3-3-3-3-3

Five attempts to find a 3RM!

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compare to 8.17.11

Congratulations to Rebecca R and Daniel O on the birth of their new son, Elliot Bristow Olmstead!!!

Fight Gone Bad House Teams 9, 10 and 11!

Team 9
Shawna Scheidel
Sean Buchanan
Jason Horowitz
Justin Ziccardi
Noah Abbott

Team 10
McDowell Myers
Peter Hoppmann
jaclyn zerillo
Chris Paschke
Craig Canton

Team 11
Joshua Lahey
Sarah Archenbronn
Yoshi Stone
David Makowski
Rob Nugent

A Call For Volunteers!

As many of you know, this Saturday is the final event of the Subway Series at CFSBK.  In order for the gym to run a great event we’ll need some volunteers to help with registration and judging.  If you’ve got some time on Saturday between 9am and 1pm we would love a few extra hands to help us out.  Please email David(at)CrossFitSouthBrooklyn.com to sign up as a volunteer.  Thanks!

Labor Day CFSBK Surf Trip!

Class Schedule Updates

There are no classes this Saturday for the final event of the CF Subway Series.  There will also be no Active Recovery next Tuesday night.  To see all the upcoming schedule changes, please check out the Class Schedule page which lists all upcoming holidays and events that affect the our calendar.
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The Affects of Abdominal Exercise on Abdominal Fat NSCA
Born, and Evolved to Run NY Times

Vitals
Height: 5’8”
Weight: 165-170
DOB: 12/12/72
Born: Astoria, Queens
Grew up: Queens and Jersey
Places of Higher Learning: Natural Gourmet Institute and CUNY Kingsborough (Exercise Science)

Chris on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

“I had always been kind of a “dreamer” and not a “doer”. The author tries to reconcile between romantic notions of quality (or, what is “good”) and pragmatic notions of quality and develop a view point and way of living that includes both. I became focused on being less “romantic” than I had been in the past after reading it. It was kind of like…I wanted to still see the world as a beautiful, sometimes mysterious place, but also learn how to function in it and achieve goals in a way that was as productive and useful as possible. I became more goal oriented and action based than I had been. Also I stopped throwing away old stuff and started repairing or learning how to repair it.”

On the surface, Chris’ life is all zig zags, but when you look closer, you find that his ability to turn his instincts into opportunities is the thru line that creates cohesion.

Raised in a milieau of broken homes and rooftop play, Chris’ family was no exception. Early on, his parents split, and he and his brother were raised by his Mom and Stepdad. A pudgy kid, Chris was into oreo cookies, his bmx mongoose, punch ball, imitating WWF with his friends and Manhunt – a game that involved chasing each other from roof to roof around the neighborhood, parkour style. It was a chaotic youth of parent/child clashes, family alcoholism and book report avoidance.

Late in his childhood, Chris’ Mom and Stepdad moved the family to Jersey, which resulted in serious culture shock. People in Jersey were friendly. They, like, smiled and said hi. It creeped Chris out. Maybe that’s why he fled back to Yonkers after a final bout with Mom, who’d really had enough of Chris’ affinity for stirring the pot. (Don’t worry, they patched things up later.)

At that point, Chris made the decision to earn a living rather than get into debt over school loans. He was living with a girl, making good money working with his Dad in retail and growing up. The girl didn’t last too long and he ended up back in Jersey with another girl who became his wife and eventually birthed his two kids. Wife, job, then kids… yeah, a lot was happening in his early 20’s. But the growing up thing was taking place on an interior level as well.

On the Road was the first novel Chris picked up, read and enjoyed. It was a revelatory experience for him – enjoying a book. He started reading more, studying eastern philosophy and exploring his definition of health. Finally, the pudgy kid who was always a little uncomfortable with is shirt off began to prioritize how he ate; it was vegetarianism that first took hold. For Chris, vegetarianism was primarily about health. He was quickly shedding his youthful attachments to candy and wrestling in favor of yogurt smoothies and yoga. He started cooking, developing compassion, and he let everybody know about it. Yeah, he got a little grandiose about the whole thing, but he’s toned it down since then.

