CFSBK & BTWB

CFSBK is excited to partner with our friends at beyond the whiteboard to provide digital workout tracking for our affiliate! Members are able to access each day’s workout on the app or desktop site, both of which provide tons of data, gym leaderboards, and a variety of other cool tracking parameters. BTWB is an official CrossFit® app, and it’s run by CFSBKers!

Complete the following steps to register and start tracking your workouts:

1. Create a profile by registering at btwb.com.
2. Use the gym code CFSBK101 to receive a free membership and link you into the CFSBK group class programming feed.
3. Download the app for Apple or Android and sign in!

You read that right: this premium service is completely FREE for CFSBK members. OMG, that’s you!

We’ll be adding a BTWB widget to the blog this week, but get on there now and start tracking your workouts!

News and Notes

• Schedule Change: Today’s Jiu Jitsu Open Mat is cancelled. Callie is out of town this week.
• T-Minus 8 days until the announcement of CrossFit Open Workout 18.1. Go here to join Team CFSBK!

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Yesterday’s Results Board: Push Press | Deadlifts, Burpess
Powerlifting Slows the Aging Process: Here’s Why BarBend
I Will Die in This Beautiful Place NY Times

Push Press

5-5-3-3-1

These should all be work sets (i.e., challenging), finishing with a heavy single.

Post loads to comments.

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AMRAP 5 Minutes:
3 Deadlifts 275/185
7 Bar-Facing Burpees

The Deadlift load should be on the heavy side of medium for you, unbroken throughout the workout. For the burpees to be considered Rx’d you must jump your feet out and back in, i.e., no stepping out and in. You may step closer to the bar before jumping over it.

Post rounds, reps, and Rx to comments.

CFSBK TFBA ALERT: Coach MeLo recently joined Coach KHarpz on the team at Bespoke Treatments. Congrats, Melissa! Need some physical therapy? Now you know where to go!

Countdown to the Open: T-Minus 9 Days!

By the time this post goes up, we’ll be a little over one week away from the announcement of Open Workout 18.1. So far 110 of you have signed up. That’s awesome, but we still have a ways to go to reach our goal of 200 CFSBKers registered. Can we make it to 120 by the end of the day? We sure can! Go here to register.

Did you register for this year’s Open? If so, tell us why you signed up in the comments!

News and Notes

• Schedule Change: Tomorrow’s Jiu Jitsu Open Mat is cancelled. Callie is out of town this week.
• Abbotsford Road Coffee (right around the corner on Sackett between 3rd and Nevins) is now offering CFSBK members and employees a free upsize (e.g., a large for the price of a small) on their excellent coffee! Just show your membership scan card at the register. (You do have a scan card, don’t you?)

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Yesterday’s Results Board: Toes-to-Bars, Double-Unders, Snatches
Yes, You Can Do CrossFit CrossFit Journal
Failure to Progress Breaking Muscle

WOD 2.11.18

Performance

With a running clock…

At 0:00
In 3 minutes complete:
15 Toes-to-Bars
30 Double-Unders
15 Snatches 95/65

At 6:00
In 3 minutes complete:
15 Toes-to-Bars
30 Double-Unders
12 Snatches 115/75

At 12 minutes
In 3 minutes complete:
15 Toes-to-Bars
30 Double-Unders
9 Snatches 135/95

At 18 minutes
In 3 minutes complete:
15 Toes-to-Bars
30 Double-Unders
6 Snatches 155/105

At 24 minutes
In 3 minutes complete:
15 Toes-to-Bars
30 Double-Unders
AMRAP Snatches 185/125

Fitness

With a running clock…

At 0:00
In 3 minutes complete:
15 Hanging Knee Raises
30 Single-Unders
15 Snatches 55/35

At 6:00
In 3 minutes complete:
15 Hanging Knee Raises
30 Single-Unders
12 Snatches 75/55

At 12 minutes
In 3 minutes complete:
15 Hanging Knee Raises
30 Single-Unders
9 Snatches 95/65

At 18 minutes
In 3 minutes complete:
15 Hanging Knee Raises
30 Single-Unders
6 Snatches 115/75

At 24 minutes
In 3 minutes complete:
15 Hanging Knee Raises
30 Single-Unders
AMRAP Snatches 135/95

The Snatches are anyhow (Power, Full, Split) and should begin light and end up heavy for you. The Performance and Fitness movement and loading options are representative of the CrossFit Open Rx’d and Scaled options. With that in mind, choose one track and try to stay with it.

