Saturday Metcon Mash-Up

1) AMRAP 9 Minutes:
3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18… +3 reps per round of:
Toes-to-Bars
Burpee Box Jumps 24/20

Scale the Toes-to-Bars to Hanging Leg or Knee Raises as needed, or use this as an opportunity to work on them, knowing that you will be saved by the clock at 9 minutes.

Rest 3 minutes, then..

2) AMRAP 9 Minutes:
21 Squats
15/9 Push-Ups
9 Hang Power Cleans 115/80

The Hang Power Cleans should be on the light-medium side for you, unbroken on the fast end.

Rest 3 minutes, then…

3) AMRAP 9 Minutes:
50 Double-Unders
20 Sit-Ups

Scale the dubs to 100 singles or 20 attempts, or use this as an opportunity to work on them, knowing that you will be saved by the clock at 9 minutes.

Post rounds, reps, and Rx to comments.

Bid farewell to Coach Melissa, Alex, and Lily today at Pig Beach at 4pm. All are invited! 

Open Intramural Team Rankings: Final Results

Congrats to Make America Blue Again on taking home the gold in this year’s Open Intramural Team Competition! This is the first time in 3 years that it hasn’t ended in a tie, which is very cool. Thanks to everyone who participated and made it extra fun!

Current Ranking – Team – Final Average

1. Make America Blue Again: 33.7
2. Kippin’ It Real: 34.33
3. Going Dark: 36.17
4. Amino Disrespect: 36.7
5. The Incredible Hulks: 37.53
6. 50 Shades of Gainz: 39.13

Upcoming Events at CFSBK

The Open may be over, but we have some more fun stuff coming up! On Sunday, April 8th, we’ll be showing Wrestlemania 34 on our big, big screen. The following Friday, April 13th, we’ll be hosting a CFSBK Mario Kart tournament on that same big screen. Click the links to check out those event pages!

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Yesterday’s Results Board: Rest Day
The Lost Tradition of Playing Ball in Church to Celebrate Easter Atlas Obscura
What Causes Press-Outs and How to Fix Them Catalyst Athletics

Come out to the gym TONIGHT at 8pm to celebrate the end of the Open and gear up for Regionals with a screening of The Redeemed and the Dominant: Fittest on Earth, a documentary look at the 2017 CrossFit Games. Bring your own drinks and snacks to share!

Open Diary 18.5

By Brett Ferguson

I felt much more at ease going into the last week of the Open than I had for the previous four workouts. Mentally, I was in my best head space yet. No excited anxiety. No regret from the previous week. Physically, I was tired. Doing each of the first 4 workouts twice had taken its toll. As a result, I did have thoughts that wavered between, “Let’s just get this over with,” and, “This is it! Let’s crush this one!” I knew the combo of Thrusters and Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups was going to hurt. And not just a little.

I loved running Friday Night Lights this year. The energy was awesome! Tons of people came to the gym to hit the workout and probably even more came out each weekend just to watch and cheer people on! What an awesome, supportive community we have! As much as I loved it, I realize now that coaching group classes from 8am-1pm, setting up the gym from 1:30-5:00pm, and then starting the first heats of Friday Night Lights at 5:30pm didn’t leave me much for mental relaxation or physical preparation. The stress (not bad stressed-out stress, just stress) of all of this along with redoing every workout, losing sleep because of anxiety, and not recovering as fast as I used to, and I wasn’t always set up well for my best performance on the work outs. Learning.

By the time I hit the workout on Friday at 7:30pm, I was pretty fried. I took way too much time transitioning from the barbell to the rig and back again (About :08-12, but who’s counting. I certainly didn’t go to the office on Saturday, put on the NestCam video, and obsessively write down all of my transition and rest times. Who would do that?). Besides that, I kept to the strategy I had planned on. Thrusters unbroken until I had to break them up based on feel. I finally broke them up in the round of 15. A positive result of the longer rests in my transitions was that I was able to keep these unbroken deeper into the workout. This was also the point that I started getting tunnel vision. I heard someone behind me say, “Why is everyone facing the other way? We can’t see any of their faces.” Between the tunnel vision and allowing myself to be easily distracted by someone talking, I had a feeling the wheels might start coming off. I know that my gymnastics endurance on the Pull-Up bar disappears quickly, so I broke them up early. Not early enough, though. In the round of 15, I started with a set of 4. I got back on the bar and after 2 more my lats just said, “No.” That was it. I did everything I could to keep hitting sets of 2 until I couldn’t do that anymore and ended with 3 quick singles on a lower bar. Pierre was yelling at me to get back to the Thrusters, but I just wasn’t in the right head space. Most of the time, I can tell myself, “You can do one rep. Just get started and do one” and get the work going.

