Fitness: Spend 15 minutes working up to a moderate load on the complex of:
Halting Clean Deadlift + Clean + Jerk
Focus on having your weight over your mid foot at the mid-hang position. If you have a hard time organizing the pull off the floor, perform the clean from the mid-hang, after the clean halting deadlift. 

Performance:
1) Clean and Jerk 
1-1-1

2) High Hang Clean + Knee Hang Clean + Jerk 
70% x (1+1+1) x 2

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Front Squat

Fitness: 3 x 5 Linear Progression
Start at a weight that allows you to make jumps for the next 5 weeks.

Performance: 70% x 8 x 4
Rest two minutes between sets. Use 105% of the 1RM you used for last cycle. 

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Ladies who make front squatting look fun

• Happy belated birthday, Pablo!

First Veg and Egg CSA Pickup Today PLUS Eggs for Sale

Today is the first pickup of the season for the Sol Flower Farm vegetable CSA as well as the Herondale egg CSA. Here’s what you need to know:

• Bring your own bags to carry your goodies home
• Pickup is 6-8:30pm; anything unclaimed by 8:30pm is given away
• When you arrive, see Michele with the clipboard to check your name off the list
• Questions or issues? Email mignyc [at] gmail.com

Still want to sign up to receive eggs every week? You can! Download this form and return it to Herondale Farm. 

Finally, have you been wondering how delicious a pastured, farm-raised egg could possibly be? It’s your lucky night! We will be offering eggs by the dozen for sale tonight to any member. They are $6.50, cash only. See Michele to purchase.

LAST CHANCE to join CFSBK’s Speed/Power Series 

And while you’re at it, you can train for a super fun track meet, old school style.

Where: the epic Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island
When: July 22, 2014

Michael O.’s Speed/Power Series crew is participating in a variety of events, from the 5000m, 1500m, 800m, and 4x400m relay. If you are interested in participating in any solo event or as part of a relay team, email michael.olzinski [at] gmail.com. To learn more about the event, click here.

QOD: What was your favorite outfit or article of clothing as a child?

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11 Sneaky Ways to Move Every Day Breaking Muscle
The Roughest, Toughest Race in the World The Atlantic
The Workout: Becoming Rocky Balboa New York Times
Veteran FDNY Firefighter Is In Serious Need Of A Marrow Donor

CFSBK’s Calaveras softball team after their win on Friday

The Underlying Philosophy Behind Programming at CFSBK

By Chris Fox 

At CFSBK, we program for long-term health and fitness utilizing strength training, Olympic lifting, gymnastics, and mostly CrossFit-style couplet and triplet conditioning work. While some days look a bit different, a routine day at CrossFit South Brooklyn looks like this: DROMs, Warm Ups, Lifting, WOD prep, followed by a WOD. Let’s look at some of the reasons why we structure and program this way in terms of what each segment offers. 

DROMs: A general, light, dynamic warm up of joints and soft tissue will get your heart rate up a bit and help you enter a training mindset. It starts to get the sleep out of your eyes or the emails in your inbox out of your head. It also offers time for the QOD [LINK], which can lighten the mood and let you get to know a bit about the people you’ll be working hard with. 

Warm Ups: You need to be warmed up properly to move well and help prevent injury. Standardized warm ups move you through a wide range of motion, get you sweaty, and give you an opportunity to develop some strength in basic gymnastics and barbell movements you’ll regularly see in classes. Focused barbell drills review the positions and intentions of the lift you’ll be working on that day. We structure the drills so that you also get warm as you’re doing them.

Lifts: You need to be stronger, as strength is the physical adaptation with the greatest carryover to the rest of your training and to life in general. You may have noticed that we squat twice each week. We’ve been programming this way for years and for good reason. I can’t say it any better than Mark Rippetoe so here’s a quote from the man himself:

“There is simply no other exercise, and certainly no machine, that provides the level of central nervous activity, improved balance and coordination, skeletal loading and bone density enhancement, muscular stimulation and growth, connective tissue stress and strength, psychological demand and toughness, and overall systemic conditioning than the correctly performed full squat.” 