Post work and Rx to comments.

Ariel loves those Double-Unders | Photo by Thomas H. 

• Today’s 11am Active Recovery class is cancelled. 

Focus on the Process: How an Evolution in Mindset Changed the Way I Compete

By Whitney Hubbard

Editor’s Note: We recently updated and reorganized the Articles & Media page to make it more navigable. Be sure to take a look around! Whenever we get a chance, we’ll be reposting great stuff from there. Today, just in time for the Open, it’s a Coach Whit special from last year. “Focus on the Process” was originally posted on 4.18.17.

The CrossFit Open season (register to join Team CFSBK here!) is an incredible time of year. As a coach, I’m pretty much guaranteed weekly goosebumps watching athletes completely outperform their expectations or achieve something they previously thought impossible. Just as often, I’m inspired by watching members lift each other up, cheer each other on, and push each other outside their comfort zone. And as an athlete in Open season, I get to participate in the test. Has the year of training paid off? Will the hours of work translate into results? Am I better than I was a year ago, two years ago? Have my weaknesses improved? Do I have new skills, and can I express them when the challenge arises?

But there’s another series of questions I’ve also asked myself. And maybe you have, too. They’re less about my personal progress and more about the competition. Where do I stand? Did I beat so-and-so? Who am I behind on the leaderboard now? What place am I in? Why did they do better than me? (Also, why do I still suck at Thrusters!?)

In CrossFit, though surrounded by other athletes, we are essentially on our own. It’s us, the barbell, the jump rope, and the clock. It’s us versus our best. That’s really all there is. But when you’re left alone with yourself, you might find there’s a web of thoughts to confront and a few stories to unravel along the way.

My own thoughts and stories became apparent as I got more outwardly competitive a few years ago. I considered myself decently fit and pretty “good” at CrossFit. I had developed some skills with the help of my coaches over time—Kipping Pull-Ups, consistent Double-Unders, heavier Snatches. But I had also noticed I could “beat” other athletes in workouts. After four or five years of doing this stuff, I felt excited to consider myself someone who could “hold her own,” could compete, and maybe win from time to time. I decided I was ready for the next level: CFSBK Competition Team.

Spinning Stories, or How to make yourself feel like total crap when you’re already endeavoring to do something very challenging

The days of Comp Team were fun, demanding, frustrating at times, and definitely a big push. But heading home at the end of a long Saturday, it often felt like I was running myself into a brick wall. Our group would hit a killer three or four part training session, ending with some soul-crushingly hard conditioning workout, probably in 90 degree humid heat with the door open. And somehow the 400m run on Degraw Street was now uphill in both directions. But not for everyone, mind you—just for poor little me, if you catch my drift. And I would simply feel like not enough.

Everything about me was less than or worse than. I took longer to warm up because of some injury I was nursing. I had less weight on my barbell. And I wouldn’t, just couldn’t, keep up on that conditioning. Sooner or later, I’d be lagging behind, watching the other athletes — especially the women — pass me. Or lap me. I finished a lot of workouts last. Or I scaled when others didn’t and then beat myself up for it the whole time. It was important to me to be at this level, to work alongside others that I considered incredibly strong, powerful, fast, and fit. There’s got to be an adage here that fits. Little fish, big pond. Only as good as the company you keep. Yada yada yada. More often than not, though, the result of these sessions was not lifting myself up to their level but rather mentally pushing myself down. I rarely ever “won.” And if I did, it never lasted. Or never meant much because I must have just gotten lucky that day or it was something I was naturally good at, so it didn’t really count. Coach Brett and I won a local CrossFit team competition with another male athlete in October that year. I was so happy to be on top of a podium. But I was also sure it was only because of those two guys on my team, and I was simply tagging along.

What a load of shit.