This was not one of those days. The 18 Thrusters that were ahead of me might as well have been 100. A voice in my head said, “Even if you get through the Thrusters, your Chest-to-Bars are already failing so you won’t do well there.” Helpful. Thanks, brain. I grabbed the bar and battled through the Thrusters. One minute left to do as many Pull-Ups as possible. A set of 3, then 2, then singles. As the clock hit the 7 minute mark I had gotten through 15. I shook my head as I kneeled down. My goal had been to get to the 21 Thrusters. My frustration quickly became secondary as all the work that I had just done caught up with me and I rolled on the ground, unable to get comfortable no matter how I laid on the floor.

“Well, that strategy didn’t go very well. Let’s try something else,” I wrote my coach on Saturday. 12 hours later, I felt a little detached about my score. I had done the best I could given the circumstances, and the strategy that I had used. However, I knew my score wasn’t going to help my standings in the Region, so I felt some self-induced pressure to do better on Monday. Not because I necessarily had the confidence that I was able to do better, but I just had to do better. Logic there? None.

I decided to break up the Pull-Ups int0 even smaller sets than before in hopes of saving some energy there. I also changed my set up to minimize transition times so that hopefully I would buy myself some time for more Chest-to-Bars. I mentally prepped the shit out of this attempt. I was 100% ready to get to the next movement as quickly as possible. So, instead of :10 of transition, it was more like :03. Awesome! Right? No. Too Fast.

You know how in group class I always say, “Don’t come out too hot”? Well, I came out too hot. Without the extra transition time to recover, things fell apart even faster than on Friday: the Thrusters in the set of 12 this time. Even though the sets were smaller, I rabidly got back on the bar and kept moving. Getting to the barbell for the round of 18 Thrusters, I was :30 ahead of my time from Friday. Then, total body shut down. I put out too much energy too quickly. and it caught up to me. In my head I said, “Hold onto the bar and finish,” but my body just wouldn’t comply. I haven’t felt my body actually stop functioning in a long time (Well, not since 18.2, but before that, a long time, I promise). I let out exertion yells for the last three reps, just like I had done with a 315lb dead lift a week earlier. Singles right away on the Pull-Ups. My arms wouldn’t leave my sides. Dead weight. I felt like I was flopping limp limbs around in the air. On Friday I had done 15 Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups in 1:00. On Monday, I had 1:27 for the CTB. I got 14. One rep less.

This week wasn’t as mentally challenging for me as it was physical challenging. I knew that going in. I showed up and battled, but it just wasn’t there. Good to know for next year. I need to try to treat each Open workout like just another workout. It’s hard with all of the hype around the announcements, the excitement at the gym, Friday Night Lights, the leaderboard, and so forth. But I allowed myself to get too amped up about it in the first several weeks, and it caught up with me. That much energy and output wasn’t sustainable. There is a scientifically controversial thing called Adrenal Fatigue that is believed to happen to people after long period of stress, or, more related, after rigorous competition. Dr. James Wilson, who coined the term, believes that during these periods of stress, the body’s adrenal gland is overworked, continuously producing more and more cortisol to try to keep up with the demands of the body/mind. When the system can no longer keep up with the demand, there is a crash. I don’t know if this is a real thing. But it sure as hell felt real on Tuesday. Completely exhausted. I felt hollow. Not empty. I wasn’t depressed. It was more that I had been in such an adrenaline, anxiety-driven state for so long that as soon as it was over, I completely shut down. I think I’ll take a few rest days.

