CrossFit South Brooklyn

Established 2007

Back Squat | WOD 5.16.19

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Back Squat

3 x 1 @80-85% of last week’s weight

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Exposure 8 of 8

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5 Rounds for Time:
21 Russian Kettlebell Swings 24/16kg
15 Burpees
9 Kipping Pull-Ups

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Rachel and Daniel at Powermonkey Camp

Two intrepid CFSBKers attended a recent weeklong Powermonkey Camp in Tennessee, and today we’re grateful that Rachel H. and Daniel R. were gracious enough to answer a few questions about their experiences. Let’s find out how it went!

Why did you attend the camp?

Rachel: I wanted to get hands on coaching from high-level experts in each of the various fields that I love—gymnastics (rings, bar work, handstands, tumbling) and weightlifting. I was also looking for a way to unplug and have fun.

Daniel: Isn’t a week training in an amazing gym with Olympics-level coaches everyone’s ideal vacation?!

What did you learn?

Rachel: Oh man, I learned so much. Here’s a shortlist just based off of what I can think of right now…

  • The real meaning behind the term “active recovery”
  • How to program workouts either for increasing aerobic capacity or anaerobic capacity
  • Specific, personalized drills for my handstands, after a hands on assessment of my current weaknesses and strengths from Dave Durante
  • Specific, personalized cues for a better Snatch, Clean, and Split Jerk from various olympic champions
  • Jump rope technique to improve efficiency
  • Kettlebell grip technique
  • A more nuanced and detailed understanding of the 3 different kip swings for Bar Muscle-Ups (CrossFit, gymnastics glide kip, and a hybrid)
  • Specific, personalized cues for a better swing on rings + specific progressions and cues to work up to a Ring Muscle-Up (e.g. swing into a Ring Row)
  • Specific drills to improve the pulling and transitions for my Ring and Bar Muscle-Ups
  • A better understanding of the weaknesses in my running form, plus best practices for running technique to improve my form and efficiency
  • How to row more efficiently, especially as a shorter person, and where my specific weaknesses are
  • How to build empathy for adaptive athletes and program adaptive workouts
  • My personal aerobic / anaerobic thresholds and recovery rate, along with guidance on where I can improve (through a VO2 capacity test)

….. uh ok I think there’s more but I’ll stop there for now.

Daniel: SO MUCH. We got 2 hours of classes across 10 different modalities (Clean, Jerk, Snatch, Handstands, Kettlebell, Rings, etc). It’s a lot of material. A good chunk of it are progressions that are inline with what CFSBK teaches, but most of them are things we don’t usually practice with enough time in group class (e.g., a good kip swing from the rings, Double Kettlebell Snatches, etc.)

Another part of it is around things we’d never see in a group class. For instance, we spent multiple hours working out and then learning from Chris Hinshaw about different metabolic systems and how to train them. It’s information that’s very valuable if you’re a coach, but also valuable to understand your own basic athletic performance – am I good at recovering, what’s the expected stimulus of this workout, etc.

Would you recommend it?

Rachel: If you haven’t been before, and you’re looking to get a taste of elite level coaching across a wide range of the movements we do in CrossFit (gymnastics, weightlifting, kettlebell, rowing, etc) then hell yes. It’s expensive but also a one-of-a-kind learning opportunity, not to mention so incredibly inspiring and rejuvenating. I left feeling super excited to start working on incorporating what I learned into my regular training, which, given how much I learned, will probably take me a good 6-8 months.

Daniel: Yes. It’s not cheap, but they do provide lodging and (surprisingly good!) food. You get to work with excellent coaches, be part of a group of people that share your same enthusiasm for all things fitness, train with some games athletes (we trained with Alec Smith!), see other games athletes (Matt Fraser stopped by for dinner!).

One of the worries I had was whether I’d feel out of place. Is this gonna be all super fit people and semi-pro athletes? That was NOT the case. Sure, there were people fitter than me, but the culture was very inclusive and nobody really cared about what you can or can’t do.

Thanks, Rachel and Daniel! Check out more photos from their trip on Flickr. 

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Yesterday’s Results Board: NFT Work | Press
To Move Is to Thrive. It’s in Our Genes NY Times
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Comments

  2. 8am w/ Tori and Chris
    275-295-295 on the squat, didn’t want to push past this, haven’t done a single heavy squat in a long time. Second rep at 295 felt strong.
    Metcon 14:18(?) with 24kg bell and paused ring rows. Working the end range of that pull – so hard.

  3. It’s really interesting to read about your experiences. I also happen to follow you both on social media so I followed along more in depth there.

    My questions for you both… with all this new information, customized evaluations and “personal queues” how do you see this working into your class workouts? Since it seems like it’s so individualized that it won’t fit into the class structure.

    It looks like a great experience if you are at that very high level as an athlete and you need that next step where you already are working out alone or with a very specific circle of people to work out with.

    Do you feel you will be able to maintain those training methods in a group class situation?

    I understand techniques that can be practiced and applied in class so long as they are continually exposed be it muscle ups, rowing or double-unders. Sometimes however, there are long gaps in some movements being programmed so will you do them on your own?

    • (caveat: only my opinion)

      Yes, to really get benefit out of something like this Camp, you need to take what you learned from it and put it in practice.

      They broke the curriculum into 10 “stations”, plus lectures on nutrition, program design, aerobic capacity, mobility assessment, adaptive exercises, etc. The type of stuff that you’d apply at the gym was mostly at the 10 stations, which were: Clean, Jerk, Snatch (Oly), Rings, Bar, Handstands, Jump Rope (gymastics), Kettlebells, Rowing, Aerobic Capacity. Between NLWL and AG classes at CFSBK, you can regularly practice at least 7 of those stations with a coach, and of course you can work on all of them on your own during OG.

      My point is that “just” doing group classes, you’ll work on all those things eventually, but ideally you want to find either a specific class or open gym time to work on them regularly. In particular some of the more complicated movement patterns, you really only learn by doing them *a lot*.

      That being said, I don’t plan on stopping doing group classes, and instead I’ll try to supplement them with some extra time (15min per day?) to work on these various skills.

      Hope this helped!

  4. Rachel and Daniel, thanks for sharing!
    8am today and Fox and Tori.
    I squatted 150 last week so did today’s singles at 125. I thought they would feel pretty light and easy but they did not. The bar was uncomfortable on my back and the squats felt slow coming up. I did get good depth on them so there’s that! Poor sleep, stressful work week and a still poopy shoulder all contributed to sluggish lifting, I’m sure. Lots of self care between now and Sunday and I’ll see how it goes! There was talk of taking the WOD easy if Sunday’s total is on our schedules so I did the first three rounds with intention – all unbroken and subbing 4 strict chin ups for the kipping pull ups. Then I did the last two rounds without push ups in the burpees (is that called a hip thruster?) and broke the chin ups into 2-2-. 12:48.

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