CrossFit South Brooklyn

Established 2007

Front Squat

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Fitness: 3×5
Perform your fourth exposure to Front Squats. Bar speed should remain quick and your positions should be perfect.

Performance: 80%x2x6
Rest 60-90 secs between reps.

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FSQ e4/6 compare to 3.14.13

Tabata Mash Up
Alternating Tabata rounds for reps of:
KB Swing
Box Jump
*Score is lowest rep round for each movement
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In one of the most exciting moments of the Open so far, Willie gets 135 overhead!

Introducing BNCHMRK

This Friday, CFSBK says goodbye to our very own Dan Betz.  Please wish him and his family well as they move to the far away land of New Jersey.  Though he plans to visit often, you can also stay in touch with him through his new web app called BNCHMRK.  Check out his blurb below!
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As CrossFitters, tracking and reflecting on our performance is part of our daily routine — we write our scores on the whiteboard after class and (some of us) post them in the comments on the blog. This is important, awesome stuff and deserves a more permanent and more easily accessible home. Over the past few months, I’ve been working with a couple of friends to build something for this very purpose. BNCHMRK is a web app for tracking your performance on all of the benchmark workouts — the major lifts, runs, rows, girls, heroes, and we even have the CF Games open workouts.

With BNCHMRK, you can track both quantitative and qualitative feedback on your workouts — enter your score and notes (strategy, scaling, thoughts, etc) and build a personal profile filled with your stats. It’s all mobile-optimized, so you can also use it as reference at the gym. For example – say you show up at the gym and we’re doing Helen again but you’re not sure how you did last time or which kettlebell you used. No problem because you logged everything on BNCHMRK! Simply fire up BNCHMRK.ME, check your past Helen scores and read your notes, formulate a plan, crush your PR, and then log your new score while you’re still on your back recovering.
Huge thanks to the group of CFSBKers who were part of the early beta versions and whose feedback helped shape this thing! And of course more feedback is always welcome. 

-Dan Betz

What’s your method of tracking your workout metrics and accomplishments?
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6 Tips for People who Stand All Day Eric Cressey

Bench Press

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Fitness: 3×8 Sets Across
LP Add 2-5lbs to last week.

AMRAP 6 min
30 Double Unders
10 HR Push Ups
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Performance: Heavy 5
Work up to a top set of 5 reps. Try and go heavier than last weeks 5

AMRAP 6 min
30 Double Unders
10 Bench Press @ 70% of today’s work.
MUST USE SPOTTERS, NO EXCEPTIONS!

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BP e4/6 compare to 3.14.13
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Res takes a crack at 13.2

Developing Your Pull-Up

By Coach Christian Fox

There are a bunch of reasons to get better at doing pull ups. For one, we do a bunch of them in CrossFit. They’re also a great way to increase the strength of your upper back, arms, lats, grip, and help to have a balanced and healthy shoulder girdle. You should be able to do strict pull ups with a variety of grips, and once you can consistently do few pull ups  at a time it may be time to start working on the kipping pull up. Here’s how you’re going to get better, no matter where in the scheme of it you are.

Beginner
(No pull ups, or “I did one, once…”)

“A” Day
3 sets of 12 reps of either: Ring Rows or Band Assisted Pull Ups. Use an angle or band that makes completing all the repetitions challenging. Rest as needed between sets.

Followed by, 3 Supersets of 12 reps of either: Dumbbell Curls (I know you’ve secretly wanted to do these anyway) or  Dumbbell Rows with either: Dumbbell Bench Press or Dumbbell Floor Press.  Choose a weight that feels like you could have done another rep or two at the end of the set. Take minimal rest between exercises in the superset.
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“B” Day
10 ‘mini sets’ of 1 rep each of 5-10 second negatives using either a pull top or set a box up that allows you to start at the top (collar bone above the bar). Yes, that seems like a lot of rest in between reps, and no, it’s not a lot of total reps. That’s a good thing, trust me.