We agree. 

The Olympic lifts train power, strength, coordination, flexibility, and overall athleticism. If you can throw a heavy weight overhead, catch it in a rock bottom overhead squat, then stand it up (PR bar slam optional), almost all of the other things we do will be easier. As far as the other lifts go, the bench is the best upper body strength developer and is simply fun. The press is another great upper body strength developer—it keeps the shoulder girdle healthy and works the muscles that stabilize your trunk extremely well. Every few cycles we’ll program an upper body gymnastics movement as a strength developer, as this allows us to have some fun and vary the stimulus a bit. The deadlift will get your back stronger like no other exercise can, and it’s almost always the lift where you’ll be able to move the most weight, automatically making it pretty cool. The average lifter should be able to deadlift more than they can squat. If that’s not the case for you, we recommend coming in on days when we’re pulling weights off the floor. 

WOD Prep and WOD: We discuss the intent of the WOD at the whiteboard, along with scaling options and strategies. The WOD is where we get our conditioning and develop the ability to work at high intensities for longer than a set of squats can take us. As stated above, we use mostly mixed modal couplets and triplets. Our conditioning tends to range from short, high intensity three- to seven-minute efforts, to medium intensity eight- 15-minute efforts on most days, with a lower intensity 20-minute-plus WOD thrown in once a week or so. 

Even when the total time is above 15 minutes, we’ll often use interval work so that intensity stays high, given that high intensity (anaerobic) training has positive carryovers to low intensity (aerobic) training and offers other benefits. High intensity training can develop and preserve muscle mass, whereas long slow distance training can cause you to lose it if used exclusively. High intensity training creates EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption), which sets your metabolism up to burn slightly more fat after exercise compared to endurance-type training—a boon if you’re looking to lose extra fat. Plus it’s time effective. If you can get the same or better benefit metabolically with shorter high intensity training, then the only reason to do the long slow stuff is if you don’t want to work that hard. 

Consider that maybe you don’t need more “cardio,” but actually need to work harder. I’d argue that hard work will also make you stronger in non-physical ways. We throw something like “Murph” at you a few times each year since we know you secretly love it and it’s cool to see that you haven’t lost your ability to go that long in spite of all your gainz. If we programmed hero type WODs all the time however, we’d likely have an oft-injured population with a narrow scope of fitness. Time and intensity have an inverse relationship in that the longer you work, the lower the intensity must be. By intensity, I mean power output. I know a marathon can be an intense experience, but you’re not working as hard on those miles as you would be while doing 800m repeats. Furthermore, the longer you go, the more reps you’re going to be doing and the more fatigued you’ll be. You don’t move better on the 69th deadlift compared to the 9th, trust me. Remember: we’re programming for our general population to be fit for the long term—not to crush a week’s worth of hero WODs followed by six weeks of PT. 

Cool Down: This portion is largely up to you, but you really don’t need us to babysit while you run, row an easy 1000 meters, or spend some quality time with a foam roller. 

To wrap up, CFSBK’s programming is designed to give you the most training value. We do these things because they are effective, not because they are in vogue or even because our members demand that we do things a certain way. We’ve withstood a few silly fitness trends in favor of what science and experience says works and will continue to do so, evolving as we learn. Training here is hard, it’s consistent, and it isn’t always exciting or sexy, but it works. We’re lucky to have so many of you who seem to agree and are willing to put in the hard work!

Reminders

• Come get mobile tonight with Coach Fox at 6:30pm for Active Recovery. Why do we run AR classes at CFSBK? Coach David wrote a whole article about it over on his blog, ITA. Check it out!
• Check out Pilates with KH at 7:30pm tonight, but remember that next week’s session is canceled. 

