CrossFit South Brooklyn

Established 2007

Rest Day WOD

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Choose 1 of the follwing RWODS to perform today:

1. Meditate for 10 minutes. Get comfortable somewhere, make sure there are no distractions (put your phone on airplane mode and set an alarm) and focus on your breathing.  Don’t come into it with any expectations, just do it. Extra points for doubling up to 20 minutes.
2. Read an article about something you know nothing about.  Work what you learned into a conversation later in the day.  Extra points if the reading material is non-digital.
3. Clean up a part of your house or workspace that has become cluttered or dirty. If applicable, throw out things you don’t need.

Post experience to comments.

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Rob N on Front Squats

Some Potluck Logistics

Dogs
If you were thinking of taking any 4 legged family members to the potluck tomorrow please keep the following things in mind. We’ve got about 100 People RSVP’d and there will be a lot of food so if your dog whines/begs for food or gets nervous around a lot of people or other dogs please keep them at home and bring them the leftovers.  Also- they will have to be chained to the stairs the entire time.

Serving Spoons
Please bring an appropriate serving spoon/utensil for your dish if it needs one!

Alchohol
We’ve got a couple folks bringing Tequila or making Norcal Margaritas. If you didn’t plan a meal, it’s A-ok to bring “the sauce”.

Food Heating
If your food needs to stay warm/hot please bring something to keep it a servable temperature. Crockpots are a potential option. If it’s okay to sit out then don’t stress it.

Contest!
We’re going to do a secret ballot for top 3 favorite dishes at the potluck. Come hunrgy and ready to taste a lot of dishes!

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Comments

  1. Response to yesterday's Question:

    The only organized sport I played growing up was Ice Hockey which was complimented by a lot of unorganized roller hockey and some skateboarding. (I was terrible at ice hockey and skateboarding while being pretty mediocre at roller hockey) I didn't play any sports until late middle school and to be honest I was always really really intimidated by them. I attribute that to being small, weak and generally lacking any physical confidence. I turned to lifting weights in high school because it was something where I didn't feel the pressure of other people's expectations while also being something I could do at my own pace.
    In college, I did Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for about 3.5 years and Shotokan Karate for about 4. Both those sports taught me the value in competition and getting out of my comfort zone physically and mentally.

    For as long as I could remember back, I always envied people who were strong and capable while being painfully aware of my own perceived physical limitations. Lifting weights was the most empowering thing I did during high school and influenced me really heavily (obviously). A LOT of the inclusive, friendly and serious nature that we cultivate at CFSBK exists because it was the type of atmosphere I was always looking for but could never find.

  3. So, paleo. I started before the challenge, lost 9lbs the first week (water) gained it back by the third week and now I am up 2lbs overall (approx. day 65). For the past year, despite slight dips and gains I have hung out right around 275. Can't seem to shake that number. Clearly I am in better shape, I am stronger, better lactic threshold, better deep breath, more flexible, better stamina, but WTF, am I ever going to get to a weight where I can do a pull-up? I mean zero progress on the weight in 11 months. Blech.

  4. Oh, and I will say that I do like being strong, and I appreciate everyone for complimenting me on that regularly, but I really want to be able to move again, jump, climb, dive, sail. And everywhere I go I am lugging around 80, 90, 100lbs of garbage weight. Dudes freak out in a 20lb weight vest. LOL. I've got 4 or 5 of those on all day and I am a girl.

  7. Have a great time at the paleo potluck all! Will be in Pittsburgh visiting THE SNIP (aka Steph Wilson, past CFSBKr for all of you guys who may have no idea who i'm talking about).

    Please drink 5 norcal margaritas for me (each). Thank you.

    Asta

  8. Also – Dan and I do something similar to that a lot (option #2). Or we will watch a new TedTalk or PodCast together after dinner and then talk about it. It's great reading about something completely new and then raelizing that you probably know someone who knows a lot about it and are able to make a new connection with them over this shared topic, something you probably wouldn't have even KNOWN to bring up prior to.

