Family AR Time with Kate and Baxter

• Best of luck to Kenji Summers who will be moving out to Powder Mountain in Eden, Utah. Kenji will be living in the Summit Community with other young and forward thing entrepreneurs to help accelerate his Passport Project buisness as well as participating in community development at Summit. Awesome!
• Happy Birthday, Jason M!

CSA Recipes!

Not sure what to do with your most recent haul from Sol Flower Farm? Check out Michele K’s recipe and food blog, The Daily Paleo

CFSBK Rowathalon

SBK is sending a team of eight to compete this Sunday at a rowathon at Reebok CrossFit Fifth Avenue to support the Emergency and Trauma Fund at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, where some victims of the Boston bombing were treated. “Rowathon” – sounds fun, right? That’s 42,195m of pure joy on the erg. Each athlete will row 5000m consecutively, and then roll over into a pool of her sweat to make way for the next victim. And all the action will be projected on a virtual river on a big screen! So come and cheer on our rowers – doors open at 8:30AM – and please donate to this cause here
Mike Creamer, a coach at Reebok CrossFit Fifth Avenue, is the organizer of the event. Be sure to list CFSBK as your affliate.

Adele Myers

*Monte suffered a knee injury playing soccer and had to pull out of this event. (Get well soon, Monte!). If you’re interested in jumping in please contact Nick(AT)CrossFitSouthBrooklyn.com. We need folks asap and could use a rower under 165lbs if possible.
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Scientists Unlock Mystery in Evolution of Pitchers NYT

Fitness: Hip Power Snatch + Overhead Squat
Work on a tight start and end positions, fast barbell and controlled OHS

Performance: Hang Power Snatch + Hang Snatch
Focus on an explosive extension on the power snatch, then coupling that same extension with an aggressive pull under for the second movement.

We recommend doing these MWODs before class. ESPECIALLY if you’re not an overhead squat ninja.
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Press 

Fitness: 3×5 across
Leave room to go up over the next 6 weeks

Performance: 5/3/1 “5 week“
65%x5, 75%x5, 85%x5+

Add 5 lbs to your Training Max from last cycle.

Post loads to comments.
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Christine Gets Her Deadlift On!

• Happy Birthdays to: Stella Z, BAZ, Kevin R and Mike B
• Recently Coach Nick’s college rowing coach, Harry Parker passed away. Check out this video to see the man that helped make Nick and many others Olympic level athletes.
  

Spartan Race Raffle Extension

You may have noticed that we’ve got a raffle going on at the Front Desk. Any CFSBKer can enter for free to win a comped admission to any Reebok Spartan Race in the continental United States. That includes the one several CFSBKers have signed up for on 5/31/14.
Take a red ticket and print your name and email address on it. The winner will be chosen this Friday, June 28th and announced on the blog Saturday. Thanks to Coach Melo for setting this up!
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Train Like A Champion: Technique, Habits and Positivity Cathletics

Fitness: 3×5 across
Leave room to go up over the next 6 weeks

Performance: 5/3/1 “5 week“
65%x5, 75%x5, 85%x5+

Add 5-10 lbs to your Training Max from last cycle.

Post loads to comments.
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As Many Rounds As Possible In 8 Minutes Of:
10 Dumbbell Split Cleans, Alternating legs
150m Row

Go hard on the row and take your time bracing and executing every split clean. Go as heavy as you can organize well. After the workout, cash out with 2:00 in couch stretch each side.

Post load and rounds completed to comments.

Yoga With Whitney Hubbard

Whitney will be teaching at Mala Yoga soon. Check out the details below if you want to get your OM on with one of CFSBK’s finest.

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Ménage à Trois Radio with a special CFSBK guest…

This Cycle’s Standardized Warm-Ups

Here are the next two standardized warm-ups for the current cycle. They’re very similar to the previous rotation with some minor tweaks and positional emphasis built in.

Warm-Up 1
3 Rounds NFT of:
12 Overhead Squats 2-2-2 Tempo
10 Push-Ups 2-1-2 Tempo
8 Ring Rows 2-2-2 Tempo

Squats: Focus on creating as much torque and tension in your body, especially at the bottom of the squat. 2-2-2 means two seconds on the way down, two second hold at the bottom and then a two second ascent. If a PVC is easy, scale up to a barbell. If you’re no where near overhead squatting a barbell and even a PVC proves nearly impossible to hold overhead, consider grabbing a barbell (not a PVC) and working your Front Squat rack position instead. That being said, you’ll need to work your overhead position with mobilizations before and after class every day.
Want to learn way too much about the OHS? click here.

Push-Ups: Before every descent, make sure to squeeze your butt, belly and create some torque at your shoulders. The bottom position is only held for one second and should be active as possible.  A simply way to organize yourself is to imagine your belly button being the last thing to touch the floor and the first thing to leave the ground on the way up. Don’t rush these and ask a coach to put a plate on your back if you’d like to scale them up.

Ring Rows: Same old ring row, but using the 2-2-2 tempo allows you to develop the finished position with your shoulders back and a hollow body position. When your elbows are extended, keep the squeeze in your upper back, don’t go soft in the shoulders when you’re at the bottom position.