So Chris was doing his hippy, veg, yogic thing with his wife, the food network was starting to boom and he was working retail. Cool, but the retail thing was getting old. Maybe it was time to do something else. Why not build on what he had going in his personal life and go to culinary school? He could go to school, become a chef and then get a show on the Food Network. Perfect. So he enrolled in the Natural Gourmet Institute. Step one, check. Next, internship and then job at Candle Cafe, the dream restaurant. Step two, in progress. Except… life in the restaurant biz was damned hard with little financial reward. Rude awakening number one. But he was happy, so he kept going.

On the personal front, Chris was starting to feel unwell as a vegetarian. His sleep was bad, he was losing too much weight and he realized if he wanted to be healthy, he needed some animal protein. He started with eggs and dairy, expanded to fish and so on. Once gain, the personal influenced professional: Chris decided it was time to learn how to cook animals. He left Candle Cafe, did a brief, overwhelming stint at a BBQ place, and landed at Cafe O, an organic cafe uptown.

The kitchen at Cafe O was crazy. Chef Michael was slinging booze, everything was all over the place and Chris absolutely loved it. He proved himself worthy by working his way up the stations to Chef’s side. Things were going great – Step two totally in the bag. Until the chicken incident. See, Chris had On Principle skipped the butchering classes at Natural Gourmet, so when he had to halve a chicken for the first time at Cafe O, he nearly halved his left hand in the process. He fled in a bundle of bloody napkins, skipped the emergency room and nursed his wounds at home, too embarrassed to go back to the restaurant. A few days later, the Chef called and told him to get his butt back in there, all was ok.

Except that it wasn’t. Weird stuff was going down at Cafe O that lead to Chef Michael’s departure with Chris on deck to be chef (finally, Step two!). Then one day the kitchen was mysteriously on fire, the place closed down and Chris had to steal back his knives before they were sold on auction. He found a payphone, called Candle Cafe and asked if they were hiring. It turned out the head chef was getting ready to leave, so back he went to train up for the job. Step two was finally going to happen.

Life at home, however, was not so good. His marriage was ending and he was pretty depressed.

Enter Jess.

At the restaurant, she was a hardass to everyone else, but all smiles with Chris, always asking him to hang out. Chris didn’t know what “hanging out” meant. He was married and a dad barely out of his teens; he never really had the chance to “hang out.” The idea weirded him out. Plus, he was too depressed, so he kept saying no. One night, he said no as usual, got in his car and was driving home when he suddenly thought “What am I doing? What am I going home to? I should just go and meet people, what the hell.” So he turned around, went back to the restaurant and waited for Jess to get off work. They went to Bull McCabe’s, immediately fell into hours of conversation and that was that. A latina girl with mid-western sensibilities. Chris was in.

Now the restaurant gig wasn’t really jiving with single Dad life. It’s tough to see kids on the weekend when you’ve got to work the brunch shift; it was time to find something new. Chris tried other options in the food world, but it just wasn’t for him. Step three – off the table. Instead, he did what anyone would do: collected unemployment. He had lots of time, so he joined a gym (the infamous Urban Total Fitness) and started working out. Characteristically, he got so interested in working out that he thought, why not try to earn a living at it? He went back to school for Exercise Science and figured he’d be a trainer. Just as with cooking, it was a rough start financially and he nearly threw in the towel. Rude awakening number two. But he kept at it (with Jess’ support) and finally started to earn something of a living.

He heard about CrossFit through T-Nation and started playing around with it. He and his buddy Izzy (now an owner of CF 718) used to do WODs together at NYSC until Chris found out about CFSBK. He stalked us for a while and finally came in for a teaser, where Jacinto kicked his ass. Again, he totally loved it. He and David kept up an email correspondence as Chris tried to figure his way into the place. His persistence yet again paid off, and now he’s a permanent fixture.

Parting shots:
Almost went to school for engineering.
Owns two motorcycles, one that works and one that doesn’t.
Recently took up surfing.
Metallica and Slayer are some of his fav bands
Plays guitar and was in some punk bands as a kid.
One of the original b-boys.

Favorite way to eat eggs:
Poached so the yolks are thick and unctuous with rye bread to sop it up. Or else fried easy.