How did I do this year? Goals: I was hoping to be in the top 250 in the North East Region. I’m currently sitting in 291st place. Last year I finished in 379th place. I can let myself be disappointed for not reaching my goal, or I can reframe that bullshit and see how much I improved. Physically: I worked my ass off this year, and I can see that it is paying off. Not because of the results on the leaderboard but because of the improvements of both weaknesses and skills, and knowing my body better than I did before. There will always be more to work on, skills to improve, PRs to try to break, but I’m happy with my growth this year. Mentally: This was more of a challenge than I expected. As you read in my first three Open Diary entries, I have some deeply engrained habits of being hard on myself. Writing these entries each week really helped me to see this pattern. I’m going to continue more of this honest evaluation each week to see how I’m doing with it. Only 47 more weeks until you get to read about it again. You: Take a second and honestly assess how you did this year. Put your mental bullshit aside and really be honest. I’ll bet you are doing better than you give yourself credit for.

New and Notes

• This is the final entry in Coach Brett’s “Open Diary” series. Be sure to check out the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th entries if you haven’t read them yet!
• Farewell party/drinks for Coach Melo, Alex, and Lily will be this Saturday at 4pm at Pig Beach on Union St. All are welcomed!

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Yesterday’s Results Board: Clean and Jerk | NFR Work
Respect the Bar Breaking Muscle
The Great Sadness of Ben Affleck The New Yorker

Clean and Jerk

1-1-1-1-1

Warm up and build to a heavy single Clean and Jerk. If you’re feeling good then go for a new 1RM, otherwise get as close to 90% as you can and try to make a few reps there.

Post loads to comments.

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20 Minutes Not for Rounds:
270m Jog
100′ Low Bear Crawl
5 Strict Chin-Ups

Keep the runs and crawls at a maintainable pace and aim to just keep moving. Use bands or add weight to the Chin-Ups as appropriate.

Post work to comments.

Some fun stats on 18.5 from Robert C.! CFSBK collectively Thrusted 450,455 pounds, which is the equivalent of 2 blue whales. We collectively performed 9,927 reps, which is the equivalent of dying. “You can see that men and women track very evenly at CFSBK,” Robert writes. “There’s nearly identical completion rates throughout the workout.”

KHarpz at BTWB

Check out this snippet from Coach KHarpz‘s latest post for Beyond the Whiteboard:

At the end of the day, it’s a matter of self-confidence and believing that I am a winner. Belief, just like anything else in the gym, is a skill that I need to train. I have begun this process by taking out my little brown notebook, identifying my “can nots”, so I can eventually kick them in the arse, and turn them into “cans.” Let’s just say, I plan on continuing this habit throughout the open, and will have that little brown notebook full by the end of 2018.

It’s from “Developing An ‘Open Mind’: A Positive Outlook for a Positive Performance,” and it’s about the head game aspect of competitive fitness, a common theme on the blog lately. Give it a read!

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Yesterday’s Results Board: Rest Day
An Open Letter to Those Who Need to Lose Weight CrossFit Journal
Homeopathy Explained Kurzgesagt (video)

Sumo Deadlift

5-5-3-3-1-1-1

All sets should be heavy, ending with heavy singles.

Post loads to comments.

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5 Rounds for Time:
5 Burpees
7 Hang Power Snatches 115/80
5 Burpees

Rest 1 minute between rounds. Score fastest and slowest rounds.

Post time and Rx to comments.

CFSBK Individual Open Leaderboard: Final Results

Congrats to everyone who participated in the 2018 Pleasure Cave… uh… we mean… the CrossFit Open! Below are the final rankings for the top 20 women and men at the gym, along with their points and Northeast Regional ranking.

Women

1. Coach KHarpz: 14 (#172 NE)
2. Coach Melo: 28 (#323 NE)
3. Coach Jess: 33 (#316 NE)
4. Erika M.: 36 (#429 NE)
5. Coach JB: 37 (#458 NE)
6. Morgan N.: 38 (#434 NE)
7. Coach Whit: 41 (#409 NE)
8. Jessica E.: 45 (#531 NE)
9. Katie E.: 46 (#501 NE)
10. Steph M.: 49 (#587 NE)
11. Sarah C.: 64 (#987 NE)
12. Kayleigh R.: 82 (#1385 NE)
13. Charlie N.: 89 (#1607 NE)
14. Allie B.: 103 (#2215 NE)
15. Kelly L.: 112 (#2383 NE)
16. Toni S.: 119 (#2903 NE)
17. Kate W.: 120 (#2700 NE)
18. Asha B.: 132 (#3096 NE)
19. Rachel H.: 134 (#3007 NE)
20. Allie C.: 144 (#3161 NE)

The Women’s North East Region has about 14,497 athletes! 