Alternate between the A day and the B day with a day of rest between workouts. An example would be:
Monday A – Wednesday B – Saturday A – Monday B – Wednesday A – Saturday B
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Intermediate
(Can do 3-5 pull ups at a time)

Week 1)  6 sets of 2 reps. Rest 1 minute between sets. Perform twice a week.
Week 2)  5 sets of 3 reps. Rest 1 minute between sets. Perform twice a week.
Week 3)  4 sets of 4 reps. Rest 90-120 seconds between sets. Perform twice a week.
Week 4)  3 sets to failure. Rest 3 minutes between sets. Perform twice a week.

This program can be used until you have 3 sets of 10 reps in the 4th week. In other words, if you don’t get the 3×10 in week 4 restart at week 1 by adding a rep to the sets. Week one would be 6×3, week 2 would be 5×4, and week 3 would be 4×5, then retest in week 4.

End each session by practicing kipping pulls ups for a few small sets, no more than 5 sets and no more than 8 reps. Terminate the set if you fall out of rhythm. It’s all about developing a rhythm that you can control and maintain. Remember that a solid kip uses your whole body and don’t forget that your abs need to be engaged throughout. If you fly open in the front of the kip you are leaking tons of energy away from the bar.
Check out this video for a peek at what an efficient pull up should look like.
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Advanced
(Can regularly do sets of 10 or more strict and/or kipping)

Congrats, you stud or stud-ette. You are now on your way to becoming elite! Don’t expect though that your pull ups will magically become better if you don’t practice them. You should still be working on both strict and kipping pull ups. Mix up the grip that you use when you practice. Try these.

1) Once a week do a set or two to near failure. Start with a pull up grip (hands outside shoulder width and palms away) and when you are 2 reps shy of failure switch to a chin up grip (hands inside shoulder width and palms toward you). When you are 2 reps shy of failure switch to a mixed grip (1 palm in, 1 palm out) and do the same before switching again.

2) You can practice similarly by doing a set or two of max strict pull ups,  immediately switching to kipping and again going till failure (or a rep shy of it).

3) Start doing weighted pull ups/chin ups, 3 sets of 5 reps, and seeing if you can add weight each week.

4) 30 seconds on/30 seconds off for 5 minutes of max reps kipping pull ups. The set ends if you come off the bar. Remember to stay engaged in the trunk. Don’t leak energy out in front. Remember this video.

5) Each time you’re in the gym do a 3-5 sub-max sets of kipping pull ups, trying to add a rep each time you do the drill. You want to feel fresh and stay shy of failure here. Terminate the set if grip becomes the limiting factor. Again, remember to stay engaged and not leak energy out of the front of the kip. Once again…

6) If you have a solid kip that just seems to go away on you when you get gassed then try practicing your pull ups under duress. Do 50 double unders or sprint down the block and back followed immediately by a set of 10-15 pull ups.

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If one of the days that you’re in the gym involves a lot of pull ups then consider that a replacement day for one of the days on the above programs. Also consider this…it’s no mistake that smaller, lighter people have an easier time with pull ups. While the barbell exercises can be scaled easily to ability, calisthenics can not. If you have some weight to lose then a solid nutritional program can work in tandem with the above programs to help you achieve the pull up. Check out the folks over at Whole 9 or our buddy Robb Wolf for lots of info from simple tips to detailed programs to get you started. Three cheers getting yer pull ups up!!!

We’ve recently had a consistent group of 4-6 members staying after class to work on Fox’s program.  What is your weakest movement and what are you doing to get better?
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Face Off: The Open Announcement Experience Crossfit Games

Rest Day

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Dave F, Andrew M and Benson do some Rest Day Active Recovery

Prospect Park Women’s Softball League

Call ladies of all skill levels!  Starting tomorrow and this weekend, PPWSL will be holding tryouts for ladies who’d like to join the women’s softball league.  The league is known as a learning league and makes sure that each team has players of all skill levels, from beginners to advanced.  Games are held on weeknights at Prospect Park beginning in Spring and the season wraps up in early September. 

Coach Jess has been with the league for the past 4 years so feel free to contact her at jessica(at)crossfitsouthbrooklyn.com with any questions. 

More details on the tryouts can be found here.

