Fitness: 3×5 Across
Start cycle light enough to add weight for six weeks

Performance: 2×5, 1xMax Reps <10
Start cycle at 70% of 1RM

Post loads to comments.
Bench Press e1/6
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Fitness:

3 Rounds for max reps:
1 Minute V-Ups or Tuck Ups
1 Minute Burpees or Squat Thrusst
1 Minute Dumbbell Hang Power Snatch
1 minute Rest

Performance:

3 Rounds for max reps:
1 Minute Toes to Bars
1 Minute Burpees
1 Minute Dumbbell Power Snatch @33% of bodyweight
1 minute Rest

For both Performance and Fitness, alternate arms per rep on Snatches.

Post total reps and Rx to comments.

DROMz

Heavy Thoughts: Part 2

We recently asked how you guys and gals structure your thoughts before attempting a complex or demanding lift. Last time we talked about the importance of having a ritual. Here is part 2 in our coaching tips to help you optimize your mental training experience.

Cultivate Confidence
Whether you realize it or not, every time you go to pick up something heavy you’re going into a fight. At near max efforts your margin of error becomes paper thin and even a little self doubt can can mean the difference between an epic PR or an epic fail.  I’ve seen so many people week in and week out miss even light weights because they didn’t trust themselves. They hesitated and subsequently didn’t commit to the lift. An experienced lifter knows that at a certain point, you’ve simply got to shut up and go for it.  The analysis is over and it’s time for action.  Sometimes this manifests as a floor stopping, adrenaline filled pre-lift ritual and sometimes it’s a quiet confidence that’s attained. Either way, you want to fill your mind with simple positive reinforcement and visualize yourself being successful (more on that later). Try to channel how it’s going to feel hitting that weight as if you already did it before touching the bar. Developing confidence is both a skill and integral part of your technical development. A slight hesitation can be just as crippling as shifting forward while you snatch, either way, you’re going to blow the lift. Start by practicing your confidence with your warm-up weights and be mindful about how your mentality changes as the weight goes up.  Will you keep up with the weight or let it roll you over?

How do you establish pre-lift confidence?
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Powerlifting: The Mentality Mark Bell
The power of adrenaline: Man lifts car off 3 year old boy
History of the Turkish Get Up CrossFit Belair

5 Rounds NFT of:
5ea Windmills
10 H2H Swings
5ea Lunge (contra-lateral load)
10ea H2H Swing
5ea Thrusters

Post load to comments.

• There is no Comp Class today
• Good luck to Chris P, Charmel R, Bob S, Jay R and Keith W at the  Christmas Throwdown today at CrossFit North Haven.

Our Upcoming Cycle

Monday starts the new mesocycle of training at CFSBK. Here’s what to look forward to…

Monday – Bench Press + WOD or NFT

Tuesday – Rest Day/Make Up Day

Wednesday – Snatch + Back Squat + DIY Cash Out

Thursday – WOD

Friday – Rest Day/Make Up Day

Saturday – Clean and Jerk + Front Squat

Sunday – WOD

The goals of the cycle are to:

• Continue to improve proficiency in the Olympic lifts

• Incoporate a barbell based upper body strength lift

• Continue to incorporate longer, challenging WODs

• Continue to squat 2x/week

• Include a gymnastics based skill/strength in WODs each week

• Consistently incorporate lunge variant to bring up unilateral leg strength

This next cycle will lead right into the Open, where we’ll put more of an emphasis on work capacity. Expect to see this cycle dovetail into the goals of the next.

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Twitching Gym Jones
Double-Under Positioning CrossFit
CrossFit trainer will be PHL’s first astronaut
Bloomberg Defends NYPD’s Controversial Stop And Kiss Program

1-1-1-1-1

Post loads to comments.
________________

Row 3000m

Row at about 70% RPE. Keep your stroke rating low, your pulls strong and dial in your techinque.

Behind The Desk Series: Whitney H

Here is the next installment in our new series called Behind the Desk, about our beloved and much appreciated Front Desk staff. These CrossFitters take care of the important duties of checking in our members, handling walk-ins, tidying up after classes, and so many other things that it would take forever to list them. They are the glue that holds this gym together.

