is open and free to all. Come on down if you want to see some of CFSBK’s TFBAs attempt to PR their Back Squat, Bench Press and Deadlift at our in-house meet.
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The Life-Cycle of a CrossFitter, Part 2 – Moving Into Real Fitness Breaking Muscle
Your Chance, Your Choice Your Open CrossFit
How Evolution Works Kurzgesagt

15 minutes to work on the complex of:

Fitness:  Power Snatch + OHS

Performance: Snatch from deck
________________

Back Squat

Fitness: 3×5 Across
Add 5lbs from last week.

Performance: 90%x1x3
work off your projectd 1RM. No Failing. Use this link to project your 1RM then take 90% for today’s work sets.

Post loads to comments.
Snatch/BSQ e5/6
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2 Rounds Not For Time of:
50 Kettlebell Swings
50 Sit-Ups

or 8 Minutes of Kipping pull-up practice

K.R.Editz taking on double unders

• CSA Members, don’t forget your meat pick up is today!
• Happy Birthday, Micheal C!
  
  

LFPB Massage Club with Inka H

Want to explore what it feels like to have more mobility and movement in your body? I’ve spent six weeks over the past three months studying Structural Integration and nerding up with Tom Myers at his home base in Maine. What is Structural Bodywork and how is it different from regular massage therapy?

Structural Integration uses our fascia as a vehicle to reshape and realign our structure, (our structure is the relationship in space among the components of the body ) as well as retrain our nervous system in order to have more fluidity of movement, more energy, greater performance to enhance your daily life and athletic performance. Curious about massage and want to experience the benefits while taking part in the challenge? Join the club for the next 4 weeks and enjoy the benefits massage has to offer to your athletic performance, health, sleep, stress, and overall well being.

Here’s the scoop: Inka will be offering 25 minute massages for $40 each. Sold in a package of 4 over the next four weeks. Each week will focus on a different area of your body and on specific muscles used in workouts that are hard to get to on your own. Inka will be at the gym on weekends with hours Friday – Sunday, and also at her home office in Boerum Hill during the week. Space is limited for weekend slots. Email her directly with any questions. inka.hodes AT gmail.com
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Culinary Photographers Create Edible Backdrops for a World of Miniature Inhabitants Colossal
Lucas Parker on Steroids in Competitive CrossFit
Creating Art on Skin CrossFit

January Athlete of the Month: Peter Mattis

Were excited to roll out the first AOM of the new year! Peter has been a standout 6am athlete for some time now, consistently biking to our doors in all kinds of weather to humbly crush lifts and WODs in our earliest class of the day. Read on a bit to learn more about this great all around guy.

Fox – How and when did you find CrossFit and CFSBK?

Peter – I’d been training over at Slope Fitness, working with a trainer that had started doing some CF style workouts with me and introduced me to crossfit.com. I was doing a lot of running at the time but would mix in some workouts off the mainsite into my routine. I remember being utterly crushed by CIndy, probably the first one I did solo. One day I showed up to a padlocked Slope Fitness and quickly realized that I had to join another gym. They’d apparently gone out of business with no warning to the members. I looked at some other local gyms but was keen on trying out CFSBK. I did a test out in the summer of 2011 and started with a punch card. At the time the class schedule just didn’t work out for my family. I soon negotiated with Kat, my wife, and was able to start coming regularly to the 6am class.

Fox – I remember your test out and you asking if we would ever have a 5am class…I think I replied that I didn’t see that happening anytime soon. Not sure we’re any closer to it! You were running at the time. Did you race?

Peter – Yeah, I trained for and ran marathons but was frustrated by the long training runs and eventually suffered a stress fracture in my lower leg. I came across CF Endurance and Brian Mackenzie and was really intrigued. I’m kind of over the long distance bug now though.

Fox – What did the “negotiation” process look like with Kat, to allow you to CrossFit?

Peter – Well we have three kids (Finn – 6, Alice – 4, and Eve – 2) and it was really a matter of how do we juggle and balance out the mornings with them. Kat graciously realized that I need the gym in my life, it’s not really just a luxury for me. I’m nuts if I don’t workout. So we make it work.

