Noah and McDowell with James FitzGerald at the OPEX seminar
Coaches Noah and McDowell Go West!
While CFSBK hunkered down under the gale of Snowstorm Jonas a few weeks ago, Coaches Noah and McDowell traveled to Scottsdale, Arizona to absorb a storm of knowledge from veteran athlete, coach, and educator James “OPT” FitzGerald.
FitzGerald has been a name to know in CrossFit since the early days, when his posted scores and times on the CrossFit main site were consistently top 5 worldwide. Already a veteran trainer, “OPT,” (his forum handle and the original name of his business) went on to win the first CrossFit Games, and has since trained 50 Games athletes,over 500 Regionals athletes, and countless people looking for science-based, individually tailored training under the aegis of his new coaching company Optimum Performance Experience (OPEX).
Noah and McDowell have been working towards becoming OPEX Associate Coaches since October. Having already completed their Assessment and Program Design modules online, in Arizona they completed their Life Coaching and Nutrition modules live and hope to share their experiences and insight with the CFSBK community.
To that end, Noah and McDowell are looking for 6 brave souls to volunteer for a free consultation, which will look to help optimize lifestyle and nutrition factors to better support progress and performance in the gym. The initial consultation will be 45 minutes long and will be followed with bi-weekly scheduled check-ins for 3 months. They are looking for people with a mixture of fitness levels, dietary styles, and lifestyles and will make selections accordingly. Fill out this survey if you are interested!
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Yesterday’s Whiteboard: “Morrison”
How Would You Hold Up to a Lesson from Dmitri Klokov? The WOD Life
Natural History Museums Are Teaming With Undiscovered Species The Atlantic
Wednesday's Workout
Open Workout 15.4
Complete as many reps as possible in 8 minutes of:
3 Handstand Push-Ups
3 Cleans 185/125
6 Handstand Push-Ups
3 Cleans 185/125
9 Handstand Push-Ups
3 Cleans 185/125
12 Handstand Push-Ups
6 Cleans 185/125
15 Handstand Push-Ups
6 Cleans 185/125
18 Handstand Push-Ups
6 Cleans 185/125
21 Handstand Push-Ups
9 Cleans 185/125
Etc., adding 3 reps to the Handstand Push-Ups each round, and 3 reps to the Clean every 3 rounds.
The Cleans can be performed in any way. Prior to starting you will need to establish the foot line for your Handstand Push-Up. Stand facing the wall with your feet at hip width and your toes touching the wall. While standing tall, reach your hands over your head with your elbows straight, shoulders extended and your thumbs touching. From here, mark the height of your wrists, then measure down 3 inches and create a line on the wall. Mark your line with a permanent marker, chalk or tape. Judges may restore the line between rounds as needed. Each Handstand Push-Up begins and ends with the heels in contact with the wall and above the pre-marked line. The athlete may place their hands however they choose, as long as their heels are above the line.
AG
A.
Hanging L-Sit 2:00
Handstand hold 2:00
3×10 kip swings
B.
EMOM 10
5 Toes to Bar
C.
For time:
300 Double unders
*perform 5 pull ups on the minute starting at the 1:00 mark
6AM Wednesday with McDowell
15.4 open workout. Got into the round of 12s (just barely) with 1 HSPU. The HSPU's fell apart as usual. Last year completed 1st round +1 HSPU, so huge improvement overall. Cleans felt relatively light. Need to work on the kip.
Shawn- was an absolute pleasure mate. Best of luck with the perfect Southern California weather and the most insane traffic ever. Be well and safe travels!
6am with Jess and McDowell, doing 15.4 with McDowell. 15.4 was kind of a gnarly experience for me when I attempted it last year. I did my first three ever hspu and then rassled with the bar for most of the rest of the 8 minutes until just getting a single ugly power clean just under the wire. This time around I felt a little more confident about the hspu and thought I could get at least two 185 lb cleans, since I hit this weight pretty well on Sunday. Alas, it wasn't to be. I hit one kipping hspu pretty well right off, then struggled for the last two of that first set. I actually put down an ab mat for the last two. Not sure why, but these just weren't there for me today. Then I spent about 5 minutes struggling to complete a clean at 185. A couple of attempts were no-good-reason misses, with the bar really high off the pull – I just didn't get under. Ultimately, it didn't happen, but I still think it was worth it to test myself at the rx weight and see if I had it in me today. I'll do this one again…
Today was also my last day at CFSBK before moving to LA. I can't adequately express my gratitude to David and all of the coaches and to everyone in this unique community – especially my fellow 6am-ers. It's not an exaggeration to say that my time at CFSBK has been life-changing. I'll always be grateful – and I'll definitely visit when I'm back out this way from time to time. Thanks and best of luck, all!