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Chad Vaughn, 315 pound Clean and Jerk in Slow Motion CrossFit
Why I Hate CrossFit The Box Magazine
Losing Weight May Require Some Serious Fun New York Times
Ballet Dancers’ Toughest Moves, Explained In Slow Motion The Hairpin 

Farmer Carries

Spend 20 minutes alternating 30m carries with a partner. Go heavy. 

20 Minutes Not for Rounds:
400m Row
30-50 Double Unders (about a minute) OR 10-20 Pull Ups. Choose which skill you need the most work on.
:20-:30 L-Sit

The pull ups can be strict or kipping, but should be sub max effort. 

Because at CFSBK, we’re inclusive of all ranges of skills, personalities, and ages

Still Interested in the Veggie CSA?

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Born to Be Mild CrossFit Journal
Parenting Against the Grain: Going Furniture-Free SlowMama

• Happy birthday, Roosevelt M.!

Bend, Stretch, Mobilize, and Flip

• Yoga for Athletes with Coach Whitney at 10am
• Active Recovery at 11am and 12pm with Coach David
• If you signed up for Ken H.’s back flip class, remember that you’re meeting today from 2-3:30pm

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An Open Letter to the Songwriters of “Let It Go” McSweeney’s
Subway Hero Rescues Wedding Ring New York Times
The Scientific Reason Why Tetris Is So Addicting Shape

Performance
20 minutes Not for Rounds:
1-3 Strict Muscle Ups
3-6 Strict Handstand Push Ups (deficit if you can)
6-10 Pistols

Rest as needed between movements. 

Fitness
20 Minutes Not for Rounds:
1 Wall Walk with a :10 hold
5 Ring Dips or Push Ups
10e Goblet Deficit Lunges

Rest as needed between movements. 

Elijah Muhammad crushing it at the South East Regionals last weekend 

Join Keith F. at the Out Fit Challenge 

Keith F. is running in the Out Fit Challenge on Saturday, June 21st, in Tuxedo, NY. This is a LGBT 5K mud-run with post-race free beer, and Keith is looking for more teammates! If you want to join, you can sign up for his team by viewing his team page here. It’s about $60.00, with processing fees and insurance included. He’s got a team of seven now, and would love to add more CFSBKers! Feel free to email Keith for more info at keithrfr [at] gmail.com. 

Upcoming Programming Cycle

Our next cycle starts on Monday! In case you missed it last time, there is a new link in the new left-hand column, called Current Programming Cycle. The page includes the dates of each component of the cycle, the template, the programming plan per movement (such as the percentages or whether fitness is doing a linear progression), and any competitions or athletic events happening during the cycle. Many of you requested that the information on that page be more readily available and here it is!  

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Health Experts See Benefits in Push to Cut Pollution New York Times
Are You Addicted to Dining Out? GQ
Some Surprising Things VSauce
Sleeping: Neck, Shoulders, and Pillows mobility|WOD

A: Turkish Get-Up 101

B: TGU/Swing Partner Couplet
With a partner, alternate the following work for 15 Minutes:
3 Turkish get-ups, right arm
30 Kettlebell Swings
3 Turkish get-ups, left arm

Go heavy on this. One person should always be working.

C: Chin-Up/Weighted Plank Couplet
With a partner, alternate the following work for 15 Minutes:
:45 Weighted Forearm Plank
6 Strict chest to bar Chin-Ups with a :02 hold at the top

Focus on a mature finish position on your chin-ups.

Foraging in Prospect Park with “Wildman” Steve Brill

Let your natural hunter-gatherer come forth and take your Paleo diet to the next level as we join naturalist Steve Brill for one of his foraging tours right in our backyard in search of seasonal edible and medicinal wild plants and mushrooms. The tour will be on Sunday, June 22, meeting at Grand Army Plaza at 11:45am. $20 suggested donation for the four-hour tour. RSVP to Mare by Friday, June 20 at mare [at] crossfitsouthbrooklyn.com if you’d like to join.

Have you ever wanted to learn to do a standing back flip? 

Now is your chance. Join guest gymnastics coach Ken H. THIS SATURDAY as he takes you through various progressions leading up to doing standing back flips.