All Slump, No Pump

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my mindset was a big part of my problem. I constantly externalized and compared myself to others’ efforts and performance—things I had absolutely no control over. I saw myself as less than, and I expected to have that outcome proved over and over again. I was born with hemihyperplasia (formerly hemihypertrophy), which means one side of the body grows more than the other due to an increased production of cells. So, I have one leg and arm shorter/smaller than the other, and a lot of structural imbalances inherent in my body because of the condition. That’s my reality, but it doesn’t need to define me. I’ve mostly tried to deal with the logistics of it but ignore its implications.

Even still, I figured I was just intrinsically “less fit” than some other athlete I admired. When faced with obstacles and challenges I gave up easily, talked myself out of things, or worked with even less effort. Because what was the point if I wasn’t going to beat him or her anyway? Even if only subconsciously, I was more focused on avoiding failure than I was on doing my best. If you’re familiar with Carol Dweck and her research on achievement and success, it seems clear that I was operating with a Fixed Mindset. I was in a self-defeating cycle and had all these inspiring individuals around me with which to threaten myself on a weekly basis. Needless to say, it was frustrating and pretty dark. Add to that a few recurring injuries, and I had a tasty recipe for an old-fashioned slump with a side of self-pity.

Know Thyself: You Got What You Got! Now What?

Flash forward to 2016, when I attended a couple of incredible workshops: the Performance Care Athlete Workshop at Active Life Athletics and an OPEX Athlete Camp. Though quite different in subject matter and scope, I walked away from both of these experiences with a sense of reality around my capacity and training. Not with what I thought I could do, how I saw myself, or what I was hoping for, but just… what is.

We did all sorts of testing: mobility, flexibility, absolute strength, neuromuscular efficiency, lactic power, gymnastics battery, etc. You can’t really game this stuff out. You accept the parameters, do the work as best you can, and see what happens. You get a sense of things as they are. You’re nailed to the present moment. And somehow, even though we picked apart the numbers and details and outcomes, and even though I still compared myself to other people on that whiteboard (old habits die hard), there wasn’t a value judgment placed on it all. It didn’t mean so much about me, that I wasn’t as good as others or that my best wasn’t enough. It just was what it was. I walked away with concrete information about my current capabilities. Most of all, I left with ideas for how that could change over time. There were real, substantial implications for training. And that’s where the magic happens.

Empowered by this information, I started programming for myself and essentially trained alone from about October onward. It was an adjustment, but it felt necessary. Armed with specific information, I challenged myself to actually do something about it. I’ve known about my leg-length difference my whole life. But now I can’t ignore how crucial single leg strength training will be for my overall health and longevity in this CrossFit stuff. Squatting will probably always be a structurally difficult movement for me, so should I really be concerned that my Power Clean is now the same as my Clean? Or should I spend my time elsewhere? My Overhead Press is a relative weakness, so if I want my shoulders to function better and hurt less often, I have a clear priority.

There’s something else buried in all of this. Somewhere along the way, I think CrossFit got the reputation for kicking you square in the ass all the time. That if you weren’t wiping your blood, sweat, and tears off the floor at the end of every single day in the gym, you weren’t doing it right. But the past few months of training have proven otherwise for me. I started thinking so much more about my recovery, taking some extra time to walk my dog or spending an hour doing simple aerobic work after a couple of tough training days. I focused on executing workouts at sustainable effort instead of trying to bang out every last rep before collapsing on the floor. I practiced caring a little less about numbers on the board and a little more how I felt and what I could sustain during the WOD.

Plan to Succeed, Do Your Best, and Be Content

So here’s the thing: even with all of the details of this testing and training, the biggest difference in my experience of the Open was my mind. I concentrated on my own reality and allowed the work of others to fade into the periphery. A big portion of why I’m still doing CrossFit after 7+ years is the community and comradery that our gym provides. I’m already enjoying taking group classes more frequently right now to contribute to and feed off that energy. But learning about myself and engaging with the process of training—rather than trying to prove myself, look good, or win the workout every time—have transformed my approach to the day-to-day and the way I compete when the time is right.

