Fitness: 3×5 Across
Should still be moving quick today. You’ll be adding weight for 5 more weeks

Performance: 2×5, 1xMax Reps <10
Start cycle at 70% of 1RM. Add 2.5-5lbs each week.

Post loads to comments.
Bench Press e2/6
_____________________

16 Minute On The Minute Mash-Up
Even Minutes: :30 Max reps Burpees
Odd Minutes: :30 Max reps Kettlebell Swings

Post total Burpees and Kettlebell Swings to comments.

Congratulations to yesterday’s Strength Cycles on their performance at the CrossFit Total
Check out Becca W‘s leaderboard topping Squat at 280lbs here!

• Congrats to Luca and Elisa on their engagement!
• Looking forward to the 2014 Look, Feel, Perform Better Challenge? Coach Fox will be holding an info session on Sunday the 29th at 5pm.

Inside The Affiliate: New Article

Coach DO has a new blog entry on “Inside The Affiliate” about how we run lifting segments. 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!

Finish this sentence: “I wish the path to elite fitness was actually….”
________________________
The Neuroscience of Internet Addiction
27 Surreal Places To Visit Before You Die
California Strength: Train Hard

Fitness:

6 Total Rounds each for time of:
500m Row
25 Wall Ball Shots 20lb,10’/14lb,9′

Performance:

6 Total Rounds for time of:
500m Row
5 Muscle-Ups
25 Air Squats
3 Muscle-Ups

Partners will alternate per round until each person completes 3 full rounds. Be aware of how long each round takes you, try to stay consistent or drop time each interval.

Post total time, partner and Rx to comments.

Mare L, Mike F, Coach Jess, Coach Fox, Alan L, Coach Mcdowell and Ellie JM after yesterday’s CrossFit Hoboken Winter Challenge

CrossFit Total Today!

Come see Coach Jeremy’s Strength Cyclers perform a CrossFit Total today at 1:30pm.  This cummulates the past 8 weeks of training as each lifter attemps 1RMs in the Back Squat, Press and Deadlift.  Gym records may be broken today!
_________________________
Cigarettes, Roids and Switching Regions with Dan Bailey CrossFit
Epke Zonderland Wins Artistic Men’s Horizontal Bar Gold

Fitness: Clean Segment Deadlift + Hang Power Clean + FSQ + Power Jerk

Performance: Clean Segment Deadlift + Hang Squat Clean + Power Jerk
___________________

Front Squat

Fitness:3×3 Across

Performance: Work up to a Heavy 5

Post loads to comments.
C&J/FSQ e1/6

Barbell Warm-Ups.
Doug J, on the right here will be trading BK for Austin at the end of the month. We’ll miss you, DJ!!

• Good luck to Coaches Fox, Lady Fox and Mcdowell as well as Ellie JM, Mike F, Mare L and Alan L competing in the CrossFit Hoboken Winter Challenge today!

Other Stuff We Sell

Did you know we recently got in new CFSBK THERMALS!!!Check them out at the Front Desk next time you’re at the gym. We also sell a few other things beyond clothing and memberships. Check out the list below and see if you can’t benefit from picking up one of these items.

Becoming a Supple Leopard: $35
The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury and Optimizing Athletic Performance. Dr. Kelly Starrett’s textbook on how to perform all the movements we do at CrossFit, a template for understanding movement restrictions and tons of mobilizations you can do to help get you into better positions and increase performance. 400 pages with full color photos. 

Lacrosse Balls: $2
You have no excuses to not own at LEAST one lacross ball. This is the “fine brush” in your mobilization tool box.  There are countless ways to inflict some soft tissue love (hate) on yourself with these guys. Great for sore muscles, adhesions and general stiffness. Great stocking stuffers!

Fish Oil: $35
Magnesium: $25
Vitamin D: $15
Or, purchase all three for $70
Balance out your Omegas, decrease inflammation, stay happy in the winter, defeat your enemies and look better naked. Nuff said.

Private Training: Variable
People often consider themselves to be either a group class member OR someone that does Personal Training.  Group class members should consider some once off or even semi regular private training to develop skills, trouble shoot movement issues and understand how to accomplish their goals. On top of our packages, we also offer 1/2 hour sessions for $55 and single hour sessions for $90. 

CFSBK Stickers: Free

Represent!
__________________
Great cycling video or.. the GREATEST cycling video?

The inagural Active Recovery class in the upstairs expansion!

CrossFit Masters Petition

Here is an online petition for regionals for masters.  Last year there was some issues with masters games competitors who seemed unable to do some basic movements.  I signed it and perhaps others at CFSBK would also.   Thanks a lot, –Bob S

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.

___________________
Competitive Teeter-Tottering
Nutrition in the NBA; Part II: Paleo diet takes hold for myriad reasons
15K-Square-Foot Indoor Tennis Center Planned for Gowanus
Donny Shankle, Attention to Detail

15-9-6 Reps For Time of:
Barbell Thrusters, 165/110
Chest to Bar Pull-Ups

Post time and Rx to comments.

Behind The Desk: Jaclyn Kahn

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: Jaclyn Kahn

Where were you born and where did you grow up:
Born in NJ (please don’t judge), grew up half in Jersey and half in Manhattan

First album that you loved:
Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik

What are you up to when you’re not at 597 Degraw Street:
Teaching yoga around Brooklyn and Manhattan

“Ask me about that time I…”:
Met a Bedouin in Petra

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?
I really don’t know.. maybe a toilet bowl? A computer is so obvious and a newspaper or diary won’t really last too long as it’s made of paper.

Favorite shade of blue:
Midnight blue

Favorite lift:
Deadlift

Snatch Complex

By: Chris Fox
FYI Gang – I think the snatch is the coolest thing you can do with a barbell. Yesterday’s snatch work was not meant to set a new snatch PR, or really even come close (unless you’re a brand new newb). Most people were probably (or should have been) working in the 70-85% range. The positions and pauses are meant to slow you down so you can ingrain them for when you do pull at full speed again. It’s about taking the bar off the floor in a controlled manner so you can pull it to the position it needs to be to execute a beautiful and ferocious snatch, which of course is the end goal. If the first pull (off the floor) is rushed, if the back angle is not held consistent (by picking the chest up too soon) until the mid-hang, if the bar doesn’t come from the mid-hang through the hips (by moving the knees forward too soon) in the power position…all of these faults will likely result in a missed lift (usually forward,) or even worse an ugly pressed out snatch-type-thing. Nobody wants to practice crappy movement. We’re here to move better each week, and there can be a lot of progress made in that regard at lower weights. We’ll be seeing position work and some pauses throughout this cycle. Be patient, young padawan. You should add enough weight to have some feedback from the bar but not enough that you can’t maintain positions and perform a proper snatch.

Three cheers to the snatch!
___________________
Happy Birthday, Coach Fox!