Men

1. Phil S.: 7 (#105 NE)
2. Coach Brett: 14 (#287 NE)
3. Chris L.: 39 (#1000 NE)
4. Dan L.: 53 (#1308 NE)
5. Jake L.: 61 (#1301 NE)
5. Greg Carlson: 61 (#1534 NE)
7. James F.: 64 (#1521 NE)
8. Pierre D.: 65 (#1562 NE)
9. Lucas G.: 77 (#1818 NE)
9. Dylan K.: 77 (#1953 NE)
11. Coach Keith: 90 (#1932 NE)
11. Mark G.: 90 (#1979 NE)
13. Brad D.: 93  (#2168 NE)
14. Coach Fox: 96  (#2172 NE)
15. James W.: 109 (#2531 NE)
16. Brendan W.: 117 (#2823 NE)
17. Greg Cohan: 129 (#3169 NE)
18. Andy S.: 130 (#3249 NE)
19. Christian R.: 131 (#2762 NE)
20. Jason M.: 146 (#3326 NE)

The Men’s North East Region has about 16,078 athletes! 

Some fun facts: Jessica E. (aka Eggs) finished 7th among law enforcement in the Northeast Region. Team CFSBK ranked #38 in the North East Region. That’s a huge improvement over last year’s ranking (#78) and our highest placement ever. Give yourselves a hand! 200 of you registered for the 2018 Open. Thanks for taking part and bringing awesome energy to the gym every weekend!

Check out the full CFSBK affiliate leaderboard here!

News and Notes

• Today is the last day to get your Post-Challenge Submissions to us!
• Farewell party/drinks for Coach Melo, Alex, and Lily will be this Saturday at 4pm at Pig Beach on Union St. All are welcomed!
• We’ll be screening the newly released The Redeemed and the Dominant: Fittest on Earth this Friday night after Open Gym. See the event page for details!

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Yesterday’s Results Board: Rest Day
An Open Letter to Those Who Need to Lose Weight CrossFit Journal
The Redeemed and the Dominant Is CrossFit’s Most Emotional Documentary Yet BarBend

Photos from the 5th and final Friday Night Lights of the year are now up on Flickr!

Barbell Medicine Seminar at CFSBK

Join Drs. Baraki and Feigenbaum for the Barbell Medicine seminar at CFSBK on July 28th and 29th. The Barbell Medicine seminar attempts to integrate modern medicine with legitimate strength and conditioning to provide the background knowledge, coaching strategies, nutrition and lifestyle modifications, and personal form corrections needed to work with folks who may have common health issues.

Our lectures revolve around the most common health issues seen in both primary care by clinicians and in the gym by coaches. We’ll cover the background epidemiology, pathophysiology, and available treatments including training, nutrition, and lifestyle modification so that the attendee is armed with an arsenal of information to put into immediate practice. Lecture topics include:

• Exercise Screening and Prescription
• Obesity, Insulin Resistance, and Diabetes
• High Blood Pressure
• Nutrition and Supplementation Prescription
• Programming for Strength and Conditioning
• Low Back Pain
• Osteoarthiritis
• Testosterone and Endocrine Abnormalities

Practical On-the-Platform Sessions consist of real-time coaching and lifting practice by the seminar attendee with feedback from our coaching staff. The ratio of attendees to coaches is 6:1 so you’ll definitely get enough personalized attention.

The sessions include:

• Squat
• Press
• Deadlift
• Bench Press

This seminar is directed at anyone to increase their knowledge base on common health issues, available interventions, lifting technique, and core strength and conditioning practices.

Spots are limited! Sign up today!

REGISTER HERE!

News and Notes

• Intramural team captains: Don’t forget to submit your team’s scores to the spreadsheet today!
• Please get your Post-Challenge Submissions to us no later than this Wednesday, March 28th.
• In case you missed the announcement, the farewell party/drinks for Coach Melo, Alex, and Lily will be this Saturday at 4pm at Pig Beach on Union St. All are welcomed!
• The 2018 Open is over! The Look, Feel, Perform Better Challenge is over! Did you participate in either or maybe even both (you maniac)? Tell us about your experience in the comments!