  9. Mig, I know. I just wish some light would go off and I could just be like, "Oh awesome, I just needed to not eat anything yellow, now I am getting slimmer."

  10. I understood the first two sentences of this:

    "He believed you should only deadlift once a week and never more than a few singles right after squatting. He thought the best way to train the deadlift was to ignore it. He felt everything was built off the squat…bench and deadlift alike."

    But not the last one. Does that simply mean that strength gains from the squat automatically translate into gains on the bench? How? I can see it happening for the deadlift, but for the bench?

  11. @Billy,

    I am sure that you have gotten stronger and fitter. Don't sweat the number. Muscle weighs more. I lost a few pounds, and I guess it tells me that maybe I lost some body fat, but I hope it wasn't muscle. Frankly, I'd rather feel better, look better, and weigh more, personally. I don't want to get caught in a trap of thinking that the paleo challenge is about losing weight, because that's probably a misdiagnosis. You could add 5 pounds and look better, depending on the circumstances. Slow and steady wins the race. You're doing great, just hang in there!

  12. Samir –

    The squat builds full body capacity. Yes, clearly your legs get stronger, but also your trunk and shoulders must in order to stabilize the weight and keep it from crushing you. If you are, in general, building muscle then that will translate to everything you do.

    I am sure Jeremy can answer with more eloquence and detail than that.

  14. Billy, I feel you. I'm feeling similar, albeit on a smaller scale. I'm not a big gal by any means but I do have a little pooch that I was hoping might disappear upon doing the challenge. Here's what has actually happened: I dropped 3 pounds the first week, got all excited, and promptly gained it all back the next week.

    Do you think there's a stress component in your case? I'm pretty sure there is in mine, alas.

  15. @billy Since July I've probably gone down an average of 15-20# and this has come with being REALLY strict paleo (with an emphasis on weight loss) almost the entire time… and being a total maniac about making sure I'm at the box 3 -5 days a week. Seriously though, don't beat yourself up about the numbers, 63 days of paleo isn't all that long in the grand scheme of things, keep playing with it and seeing what works. What JR said is totally true! If you are getting stronger, that means your muscles are growing, and you're probably leaner than you were before even if the numbers aren't making you happy. That said, below are the things I've noticed to be helpful in the weight loss front.

    Booze: I have noticed my weight loss totally stops when I am drinking… and I'm not even talking about a lot of drinking, even just a couple glasses of wine a week totally throws me off. When I stop 100%, I seem to slowly drop a couple pounds a week. Almost all the weight I've lost has been during times when I completely cut out ALL booze. (yes, it sucks)

    Carbs: Paleo won't necessarily guarantee weight loss, you need to make sure the foods you eat are helping you achieve your goals. How is your carb & sugar intake? If you are eating sweet potatoes, parsnips, carrots, and starchy veggies regularly could be totally screwing yourself from a weight loss stand point. The same goes for fruits — apples & oranges are LOADED with sugar, which translates to carbs, which makes loosing weight very hard. Nuts and seeds can also have more carbs (and calories!!) than expected Seriously, if you cut out all this stuff or limit it to once or twice a week MAX I almost guarantee you will see results. These foods are healthy and good, but if you're trying to get lean, they are counter productive.

    Treats: If you're baking paleo cupcakes/pancakes/brownies and shit, STOP! I fell into this trap when I first started the paleo thing and noticed I was probably eating more junk food than I did when I was on a standard diet. It's no good for losing weight!

    Calories: Very likely this isn't a problem since you're eating paleo, but if you find yourself sitting down and eating a bag of pecans from time to time, it might be.

  17. @Lana. You are right re: booze. It enhances appetite, can affect sleep adversely, makes you reach for extra servings, take a cab when you could walk, and so on. So it's not just the calories in there but its knock-on effects.

    @Margie: Thanks. I'd a feeling that was the case. And it makes sense, of course. I look forward to Jeremy waxing lyrical on this.