Shawn is a solid guy and it was pleasure 6am-ing with him.
Stay in touch, brother.
I had a good workout with McDowell yesterday evening. Worked up to 75# x 3 x 5 on back squat and they moved pretty well. We'll keep on going up steadily in weight as long as my physical therapist is okay with it. Then worked up to 67.5 x 3 x 5 strict press. These are really getting hard, still one of my least confident strict movements. Also, did some step ups onto an 18" box which, compared to the 16" box I usually do, was a lot harder to do stability- and strength-wise. It was inspiring to watch everyone do Morrison yesterday, and I really couldn't complain about the work I was doing when I was watching everyone else fight through that WOD.
Good luck in LA, Shawn!
Happy trails Shawn, lots of snowbound envy aimed your way!
CFSBK Soccer is looking for a few good LADIES for our upcoming seasons, which starts in early March, runs through May, with games on Thursday evenings at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Skill level on the team is intermediate-advanced, most people played in high school or college.
Interested? Email noah@crossfitsouthbrooklyn.com
Shawn, best of luck in SoCal. Your sense of humor will be missed at 6am.
Thought we would be testing 2RM for squats tomorrow?
7am with Jess doing a scaled 15.4
15.4-ish — Cleans @ 135# // Regular Pushups
Got 7 pushups into the round of 21. Just hit 175 the other day on the clean so doing this at Rx weight was not in the cards. Cycled 145# in warmups well so maybe should have stuck with that. Cleans all in sets of 3 till the last round where I went with bailed singles. Happy to rest up tomorrow.
Shawn, you'll be greatly missed! We need another baritone for the 6am choir. Godspeed. As my daughter likes to say, dare to be great, dare to be kind, dare to be tech savvy.
Make up from yesterday:
7:30PM w David
Morrison RX in 29:11. Kept the wall balls in sets of 10. Hardest part for me were the kettle bell swings. My back felt like jello during the first set up 50, so I just broke those up into sets of 10 and really focused on keeping my core tight.
Yes this was hard and dark, but I did much better than I thought I would.
Noon class with McD and Jeremy.
15.3 Rx -38 reps
I forgot how to clean. HSPU's are coming along.
Couldn't even dream of Rxing this last year- HSPU's were really scary at the time and I couldn't do them at all. Yay AG!!
Strict pull-ups
4-4-4-3-3
2 rounds
15 x GHD sit-ups
10 x abwheel
Shawn – You and rest of the family have been a great presence in the gym for quite a while now. Sad to see you go but wish you the best of luck out in LA!
Sean – Nope. You can always check the current cycle's outline in the tab marked "Current Programming Cycle". We were not trying to build up max effort strength this cycle and instead were working on building stamina for higher reps while maintaining low end rep strength.
SPOILER ALERT: There'll be a note on the blog this week that lays out the next cycle, which will be a significant departure from the way we've organized the mesocycles for a while now!
—
11am
Bench Press (top 10)
185-195-205
Close Grip Bench (top 10)
165-175-185
Noon with Jeremy.
Returned from a ten-day break today to 'Morrison'. Did this with a 20kg bell to go easy on my back. Did my box jumps to a 24" box in my lifters. Quite an experience as I gave myself a nasty gash on the shin on the very first rep. Finished in a few seconds under 36 minutes.
Thanks for clearing that up Fox. Although I'll admit I was looking forward to see if I could get my 1RM twice in a row, especially for the front squat. Oh well.
Last night spent an hour w Frank's class partnered with Amanda
Clean complex
3 sets of 2 w :03 pause above knee @70-80%
– 2 sets at 118#
– 1 set at 123#
Singles at
– 133
– 143 failed twice at bottom, too soft
– 138
Generally not enough aggression or speed
Snatch complex
Pull, snatch w :05 pause at bottom, 3 OHS w :05 pause at btm @70-80%
– 1 set at 83#
– 2 sets at 88#
This was a long time under the bar, tough but good
Snatch pulls
– 2 sets of 3 w :03 pause above knee @80% — 88#
– 2 sets of 2 w :03 pause @90% — 103#
– 3 singles w :03 pause@100%+ — 113#
Today
Worked on lots of weaknesses with McD.