Buy-in: Power clean your body weight
Time: Saturday, June 7th, 2-3:30pm
Cost: $20 

The class is capped at 8 participants, so don’t think twice! Register Here! 

Ken Haller’s Bio
Ken was a nationally competitive gymnast in Newton, MA and at the University of Michigan. After graduating, Ken coached for eight years at Capital Gymnastics in Northern Virginia where he coached regional and national champions. His students have gone on to be NCAA champions and members of Cirque du Soliel. In searching for an activity to replace gymnastics, Ken filled the void with rock climbing and yoga for the past ten years and recently found CrossFit to round out his training.

Meat and Fish CSA Pickup Today

Pickup is 6-8:30pm! Be there or be square. (Note that the vegetable CSA will be next Wednesday, June 11.)

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The American Dream Is Alive—and It’s Really, Really Tiny The Atlantic
Running Streak of 16,438 Days Will Set American Record Los Angeles Times
Do Things You Can Sustain James Clear
A Tattoo That Completes a New Breast New York Times 

Our valiant and mud-stained Spartans after their race on Saturday

2014 Articles and Media in Review

We’re almost half-way through 2014, and the CFSBK blog has been full of great articles—about good training habits, nutrition, thoughts on why and how we do things the way we do, and interviews with beloved members of our community. In addition to living over on the CFSBK Articles & Media page, all the cool shit we’ve posted so far this year is below, listed in the order each article was posted (starting with the most recent). All for your Tuesday reading pleasure!

Tips on How to be Prepared and Get the Most Out of Group Classes Chris Fox
Memorial Day Musings Dr. Mike Cutaia
The Master: An Interview with Bob Semmens and Coach McDowell Kate Reece
Notes on an Injury from a Physical Therapy Student who CrossFits Katie Harper
On Strength Training and Strength Cycle: A Q&A with Coach Jeremy Kate Reece
Starting Class with Introductions Inside the Affiliate
Running Training Tips from CFSBK’s Endurance Program Coach Michael Olzinski
April Athlete of the Month: Matt Chmielecki
On Being an Athlete Who Doesn’t Eat Meat with Coach Whitney Kate Reece
Why Join a CSA? Part 3 Margie Lempert
Why Join a CSA? Part 2 Margie Lempert
Behind the Lens: Asta Fivgas Kate Reece
Why Join a CSA? Part 1 Margie Lempert
Behind the Desk: Ava Page
March Athlete Of The Month: Laura McElherne
Underneath the Hoodie: Melissa L. Kate Reece
Transitioning from the Look, Feel, Perform Better Challenge Chris Fox
Behind the Lens: Bekka Palmer Kate Reece
Injury, Insight Noah Abbott
Low Bar Versus High Bar Back Squats David Osorio
There Is No Wagon: Thoughts on Binge Eating and Dieting Chris Fox
Underneath The Hoodie: Robert McDowell Myers Kate Reece
January Athlete of the Month: Peter Mattis

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What other topics would you like to read about, written by the CFSBK staff?

Press 101

1-1-1-1-1
Work up to a heavy single in 5 attempts. If you haven’t pressed much before, use today to find your starting weight for a 3×5 Linear Progression. We’ll be seeing presses in the next cycle.

The birthday girl on her final mile of “Murph” with Asha, who was already done with her heat, but joined Whit’s last mile for support

• Happy Birthday, Coach Whitney! 
• Back Off Week starts today! 

Back Off Weeks 

By David Osorio

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.  At CrossFit South Brooklyn, we follow a 3/1/2/1 weekly microcycle which looks like this:

CFSBK Microcycle
Saturday: On
Sunday: On
Monday: 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 “fitness” programs. 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 GPP program which aims to achieve a consistently high level of work capacity over a life time. 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 8: Back Off/Prep Week

 Autoregulating
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.

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A Thank-You and a Warning Catalyst Athletics
12 Surprising Foods with More Sugar Than a Krispy Kreme Doughnut takepart