I cringe as I write this because I’m afraid of how it will read, but a big portion of what allowed me to be my own version of successful in the 2017 Open is that I didn’t care nearly as much about what everyone else was doing. Did I still look at the leaderboard? Hell yes, I even volunteered to tally the scores! Did I still ask around for top times and reps? Sure did. But when it came time to actually do the workouts, I found my own focus to prepare and give my best effort.

• Assess the workout: How do my strengths and weaknesses play here? What is this really testing? I know those Dummbell Snatches are going to add up, but if I just stay calm and find the rhythm, I can keep moving.
• Think about timestamps: If I want a chance at that second round of Bar Muscle-Ups, how will I need to pace to get there with a bit of time but without blowing up?
• Consider what’s possible: Ok, maybe I’ll get some Open magic and be able to rock out a Snatch or two at 135? Stay calm and focus on getting the work done with a good tie-break time up to that point.
• Test out some rep schemes: I know I could do 10-15 reps on those Deadlifts, but maybe it’s better for me to commit to sets of 5, take short breaks, and stay steady.
• Create a strategy: Go in with a plan. And then be adaptable. Doing 35 Double-Unders unbroken is usually no problem. But when I feel my heart rate spiking and I know that’s going to force a big rest before the next set of Thrusters, it’s probably time to do two quick sets and not fall apart.
• Visualize success: It seems crazy, but I watched myself do pieces and parts of these workouts, step by step, in my mind before even stepping foot in the gym. Mentally rehearsing it beforehand—the rhythm of a kip, the pace of a lunge, the bounce of those double unders—means my body can just repeat the work I’ve already done.

It all comes down to this: what is the best possible way that I could execute this workout on this day, with my body the way it is in this moment? Not the me from two weeks ago before my neck tweaked out. Not what I think Coach KHarpz can do so I should try to do something sorta close to that even though I know it’s probably not possible cuz she’s such a beast uggghhhhh. That stuff is irrelevant.

What do I need to focus on, let go of, remember, and forget in order to create my best possible performance right now?

Having this conversation with myself, I walked away from each Open workout with a sense of contentment. I did my best today. Not anyone else’s best or my best the way I hope it could be in another year. Would I get some skill adaptation if I repeated the workout again in two days and get a couple more reps or shave off a few seconds? Probably. (But I’m not going to Regionals I wasn’t interested in going through that shit again to find out!) Did I leave anything on the table today as it stands? Hell no. Was my best sufficient to top someone else on the leaderboard?

That, my friends, is completely out of my control.

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Yesterday’s Results Board: WODurday
All 102 Winter Olympic Medal Events, Ranked Deadspin
How Digestion Affects Your Health and Fitness Precision Nutrition (video)

WOD 2.10.18

AMRAP 30 Minutes:
20 Dumbbell Deadlifts 50/35
30 AbMat Sit-Ups
400m Run

Aim for a steady pace throughout the workout.

Post rounds, reps, and Rx to comments.

This Week at CFSBK in Review

1. We’re now just 11 days away from the start of the CrossFit Open. This week we surpassed 100 CFSBKers registered, but we still need more folks to sign up to reach our goal of 200. Go here to do that!

2. Lots of great stuff went up on Tuesday. We walked you through how to properly warm up a barbell lift and reposted and old blog classic, “A Letter to New CrossFitters: Good Training Habits.”

3. We’re always trying to get better at what we do. If you have a minute, head over to the Feedback page and tell us about your experience at the gym!

4. In case you missed it, lots of fun photos from last weekend’s Community Potluck are up on Flickr! On Wednesday, we picked out some of our favs.

5. Part 5 of Coach KHarpz’s excellent series she’s writing for our friends at Beyond the Whiteboard is up! As the title suggests, “WZA: Shaking the Scaries” deals with her experience at Wodapalooza 2018. You don’t wanna miss this one!

6. In this week’s Better Know a Member, we got to know Burpee-Box-Jump-Hater Kris L. You’re not alone, Kris.

7. Coach Fox offered some tips to the LFPBers on how to stay on track on the weekends, but we think you’ll find it really useful too! 