**Learned to kip my dips!!
Snatch
264
275
264x1x2
CJ
330
Press: 210x3x3
FSQ
308
352
396
440(20#PR)
Incline Dumbbell bench
80#x12x3
6:30 pm with Coach Jess
Did "Morrison" for the first time. I hated it! It totally sucked! I was able to RX it, although I had a few no reps on the wall balls. That 10 ft target was much harder than I thought. It took a while for me to start hitting it consistently. The box jumps was where I lost most of my time and the kettle bell swings was where I made up lost time…lol. I broke my reps up from the very beginning which made it feel a tad bit easier. I finished in 35:48, and I immediately felt like I had to puke! I had to sit for a while afterwards to wait for the nausea to pass. All in all, I'm glad I conquered my fear and did it…but I have zero interest in doing it again…lol. Okay, maybe after I lose about 30lbs…and get my cardiovascular system up to par, I'll try it again.
Afternoon sesh…
mash quads… holy moly found some really tight business in my right anterior hip/quad. not good. this was super lit up and is evidence to why my R hip has been feeling kind of funky again. pay attention to this!
hip mobz / pvc WU
Snatch:
30kg: 3 position snatch
35: 3-pos
40: 3-pos (first rep from high hang was a crappy power clean; much better second attempt)
45x1x2
50x1x7? I think? focus on pulling under and committing at the bottom. these are feeling pretty sharp for the most part. 50kg = 110# = 85%
45: 3 TNG snatch, just for fun
since hip was feeling temperamental, decided to be smart and not do the programmed rowing/thruster WOD of death i was supposed to do. instead…
AMRAP 10min:
50 DU's
10 CTB pull-ups
4 rounds + 50 DU's + 3 CTB
*after about a minute i ran upstairs to put my gymnastics grips on because my hands are a mess. so… a bit less than 10 real minutes on this.
*couldn't organize butterfly CTB for more than a couple reps. i know i need to practice here, but i wanted the conditioning stimulus, so just switched to regular kip — mostly 3's and 2's. gotta keep my volume up here going into the open because my ability to string 5 goes away quickly!
Muscle Up Practice:
-did 3 kipping singles, then 3 doubles… first time 'pushing away' at the top, instead of coming down through the bottom of the dip. this actually feels good and i was able to get my false grip back a bit more successfully!! sweet.
-then… at Ro and Jake's behest, tried just jumping up to the rings and doing the first rep without false grip. BAM! got it on the first try. got one more like this before calling it a day.
these little things feel like big successes to me and keep me moving forward!
6:30 Monday Morrison
Considered the 10ft target all day until I picked up the wallball. Good thing I didn't go for it because I kept throwing airballs left and right anyway. Very frustrating!
26:33
Wallballs: all 5's. Some no rep air balls. Made up one of every 3 no reps or so? #cheater :/
Box Jumps: Most in two sets or unbroken. Channeled inner-ballerina-cat-ninja.
Kettlebells: Sets of 15s and 10s. Smooth and consistent
AG was pretty rough but always glad to go.
7:30 with JB
Morrison "RX-ish" in 31:09.
14# ball to 10 ft target, 20 inch box, 16kg american swings
I call it "ish" because I found out after I was done that picking the ball up from a bounce off the ground and then squatting down isn't kosher. I'd say about 70% of my reps I did that, since I did all singles. The rest I picked up off the ground. F that 10 foot mark. I think it would have added minimal time to my score if I knew, but I'm not trying this one again any time soon to find out 😉
Late 7:30 class with Katie Harpaaaaa
Did Wednesday's 15.4 WOD
Last year I only got through 52 reps (7 into the round of 15 HSPUs)
This time I ended with 74 reps! I am stoked about this jump.
I rested MUCH less between power cleans and was able to do strict HSPUs until the round of 12
Did fast half kipping HSPUs for the round of 15 and 8 into the round of 18
Really happy with this one.
Rested about 10 minutes then did the AG WOD:
300 DUs with 5 PUs EMOM starting at 1 min
Finished in 7:45
Good day at the gym!
Morrison RX at a very conservative pace, finished in 36:11. Screwed up my diet today and came in starving… not sure if it changed anything. Anyway, glad I stuck with this workout, even though I was spending a lot of time sucking wind. Improving my upper body strength in the last year has really helped me with wall balls — I still remember not really being able to do these RX in workouts pretty recently, but now it's mostly fine (a few no-reps).
I felt variously good and bad during this workout, but at my pace I didn't think it was particularly rough for crush week and I enjoyed the last round (so fast! almost done! I'm done!). Muscle endurance was fine, this was all about conditioning for me.
@sean you can always go to open gym to test your lifts! I've never had anyone say "no" when I asked them for a spot.