Fitness:  Snatch Segment Deadlift (1″ off floor, Knee, Mid Hang) + Hang Power Snatch + OHS
Try to catch the power snatch in a quarter squat, stabalize the load then proceed into the rest of the overhead squat. Only recover the bar after the power snatch if you need to adjust your feet or position. Only go as deep as you can organize properly in the overhead squat.

Performance: Snatch Segment Deadlift (1″ off floor, Knee, Mid Hang) + Mid Hang Snatch
The first part of this complex can develop awarness of balance and tension during the initial pull off the floor. Focus on speed under the bar for the high hang snatch.
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Back Squat

Fitness: 3×5 Across
Leave room to grow, today’s reps should feel like there is weight on the bar but you’re moving perfectly and not grinding. Reset 1-3 exposures from the last cycle if you need to reset.

Performance: Work up to a heavy 5

Post loads to comments.
Snatch/BSQ e1/6

DIY Cash Out – 21-15-9 Heavy Russian KB Swing (breathing rest) + 550m Run

Partner Yoga at CrossFit South Brooklyn

• Coming in 2014: Mat Pilates classes with Kristen H, Evening Yoga with Whitney H and More Active Recovery! Get stoked.
• There is a new post up on Coach DO’s blog, “Inside The Affiliate“. It’s a blog post about how to blog, very meta. Please share it with your besties.

Kettlebell Kitchen at CFSBK!

Want to make eating healthy Paleo meals easier? Check out our in house paleo partners, Kettlebell Kitchen– your go to for Paleo & Zone meals! Food for CrossFitters by CrossFitters, Kettlebell Kitchen is an easy & convenient way to get top notch nutrition delivered right to the box. We’ve tasted the food ourselves, and we think it’s great!

The complete menu, along with ingredient lists and nutrition facts can be found here: MENU
Ordering instructions and FAQs can be found here: FAQs

Do you order from Kettlebell Kitchen? What have been your experiences? What is your favorite meal?
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Charmel R, Chris D, Pierre M, Bob S, Keith W and Jay R at this weekends Masters competition at CrossFit North Haven

Overall, really fun time.  Was a privilege to compete with Chris, Keith, Charmel, Pierre and Bob.  Huge props to Josh for coming out, getting us all warmed up to compete and for his great coaching and cues during the WODs.

That said . . . a great experience.  Wouldn’t mind trying something like this again at some point.  Big ups to Bob who took home the title in his age bracket – Jay R

Fitness: 3×5 Across
Start cycle light enough to add weight for six weeks

Performance: 2×5, 1xMax Reps <10
Start cycle at 70% of 1RM

Post loads to comments.
Bench Press e1/6
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Fitness:

3 Rounds for max reps:
1 Minute V-Ups or Tuck Ups
1 Minute Burpees or Squat Thrusst
1 Minute Dumbbell Hang Power Snatch
1 minute Rest

Performance:

3 Rounds for max reps:
1 Minute Toes to Bars
1 Minute Burpees
1 Minute Dumbbell Power Snatch @33% of bodyweight
1 minute Rest

For both Performance and Fitness, alternate arms per rep on Snatches.

Post total reps and Rx to comments.

DROMz

Heavy Thoughts: Part 2

We recently asked how you guys and gals structure your thoughts before attempting a complex or demanding lift. Last time we talked about the importance of having a ritual. Here is part 2 in our coaching tips to help you optimize your mental training experience.

Cultivate Confidence
Whether you realize it or not, every time you go to pick up something heavy you’re going into a fight. At near max efforts your margin of error becomes paper thin and even a little self doubt can can mean the difference between an epic PR or an epic fail.  I’ve seen so many people week in and week out miss even light weights because they didn’t trust themselves. They hesitated and subsequently didn’t commit to the lift. An experienced lifter knows that at a certain point, you’ve simply got to shut up and go for it.  The analysis is over and it’s time for action.  Sometimes this manifests as a floor stopping, adrenaline filled pre-lift ritual and sometimes it’s a quiet confidence that’s attained. Either way, you want to fill your mind with simple positive reinforcement and visualize yourself being successful (more on that later). Try to channel how it’s going to feel hitting that weight as if you already did it before touching the bar. Developing confidence is both a skill and integral part of your technical development. A slight hesitation can be just as crippling as shifting forward while you snatch, either way, you’re going to blow the lift. Start by practicing your confidence with your warm-up weights and be mindful about how your mentality changes as the weight goes up.  Will you keep up with the weight or let it roll you over?

How do you establish pre-lift confidence?
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Powerlifting: The Mentality Mark Bell
The power of adrenaline: Man lifts car off 3 year old boy
History of the Turkish Get Up CrossFit Belair

5 Rounds NFT of:
5ea Windmills
10 H2H Swings
5ea Lunge (contra-lateral load)
10ea H2H Swing
5ea Thrusters

Post load to comments.

• There is no Comp Class today
• Good luck to Chris P, Charmel R, Bob S, Jay R and Keith W at the  Christmas Throwdown today at CrossFit North Haven.