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Yesterday’s Results Board: Press | “Jackie”
Why You Should Use Both Low and High Bar Squats in Your Training BarBend
The Key to Good Luck Is an Open Mind Nautilus

Press

Performance
1-1-1

Fitness
3-3-3

Warm up and work up to a heavy single Press. We’re doing strict Presses today. No knees and no moving your feet! A little lay back is okay but don’t get crazy.

Post loads to comments.

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LFPB Challenge Capacity Test WOD: “Jackie”

For Time:
1000m Row
50 Thrusters 45#
30 Pull-Ups

This classic benchmark (and CFSBK Leaderboard item) should hurt a bit and is very much about how much you want to push it. Baller status for doing all the reps all unbroken. Try to keep the bar on your body for all 50 Thrusters . NO BAILING THE EMPTY BARS! If you think you’ll bail, then set up a lighter bar with bumps on it. Resting the bar on your back is allowed. You should be able to complete at least 20 Thrusters unbroken when fresh at the Rx’d load, scale as needed. Scaling for for Pull-Ups today is Jumping or Ring Rows. For the LFPB Challenge, note your score and scaling to compare to your test from the beginning of the Challenge

Post time and Rx to comments.

Farewell to Coach Melissa

By David Osorio

As many of you know by now, Coach Melissa will be leaving CFSBK at the end of this month. She and Alex were presented with an opportunity to purchase Bell City CrossFit in Connecticut, where Melo grew up. We are saddened by her departure from our community but excited for what will no doubt be an incredible new chapter in her and Alex’s life. Melo has been coaching at CFSBK since 2012, and on top of getting her DPT and starting a family, she’s also responsible for launching our Diapers & Dumbbells program. Melo has left a huge impact on CFSBK and touched so many people in her time here. We wish her the best and want her to know she always has an extended CrossFit family back in Brooklyn.

Melo’s last group classes will be on Saturday, March 31st. The final farewell party/drinks for Melo, Alex, and Lily will be Saturday at 4pm at Pig Beach on Union St. All are welcomed! 

We’ll miss you, Melo!!! Let’s show her some love in today’s comments!

News and Notes

• Don’t forget to submit your 18.5 scores before 8pm tonight!
• Please get your Post-Challenge Submissions to us no later than this Wednesday, March 28th.
• In case you missed it, we’ll be screening the newly released The Redeemed and the Dominant: Fittest on Earth this Friday night after Open Gym. See the event page for details!

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The Last Conversation You’ll Ever Have to Have About Eating Right Grub Street
Money, Race, Gender, and Their Impact on Obesity Breaking Muscle

Double-Unders

Practice Double-Unders for 10 minutes. If you have Double-Unders, work on Triple-Unders!

Post work to comments.

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30 Minutes Not for Rounds:
400m Run
30 Double-Unders
20 Hollow Rocks
10 Dumbbell Bench Press

Sub about a minute of Double-Under practice for dubs if you don’t have ’em. Or, scale up to 10 Triple Unders if you’re a jump rope ninja. The DB Bench Presses should be medium-heavy and feel like you could perform another 2-3 reps each set.

Post work to comments.

A cool shot by Robert C. from Friday Night Lights

The End Is Here!

By Chris Fox

Hard to believe that this year’s Look, Feel, Perform Better Challenge is a wrap! Please get your Post Challenge Submissions to us no later than this Wednesday, March 28th. We recommend that you take some time, 1-2 weeks, to let loose just a little bit. Don’t go off the rails entirely, but do allow yourself a few treats that you may have been avoiding (great time to experiment with your Red, Yellow, and Green Light Foods!). If you’ve been counting macros, put your scale away and eat intuitively for a few weeks. If you’ve made some changes to your body composition, you need a little time to let your body adjust to the new version of you. If after the short break you still want to make more changes, get right back on your plan. If you’ve been counting macros and you’re still progressing then there’s no need to change the numbers. If you’ve stalled out a bit and your goal is to lose body fat then you can drop your carbs and/or fats by 10-15% to create a further, small caloric deficit. If your goal is to gain mass and you’ve stalled then you can bump all your macros up by 10-15%. In both scenarios you’ll follow the new numbers for about 12 weeks, then take another break before deciding where you want to go with it.