Full name: Whitney Hubbard

Where were you born and where did you grow up:
Born in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Grew up in Lake Forest, Illinois — a suburb of Chicago.

First album that you loved:
Either Ace of Base’s The Sign or Mariah Carey’s Music Box

What are you up to when you’re not at 597 Degraw Street:
Well… between the front desk, teaching Yoga for Athletes, and actually working out I spend quite a lot of time at CFSBK! Beyond that, I teach yoga in Cobble Hill and Park Slope (at studios and privately in my home and others’ homes), walk and play with my recently-adopted dog Penny, and cook as many delicious meals and treats as possible. I recently became a Level 1 CrossFit Trainer and am also currently in a yoga teacher mentorship program; I’m continually interested in how to best coach/instruct people in their pursuits of health and fitness.

“Ask me about that time I…”:
…raced Coach Noah in “suicide” wind sprints in the Key Foods parking lot after the Fight Gone Bad 2012 after-party.

Earth is about to implode but aliens on a previously undiscovered planet named Euripides want to preserve one artifact from humans. What would you offer them?
A foam-roller. Mobilize your alien business!!

Favorite shade of blue:
Teal… the blue that’s approaching green, like when sunlight shines through a wave that’s about to break.

Favorite lift:
Snatch
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Give Any Bike Instant Turbo Mode with This Innovative New Wheel Greatist
Four Common Foot Injuries in the Athlete Breaking Muscle
Earn Your Carbs TTMJ

From the Vault: CF HQ staffers and long time CFSBK super-friends Adrian Bozman and Jennifer Hunter-Marshall teach the GHD Sit-Up at a Level 1 seminar we hosted in August of 2009

Heavy Thoughts: Part 1

Yesterday we asked how you guys and gals structure your thoughts before attempting a complex or demanding lift.  Here is part 1 in our coaching tips to help you optimize your mental training experience.

Have a ritual
The less you need to process before a complex or demanding lift the easier it will be for you to focus on the nuances of execution.  Whenever you set up to perform an exercise, make all the steps leading to your start position and pre lift brace consistent and correct. Over time these will become second nature and you wont have to cloud your mind with details about where your feet go, how the bar feels in your hand or exactly when you’ll take in that last breath. By ritualizing this process you can consistently enter into a good start position and focus on the adjustments you’re attempting to make. Additionally, this will increase your confidence in each attempt as you’re consistently entering familiar movement territory even if an unfamiliar weight happens to be on the bar. Remember that practice makes permanent, every lift, from your first warm-up to a PR attempt should look identical up to the point you begin applying force.  Obviously, developing this motor memory and routine sequence takes time and will sometimes need to be tinkered with. The point is that through conscious repetition you begin to decrease the variables and increase your chances for success.

Tough Titsday Powerlifting Meet V

To the ladies of CFSBK:

We are hosting our fifth powerlifting meet!

What: 3 attempts at a 1 rep max of Backsquat, Bench Press and Deadlift
When: January 12, 2014 at 2:30pm; weigh in and registration at 1pm; rules review at 2pm
Who: SBK women who have been attending group classes for at least 4 months

How much: $25
Bonus: Celebrate post meet with your fellow lifters and friends. Drinks on us!
25 spots available. Registration deadline is January 5, 2014. 

The Details:
Each woman will have 3 attempts to hit a max single in Squat, Bench and Deadlift, in that order. All lifters will make their attempts in each lift before moving to the next.

First, second and third place winners will be awarded in each weight class based on total combined weight of best lifts.

There will be 4 weight classes:
Pixies: Under 125
Ladies: 126-140
Dames: 141-155
Broads: Over 156
In the event of a tie, lowest weight wins.

Register Here

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Adrian Bozman Demos “Tom” CrossFit

Fitness:

25 Minutes Not for rounds of:
20 Second Paralette Support (perform on the low ring to spice it up)
15 V-Ups
10 Single Leg Squats to a Box, each leg
5 Paralette Shoot Throughs
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Performance:

25 Minutes Not for rounds of:
20 Second Ring Support
10 V-Ups
10 Pistols
5 Hang Pull Through to Skin-the-Cat

The CFSBK Fighting Tacos

• Happy Birthday’s to Coach Melo, Lisa F (LF DOOM), Christanna S, AND Dr. Mike!
• Have you been following DO’s new blog Inside The Affiliate? You can also follow it on Facebook, Twitter, and by signing up for a newsletter on the website. The one and only Matt K will be running the FB and Twitter.

