Morton having a moment with the bar
News and Notes
- There’s still time to sign up for Coach Noah’s Kipping Pull-Up Workshops! Regular workshop at 2pm on Saturday and Sunday, Random Kipping Skillz at 3pm on Saturday and Sunday. REGISTER HERE (scroll to the bottom)!
- Congrats to CFSBK’s Hoopin’ Tacos, who went 1-1 on Wednesday night. They lost a tough one to the second-place team, and then blew out another team. With four games to go, they are 9-1 and tied for first!
- There are a whole bunch of new items in Lost and Found. Seriously, it’s surprising you’re not leaving the gym in the nude given how much clothing gets left behind. Shirts here, mixed apparel here, and mostly shoes and hats here.
Announcing: “Get Fit or Be Hacking”!
As our community at CrossFit South Brooklyn has grown, it’s been noteworthy the large number of members who work in the NYC technology and start-up community. We’ve been impressed by how these members have taken it upon themselves to self-organize to support programs that teach coding in local Brooklyn schools, which is very much in the community spirit of the gym.
Now, we’re taking the next step and putting this—coding and fitness—together into a single event: “Get Fit or Be Hacking!” REGISTER HERE.
What is “Get Fit or Be Hacking”? When and where is it?
“Get Fit or Be Hacking” is part coding contest, part fitness competition, and part fundraiser that will take place at CrossFit South Brooklyn on May 2, 2015 at 2pm to 8pm. Afterward, there will be a post-party at Threes Brewing for all participants. They have beer there.
Do I have to be a member of CrossFit South Brooklyn?
No!
People are coding AND working out?
Yes! Each participant will be part of a team of four. Each four-person team will complete two fitness workouts, lasting about 10-15 minutes each, together, as well as several coding challenges between the two work outs. There will also be mobility and active recovery work done during the event to warm-up, keep loose, and cool down.
Do we have to register as a team? Can we register as an individual and will you place me on a team?
Ideally we would like people to self-create and join into teams of 4, but we are prepared to organize some teams for people who register as individuals. We will also re-balance teams if some teams do not have at least one woman on their team. We are capping the registration to 100 participants (25 teams). We will keep registration open until we hit capacity.
What are we fundraising for?
CSNYC, the Computer Science Foundation in New York City, a non-profit organization, which supports programs that teach coding and computational thinking in NYC public schools.
Is there a registration fee?
Yes, there is a $20.00 registration fee for each participant, which will be paid when you first sign up in CrowdRise. This covers event costs including food, drinks, and swag. The remainder of the registration fees will go into the fundraising pot, adding to the massive check that we will be giving CSNYC on May 2!
Then how do we fundraise? Do we have to?
The expectation is that you’ll raise money individually which in turn will aggregate into your team total. Some people don’t like fundraising and will raise just a bit. That’s cool. Other will get creative, either individually or as a team, and raise a bunch. We hope you’ll come up with some clever and innovative ways to raise money for CSNYC—getting competitive is okay too!
The key idea is that each four-person team will work together to raise as much money as they can from their friends, work, family, and other legal sources. Each team will have its own page on Crowdrise that they can customize. While there is no minimum, we are hoping each team will be sign on to raise at least $500. Of course, we hope some crazy Type A fundraising competition ensue. There will be a grand prize “mystery surprise” given to the team that raises the most money. It will be once-in-a-lifetime experience.
What kind of coding will we be doing?
There will be at least one JavaScript challenge, as well as at least one other where you can choose your scripting language
Do I need to know how to code?
Yes, you need to know how to code, at least a bit. Ideally you’d know at least some JavaScript plus one other scripting language such as Ruby or Python. You’ll be a competing as a team so if you don’t feel completely comfortable in certain parts of a language, you’ll likely have a team members whose skills will complement yours.
What will the fitness portion be?
There will be two 10-15 minutes workouts, one at the start of the event and one towards the end. The workout will be composed of body weight type exercises—think push-ups, planks, etc. We will also be likely do some stuff on an erg (rowing machine) and with dumbbells. We will NOT be doing “barbell stuff”—i.e., power lifting or Olympic lifts often associated with CrossFit. There will also be warm-up, cool-down, and mobility activities.
“Get Fit or Be Hacking” is at CrossFit South Brooklyn. Do I need to be CrossFitter?
No, but you should be someone who exercises regularly and has doctor’s permission to physically exert yourself. Ideally you’d be able to do a couple push-ups unbroken, a 30-second plank, and know how to row a bit. (Please note that all participants will have to sign a health and liability waiver from CrossFit South Brooklyn on the day of the event).
What should I bring?
Your laptop, your charger, workout clothes, and something to wear afterward at Threes Brewing.