We’ve programmed the Capacity Test WOD (in bold below) for tomorrow, March 26th. If you can’t make class on either that Monday or Tuesday then simply ask a coach for some space when you can do it and we’ll accommodate you. Open Gym is another option. Maybe you can find a few friends looking to do it together on the Facebook page! Use the same version of any scaling options you used initially, or make note if you chose a more difficult version of the workout (like now you do pull ups instead of jumping pull ups). If for any reason you performed a different test workout then re-do that same one and submit it with your Post-Challenge Submission.

2018 LFPB Challenge Capacity Test WOD

“Jackie”

For Time:
1000m Row
50 Thrusters 45#
30 Pull-Ups

Regardless of how well or poorly you think you did these last 12 weeks we encourage you to follow through with the Post Challenge Submission. It can provide a platform for some healthy introspection on what does and doesn’t work for you. Also, it’s important to note that some while some habits might have been hard to follow right now, it doesn’t mean they won’t be a bit easier to follow in the future. You are constantly evolving as you learn and practice…and it all takes time and practice. One thing we know for sure is that getting down on yourself for being “bad” won’t help. There is no failing, only learning. (very Miyagi, no?)

Once more with the link:

2018 Look, Feel, Perform Better Challenge Post-Submission

Winners will be announced the week of April 2nd, the week after the submission deadline of March 28!

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Reps for Recovery BarBend
The Beautiful Complexity of Naming Every Living Thing Atlas Obscura

Open Workout 18.5

The 4th Annual Iron Maidens Raw Open: Register Today!

Hosted by CrossFit South Brooklyn
Saturday, June 2, 2018 from 9:00am to 6pm
Squat, Bench Press, Deadlift

About

You are invited to test your one-rep maxes in a women-only environment of badassery. Compete for awesome prizes and cheer on female feats of strength. This meet is open to all women; you do not need to be a member of CrossFit South Brooklyn to participate. We have space for 60 participants, so sign up soon!

All lifters will have three attempts to lift one maximal rep, in the following order, for:

1. Back Squat
2. Bench Press
3. Deadlift

The sum of the heaviest successful attempts will constitute each lifter’s Total. For each weight class, a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place will be awarded to the highest Totals.

Weight classes: 123lbs and under; 132lbs and under; 148lbs and under; 165lbs and under; Over 165lbs

All ages are welcome.

Iron Maidens Stay Strong Scholarship

For the 3rd year in a row, we are thrilled to continue our partnership with Grace Outreach, a Bronx based nonprofit that works with women to further their education and gain financial independence. Through competitors’ fundraising efforts, the annual Iron Maidens Stay Strong Scholarship assists low-income women in paying for their college tuition.

In 2017, competitors raised $35,000 in scholarship money. In total, we have raised over $65,000, and supported 10 women pursuing a higher education. We hope to match or exceed last year’s incredible show of support.

Details

Entry Fee: $60 for non-CFSBK members; $50 for CFSBK members.
Includes: Eligibility for prizes, and a t-shirt.
Registration Deadline: April 27, 2018

SOLD OUT!

Cancellation Policy: No refunds will be made after April 27, 2018. If you are not able to compete, please notify the Meet Director as soon as possible.

Competition Rules and Regulations can be found here.

Submit required additional registration information here.

Please visit our blog for more information, stories, and updates.

Questions? Want to get on the waitlist? Contact Meet Director Margie Lempert at margie [at] crossfitsouthbrooklyn.com. 

News and Notes

• Come out to the gym tonight from 5:30 to 8pm for the 5th and final Friday Night Lights event of the Open. Go HERE to sign up for a heat!
• Missing something? Be sure to check out the results of our latest lost and found dump, and be sure to claim your stuff at the front desk!

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Yesterday’s Results Board: Clean | Handstand Walking
In NAFTA Talks, US Tries to Limit Junk Food Labels NY Times
CrossFit Athlete Emily Abbott Athlete Daily

Power Clean

1-1-1-1-1

Warm up and work up to a heavy single Power Clean.