Warm-Up 2
3 Rounds NFT of:
:20 Static Hollow Hold
20 Reverse Lunges
5 Pull-Ups or Chin-Ups with a :02 hold at the top

Hollow Hold: We are starting on the floor with your arms overhead. Start by going through your basic bracing strategy, then picking up the head and shoulders with the arms overhead followed by raising your legs (with straight knees) until your lower back presses against the floor. To see a video of this, click here. If your lower back is not pressed into the ground, you’re blowing it.

Reverse Lunges: Alternate legs until you get to 20 or go 10 on one side then switch. We recommend loading this movement with a bumper plate or dumbbells if the bodyweight version is easy.

Pull-Ups or Chin-Ups:  With the emphasis on holding the top and finishing with a neutral head position, you stand to make the most improvements in your overall performance by getting this right.  At the top, your elbows should be pulled down and back and you should be looking across the room, not up at the ceiling. Scale your assist so that you can get the bar in line with your clavicle, not your chin reaching over. I can’t emphasize how much getting better at the last few inches will make your pull-ups that much easier in the long run.

If you do nothing else today, watch this video to understand this position.
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What’s the most painful mobilization you’ve experienced in the last month or so?

Fitness: 3×5 across
leave room to go up over the next 6 weeks

Performance: 5/3/1 “5 week“
65%x5, 75%x5, 85%x5+

Add 5 lbs to your Training Max from last cycle.

Post loads to comments.
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5 Rounds For Time of:
15 Kettlebell Swings, 72lbs/53lbs
10 Hand Release Push-Ups
5 L-Pull-Ups

For the Push-Ups, think of your belly button being the last thing to touch the floor on the way down and the first part of you to leave the ground on the way up.
If you can’t perform L-Pull-ups, substitute 5 normal pull-ups or 10 Ring Rows

Post time and Rx to comments.

Crystal Castles Gets Her First Muscle Up!

Understanding “Fitness” Strength Programming

Our “Fitness” strength programming follows linear progressions using sets across for each lift. For those of you just jumping on board or who might be a little confused, here’s the 101 on what we’re talking about.

Essentially, “Sets Across” just means that you’ll be doing the same weight for all your work sets on a given lift. For example, if you’re Back Squatting 3×5, you’ll do 3-4 warm-up sets at increasing weights and then perform all 5 reps of all 3 work sets at the same weight. This is in contrast to “Maximal Effort” lifting in which you’d be gaming for a maximal weight at a given rep range.  Many of our newer athletes are not ready neurologically or structurally for this type of lifting and need a ramp up period of sets across to avoid injury and set themselves up for larger gains in the future.

At CFSBK, we pick a pool of 3-5 movements and rotate them for a period of 6 weeks. Because you know that you’ll get 6 or 12 exposures to each of these lifts over the next few weeks, you can game out a strategy for successful lifting sessions through the entire cycle.  Here are two examples of what we’d love to see in your log books at the end of the cycle.

Press
Week 1 75x5x3
Week 2 80x5x3
Week 3 85x5x3
Week 4 87.5x5x3
Week 5 90x5x3
Week 6 92.5x5x3

Deadlift
Week 1 135×5
Week 2 145×5
Week 3 155×5
Week 4 160×5
Week 5 165×5
Week 6 170×5

This hypothetical athlete completed all 6 exposures and was able to increase their weights each time.  They never went to failure because they had a plan and were not greedy with weight.  The next time these lifts come up, they’ll be able to start at the 4 or 5 week weight and continue to linearly increase their numbers.  Again, with sets across, you’ll have to put your lifting into a larger perspective than just what you’re doing that day.  You’re building a foundation of strength, one brick at at time.

FAQs
How do I know what weight to start with?
Simply start with something that feels light. Too light.  If you pick a weight that has you struggling to finish your reps the first couple weeks, you’ve gone too heavy.  Remember that you’re setting yourself up for a lifetime of weight lifting and there’s no need to rush into big weights.  If you’ve had some lifting exposure and want to try sets across, take your existing max at that rep range and subtract %~20 off of it for a starting weight.

What if I start missing reps?
Eventually you will start to miss reps, ideally this won’t be for a full 2-3 cycles of the movement in question.  When this happens, you need to ask yourself and a Coach the following questions: “Was I too greedy with weight?”, “Is my technique/mobility on this movement sufficiently developed to handle larger loads?” “Am I having an off day? Did I plan my warm-up sets correctly?” Once we dig a little, we can find out what’s going on and help you strategize to keep moving forward.  Sometimes you just need to try the same weight again the following week and sometimes you’ll have to drop some weight off the bar and start building back up.

To learn more about how to trouble shoot your linear, read our related article, “Troubleshooting Your Linear Progression”

What if I don’t come often enough to hit all of these lifting sessions?
If you can only make it to CFSBK a 2 times per week, choose one of the movements (Ideally one squat and one opper body movement) and focus on them for the next 6 weeks. For a 3 time a weeker, you would choose the same movements as above and then one other lift that you want to develop. Try to stick to the same schedule for the entire cycle to get the most out of the strength programming.  If you don’t know what to do, consult with one of the coaches and we’ll steer you in the right direction.

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Training The Brain CrossFit Journal
Gymnastics Flexibility and Stretching Primer Gymnastics WOD