  18. So many things to talk about and so little time at work…

    We should get some evil wheels for the inchworm in Warmup 2 }:)

    Saturdays WOD was great but going from DU to squats was brutal. (8:17 was my time how was yours?)
    Deadlifts were fine. I felt I could do more. (I want to suggest if we do this style of working out that there is more than 1 day set up to determine your 1Rep Max. It seems pretty important to the working out style to know it and there are times I am feeling I am very much working way under my 1 rep max.

    Weight loss:
    Everyone faces some kind of body image/want to look a certain way. Some things to remember: (I use to tell all my clients this)
    How long did it take for you to get to the weight you were at your heaviest?
    9 times out of 10 its years and not a "oh a year or two". Assume you will take some time to get rid of it naturally and that is how you want to do it.

    There are a lot of factors that need to be taken into account when you are looking to drop fat.
    Age, sex, hereditary traits, diet, lifestyle, what you eat and when you eat it. When people first start to workout and their BMI is more fat than muscle the pounds drop quick to a point. Then the work really begins. That is the time not to give up or get discouraged. It's the time to start the adjustments and make corrections to help burn off those difficult pounds. It's much harder to burn off the last 5 pounds of weight than the first 5.

    Alcohol is one thing that no matter what WILL stop your weight loss. (Unless you are 22 and a very active athlete.) It does 3 really bad things to your system (despite how much we enjoy it)
    1. Your liver freaks out to the poison in your system and puts all other processing on hold (So food starts to immediately get converted to fat for storage and processing later.
    2. It spikes your sugar level as the alcohol gets converted back into sugar to be processed. This strains your body and make you hungry (mmm drunk french fries or pizza anyone?) Putting more calories into you body that can't be processed.
    3. Dehydrates you. So your muscles which are the furnace for all that fat "go cold" so they are not burning as much fuel (fat) as they could be.

    If you are really hitting walls maybe talk to a nutritionist and take some one on one sessions with one of the coaches to work on things when you are not in the box.

  19. I forgot one more thing… Don't go by weight!
    The day I started the Challenge I was 165 pounds almost the heaviest I have ever been in my life. That weight however I will say was mostly muscle not fat. Go by how you feel, how clothes fit and how you look not how you weigh.

  20. those coconut macaroons made me sick to my stomach. WTF was i thinking? literally as i was eating them, i was like, "why am i doing this?" it took me til today to figure out what was going on.

    i need to bring food to eat right after lifting from now on. i haven't done that so far, but it's obviously time.

  21. Gabrus Update
    been in LA working long days for about 5 days now….have had some tequila…some red wine…NO GRAINS…NO BEER…just a dash a of milk in my coffee, and a t-bone steak and eggs from IHOP that seemed like it was cooked in candy.
    Been doing mobility, pushups, and some plank in the conference room and hotel room a bit.

    I got a picture of JR on a plank of wood that I punch every day (dont actually wanna get physical with a bad ass that has been boxing as long as I have been a live)

    As for yesterdays question…I played every organized sport that people play in my life…soccer/wrestling/basketball/roller hockey/tennis/BJJ/volleyball…
    When I got to HS, I narrowed it down to Football, (soccer for a travel team), and Swimming.
    At the end of HS I lost a bunch of weight and got jacked and when I went to college i played 4 years of rugby and in the summer I did 7s/ lifeguard competitions and swimming.
    Now I just play rugby…I like lifting weights…but really only lift so I can be better at sports with balls and tackling.

    I wanna also write about being fat now, but I got shit to get done…maybe Ill always post a day late.

    from cali
    -gabrus

  22. Billy,

    Your frustrations are valid and I can see how deterring it might feel for progress on your primary goal to not sync with your perceived efforts. I am however happy to hear you say that other markers of health seem to be moving in favorable directions. Weight loss can be a muti-facited affair including, insulin sensitivity, genetics, total caloric load and one's own dietary history. You might consider asking yourself these questions. "Are there things I've done in the past that worked? What about my current approach is producing consistently positive adaptations?