We know it’s mighty cold outside, so let’s think about Summer!  What warm weather activities are you most looking forward to this Summer?

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What CFSBK looked like August 2010

Back Squat

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Fitness:Low Bar Back Squat 3×5
Continue your linear progression by adding 5lbs to your previous exposure weight

Performance: High Bar Pause Squat 75%x2x8
Rest about a minute, no more than 2 minutes between sets.

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BSQ e4/6 compare to 3.11.13
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Partners alternate rounds for 10 total rounds for time of:
5 Strict Toes to Bar or 21 Sit Ups
7 Heavy Dumbbell Thrusters

Post Rx and time to comments.

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The Competition Floor

Appropriate scaling

by Coach Fox

We all know that CrossFit is infinitely scalable. We have CF Kids who do scaled down versions of what our regular classes look like. You tell your Mom and your Grandma that yes; they too, can walk into their local CF affiliate and get some. In Foundations at CFSBK or at a Level 1 cert, your coach lectured you that CrossFit is constantly varied, functional movement, executed at (relatively) high intensity. Remember that adjective: relatively. After CrossFitting for a while you may feel like you should do every WOD Rx’d…not so.
 
What high intensity means for all of us is different. Sometimes the difference is scaled via time/perceived effort. For example: 2 athletes complete Fran as Rx’d. Athlete A finishes in 3:00 flat, while athlete B finishes in 6:59. One took more than 2x as long as the other. Did they both get a dose of CrossFit? For sure. Let’s assume that athlete B scaled back intensity and paced the workout more and didn’t redline because he didn’t sleep well the night before and was feeling sluggish. That sounds like smart scaling to me. Here’s another scenario. Athlete A is the same, but athlete B finishes the workout in just under 12:00. He breaks the movements up into 3 or 4 at a time from start, and his movement is a mess from the 10th thruster on, missing ROM on a few of the pull-ups along the way. He was well rested and just really wanted to do his first Rx’d Fran. Here athlete B gets a very different workout. It became more a matter of slogging through to the finish instead of sprinting to the end, and the metabolic effect of the WOD was lost. Some scaling on weight or reps may have gotten him the intended effect of the infamous 21-15-9 of thrusters and pull-ups. If his thrusters were the limiting factor using a 75lb barbell may have been appropriate. If pull-ups were the time suck then maybe going 12-9-6 on that portion would have made the difference.
 
Just this week you were challenged to find your max weight for a “4 minute Grace”.  This was a great active lesson on scaling that I hope you got. Sure, sometimes it can be good just to go at a WOD Rx’d for the sake of completing it as such. There can be some real mental/emotional benefit to that. The majority of the time though, when it comes to met-cons, especially the short/intense kind, try and find where your intensity level needs to be for the intended effect of the workout. Then focus on getting stronger and the Rx’d weight will come. A good estimate for high rep barbell work is to use around 65% of your max. So if your max clean and jerk were 150lbs, then 95-100 lbs would probably get you a good dose of Grace. If you’re not sure where or when to scale, just ask one of the coaches as CFSBK. That’s what we’re here for. Cheers to good training.

What is the greatest sporting event you’ve ever witnessed? (You don’t have to had been there or seen it live)
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Analyzing the Squat Starting Strength
Application TTMJ

Clean and Jerk Complex

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Spend 12 Minutes working up to a heavy load on the following complex:
1/2 Pull
Hang Power Clean
Front Squat
Split Jerk

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C&J e3/6
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For Time:
20 Kipping Pull-Ups
800m Run
20 Kipping Pull-Ups
400m Run
20 Kipping Pull-Ups

Post time and Rx to comments.

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Sam Goes Overhead During 13.1

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 1,511th place in the North East (where I’m at) 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. While each workout IS a test, they shouldn’t interfere with your training program to the point that you’re actually not as productive in your long term goals because you spent 5 weeks doing a bunch of the same workouts over and over again. Additionally, 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. Maybe you can, but it doesn’t really mean that you’re any fitter necessarily, maybe you just were a little better at how you worked your transitions or broke up your reps.

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.

What are your thoughts on re-doing Open workouts?
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Interview: Coach Greg Glassman