CrossFit South Brooklyn

Established 2007

April Athlete Of The Month

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Christine Naclerio!

Christine has been working her butt off to get better in the gym since day 1, just about a year ago. She’s a hard worker who decided not to settle for the success she had leading up to her honeymoon, but instead came back to the gym and continued working towards more. Her hard work has stood out to the coaching staff here and has proved itself on the platform as well. Super nice, hard working, consistent and supportive, Ladies and Germs, Christine Naclerio.

Fox – So, how and why did you start Crossfit?

CN – A facebook friend had been posting about Crossfit and about how it was harder than the marathon she’d run. I took a teaser here in April of 2011 and was in. “Normal” gym routines held no interest for me and I was looking for something different. I found it here! I was engaged to my now husband, Eric, and was eager to start a new life. I was overweight and wanted to do something about it.

Fox – What were your fitness experiences like pre-CF?

CN – I was a kid athlete and played high school soccer in Miami where I grew up. In high school I was also in the weightlifting club. The coach was told that if he wanted to start a club he’d have to have females in it so he grabbed some of the sports girls and made them part of the ‘team’. We never got too much coaching, he spent most of his time on the guys, but I loved it nonetheless. It’s one of the aspects of Crossfit I really enjoy. Prior to joining CFSBK I was trying a whole bunch of things: running, videos, spin classes, but I was really bored with it. I can’t imagine going back to that now.

Fox – That weightlifting coach sounds like a tool, but it’s great that you recognized an interest in the lifts early on. What made you stick with Crossfit, as opposed to everything else.

CN – The constantly varied part really helps. It’s not the same thing day in and day out and I don’t have to think about what I’m going to do in the gym that day. I have coaches who tell me! I’m trying to get better at lots of things but push ups and pull ups are what I’m working on now. I love how Crossfit, and CFSBK in particular, is inclusive to anyone. The non-intimidating vibe here is really unique. You can have someone beasting out on a lift or WOD one minute and a few minutes later they’re smiling and introducing themselves to someone. It makes for a great community. Fight Gone Bad is a really awesome expression of that and I can’t wait to try to beat my score this year!

Fox – That’s so great to hear and never gets old. We love getting people stronger and faster, but in the end we’re most proud of our community of plain old good people. Tell me about you outside the box.

CN – I moved to New York from Miami to go to school upstate at Colgate.  I was looking for seasons. We only have summer in Miami, turns out Upstate NY only has winter!….After graduating I moved to Brooklyn in 2006 and have been here since. I work in television as a kind of technical advisor for HBO. I don’t do any writing for TV but am a huge nerd about shows. I love to watch stuff and try to figure out what’s going to last. And I can analyze pretty much anything, you know, the social implications of 90210 are a big deal! The hubby and I also like biking around NYC and exploring different neighborhoods. We’ve also recently got into skiing, and I’ve always been a big fan of rollerblading.  Other than that, I’ll admit that I dabble in PC games. I play strategy games like Starcraft 2.

Fox – Everyone at this gym is a nerd about something. I’m sure we’ll be hearing from the PC gamers after this! You did the paleo challenge this year and had some good results. What positive changes did you make?

CN – I was very skeptical at first. My dad is a low-carb guy so the concepts were not foreign to me. I gave up grains which was actually not as hard as I thought. The cravings for sweets however were a very different story. I enjoyed the challenge, lost some belly fat, and am really happy about some good habits Eric, who was super supportive, and I developed. We cook most of our meals at home now and on Sunday prepare breakfasts and lunches for the week. I no longer am beholden to what’s available, I’m making decisions about what I’m eating. I do have to admit though that the post -challenge burger, fries and 3 beers was satisfying.

Fox – That’s always my post-challenge meal as well, maybe with an extra beer or so in there. Alright, last question. What should we look for in a future AOM?

CN – I’d thought about this since I knew you’d ask. I love hearing the stories about people who have really made dramatic changes in their life because of Crossfit.  It’s always really inspiring.  I’d love to hear more of those stories, have those people highlighted.