8. Finally, tomorrow’s 11am Active Recovery class is cancelled. 

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No More Nursing Home CrossFit Journal
How to Fix Awkward Foot Positioning in the Snatch & Clean Catalyst Athletics

In case you missed it, lots of fun photos from last weekend’s Community Potluck are up on Flickr!

Workin’ for the Weekend

By Chris Fox

Editor’s Note: The following is an adapted version of one of Coach Fox’s emails to this year’s Look, Feel, Perform Better Challenge participants. We think it’s super useful for everyone, so we’re posting it here as some weekend motivation. Go get ’em!

I hope you had a great week and have something good in store for the weekend. While schedules vary, many of us find the weekend provides a natural ebb, a little break from the hustle and bustle, where we can take a breather and plan a bit for the week ahead. It’s been famously said that “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail,” and that “Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” Seems pretty apparent that these statements hold some truth. Why then, do we expect different from ourselves? The reason the first few days and weeks of a challenge like the LFPBC generally go well is that we’re charged with energy and using it toward change. We’re food shopping, prepping, and exercising just like we said we would last year around this time. That energy can provide a great jump start towards change, and I hope you’ve found that to be true. That energy however, is finite. Your will power will eventually run out, you’ll be tired and hungry, and then what? Make it easier for yourself to make healthy choices so you don’t have to use up so much will power all the time. Stop putting so much pressure on yourself to “be strong.” Below are some strategies taken directly from former LFPB winners that worked well for them. Have some more ideas, or need some? Write ’em in the comments section!

• Keep healthy foods in your house and save “treats” for when you’re eating out.
• Make breakfast the night before so you don’t have to think about it in the morning.
• Create a large support network by telling people you’re trying to make changes, and asking directly for their support.
• Look online at restaurant menus and have your choices picked out ahead of time.
• Make novel plans with your friends or spouse that don’t (necessarily) involve food and alcohol.
• Buy a single serving size of a “red light” food when you have to have it that you would otherwise overeat.
• Instead of longer term outcome goals (lose 10 pounds, fit into my jeans from college, get my first pull up), focus instead on short term behavior goals (prepare a healthy breakfast tonight for tomorrow, buy vegetables on Sunday for the week, do 5 sets of 3 Banded Pull-Ups 3 times this week)
• Write your behavior goals down, maybe daily, and keep them where you will see them all the time.

We’re not superhuman, and neither are those who make it look like a healthy diet and lifestyle come easy. It takes work, there’s no way around that. Just as you use strategies to make your job or commute easier, experiment and find strategies to make healthy eating and exercising easier as well.

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Yesterday’s Results Board: Clean | Power Cleans, Front Squats, C2B Pull-Ups
The Mental Tricks of Athletic Endurance Wall Street Journal
YouTube Science Bros Will Get Your Ass to the Gym The Outline

Mid-Hang Power Clean

1-1-1-1-1

Work up to a heavy single for the day.

Post loads to comments.

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AMRAP 9 Minutes:
3 Mid-Hang Power Cleans 165/115
6 Front Squats 165/115
9 Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups

The barbell should be challenging. Use a load that you can do an unbroken round when fresh. Scale the Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups to Chin Over or Jumping Chest-to-Bar as needed.

Post rounds, reps, and Rx to comments.

Better Know a Member: Kris Lee

Over the last few weeks, your trusty CFSBK blog has been bringing you Better Know a Member profiles from across our community of kind, interesting, wonderful members. Last week we heard from the WWTD woman herself, Mama Buckley. This week, let’s learn more about the man pictured above…

Name (and any nicknames):

Kristofer “Kris” Lee

Where were you born and where did you grow up?

Born and raised in the Bronx, NY.

How long have you been CrossFitting, and how did you arrive at CFSBK?

I have been CrossFitting since May 2014. I had finished graduating from basic combat training with the Army, and I wasn’t pleased with my overall physical conditioning. I could run and lift my body weight for the most part, but I lacked the strength I once had when I used to lift in college. I wanted to be more well-rounded. I Googled “CrossFit gyms in Brooklyn,” and CSFBK came up on top of the list.

Nightmare workout:

For Time:
100 Burpee Box Jumps.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I DO NOT WANT TO SEE THIS PROGRAMMED.