3 Rounds for time of:
Run 400m
21 Kettlebell Swings, 1.5p/1p
12 Pull-Ups

Post time and Rx to comments.
compare to 6.5.11

“Helen” Demo CrossFit

Patrick gets to the Muscle-Ups at Event 2 of the CF Subway Series

Welcome back Coach Shane from the Functional Movement Screen certification he attended this weekend!  We can’t wait to learn and then apply the new insights he learned from this fantastic seminar!

Thanks to everyone who came out to Prospect Park yesterday for the community picnic and “Paleo Pigskin Flag Football Tournament”! Look forward to details on the next community outing.. Labor Day Surfing!

FRAN!!!!!!!!

The final event for the CF Subway Series is happening this Saturday at CFSBK.  The workout is “Fran” so as you might have expected, slots are going FAST.  If you plan on competing, please register ASAP as it might be sold out before this evening! There will be no normal Group classes, Teaser class or Active Recovery on Saturday.

Miranda talks about and does Fran (With a special ending) CrossFit

Fight Gone Bad House Teams 7 & 8

Team 7
Dan Betz
Daniel Halioua
Eric Lau
Jenna Jerman
Isaac Wayton

Team 8
Paul Roberts
Christine Denahan
Felipe Cruz
Joe Williams
Charles Graham

Good luck, comrades! 

Haven’t registered yet? Team CrossFit South Brooklyn is already up to 62 athletes and new teams are being formed every day.  The sooner you sign up the sooner your team placement will be assigned.  We can’t guarantee folks who sign up at the 11th hour will get a shirt due to time constraints on printing!

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Jenni Y’s Pregnant Pull-Up Progression CrossFit
Kristan Clever does a 7:41 Isabel with 135lbs CrossFit
Hollow Body Position, Part 1 CrossFit Journal Preview

5 Rounds for time of:
7 Squat Clean Thrusters
30 Double Unders

These are strict Thrusters coming out of the hole. Choose a weight that challenges you but doesn’t require jerking, ya jerk.

Post Rx and time to comments.

CFSBK Community Picnic and Paleo Pigskin Flag Football Tournament Today!

Announcing Fight Gone Bad House Teams 4, 5 and 6!

Team 4
joel wertheimer
Melissa Loranger
Jason Zevin
Shane Williams
Robert Fasone

Team 5
Dan Evans
Joshua martinez
Vincent Dugan
Keith Walter
Juliana Agudelo

Team 6
Nikki Stevens
Marc Messinger
Ben Whitney
Marcos Martinez
David Fung

Calling all ladies!  We need you to step up to the plate and Register for FGB.  There are 14 women registered compared to the 27 men who have signed up.  Don’t sleep on this!

Tied For First Place!

Team SBK and Team Virtuosity are coming into the final event of the 2011 CF Subway Series TIED for first place!  We need a big showing both in competitors and SBK spectators (BLACK SEA!) to take home the big W! Register Here
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How To Print a Bicycle SlateV
The above video was written, filmed and produced by our own Krishnan V!

2×10
Add 5-10lbs from the previous volume exposure

Post loads to comments.
(e4/4) compare to 8.13.11

5 Rounds for Time of:
5 Dumbbell Hang Power Snatches, each arm
10 Box Jumps

Post time and Rx to comments.

“Chantzy” checks out the new CFSBK log books

Fight Gone Bad House Teams #’s 2 and 3!

Team 2
Chris Artis
Mike Mishik
Rob Israel
Stella Zawistowski
Kate Denny

Team 3
Christine Naclerio
Jessica Fox
Dave McGrath
Brian Zimbler
Ian Landau

Good luck guys! You’ll get more information about your team and responsibilities shortly!

So far Team CrossFit South Brooklyn has raised $1,905!  Our highest fundraisers so far are: Peter Mattis with $850, Chris Paschke with $500 and Yoshi Stone with $225. Excellent work fellas!

Good Luck Team SBK!

Our weekend warriors march out to CrossFit Queens today for event #3 of the CF Subway Series!  Best of luck to all those competing today as well as a special thanks to everyone heading out to support SBK. (The Black Sea!)

Picnic Tomorrow!

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Many people are often intimidated or don’t know where to start when it comes to fundraising.  Do you have any advice to help people get the ball rolling?