Our Upcoming Cycle

Monday starts the new mesocycle of training at CFSBK. Here’s what to look forward to…

Monday – Bench Press + WOD or NFT

Tuesday – Rest Day/Make Up Day

Wednesday – Snatch + Back Squat + DIY Cash Out

Thursday – WOD

Friday – Rest Day/Make Up Day

Saturday – Clean and Jerk + Front Squat

Sunday – WOD

The goals of the cycle are to:

• Continue to improve proficiency in the Olympic lifts

• Incoporate a barbell based upper body strength lift

• Continue to incorporate longer, challenging WODs

• Continue to squat 2x/week

• Include a gymnastics based skill/strength in WODs each week

• Consistently incorporate lunge variant to bring up unilateral leg strength

This next cycle will lead right into the Open, where we’ll put more of an emphasis on work capacity. Expect to see this cycle dovetail into the goals of the next.

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Twitching Gym Jones
Double-Under Positioning CrossFit
CrossFit trainer will be PHL’s first astronaut
Bloomberg Defends NYPD’s Controversial Stop And Kiss Program

1-1-1-1-1

Post loads to comments.
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Row 3000m

Row at about 70% RPE. Keep your stroke rating low, your pulls strong and dial in your techinque.

Behind The Desk Series: Whitney H

Here is the next installment in our new series called Behind the Desk, about our beloved and much appreciated Front Desk staff. These CrossFitters take care of the important duties of checking in our members, handling walk-ins, tidying up after classes, and so many other things that it would take forever to list them. They are the glue that holds this gym together.

Full name: Whitney Hubbard

Where were you born and where did you grow up:
Born in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Grew up in Lake Forest, Illinois — a suburb of Chicago.

First album that you loved:
Either Ace of Base’s The Sign or Mariah Carey’s Music Box

What are you up to when you’re not at 597 Degraw Street:
Well… between the front desk, teaching Yoga for Athletes, and actually working out I spend quite a lot of time at CFSBK! Beyond that, I teach yoga in Cobble Hill and Park Slope (at studios and privately in my home and others’ homes), walk and play with my recently-adopted dog Penny, and cook as many delicious meals and treats as possible. I recently became a Level 1 CrossFit Trainer and am also currently in a yoga teacher mentorship program; I’m continually interested in how to best coach/instruct people in their pursuits of health and fitness.

“Ask me about that time I…”:
…raced Coach Noah in “suicide” wind sprints in the Key Foods parking lot after the Fight Gone Bad 2012 after-party.

Earth is about to implode but aliens on a previously undiscovered planet named Euripides want to preserve one artifact from humans. What would you offer them?
A foam-roller. Mobilize your alien business!!

Favorite shade of blue:
Teal… the blue that’s approaching green, like when sunlight shines through a wave that’s about to break.

Favorite lift:
Snatch
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Give Any Bike Instant Turbo Mode with This Innovative New Wheel Greatist
Four Common Foot Injuries in the Athlete Breaking Muscle
Earn Your Carbs TTMJ

From the Vault: CF HQ staffers and long time CFSBK super-friends Adrian Bozman and Jennifer Hunter-Marshall teach the GHD Sit-Up at a Level 1 seminar we hosted in August of 2009

Heavy Thoughts: Part 1

Yesterday we asked how you guys and gals structure your thoughts before attempting a complex or demanding lift.  Here is part 1 in our coaching tips to help you optimize your mental training experience.

Have a ritual
The less you need to process before a complex or demanding lift the easier it will be for you to focus on the nuances of execution.  Whenever you set up to perform an exercise, make all the steps leading to your start position and pre lift brace consistent and correct. Over time these will become second nature and you wont have to cloud your mind with details about where your feet go, how the bar feels in your hand or exactly when you’ll take in that last breath. By ritualizing this process you can consistently enter into a good start position and focus on the adjustments you’re attempting to make. Additionally, this will increase your confidence in each attempt as you’re consistently entering familiar movement territory even if an unfamiliar weight happens to be on the bar. Remember that practice makes permanent, every lift, from your first warm-up to a PR attempt should look identical up to the point you begin applying force.  Obviously, developing this motor memory and routine sequence takes time and will sometimes need to be tinkered with. The point is that through conscious repetition you begin to decrease the variables and increase your chances for success.

Tough Titsday Powerlifting Meet V

To the ladies of CFSBK:

We are hosting our fifth powerlifting meet!

What: 3 attempts at a 1 rep max of Backsquat, Bench Press and Deadlift
When: January 12, 2014 at 2:30pm; weigh in and registration at 1pm; rules review at 2pm
Who: SBK women who have been attending group classes for at least 4 months

How much: $25
Bonus: Celebrate post meet with your fellow lifters and friends. Drinks on us!
25 spots available. Registration deadline is January 5, 2014. 

The Details:
Each woman will have 3 attempts to hit a max single in Squat, Bench and Deadlift, in that order. All lifters will make their attempts in each lift before moving to the next.

First, second and third place winners will be awarded in each weight class based on total combined weight of best lifts.