Dream workout:

For Time:
30 Deadlifts at 225lbs
20 Front Squats at 185 lbs
15 Push Jerks at 155 lbs
10 Hang Cleans at 155 lbs
Run 1 mile

What are you up to when you’re not at 597 Degraw Street?

I’m currently getting ready to mobilize for a year long deployment in the middle east for the next 10 months. The opportunity just sprung up, and I volunteered to go. I also invest my money in the stock market and trade derivatives as well.

Favorite and least favorite lifts:

Favorite lift is the Clean and Jerk. What is there not to like about a lift that comprises the Deadlift, Squat, and Press in a dynamic movement?

Least favorite lift is the Bench Press. I suck at it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Any advice for new CFSBKers?

Those who just started may feel discouraged, sore, and unmotivated after realizing the degree of proficiency that some of the movements may require. Understand that it is a growing process, and showing up is more than half the battle. Now you just have to do it and try your best. I emphasize the word “bes”t because mediocrity should never be celebrated. I challenge everyone to be better than the person they were yesterday. The lifts will get heavy and WODs downright miserable, but you aren’t going to die. The only easy day was yesterday so get busy living, or get busy dying.

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Yesterday’s Results Board: Muscle-Up Work | Deadlifts, Muscle-Ups
Olympic Dynasties: Why Certain Countries Will Dominate the Same Events They Always Do CS Monitor
Finding Intensity in CrossFit Again Breaking Muscle

Ring Muscle-Up Work

Choose one of the following options based on skill/strength…

1) 4-5 Sets:
2-3 False Grip Ring Rows
2-3 Ring Dips with a 3 second down

Make the Ring Rows challenging. Be sure to pass through the bottom of a deep Dip. If you can’t perform a Dip, jump to support and lower down for a 3 count. Alternately, perform 6 Push-Ups with a 3 second down, followed by a 10 second Ring Support.

2) 4-5 Sets:
2-3 Low Ring Band or Leg-Assisted Muscle-Ups

Be sure to pass through the bottom of a deep Dip before pressing out.

3) DIY or:

Kip Swings, a few Dips, then…

3-5 Sets:
1 Strict Muscle-Up
1 Kipping Muscle-Up

Post work to comments.

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Performance
For Time:
12-9-6
Deadlifts 315/225
Ring Muscle-Ups

The barbell should be heavy. Scale volume on the Muscle-Ups as needed if you can’t perform sets of 2-5 reps when fresh.

Fitness
For Time:
15-12-9
Deadlifts 225/155
Ring-Dips

The barbell weight should be medium-heavy for you. Unbroken on the fast end but 2-3 sets is ok. Scale the Dips to Push-Ups as needed.

Post time and Rx to comments.

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4 Rounds Not for Time:
8e Split-Stance Static Goblet Lunges
8e 3-Point Dumbbell Rows
30-Second Hollow Hold

Post work to comments.

David presents Coach Lauren with the rare and coveted black hoodie at Saturday’s Community Potluck. Congrats, Snickers! 

Potluck Photos!

Photos from Saturday are now up on our Flickr account! Here are just some of our favs:

• Stella gets the karaoke started with The Pretenders.
• If it’s possible for Celine Dion to get more serious, well… let’s just say that shit got serious. 
• Mike and Karina perform a duet. They’ll be taking their Tom Petty cover band to a casino near you.
• Lynsey gets the audience involved. Need a Shania Twain impersonator? Lynsey’s got ya covered.
• Coach Keith takes us on a little trip down Thunder Road. He’s a beauty and he’s alright.
• “Fitness is Carned.” (No, that’s not a typo.)
• Adele and Ariel will survive. 
• The digital lighters come out. 
• Scaramouche Scaramouche, will you do the fandango? 
• Katie, Coach Jess, and Jess B. reenact the car scene from Wayne’s World. 

Thanks again to everyone who came out to make it a great night!