    If I had a guaranteed solution specific for your situation I would certainly provide it. What I will say is that focusing on the bright spots as opposed to the problems can sometimes help clarify things and steer us in a positive direction. That would be my 2 cents

  24. Close Grip Pause Bench
    255x2x5 with 90 sec rest
    Went to close grip and pause to keep the weight lighter, very low energy today. The short rest period made it a little more difficult

    French press/hammer curl superset
    Just messed around with some dumbbells going to failure back and forth between exercises, just wanted a little pump before lunch.

    As far as weight loss. Maybe the best gift wrestling gave me was a healthy disdain for scales. For a wrestler a scale is something to be gamed. Sweat out water, make weight, rehydrate. It holds no judgement, no value. It's just something to be tricked, like a senile babysitter. A scale tells you how much gravitational attraction exists between you and the planet you're standing on. That's it. In my mind the only time you should be on one is when you're getting ready to compete in a sport with weight classes.
    Weight is mishmash of a ton of highly variable factors. When I was getting ready for the powerlifting meet last week, I'd check my weight 2x a day and it would vary by 4 lbs easily. Weight doesn't tell you shit. If you want to know how a diet/exercise program is working there are far better diagnostic tools available. Am I stronger? Get under a bar. Am I faster? 3 2 1 Go. Is your body comp improving? Check the mirror.
    I hope that didn't come off harsh. I hear the weight questions a lot from people and I usually give them some form of this answer. I tend to communicate better through writing, so hopefully this helps some.

    Feel free to tell me to fuck off.

  27. Fuck off Jeremy with your 255 "light" bench day with tiny rests…
    😉

    Last night's Intensity day:

    Squat: 320×3
    These moved well. I stopped as I didn't want to tax my back.

    Bench: 200×4
    Ditto

    Skipped Dead Lifts.
    Ditto.

  28. Just to join in the conversation, Billy, I totally hear you. I think sometimes paleo folks can get a little overly preachy about all the marvels that the diet can provide. It's absolutely true that for many people, this style of eating can cause dramatic improvements in body composition, but I think it's also critical that we all acknowledge that it's not magic. It doesn't cause instant six pack abs on everyone within the first four months as Whole9 or whoever might have you believe.

    And that lack of abs doesn't have to be a compliance problem. It sounds like we all think that paleo is so perfect that if someone is eating "clean" and not losing weight (losing body fat), they must be doing something "bad"–they must be inhaling nuts or drinking booze or eating tons of fruit. I know that for me, that's just not the case. I'm strict 95% of the time not during the challenge, and all the time now–strict meaning 8 hrs sleep, no nuts, no fruit, no grains, no dairy, no booze, not even any coffee. I've made peace with the fact that I think my body comp is pretty static–I can change it a little here and there with different workout plans and amounts of food, but by and large, I will always run on the heavy side. I think 15 years of metabolic craziness has permanently changed how my body reacts. But are there other reasons to eat paleo? Absolutely. I may not be changing my body comp in any significant way, but I absolutely look, feel and perform better so that's enough.

    I'm all for trying the endocrinologist route, Billy–I'm curious what they say. For me, the answer was that there is no answer. I'm healthy, I just happen to carry more weight on me than I "should." But I can do what I want to do–run, kip, row, lift–and I look/feel/perform okay, so I call that success

  29. @Billy: I have a recommendation from a paleo friend for a holistic endocrinologist who looks at diet etc rather than just hormone levels and giving you pills. I've not (yet) seen her myself but her info is at www(dot)endony(dot)com (avoiding the blasted Captcha thingy). Margie may also have a rec.

    I meditated for 10' this morning. It didn't make me as productive as I would have hoped (I've seen that result in the past) but I slept little and it's Friday so who knows what I might have been like otherwise. Thanks for the suggestion!