————-

CFSBK is lucky to have the likes of Christine inside our walls working hard each week. We look forward to her continued success and development of good habits.

Comments

  8. Congrats to Christine! Awesome.

    Sorry to be a day late on the rest of this but I just got back from a week of manual labor out of town. It’s good to put my newly improved functional strength to work but I’m happy to be home- excited to do the “Bradshaw” tonight.

    I appreciate all the feedback and discussion about my piece. I actually talked to Samir a couple days after the vote that I was surprised nothing on the topic had appeared on his blog. We agreed that to look at the issue one would have to be somewhat thorough in sorting through the ins and outs of it….. a couple days later I was bored and decided to give it a try. As David pointed out I was trying to get some analysis going and not just plug my opinion.

    As to the whole “meta-vote” thing that was me having fun. Samir and Joel both pointed out other good examples. Personally I don’t object to the process per-se but I think that a simple majority at an open meeting is not representative. It becomes a question of who turns up that night, who organizes better. In a lot of places (think California) it’s a question of collecting an absolute number. If roughly 600 people turn up on a Tuesday to vote in favor of a referendum, well I think that that should be sufficient.

    As to the vote creating animosity, I hear that. I do. But at the same time the Coop strives to be a living, evolving institution so I don’t think that it should shy away from making tough decisions because they are politically sensitive. Again, just my opinion.

    David- you know attending a monthly meeting gets a you a free make up shift right? Also, you can propose doing other things to make up shifts (like offer an evening talk on Paleo…)
    ______________

    As to Mr. Chopra… good piece. I think the clean is a ton of fun for all the reasons it’s also difficult. The skill development that comes with it makes the workouts so much more engaging. My cleans suck, yet I love them. Coaches- not only do I want a sexy clean, I want to be able to celebrate it with a backflip like the Chinese guy in the video. Any help?
    _______________

    About sports and balance with Crossfit…. I think that this is a great conversation topic (blog article anyone?). Personally I’ve been training in martial arts for a few years and the desire to improve in that domain is what brought me to Crossfit. In the seminal article “What is Fitness” Glassman (I assume) spoke articulately about the difference between practice and training and this also helped sell me on the Crossfit concept. The trouble for most of us engaging in another physically demanding activity is balancing the programming of the two. For me, Kung-fu class is 2-3 hours and more met-conish so I figured at Crossfit I should probably focus on the three main lifts… (but I really like Monday’s workouts!).

    I think ultimately that you can’t serve two masters. First you have to figure out which is the priority (and this can change over time); second you have to assess what your goals are for that activity in priority order (fun? strength development? skill development? cardiovascular health? etc.). Third, asses what are the dominant energy systems needed to maximize your ability to achieve those goals and how much does that activity facilitate their development. Lastly, you should look at how your secondary activitie(s) can fill in any gaps you find there (e.g. improving your throwing power through heavy lifts or inversely, improving your met-con performance times by moving from half back to forward).

    Would love to hear more input from the coaches on this one.

  10. Congrats Christine.

    I made up Bradshaw today with Joy at 6am. I got 7 rounds and 5 pull ups Rx. I was near passing out towards the end but I guess that was the point! I didn't find any particular section too difficult while actually doing it. I just found it a lot of work keeping the heart rate down enough to continue moving.

    I would have loved to get a little past 8 rounds but I'm pretty psyched I could do everything as prescribed and get decently close to finishing–especially the hand stand push ups. I've never done those in a WOD.

    -Isaac

  12. Congrats Christine! As a 6am-er I don't know you but now I wish I did. And yay for the return of the AOTM feature! I love learning more about our peeps.