Bridging Gowanus

“Next week, we are kicking off Bridging Gowanus, an inclusive community-driven planning process to develop a long-term vision for a safe, vibrant, and sustainable Gowanus.

The first in a series of community planning meetings is Monday, December 9, 2013 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at PS 372, 512 Carroll Street in Brooklyn.

Bridging Gowanus is an effort to bring together a wide range of community members to identify broadly-shared goals, discuss different viewpoints, and build consensus around a neighborhood framework for the infrastructure and land use regulations needed in the Gowanus Canal area. I hope you will participate and invite your neighbors. Learn more here.

Thoughts

How we structure our thoughts while training a movement can greatly effect our actual success with it. Tomorrow we’ll talk about some tips to help get you thinking more productively while you train. Today, we want to hear about what you’re already doing.

What are the kinds of things that run through your mind before and immediately following a techincal lift like the snatch? 
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SkullTrek A rowing powered bicycle
Progress… Twice As Hard For Half As Much Cathletics

Turkish Get Ups: Heavy Single
Fat Bar Deadlift: Heavy Single
Sled Pushes: Medium weight, 20 yards

Post loads to comments.

Alex gets braced before Front Squatting

• Happy Birthday, Matt K!
• Don’t forget to bring your lightly used jackets for the CFSBK Coat Drive

Meat CSA is Today & January Pickup Date Change

Behind the Desk
You all love the Underneath the Hoodie series (stay tuned for more on that soon), but we’re bringing you a new series called Behind the Desk, about our beloved and much appreciated Front Desk staff. These CrossFitters take care of the important duties of checking in our members, handling walk-ins, tidying up after classes, and so many other things that it would take forever to list them. They are the glue that holds this gym together. 

There are seven of them, so expect a new post about a new person on the next seven rest days. Great to put their lovely faces with their names, and some weird, fun facts—since we know how much we love weird, fun facts at CFSBK. As you get to know them, make sure to say hi and thank you for all their hard work. Questions asked and answers compiled by Kate R.

Introducing…

Full name: Mathew Alan Katz

Where were you born and where did you grow up:
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, grew up in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada

First album that you loved:
Weird Al’s Bad Hair Day

What are you up to when you’re not at 597 Degraw Street:
I’m a reporter on the internets!

“Ask me about that time I…”:
Had to carry around an old naked man at South by Southwest

Earth is about to implode but aliens on a previously undiscovered planet named Euripides want to preserve one artifact from humans. What would you offer them?:
A copy of Tommy Wiseau’s masterpiece, The Room.

Favorite shade of blue:
Bacon

Favorite lift:
Low bar back squat

We love you, Matt!
____________________________
CrossFit: The Good, Bad, and the Ugly Mark Rippetoe
Standardized CrossFit Practice CrossFit

Performance: 80%x3x5
Pause all your reps at the bottom for a 1 count. Work on your tightness and organization at the bottom of your rep.

Fitness: Work up to medium 5
Find your starting 5 for the cycle. Should be perfect with room to grow. If you’ve got time you can do up to three sets of this starting weight.

You’ll be seeing Bench Press on Mondays for the next 6 weeks!

Post loads to comments
Bench Press e1/7
______________________

“Flight Simulator”
5-10-15-20-25-30-35-40-45-50-45-40-35-30-25-20-25-5
Reps of Consecutive Double Unders

Rest as needed between rounds of double unders. Must complete a round unbroken to progress to the next round. There is a 12 minute cap on this workout, see how far you can get!  If you don’t have doubles, use this as 12 minutes of practice on technique and efficiency.

Post highest rep round to comments.

Caption this photo of Julian V

• There is a new article up on Inside The Affiliate. Check it out!
• Don’t forget to bring in your lightly used jackets for our Coat Drive this week.