How old must I be?
18 to participate in the event. 21 to join us at the after-party at Threes.
Great I’m ready to participate! How to I start?
Go to our Crowdrise Event page (Log-on to CrowdRise, and create a CrowdRise account if need be, when you first arrive) and, once logged on, hit REGISTER. When you click REGISTER, you’ll be asked to complete some basic information in CrowdRise, asked to join or create a team, and pay the registration fee. Upon successful registration, you’ll be redirected back to CrowdRise where you can begin fundraising! From there, it’s time to raise money, practice your algorithms, and train!
Questions? Send a note to Rob at runderwood5+getfit [at] gmail.com.
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How Your Smartphone Can Improve Your Sex Life
Human Extinction VSauce
Volcanos 101 National Geographic
Saturday's Programming
FITNESS
Front Squat: 3 x 3 Linear Progression
Add 5-10 lbs to last week.
Post loads to comments.
e7/8
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AMRAP 14 Minutes:
20 Burpees
30 Dumbbell Thrusters
40 Kettlebell Swings
Post reps and Rx to comments.
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PERFORMANCE
Open Workout 15.3
AMRAP 14 Minutes:
7 Muscle-Ups
50 Wall Ball 20/10, 14/9
100 Double-Unders
Scaled Open Workout 15.3
AMRAP 14 Minutes
50 Wall Ball 20/9, 10/9
200 Single Unders
Post reps to comments.
Get Fit or Be Hacking sounds AWESOME! I already started recruiting for my team. Fundraising, fitness, coding, and beer?! Sign me up.
Have to say I am bummed about 15.3. To me, it is more appropriate for a local competition like subway series than the Open. I much prefer the old format where the open workouts were designed such that they were accessible to most athletes yet still were challenging enough to separate the Fronings from the Reingolds – I am thinking specifically of the burpee snatch ladder where weights went from 75 to 135 to 155 etc. Now the vast majority of participants (I assume) will be bumped into the scaled category because of the muscle ups. Too bad for the Crossfit Hells Kitchen members . . .
Now, I recognize the arguments in favor of the current approach – (1) the Open is now truly accessible to just about anybody, (2) there is no "shame" in doing the scaled workout (at least I hope not, because I did the scaled versions of the first two . . ), (3) the spread among Rx competitors will be greater etc etc. I just think the Rx/Scaled divide is too wide and the Open workouts in previous years, sans scaled option, were more thoughtfully designed.
Many people are just not going to be able to string 7 muscle ups together, no matter how long they work at it. Save this movement for the regionals or at the end of a long chipper.
Talk amonst yourselves . . .
Ready, Aim, Fire at Jay-Star . . .
15.3 in the books. RX at 316 reps. Singles on the MUs.
Just showed Get Fit or Be Hacking to some guys at the office and they are stoked. I will be there to cheer them on. They don't need the marketing guy holding them back!
6am. 15.3 Rx: 201 reps. 8 weeks of olympic cycle left me massively deconditioned. Finished the first set of muscle ups (3/2/2) in a little over minute. Finished the wall-balls at around 3:30 (15/15/10/10). And then spent almost 6 minutes thrashing myself with the jump rope. I think the most I strung together was 15. Finally got through the first round of double-unders at 9:12. Unsurprisingly, the second set of muscle-ups was much tougher. Got back to the wall-balls with 2:30 remaining. Tried to step on the gas but there was nothing in the tank.
Not feeling great about this performance, but it was indicative of my fitness. Need to start practicing double-unders again regularly. And get my conditioning back to a respectable level.
I haven't done 15.3 yet, but this open so far has taught me that I really need to focus on my weaknesses. Yeah, I can squat a metric fuckton of weight, but a lot of the bodyweight stuff leaves me flailing around like a spastic fish. My three worst movements (toe to bar, chest to bar, muscle-ups) have all shown up in this year's open and it's shown me that I've got to be more well-rounded.
I've had some bad luck with muscle up lately – they're good(ish) some days, bad other days, so we'll see how this goes. Once the open is done, however, I'm really going to focus on this bodyweight stuff.
JAY!
first and foremost, it looks like CF Hell's Kitchen totally posted the scaled 15.3 option on their site!
second, any tips on how to stay awake while judging 200 single unders??
@Jay – I am annoyed at the structure of 15.3, so I kind of agree. But honestly, most of that annoyance I have to direct at myself. I have known what work I need to do to get muscle ups, and I just haven't done it consistently. I feel like I knew the test was coming up, and that this could be on it, but I chose not to study it, so that's nobody's fault but mine.
I am very much contemplating doing 15.3 rx'd to see if maybe the planets will align and I can get my first ever muscle up, but I dunno how great of an idea that is.