Fox – It takes a lot of commitment to keep showing up at the crack of dawn, and it’s really something to realize the give and take that people and families make to come in. What keeps you coming in?

Peter – Well I right away enjoyed the competitive aspect of the gym and with the guys I used as yardsticks. Dan Betz, Kevin Rooney, Isaac Green, and Chris Paschke were all guys I tried to beat or come close to early on. And obviously the coaching, especially on the technical lifts and gymnastics stuff is huge. The cool toys we have, being able to bail, these are all things that you don’t get in a lot of gyms. I was unaware though how important the social aspect of the gym would be to me. It’s really rewarding to have relationships in the gym instead of walking around with headphones in all the time. As our youngest gets a bit older, the larger SBK community is something I look forward to being even more a part of. I recently renegotiated with my wife to be able to come in on Sundays as well, instead of the M-F that I’d been doing for a long time.

Fox – Great stuff! Love the Betz and Rooney mentions, too. Those were some solid guys we had around. I have to mention that one of the names I look for on the board is yours, to see where I should wind up on a WOD. Let’s hear about Peter outside of the gym.

Peter – Well I’m a California guy from Silicon Valley, and went to the same high school as Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. I’m not sure if it was the area or what, but I gravitated towards programming from the point that I was introduced to computers in high school. It seemed relatively easy to me when compared to classes like English…that stuff was hard! I eventually went to Berkeley and was what I guess you would consider a solid nerd. I’d played tennis and soccer in high school but not in college. I focused on my computer science classes and pretty much neglected other stuff. When I graduated I worked for a few start ups before starting my own, then I worked for Google for 10 years. That’s how I wound up in New York. in 2004 they asked me to move here when they were opening the NY office. My best friend Spencer was also moving to NYC so it was a no-brainer.

Fox – Seems like it worked out, as you’re still here 10 years later. You still best friends with Spencer? Still work for Google?

Peter – Actually Spencer is now my brother-in-law, and my business partner! Spencer is Kat’s brother, and a few years ago he and I started our own software company called Viewfinder. We were recently acquired by Square so all is going well on that front too.

Fox – Acquisition always sounds like a nefarious term. I’m glad it’s actually a good thing for you! Any hobbies outside of CF? 

Peter – It’s pretty much family, work, and CrossFit, in that order. If I had more time that would mean more CrossFit. I’d like to be able to do more competitions and come to more gym events. Other than that I guess cooking is a hobby I enjoy. I do mostly simple stuff. Salmon, chicken, rice, stuff like that.

Fox – You strike me as a guy who eats pretty clean most of the time. Am I right?

Peter – Yeah pretty much but it wasn’t always that way. When I started college I was a was a 6 foot tall, 150 pound twig. A few years after college and after a few years of partying I was a “soft” 180 pounds or bone and belly. I spent a lot of money at clubs and a lot of time hungover. Now I’m a differently distributed 195 pounds and generally hang around there. I’ll indulge in burgers and bourbon every now and then but mostly keep it in check.

Fox – I can’t see you as a 150 pound guy, or a pudgy 180 pounder. Alright, last question. What should we look for in a future AOM?

Peter – Someone who trains consistently over a long period, maybe at least a year. I think regular attendance is important. Also someone who trains with positivity vs being frustrated. Even if you have a bad training day, helping out with someone else’s equipment and stuff can go a long way, both for the person you’re helping out and yourself.

Still want to compete in Sunday’s TTD Meet?

We have had several slots open up for this weekend’s ladies powerlifting meet. If you are interested in snagging one, please contact Margie (margielempert AT gmail.com) as soon as possible to find out all the details!  Register here!

New post on Inside the Affiliate

Coach DO has a new blog entry on Inside the Affiliate about a test Fox created for our coaching staff. Check it out to learn more about cleans (and which superhero Fox would be). ITA is a free, open source blog for the CrossFit community dedicated to sharing what we’ve learned running an affiliate for six years. If you like it, please share it with your CrossFit friends on Facebook and help spread the word!

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Free The Animal
New Rules in the 2014 CrossFit Games Season
Top Tips for First Two Years of CrossFit Tabata Times