  30. 100% ditto to Katie! No one can say exactly how YOUR body is going to react to any set of eating habits, and there is no reason to feel bad if you're not getting the same results others might – as long as you're feeling better, you're doing something right.

    For me, I've done some effed up stuff to my metabolism in the past, and like Katie said, that makes a serious, long-term difference in how your body reacts to even the best eating. And I'll probably never know how much of the way I'm shaped is something I was born with vs. something I created by eating shit, then eating nothing at all, then eating different shit, etc… In fact, the best thing I can say about paleo (a year and a half in) is that I actually feel like my metabolism is getting more "normal" over time. Not quickly… but it's definitely changing for the better, which is amazing when I look back at some years of gaining fat while eating ~1300-1500 calories and doing 2 hours a day of weightlifting and triathlon training. Super-strict paleo does seem to change my body comp, but slooooooowly – and booze definitely derails that, too. Basically, it may not be fast, but at least I feel confident that any changes that do happen from paleo are not further screwing up my metabolism.

    Anyways, if anyone would have any more insight into the situation, it would be a good endocrinologist! I wish I could recommend one!

  32. Been wanting to play around with Monday's workout all week, got in tonight and got it done.

    Worked up to 195 for an OHS single, which felt really good. Could have probably squeaked out a little more, but I built up there pretty slowly and my wrists and shoulders were starting to get mad at me.

    Did the DU/OHS WOD and got 5 rounds and 21 Double Unders. Blessing and a curse with fast DUs…I felt like it was Groundhog Day and I kept waking up to more overhead squats.

    Excited for a long day at the gym tomorrow, gonna be Pale-Oh-So-Fun!

  33. Yeah, Katie, thanks. I have probably written five replies to the generally pejorative sentiment of the comments above and then stopped because I wasn't sure how to explain why I was–to be really honest–genuinely insulted, without coming off all wrong, I guess for a second time today.

    Thanks also to Mig and Erica and Jeremy, and no, you didn't make me want to tell you to fuck off at all, I say a lot of those things to myself the other 364 days of the year to keep hustling…

    I would really love to hear Gabrus weigh in on weight. Seriously, I feel like he is someone I look to a lot when he is in the gym.

    And David, I really do appreciate that the sun shines quite brightly in your world, and I find that to be rather incredible about you. We are just incredibly different from each other, which is super cool. We all need to remember to smile more, even if the reminder itself makes us want to shoot the messenger.

    But today is the day, and it is an important one, where I checked my base metrics and said to myself, honestly those things I really wanted to change this year did not change. The person I want to be is still quite far away from me, despite all the discipline and handwork. And that really sucks, hard.

    I appreciate that the folks that know me a bit realize that I am not the beer and nuts type. (I don't drink and I am allergic to nuts.) And the folks that know me a little better know that I am a six day a week athlete. And that I regularly I catch extra mini workouts at lunch or afterwork. In short, I know I did my due diligence. And I know my body is capable of being much lighter than this, and I am working harder and smarter for it now then I did when I was a D1 athlete. So, I take the advice about sweets and alcohol with a grain of salt, because I know those posts likely will help a bunch of folks, just not so much me.

    Complicated conversations are much more interesting than simple ones. Someday I will find a good way to tell you all about the things I have tried that were successful, though not sustainable, but I don't think they would be appreciated on the blog for a lot of complicated reasons.

    Best, Billy

  34. I just made some "Egg Houses" via the everyday Paleo Book. Mine did not come out anywhere near as clean looking as they did in the book and my oven really seems to struggle getting up to 400 degress so it took a bit longer. Overall, they were very filling but I wasn't crazy about the taste of baked tomato.

    Link: http://healthyhungryhappy.com/2011/08/shes-an-egg-house/

    JR,

    In today's world, I tend to think anything that gets us away from the glowing rectangular screens will impact us more directly.. hopefully.

    Today I cleaned the desk in my middle room. Which I'm now doing work on!

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