Post loads to comments.

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Handstand Walking

Choose one of the following scaling options, and spend 15-20 minutes developing your hand balancing:

A) Hand Walking (free or 2′ from wall)
B) Wall Inverted Hip Shifts with Hand Release (from a Wall Walk or Kick Up)
C) Box Piked Hip Shifts with Hand Release
D) Floor Piked Hip Shifts with Hand Release

Rest after each set or attempt and don’t turn it into a 20-minute AMKAP (As Many Kick Ups as Possible). If you’re not spotting someone, you can use the rest periods to do some light stretching or light rowing, jogging, cycling, etc.

Post work to comments.

This is the 4th installment of Coach Brett’s “Open Diary” series. Be sure to check out the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd entries if you haven’t read them yet! | Photo by Thomas H. 

Open Diary 18.4

By Brett Ferguson

I’ll admit, writing my entry last week really made me take a step back to look at my mental approach to CrossFit workouts. I knew that I was hard on myself. But to see the exact same pattern repeat itself 3 weeks in a row exposed just how engrained this mentality was for me. I have to say, I absolutely loved reading the blog post the day it was posted. So many people were raw and vulnerable about their own struggles. To everyone who shared that day, thank you!

This week I decided to take a different approach. I wouldn’t set a goal for myself in the workout, and I wouldn’t look at the leaderboard all weekend. I would go into the workout on Friday, do the best I could, and see what happened. Then, I would try to approach it with a new strategy on Monday, see if that went better or worse, and treat it like a learning experiment. Progress, not perfection. This is what ensued…

“Well, there is the bending! Holy shit!” That was the text I received from my coach after 18.4 was announced. We had been talking for the last 6 weeks about what to do when a workout with a lot of hinging came up because my lower back had started to completely tighten up during these kind of workouts in January. “Diane” has been a great workout for me in the past. I’ve worked a lot on Handstand Push-Up volume and endurance this year in my programming. However, when you couple the spinal flexion and extension that happens during a kipping HSPU with 45 Deadlifts, everything affects the lower back. I was really excited to see the Handstand Walks as the new movement, but I told myself, “Focus on just getting the Deadlifts done first,” knowing the 21 reps at 315lbs would be a battle.

The Friday Night Lights sign up sheet filled up quickly this week. I knew the energy would be great, so I grabbed a spot in the 5:55pm heat. Strategy: break up the Deadlifts a lot in “Diane” to save my back for the heavier reps later on. As our heat started and I broke up 21 into of smaller sets of 6/5/4/3/3 reps, I could hear people around me running to the wall to start the HSPU while I was still on the bar. “Stick with your plan,” I thought. My tendency is always to come out fast. My coach knows this so he purposefully made me break into more sets than I wanted to. I had practiced the HSPU to the new standard several times, but things always change from practice/training to competition. Adrenaline and heart rate are up, normal breathing patterns disappear, and things that you didn’t anticipate always come up.

The new standard for HSPU forces the athlete to stay closer to the wall (harder for most people because the bottom of their kip will then take them off of the wall), keep their hands closer together (harder for people with poor shoulder mobility), and keep a straight spinal position (again, harder if you have poor mobility because hands overhead will cause your lower back to arch but also harder because people overarch in general when kicking up to a Handstand). As a result, I found myself staying upside down in the full lock out way longer on each rep, pressing out hard to ensure that each one counted.

I got back to the round of 15 deadlifts and started to go with my strategy of 4/4/4/3 for sets. But in the third set of 4 I could feel my back starting to take over the work, so I broke it up differently, forgetting my plan and going by feel. My sets ended up going 4/4/3/2/2. Not when I expected to feel my back starting to tighten, but all I could do now was try to keep it from completely seizing. Coach Whitney no-repped me several times in my next set of HSPU because I was too eager to get back to the barbell and wasn’t fully locking out. Fair enough… slow down. The last set of Deadlifts went 3/3/3, and I could feel my lower back arching with each lift of the barbell. Oh boy. Here were go.