P.S.
I blame Fox and I am looking forward to next week's 2-mile handstand walk on water. At least I have been training for that with MeLo . . .
Crumsho, I am also tempted to come in tomorrow and spend 14 minutes trying to get a muscle up. If I don't get one, I was just going to throw up another zero anyway, right? (I don't feel ready to do that volume of wall balls yet!)
Jay-Star I agree. I don't see why they had to program the Muscle-ups first. If they were trying to distinguish the best people for regionals, having muscle-ups later in the AMRAP would also have worked.
My plan is to master a muscle-up by the time I'm 60. I'll rock the 60-64 category then. Then again, by that point, the standard will probably be jumping into a muscle-up from a handstand and I'll have to scale again.
I'm happy to do the scaled workout – looking to do it tonight at OG if anyone wants to join me – particularly if, as Cam suggests, my judge gets drowsy counting my Single Unders and I get to score in the four digits!
I agree with Jay here. I've always liked how accessible the open is, and how it presents challenges while always allowing them to get some number on the board. I know that the Scaled division this year maintains this tradition of accessibility (in theory), but I think the programming for the scaled division just seems sort of off. They expected someone to be able to pull-ups last week but not to be able to do double unders this week (maybe dudes are programming…)? I know that having muscle-ups at the beginning of the workout is supposed to be a little wake-up call for those who have not worked on their muscle-ups and assumed that they will always appear at the end of the workout (I haven't worked on muscle-ups in weeks because of this assumption). That said, this means that there are going to be a whole bunch of really good athletes either spending 14 minutes on muscle up attempts, or doing a workout that is incredibly too easy for them.
And word to Matt Katz on the open revealing all of your weaknesses (though mine, surprisingly enough, are completely different from Matt's, and also happen to include forgetting to enter my score). I know that last minute "cramming" I did for wall-balls this past week will come back to bite me in the butt around rep 20!
Questions:
If you are doing the scaled version, can you Rx the wall balls at 14/9 and then continue with single-unders? Or is it recommended to do the scaled version as written? Also, when submitting the score online, under the scaled option, do you post your total according to the scaled version or 0 bc it wasn't Rx (did that make sense?)?
Pretty sure JB and I have completely opposite weaknesses. If we merged, we could become a super-crossfitter and beat Rich Froning AND Camille at the same time.
The only thing I'm a little annoyed about with 15.3 is the scaling option, as JB alluded to. If they had included double unders in the scaled version, even for people who really don't have double unders, the workout would be 50 wall balls, then x minutes of double under practice, which is likely to result in at least some double unders. This seems different than the situation with the muscle ups at the beginning of the workout where if they aren't in the athlete's repertoire, they're likely to spend 14 minutes staring at (and maybe flopping about under) the rings. But, whatever. The programmers can't please everyone and lord knows they don't owe me anything. It might be interesting to see how quickly I can bang out 200 singles, since it's not something I've ever tested. It'll also be interesting to see how much I screw up the simple act of counting to 200 (which I think I can botch pretty good even without doing hella wall balls first). Also, I'm really looking forward to watching people do this workout, because it looks like a rough but fun one.
@BeccaWolf, you post the total reps and then click a box for either Rx'd or scaled. In other words, you post the total according to the scaled version.
Also, if anyone's feeling cocky today, this (54 year old!) guy just broke the world record for pullups in 24 hours by doing 4,321 of them: http://www.muscleandfitness.com/athletes-celebrities/news/mark-jordan-reportedly-sets-new-24-hour-record-4321-pullups
Like Shawn said, they can't please everybody, but I think the programming is fair. Opening with 7 muscle ups is a game changer for sure but it's exciting to think about how many people will get their first one. Same as people getting their first double unders, toes to bar, chest to bar, 135lb snatches, etc…down the line of firsts for people during the Open. If you're nowhere near a muscle up here is always the scaled version, which I agree is maybe a bit easy this week. I'd hope that people who have the pre-requisites for a muscle up (say, a few C2B pull upd and a few ring dips) will not opt for "the better workout" and instead will choose to spend 14 minutes trying to get over the rings and be OK with taking a zero if that's what you earn. That's what I'm encouraging Jess to do. Looking at you too, Crumsho.
One more defense:
They want to push people to try and focus on muscle ups and not make them do it when they are tired and fatigued and a slap tear waiting to happen.
Came in for a great 8AM class with the old firm of Abbott and Myers.
FSQ: 225x3x3
I also did a fourth set because we had time and because I wanted volume, but the 2nd and 3rd reps were shallow, so that was that.