Back Off Weeks (Updated)

By David Osorio

For most of us, it can be quite difficult to hit the WODs hard week in week out ad infinitum. Your ability to successfully train at high intensity over a period of time is determined by genetics, recovery, nutrition, injuries, and training age.  At CrossFit South Brooklyn, we follow a 3/1/2/1 weekly microcycle which looks like this:

CFSBK Microcycle
Saturday: On
Sunday: On
Monday: On

Friday: Off

By allowing at least two non sequential days off, we can train at high intensity over the course of a week. Consistently training CrossFit more than three days in a row can lead to a decrease in performance due to accumulated inflammation and a lack of recovery. Many of you guys have been following our 3/1/2/1 schedule with great success.

But what about training over longer periods of time than a week?

The type of training we do as CrossFitters leads to degrees of adaptation much more closely related to competitive athletics than traditional “fitness” programs. That being said, it’s important to note that most organized sports teams map out their yearly programming goals based around a competitive season.  Conversely, CrossFit is a GPP program which aims to achieve a consistently high level of work capacity over a life time. There are many individuals who use CrossFit to train for their sport or occupation (MIL/LEO etc.) and an ever growing number of people who are competing in CrossFit as their primary sport. These individuals will generally modify variables of their programs to better prepare themselves for competition or deployment.

But what about boring old me?

The majority of us are training CrossFit without any regard to a specific competition or training goal other than health, longevity, and fitness. It’s therefore necessary for the average CF’er to take it upon themselves to consider their training over longer periods of time than a week. Especially for the folks coming in 5xW, we program every 8th week at less intensity and use it as a period to scale back and give your bodies a chance to clean house and manage any systemic inflammation.

The workouts we post on back off weeks will generally be of lighter total volume with less emphasis on load or time, if at all. Additionally, we’ll use it as an opportunity to prep for the upcoming cycle by workshopping the movements in longer formats. It is simultaneously the end of the previous cycle and the beginning of the new one.

CFSBK Mesocycle

Week 1: Training
Week 2: Training
Week 3: Training
Week 4: Training
Week 5: Training
Week 6: Training

Week 8: Back Off/Prep Week

Autoregulating
If you train with us less frequently, perhaps once or twice a week and are not considerably active outside of CrossFit, you can still benefit from some cyclical recovery. How much recovery and fluctuation in intensity you need is highly specific and you should always be listening to your body and adapting accordingly. Folks who are living hard and fast outside the gym should be especially sensitive to how they’re feeling.

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Ben Smith Squatting 480lbs
Gold Medal Moments: Kerri Strug Lands on her Feet at the 1996 Summer Olympics

5 Rounds for Time of:
Run 400m
21 Deadlifts, 185/135

Today’s deadlifts should feel medium/light given the total volume. Scale accordingly.

Post time and Rx to comments.

Ian P’s excellent Front Rack

CFSBK Coat Drive for New York Cares Starts Today

__________________
How Heavy is Too Heavy? Choosing Training Weights Cathletics
CrossFit Cheaters Anonymous: “Rx’ing” WODs CrossFit 781

1-1-1-1-1

Post loads to comments.
________________

“Isabel”

For time:
30 Snatches, 135/95

There is a 10 minute cap on this workout.

Post time and Rx to comments.

Andrew M and Rickke M

Strategies for Movement Development:
The Olympic Lifts, Part 1

The quick lifts are notorious for their perceived complexity and many athletes struggle developing capacity in the lifts. To the undeveloped lifter, the Olympic lifts look like a blur of movement and often feel even worse. Putting it all together seems overwhelming and often frustration and dismay ensue.  The good news however is that with the right approach steady progress can be made.  Below are three things to consider that I gurantee will make your training more productive.

Mindset
The Olympic Lifts (Snatch & Clean and Jerk) are different than the Power Lifts (Deadlift, Back Squat, Bench Press). While both are barbell exercises, the Olympic lifts are demonstrations of power expressed through a technically sensitive sequence movements and positions. Their inherent speed decreases your margin for error unlike the power lifts (misnomer anyone?) which are performed at slower tempos and are easier for your nervous system to process.  We often harp on gradually increasing the loads on your power lifts to develop strength and many in our gym have been quite successful getting strong through gradual progressive increases of weight on the bar.  We cannot however expect the same linear development of the olympic lifts. Your emphasis when approaching these lifts should be “as heavy as technically proficient today” instead of “a little heavier than last time”.  If you’re feeling good and the positions are clicking, then by all means push a little that day, but if you’re missing positions and starting to deviate from good form, you need to pull back and work on the skill component of the lifts.  This mindset helps produce productive training sessions where you can focus on getting better, not necessarily moving more weight. Instead, each time you train, focus on one to two aspects of the lift you want to develop that day. Even if you moved 10lbs less then the previous week but your rack delivery became a little smoother and quicker, you’ve moved in the right direction.