I knew the reps at 315lbs would feel heavy, but I was not ready at all for how heavy they actually felt. A set of 4, then 3, then 2 all with significant rest in between and I switched my game plan to do singles with as little rest as possible. The last 8-9 reps of the 21 honestly felt like max-effort lifts. Those 21 reps took me about 3 minutes. That’s about a Deadlift every 8 or 9 seconds. Not the pace I was hoping for with “quick singles,” but it was the best I had in me.

I ran to the line for the Handstand Walk, really excited to be getting there at all. I’ve been practicing Handstand Walks all year and feel very confident with them. When your midline is completely shot, they are an entirely different experience. My form was all over the place, I was barely breathing, and I was walking like a drunk person. I got through the 50′ walk with just about a minute left before time was up. As I bent down to the bar my back was screaming in pain. Everything in my body was telling me to stop. My self preservation instincts were telling me to stop. The muscles of my lower back felt like there were needles sticking in them everywhere. I picked up the bar and dragged it up my legs, hitching for the last 10 inches of extension like you see in power lifting competitions when people are going for a max lift. I let out a yell when I stood all the way up and then repeated this another 6 times before time was up. I collapsed to the ground and immediately started doing some spinal twists and other back stretches. That was everything I had.

As the Monday redo approached, I worked on a few different techniques to save my back, knowing that it wouldn’t be fully recovered from the Friday effort. I tried things like faster eccentric movement, quick singles, and shifting my weight differently in my feet. I also decided to do some of the HSPU strict to maintain the integrity of my spinal position upside down. I thought that with all of these things combined, my back would surely feel better at the 315lb bar. False. These things all helped me to get to the 315lb bar faster, but instead of being able to do any touch-and-go reps there, I was at singles immediately.

The hitching that hadn’t happened until after the first handstand walk on Friday was happening 8 reps into the set of 21 dead lifts. I kept looking at the clock between each rep, seeing the time fade away. I should stop here and say that I had also judged Phil earlier in the day, and seeing him get to the second Handstand Walk immediately put that as a goal in my head. Between feeling like I wasn’t going to get there, or possibly not even beat my score from Friday, I could feel my body language change. The defeated feeling started to creep in. Coach Whitney was judging me again and started telling me to stay calm and just hit the next lift. This snapped me back to the present moment. I kept moving back to the bar, fighting through the mental storm going on between my ears. I got to the Handstand Walk. I knew what to expect this time so I was ready for it. Back to the bar with 80 seconds left. Keep fighting. Keep fighting. My last two reps were the ugliest Deadlifts I have ever done. I wasn’t able to stand the weight up with my legs or back so I popped up on my toes to get the last few inches of each. Time. Three reps better than Friday with a faster tiebreak time. “F*%$ that! That wasn’t worth it!” I yelled.

Then, like so many of us have experienced after a workout in 597, I was on my back staring up at the ceiling when a thought came in my head. “That was your best effort.” That was the best I could have done with that approach on that day. I hadn’t stopped. I hadn’t given up. I kept moving and gave it everything I had. I suddenly felt calm and, if I’m being honest, a little detached. Knowing that I had pushed myself the hardest that I could, the result seemed a little less important. I was sitting in the contentment of knowing I had laid it all out there. This was a huge mental win compared to one week earlier where I had given up in the middle of the work out. This feeling stayed with me the rest of the day. I also had a sudden desire to get back to training, having seen what I needed to work on in the first 4 workouts of the Open.

I’m really happy with how things went mentally this week. My feelings writing last week’s post and all of the feedback after helped me to start taking action with my mental approach. A little anger at the end of the workout tells me that I’m competitive and that I want more. That’s a good thing I think. But the acceptance of the result and contentment with my effort knowing I had nothing more to give tells me that I’m learning. That’s gold. It would be arrogant to say that I have completely changed in one week. I haven’t. I know my tendencies to compare myself to others and beat myself up will hit again at some point. But having some success with it this week is a step in the right direction.

News and Notes

• Come out to the gym tomorrow night from 5:30 to 8pm for the 5th and final Friday Night Lights event of the Open. Go HERE to sign up for a heat!
• Hey speaking of the Open, 18.5 will be the community’s choice! At 6pm our time, Dave Castro will announce 3 workout options. The CrossFit community will then have the chance to vote on it, and the winning workout will be announced at 8pm. More info can be found here.

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