Fitness WOD: 2 rounds + 12 burpees. This was slow and painful. I did front squats with 35# DBS. and they sucked. Kettlebells @24kg also sucked. This was a hard workout to do after heavy front squats.
Hello World
12noon w/ Coach Noah
Yesterday's Snatch Complex: ~105#
My momma always said, "Life was like a box of Snatch attempts. You never know what your gonna get."
WOD: 4 rounds
Thanks to Coach Noah for showing me the fundamentals of the butterfly PU during the 18mins! I can't wait to practice them at Sunday OG.
Hi, Joe.
I've been blog-stalking here — I guess changing gyms means you have *two* blogs to check every morning on the train into the city. And during free periods. And after school.
I agree with bits and pieces of what a lot of people are saying about the workout — whereas the open has gone through many interactions and a lot of calibration in its time, I think HQ was bound to get it wrong at least once on their first go around with the scaled division. (And who's to say they haven't been trying to find the Three Bears conditions and inferring what the Goldilocks workout would be for next year, instead of the other way around.)
In any case, I wanted to say most of all that the tone and content of this blog is one of the things I miss the most about SBK. I've grown accustomed to (and, in ways, to appreciate) the Spartan mix of brevity and aggression on the CFGC blog, but I love that there are people here not only are going to leave it all on the floor during the WOD but want to reflect publicly on what it means to be weak, need improvement, be an athlete, etc.
After a T2B debacle in 15.1, this Open's been pretty friendly to me so far. At a competitive gym like CFGC it's nice to go in there, try my hardest, but not to even think about doing the WODs again.
As for 15.3, it's the ones like it (where I have a shred of confidence) that tend to get me. Hoping to do some quick singles on the rings, go to a dark place on the wall, and emerge on the better side of 2 rounds. Good luck SBK!
I agree with everything that has been said here about 15.3. I completely see both sides and all reasoning.
My plan is to do the scaled version as I know I have no hope of getting a muscle-up at this time. I bet we will see a few people get their first MUs this weekend, which is very exciting. And for the people who are close and try and fail, they can always do the scaled version at the last minute, right?
I do think 10# wallball is a little light though, but I guess that just means more reps, lungs permitting, which will definitely hurt. In my opinion, there is really no such thing as an 'easy' workout. If it's light or the movements are not so challenging, then you just have to go faster and push yourself harder to get a crapload of reps. But as JB said, it feels like not much thought has been put into the scaled programming. However it is the first year they have done it and I bet they will do better next year.
Anyway…
Bench Press
45 x 5
70 x 4
95 x 3
110 x 2 x 6
Deadlift
135 x 5
185 x 4
215 x 3
235 x 5
First time deadlifting since Iron Maidens. It didn't feel amazing.
Anyone have a comment on the Reebok Lifter 2.0 shoes? They sound a big squishy, but are on sale at Reebok's website for 87$, which seems like a deal for lifting shoes. Thanks!
I agree that the scaled version is a little too easy relative to the Rx'd version. They will never be able to make everyone happy, but IMO double unders should be fair came for scaled competitors. It's basic enough and doesnt require inherent strength to perform that literally anyone can at least give it the old college try.
Here is my proposed scaled division WOD that no one care about except me.
AMRAP 14
25 Burpees to 6" Target
50 Wall Ball Shots
100 Double Unders
Alex,
I have the Reebok Lifter plus with the two metatarsal straps. I love them!
Came to OG tonight with the goal of spending an hour working on muscle-ups to see if I should do the scaled or at least try to do RX tomorrow.
Lo and behold, my first three muscle ups!
Three of the ugliest muscle-ups ever, but I'll take it and we'll see what happens tomorrow. After three years of intermittently working a lot and not at all on these, I'm pretty pumped.
Thanks to Ben, JB, Noah for all the tips, and everyone there for cheering me on.
well 764 at OG on 15.3 scaled. Thanks to Jb for the patience in judging that 14 minute slog. It was a fun workout, but i don't think I'll ever do the scaled division again.
It's not that i don't like scaling workouts I do it all the time – almost every time in fact. But it just feels weirdly anticlimactic – like getting 764 slices of nothing. It's not why I do the Open. I'm not sure I can articulate it, but what I like about it is the idea that everyone is doing the same workout, even if i'm doing a pitiful job compared to some.
OG tonight but was a little lazy, as usual.
I did PR my power snatch at 70# though! I hate this lift but it's slowly but surely increasing. definitely need to work on this technique.. pretty sure I literally catch it with barely bent knees. oops- only making it harder for myself
Did some lazy girl dips, chin ups and a few sprints on the rower. I told myself I was taking it easy because the workout tomorrow and Noah's kipping workshop sunday but I probably should have done more.