There will be 4 weight classes:
Pixies: Under 125
Ladies: 126-140
Dames: 141-155
Broads: Over 156
In the event of a tie, lowest weight wins.

Register Here

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Adrian Bozman Demos “Tom” CrossFit

Fitness:

25 Minutes Not for rounds of:
20 Second Paralette Support (perform on the low ring to spice it up)
15 V-Ups
10 Single Leg Squats to a Box, each leg
5 Paralette Shoot Throughs
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Performance:

25 Minutes Not for rounds of:
20 Second Ring Support
10 V-Ups
10 Pistols
5 Hang Pull Through to Skin-the-Cat

The CFSBK Fighting Tacos

• Happy Birthday’s to Coach Melo, Lisa F (LF DOOM), Christanna S, AND Dr. Mike!
• Have you been following DO’s new blog Inside The Affiliate? You can also follow it on Facebook, Twitter, and by signing up for a newsletter on the website. The one and only Matt K will be running the FB and Twitter.

Bridging Gowanus

“Next week, we are kicking off Bridging Gowanus, an inclusive community-driven planning process to develop a long-term vision for a safe, vibrant, and sustainable Gowanus.

The first in a series of community planning meetings is Monday, December 9, 2013 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at PS 372, 512 Carroll Street in Brooklyn.

Bridging Gowanus is an effort to bring together a wide range of community members to identify broadly-shared goals, discuss different viewpoints, and build consensus around a neighborhood framework for the infrastructure and land use regulations needed in the Gowanus Canal area. I hope you will participate and invite your neighbors. Learn more here.

Thoughts

How we structure our thoughts while training a movement can greatly effect our actual success with it. Tomorrow we’ll talk about some tips to help get you thinking more productively while you train. Today, we want to hear about what you’re already doing.

What are the kinds of things that run through your mind before and immediately following a techincal lift like the snatch? 
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SkullTrek A rowing powered bicycle
Progress… Twice As Hard For Half As Much Cathletics

Turkish Get Ups: Heavy Single
Fat Bar Deadlift: Heavy Single
Sled Pushes: Medium weight, 20 yards

Post loads to comments.

Alex gets braced before Front Squatting

• Happy Birthday, Matt K!
• Don’t forget to bring your lightly used jackets for the CFSBK Coat Drive

Meat CSA is Today & January Pickup Date Change

Behind the Desk
You all love the Underneath the Hoodie series (stay tuned for more on that soon), but we’re bringing you a new series called Behind the Desk, about our beloved and much appreciated Front Desk staff. These CrossFitters take care of the important duties of checking in our members, handling walk-ins, tidying up after classes, and so many other things that it would take forever to list them. They are the glue that holds this gym together. 

There are seven of them, so expect a new post about a new person on the next seven rest days. Great to put their lovely faces with their names, and some weird, fun facts—since we know how much we love weird, fun facts at CFSBK. As you get to know them, make sure to say hi and thank you for all their hard work. Questions asked and answers compiled by Kate R.

Introducing…

Full name: Mathew Alan Katz

Where were you born and where did you grow up:
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, grew up in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada

First album that you loved:
Weird Al’s Bad Hair Day

What are you up to when you’re not at 597 Degraw Street:
I’m a reporter on the internets!

“Ask me about that time I…”:
Had to carry around an old naked man at South by Southwest

Earth is about to implode but aliens on a previously undiscovered planet named Euripides want to preserve one artifact from humans. What would you offer them?:
A copy of Tommy Wiseau’s masterpiece, The Room.

Favorite shade of blue:
Bacon

Favorite lift:
Low bar back squat

We love you, Matt!
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CrossFit: The Good, Bad, and the Ugly Mark Rippetoe
Standardized CrossFit Practice CrossFit

Performance: 80%x3x5
Pause all your reps at the bottom for a 1 count. Work on your tightness and organization at the bottom of your rep.

Fitness: Work up to medium 5
Find your starting 5 for the cycle. Should be perfect with room to grow. If you’ve got time you can do up to three sets of this starting weight.

You’ll be seeing Bench Press on Mondays for the next 6 weeks!

Post loads to comments
Bench Press e1/7
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“Flight Simulator”
5-10-15-20-25-30-35-40-45-50-45-40-35-30-25-20-25-5
Reps of Consecutive Double Unders

Rest as needed between rounds of double unders. Must complete a round unbroken to progress to the next round. There is a 12 minute cap on this workout, see how far you can get!  If you don’t have doubles, use this as 12 minutes of practice on technique and efficiency.

Post highest rep round to comments.

Caption this photo of Julian V

• There is a new article up on Inside The Affiliate. Check it out!
• Don’t forget to bring in your lightly used jackets for our Coat Drive this week.

Back Off Weeks (Updated)

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 CF’er to take it upon themselves to consider their training over longer periods of time than a week. Especially for the folks coming in 5xW, 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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Ben Smith Squatting 480lbs
Gold Medal Moments: Kerri Strug Lands on her Feet at the 1996 Summer Olympics