Positions
The biggest mistake I see athletes make is not taking the time to develop PERFECT starting and rack positions. The beauty of these is that they’re static positions you can take the time to work on and get right every time. There are a lot of things happening quickly in the Olympic lifts, but if you focus on achieving mature start and end positions a lot of the blurry stuff in the middle will naturally begin to work itself out. 

Start position basics
Whether you’re starting from below the knee, the floor or anywhere else take the time to make sure your back is arched, your weight is balanced and the bar is touching your body with your arms hanging straight. On top of that, remember that you’re about to rapidly accelerate a barbell and you need to get TIGHT. This means taking the slack out of the barbell/you system by taking a big breath in and bracing your muscles.  You upper back should feel engaged and your hamstrings should be on tension (like our “gillie” stretch). A simple way to think about this would be to imagine you’re about to jump as high as you possibly can from your start position. Another way to think about it is to imagine you’re going to throw the barbell as high as you can towards the ceiling. These mental cues often help people achieve the positions and tension they need to initiate an efficient pull (does this guy look soft?). Never, ever (ever) rush through your start position. If you’re soft or out of balance, the barbell’s trajectory will deviate from where it needs to be and the lift will be missed or botched.  You simply cannot lift well from a bad start position, so take the time to learn exactly where you need to and get there every-single-time.

Rack Position
I don’t think there’s anything that makes me want to pull my hair out more than people who try and stand up a lift they haven’t properly racked on their shoulders or overhead. It’s understandable that this portion of the lift can be difficult for folks because of mobility restrictions or general apprehension about the movement but once you’ve got that barbell in the rack position, take the time to make it perfect before standing it up. If it’s so heavy that you can’t troubleshoot your position here you’ve jumped the gun and gone too heavy too fast. Developed lifters will need to troubleshoot minor errors and occasionally chase a lift but it’s never because they don’t know how to properly rack the barbell. Think of if this way, every time you do an Olympic lift there are three positions you need to get through.

A. Your Start Position: On tension, in balance and ready to explode
B. Your Rack Position: In the clean, this means the barbell is on your shoulders with your hands open and elbows as high as you can get them. In the Snatch, the barbell is locked out overhead above the middle of your foot. These can be received anywhere from a 1/4 to full squat.
C. Your Finish Position: Fully stood up with the barbell and you in balance and under control.

Often I see people want to go straight from A to C in an effort to simply complete the lift. If there is no distinct rack delivery position in the early stages of your learning progression you will NEVER (ever) move heavier weights well and you’ll never lift anywhere near as much as you’re truly capable of. The “B” should be a quick, distinct and crisp moment where the lift is won or lost.
Have you ever really pressed out a snatch overhead? YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. Have you ever stood up a clean with your hands still clenched to the barbell and your elbows low? YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. Stop doing it wrong, it’s really not that hard. Just fucking take the extra time to fix the position every time you get there before standing up.  If you practice this consistently it eventually won’t be a problem because a smooth and complete rack delivery will be so intuitive to you you’ll get as mad as I am right now when you see people rushing through this portion. These concepts also hold true for Olympic lifts in conditioning workouts. Every rep should be executed with intention of hitting A-B-C-A-B-C-A-B-C… as consistently and correctly and quickly as possible. The newer you are, the longer you’re going to need to take at each position before moving to the next. If your WODs look like A-C-A-C-A-B²-C-a-q-C-A-W?-C you need to chill out out and slow down.

In conclusion, don’t stress about your numbers every time you train the O-Lifts, learn what a good start position feels like and never stand up a lift you haven’t finished racking. Easy peasy.

Okay, movie time

Califorina Strength on Cleaning and the Rack Position
Watch Cal Strength at Catalyst Athletics. Get used to seeing the A-B-C for each lift.

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Training CrossFit vs. CrossFit as Sport Chris Spealer