News and Notes

• Our Articles & Media page has been updated and somewhat reorganized to make it more navigable! There’s a wealth of excellent resources spanning many years of blog posts, so be sure to poke around!
• Part 5 of Coach KHarpz’s excellent series she’s writing for our friends at Beyond the Whiteboard is up! As the title suggests, “WZA: Shaking the Scaries” deals with her experience at Wodapalooza 2018. You don’t wanna miss this one!
• The blog is looking for some intrepid CFSBKers who have done the CrossFit Open in the past and would like to contribute to an upcoming feature. You’ll just be asked to write 2 or 3 sentences about your experience, so it won’t take up much of your time. Please email your blog editor at Josh [at] CrossFitSouthBrooklyn.com if you’re interested!

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Yesterday’s Results Board: Rest Day
Have You Heard? This Guy Has a Cold. NY Times
Is the Open for Me? CrossFit Games

If you are anything like the CFSBK blog editor, you’re pretty haphazard when it comes to warming up a barbell lift. “Start at 50%? Sure whatever, that sounds good.” It doesn’t have to be that way! In this video, Coach David walks us through the proper way to warm up a lift. Watch it, absorb it, and put it into action the next time you lift! 

A Letter to New CrossFitters: Good Training Habits 

By David Osorio

Editor’s Note: The video above pairs nicely with a blog classic we haven’t reposted in a few years. The original version of this article appeared on our business blog, Inside the Affiliate.

Below is a short article we ask all our new members to read when they graduate from our Foundations program. At CFSBK, we believe it’s important to guide our members’ training perspectives early on. The sooner we can get folks thinking about how to make proactive, intelligent training decisions, the more likely they’ll optimize their time under our roof.

While it’s our responsibility as coaches to teach movement, program wisely, and generally take care of folks, it’s your job as an athlete to listen to your body, track your workouts, and maintain a mature perspective about why you’re doing CrossFit in the first place. For some athletes, this may be completely intuitive, but most folks walking through our doors will need to be taught even the most basic components of serious physical training. Many people pursue CrossFit because they want to lose some weight or a friend does it and it sounds fun—not necessarily because they’ve suddenly decided to eat, sleep, and breath CrossFit. (The obsession part happens organically, after they’ve been exposed to its benefits.)

With that in mind, the commercial fitness industry’s claims of quick fixes and supposed “secrets” to success may have influenced peoples’ perspectives and expectations when they arrive at our gym, and it behooves us to disabuse them of such false messaging. Messages such as the one below are part of a larger dialogue that CFSBK is constantly facilitating, with the aim of giving our members the most accurate and honest advice about what it takes to adopt a healthy lifestyle.

Hopefully, all of you have already read this article. But a good refresher never hurt anyone…

Good Training Habits

While it’s our responsibility as coaches to teach you movement, program intelligently, and keep you safe, it’s your responsibility as athletes to develop good training habits. Here is an overview of three great habits that will significantly enrich your training experience.

1. Be Proactive With Your Movement Prep

Everyone needs to do a little personalized maintenance on their bodies. Even 10 minutes of DIY movement prep before class can go a long way in keeping you fit and pain free. After you’ve signed in and changed, take advantage of the time you’ve got and start moving.

Warm-up
Row an easy 300-500m on the erg. Get your heart rate up a little and try to get a light sweat going. We recommend holding 20 strokes per minute and rehearsing good form.

Stretch/Foam Roll
Many of us know where our tightest areas are—they’re the ones that make it difficult to squat below parallel or press a barbell overhead. Spend a few minutes mobilizing and doing some soft tissue work (foam roller/LAX ball, etc.) on your “problem areas.” If you don’t know where to begin, ask a coach what you should be prioritizing and we’ll help you out. We also regularly refer our members to out Active Recovery classes and MobilityWOD.com. This is great resource for folks who need simple, effective strategies to help them move better.

2. Log All of Your Workouts

Training without logging is like driving without a road map. You don’t know where you’ve been or where you’re going. Taking notes on each training session helps you track your progress and helps us make informed decisions about how to assist you in choosing weights and scaling movements. Each day should list some quantitative and qualitative notes about your training session. Here is an example:

Warm-Up:
3 rounds NFT
5 Snatch PP (22lb bar)
5 OHS
5 Muscle Snatches
10 Push-ups on knees

Move up to yellow bar

AMRAP 15 minutes:
Row 350m
12 Overhead Squats, 45lbs
4 Rounds + 320m

Kept rows at about 2:23 splits, felt hard but doable. Don’t shift forward during overhead squats…. Mid foot!

