Workout of the Day

STRENGTH

5 Sets:
A1 : 2:00 Sandbag Bear Hug
A2: 12 (total) Back Rack Reverse Lunges

Notes
Work up through 5 challenging sets of each exercise. The lunges are taken out of the rack.

METCON

EMOM 10:00
7 DB Deadlifts
7 DB Front Squats
7 Burpees

Notes
Every minute perform all 21 reps. Try to work no more than :45 per round, if you can’t complete all the reps in 45 seconds, decrease the reps across the board to (6-6-6) (5-5-5) or less if needed.

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Friday Night Fever! Trisan and Pierre take on 22.1

Submit your 22.1 Scores!

86 CFSBKers have signed up for the Open but not all of you have submitted your 22.1 scores yet! All scores need to be submitted on Games.CrossFit.com before 8pm tonight in order to count. If you havent performed the workout yet grab yourself a judge and get to Open Gym before the deadline tonight!

For most of us, it can be quite difficult to hit the WODs hard, week-in week-out, ad infinitum. Your ability to successfully train at high intensity over a period of time is determined by genetics, recovery, nutrition, injuries, and training age. To create an inherent balance, CrossFit South Brooklyn follows a 3/1/2/1 weekly microcycle, which looks like this:

CFSBK Microcycle
Saturday: On
Sunday: On
Monday: On
Tuesday: Off
Wednesday: On
Thursday: On
Friday: Off

By allowing at least two non-sequential days off, we can train at high intensity over the course of a week. Consistently training CrossFit more than three days in a row can lead to a decrease in performance due to accumulated inflammation and a lack of recovery. Many of you guys have been following our 3/1/2/1 schedule with great success.

But What About Training Over Longer Periods of Time Than a Week?
The type of training we do as CrossFitters leads to degrees of adaptation much more closely related to competitive athletics than traditional exercise programs (check out our article on Inside the Affiliate about the difference between exercise and training). That being said, it’s important to note that most organized sports teams map out their yearly programming goals based around a competitive season. Conversely, CrossFit is a General Physical Prepardness program that aims to achieve a consistently high level of work capacity over a lifetime. There are many individuals who use CrossFit to train for their sport or occupation (MIL/LEO etc.) and an ever-growing number of people who are competing in CrossFit as their primary sport. These individuals will generally modify variables of their programs to better prepare themselves for competition or deployment.

But What About Boring Old Me?
The majority of us are training CrossFit without any regard to a specific competition or training goal other than health, longevity, and fitness. It’s therefore necessary for the average CrossFitter to take it upon themselves to consider their training over longer periods of time than a week. Especially for the folks coming in five times a week, we program every 8th week at less intensity and use it as a period to scale back and give your bodies a chance to clean house and manage any systemic inflammation.

The workouts we post on back-off weeks will generally be of lighter total volume with less emphasis on load or time, if at all. Additionally, we’ll use it as an opportunity to prep for the upcoming cycle by workshopping the movements in longer formats. It is simultaneously the end of the previous cycle and the beginning of the new one.

CFSBK Mesocycle
Week 1: Training
Week 2: Training
Week 3: Training
Week 4: Training
Week 5: Training
Week 6: Training 

Week 7: Testing (“Crush Week”)

Week 8: Back Off/Prep Week

Auto-Regulating
If you train with us less frequently—perhaps once or twice a week—and are not considerably active outside of CrossFit, you can still benefit from some cyclical recovery. How much recovery and fluctuation in intensity you need is highly specific and you should always be listening to your body and adapting accordingly. Folks who are living hard and fast outside the gym should be especially sensitive to how they’re feeling.

Enjoy Back Off Week! You’ve earned it.

This question comes up pretty often at CrossFit South Brooklyn. As you are probably aware, we program for a 5 day workout week (M, W, Th, Sa, Su). Some of you, for various reasons, can not make it to 5 classes per week. So what’s an earnest athlete to do? Here are some ideas:

1. If you have another well equipped training space (home gym, decent globo-gym, etc…) make up the programmed work outs on your own. Unless you have a great training partner doing these with you, err on the side of caution when choosing load and intensity levels.  It’s invaluable to have an intelligent pair of eyes watching your form.
* It’s never a good idea to Bench Press (which we rarely do at CFSBK) alone, and you shouldn’t Back Squat maximal loads alone either.

2. Stay active on days you don’t make it in to the gym. There are a TON of exercises you can do with your own body-weight and minimal equipment. Can you do 1/2 “Cindy” at the local playground? Why not? How about a 10 minute AMRAP of 20 Sit-Ups, 35 Double Unders, and 50 meter sprints? Also, check out Comprehensive Body Weight WOD pdf for a ton of other ideas. Fresh out of Foundations? Practice your Squats, Push Ups, Planks, Sit Ups, etc a few times per week. It’ll pay off in spades down the road.

3. If you’re coming to the gym 2-3 days per week then we recommend getting your squats in. At CFSBK we squat 2x per week for a reason. Getting stronger at the squat will get you better at everything in the gym, and a whole heck of a lot outside of it as well. Even if it’s not a “squat day” for us you can bet you’ll never be turned down by a coach when asking for a place to make up a squat exposure. Best case is to do it before you take a class, but after is OK too.

So, focus on the strength movements in the current cycle, prioritizing the squat variant. Remember – getting stronger will almost always mean getting better (just look at Chris Spealer’s performance at this year’s CrossFit Games) Use time before and/or after class to work on your particular weaknesses (not just double unders ‘cause you’re awesome at them and they look cool…). Are you chasing the sometimes elusive kipping pull up? Spend 5 minutes practicing. The kettlebell snatch? Spend time practicing. Does your conditioning suck? Run or row a few sprints after class or do a 1/4 Murph. Not sure what supplemental work you should be doing? Just ask one of us. It’s our greatest pleasure to see all of you become better athletes and achieve your goals

 

As you all know, we’ve been telling all our level 1 athletes to perform “sets across” during our lifting days. 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 5×5, you’ll do 3-4 warm-up sets at increasing weights and then perform all 5 reps of all 5 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 2-3 movements and rotate them for a period of 4 weeks.  In the upcoming cycle that starts tomorrow, you’ll be seeing Back Squats, Presses and Deadlifts quite regularly.  Because you know that you’ll get 4 exposures to each of these lifts over the next couple weeks, you can game out a strategy for 4 successful lifting sessions.  Here are two examples of what we’d love to see in your log books at the end of the cycle.

Press
Week 1 75x5x5
Week 2 80x5x5
Week 3 85x5x5
Week 4 87x5x5

Deadlift
Week 1 135x5x5
Week 2 145x5x5
Week 3 155x5x5
Week 4 160x5x5

This hypothetical athlete completed all 4 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 3 or 4 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.

What if I don’t come often enough to hit all of these lifting sessions?
If you can only make it to CFSBK a 1-2 times per week, choose one of the movements (Ideally the squat variant) and focus on it for the next four weeks.  You may have to come in a little early or stay late to get your lifts in which is okay with us as long as it doesn’t interfere with the running class before or after your own.  This scenario becomes a little more case by case.  If you don’t know what to do, consult with one of the coaches and we’ll steer you in the right direction.