    @Noah B, that was so well-put. I came to CrossFit from capoeira (at which I suck, but which I looove) and for a long time my CF training was in service of capoeira. Then life, schedules, toddlers, etc. got in the way of capoeira and I dropped it. Made it back to a class for the first time in many months on Saturday. My ass is *still* sore. But I felt totally great doing it, and much, much more in command of my body. My teacher commented that it looked like I'd been practicing, my moves were so fluid. I give 100% of the credit for that comment to squats, press, and all the other functional movements we do every day at CFSBK. I think the most important thing we do in the gym is learn how to move. So…I'm hoping to bring back 1-2 capoeira classes per week (I said it out loud!) and keep up my 2x/week CFSBK with a focus on lifting. My goal for April is 10 strict pullups; after that I think I want to start working on handstands again. Capoeira is really acrobatic and I need to improve my shoulder strength and mobility.

    Love the idea of a blog post about this.

  13. congrats christine

    6am with coach d.o.

    pre wu
    foam roll

    wu
    3min row 22-24 spm
    2min each leg
    super couch stretch. beauty!
    ham string stretch. beauty!

    ROW /BBJ AMRAP 14 end with Steph P
    3 rnds + 34m
    did step ups instead of jumps.
    i liked this one.

    kudos to isaac and jpy for taking on bradshaw at 6am.

  16. Congrats Christine. Often seen you working hard at SBK. It was great reading the write up to learn a bit more.

    Maybe celebrate with one of these A BACON SUNDAE?!?!?!?!?!? Obviously make one not from BK, OBVIOUSLY.

    Bacon Sundae

  17. Congrats Christine. Often seen you working hard at SBK. It was great reading the write up to learn a bit more.

    Maybe celebrate with one of these A BACON SUNDAE?!?!?!?!?!? Obviously make one not from BK, OBVIOUSLY.

    Bacon Sundae

  18. Great Athlete of the month! I have always been a big fan of Christine! I enjoyed doing ringrows with her on Sunday for Bradshaw… a lovely woman to be sharing a miserable moment with 😉

  19. Yay Christine! One of my On Ramp buddies! Of couse, she graduated waaayyy before me as I was in On Ramp forever, which Fox loves to remind me of. Very inspiring to see someone close to my level of ability be AOTM 🙂

  21. "Bradshaw"

    135# 29:23
    One ab mat for HSPUs; sets 1-2 strict PUs, sets 3-9 green band, set 10 ring rows.

    Should have gone heavier (~150), should have used the green band from the beginning.

    In a former incarnation I could do 20 strict pullups. Trying to get back there. Today I did 12 unbroken which is a (recent) PR. Also, I started going through MobilityWOD's daily work yesterday and was psyched that today's warm up opening the hip is the same as Mobility's work for today (episode 02/365).

    Very happy to have Melissa and Samir suffering through this one with me. Good partners, good people for sure.

    Happy to have Jeremy's cousin Jared leading class. He's got a beautiful chin.

  23. Thank you everyone! I really appreciate all the kind words! And of course, a big thank you to Fox who made me sound WAY more interesting than I actually am!

  24. great choice for AOTM. fight gone bad teammate, always humble but you can feel the badass fire, christine is someone who has a circle of positivity around her and i always feel like she has my back when i'm struggling in a workout.

  26. Christine N is a top notch CFSBKer. Always friendly, always working hard always there for her fellow CrossFitters. Thank you Christine for being you! Keep up the great work

  28. AM workout
    Walked to the park, did some pull-ups and dips, walked up and down the hill a couple times, walked home. Wore a 25# vest

    Lifting session
    Cleans
    Sets of 5 @ 60,72,83kg
    Hang Snatches
    51kgx2x6

    531 Bench
    215×5
    230×5
    245×14
    Felt good

    Kroc Rows
    130×20
    First time at this weight.

  29. Hi from Seattle. Returning from the great white north!

    I am also a fan of the meta-vote. The good thing about the fact that the meta-vote "failed" is that now the co-op is not 'pro-Israel' or 'anti-Israel'. By holding the vote you would have basically offended whatever half of your population that disagreed with the result of the vote. By not even having the vote, the co-op is not taking a position on this tendentious Israel issue and that is how it should be. If people want to individually choose to boycott Israel, they can opt not to buy Israeli products from the co-op. It's not clear to me why the co-op needs to make a pro- or anti-Israel statement by making vote.

    Disclaimer: I am anti-democracy.

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