You can track your workouts in a journal or online. As coaches, we LOVE to read the details of your workout in the Comments section of CFSBK’s blog. It gives us a deeper perspective into your training and the programming in general.

3. Start Slow and Maintain Perspective

We take our training seriously at CrossFit South Brooklyn and with that comes with a good deal of responsibility. Our movement pool uses serious strength and conditioning exercises in order to develop broad, inclusive fitness. If we don’t treat these movements and workouts with respect, training plateaus and injuries are sure to follow. The best way to ensure your success and training longevity with us is by starting slowly and developing a rock-solid technical base. In fact, the first few months you start CrossFit, intensity should not be a significant concern. The movements are potent enough that just consistently performing them will create a favorable adaptation. After you feel really comfortable with most of our exercises and have a working knowledge of your weights, only then should you start ramping up the intensity.

Training with a lifelong perspective is incredibly important. Remember that you’re here to build yourself up, not break yourself down. Scaling workouts properly, listening to your body and checking your ego at the door will allow you to work out successfully for years to come. Most importantly, have fun with this stuff and enjoy the process.

News and Notes

• Tonight’s Jiu Jitsu Open Mat is cancelled. Callie is out of town!
• We’re always trying to get better at what we do. If you have a minute, head over to the Feedback page and tell us about your experience at the gym!

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Yesterday’s Results Board: Barbell Overhead and Gymnastics Work
The First Pull of the Snatch & Clean: Slow or Fast? Catalyst Athletics
Making Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Into Super Bowl MVPs NY Times

Barbell Overhead and Bar Gymnastics Work

With a running clock…

EMOM x 10

Even Minutes: 5 Strict Presses
Odd Minutes: 5 Strict Toes-to-Bars

Rest 2 minutes, then…

EMOM x 10

Even Minutes: 5 Push Presses
Odd Minutes: 5 Kipping Toes-to-Bars

Rest 2 minutes, then…

EMOM x 10

Even Minutes: 5 Push Jerks
Odd Minutes: 5 Bar Muscle-Ups

The barbell comes off the floor and all sets should be heavy but unbroken. You may go up in weight each set as appropriate, or choose to perform sets across. Scale the Toes-to-Bars as needed to Hanging Knee Raises, and the Bar Muscle-Ups to either Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups (jumping if needed) or Jumping Bar Muscle-Ups. Scaling volume by cutting a rep or two on the gymnastics movements is also an option.

Post work to comments.

Meredith and Keith get ready to compete at one of last year’s Friday Night Lights events

The CrossFit Open: Where Grassroots Meet Greatness

By the time this post goes up, we’ll be just 16 days away from the announcement of Open Workout 18.1. So far 91 of you have signed for the Open. That’s awesome. We’re almost halfway to our goal of 200 CFSBKers registered. Can we make it to 100 by the end of the day? We can! Go here to register!

There are so many good reasons to register, and we’ve tried to convey some of those reasons on the blog over the past couple of weeks. But today we thought we’d throw it over to you guys to help us recruit more competitors. So…

Have you participated in the Open in the past, or do you plan to this year? Tell everyone about your experience! Why did you do it, and what did you learn? Why did you sign up this year?

News and Notes

• Schedule Change: Tuesday’s Jiu Jitsu Open Mat is cancelled. Callie is out of town this week.
• Don’t forget that we’re offering a new Strong Fit class on Tuesday nights at 6:30pm. Check it out tomorrow!

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Yesterday’s Results Board: Overhead Squat | Burpees, Overhead Squats
Is Butter a Carb? Popular Science
4 Benefits of Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups BarBend

Overhead Squat

10-10-10

Bar is taken off the floor. Work up to a heavy set of 10. If you can’t overhead squat to full depth under load, then spend today’s lifting time working on flexibility in the position.

Post loads to comments.

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Toni and Katie got the karaoke off to a very Celine start. Thanks to everyone who came out to the Community Potluck last night!

TODAY: LFPB Challenge Lecture and Q&A, “Trigger Foods”