Teams of 2 alternate rounds to complete as many rounds as possible in 15 minutes of:
3 Power Cleans 185/125
6 Ring Push Ups
9 Squats
The ring push-up is a far more advanced version and requires high levels of shoulder strength and stability. Perform a standard push-up if you can’t organize the ring version perfectly.
Post partner, Rx and rounds completed to comments.
Izzie hitting Squats at the gym
CrossFit In The Dark
Izzie is our first visually impaired athlete at CFSBK (he describes his level of sight as looking through a coffee straw in the dark) and Gais is his friend and CrossFit partner in crime. Izzie is using CrossFit to improve his game in a sport called Goal Ball. Below he talks about what its like to take Group Classes at CrossFit.
I hear coach Fox say “lean towards your right side and actively push your knee over the toes of your right foot from this bottom of a squat position” and my nerves start to fire. He then goes on to lead us with more ballistic stretches and before I know it, he accompanies three chimes of a timer with a “3, 2, 1”, count down. Before I know it, I am amazed at how quickly my imagination of the childlike contour of his body vanishes. Almost instantly Gais starts dragging me to help carry the bumper plates from the front of the gym to our assigned rack. Time passes and warmup sets are completed. I ask Gais to read me how much time is left on the clock and he says “9 minutes”. It’s at that very moment when my Goalball instinct starts to kick in. For you see, in Goalball, all players are blindfolded and therefore cannot read the scoreboard. Therefore, players must rely on their time management skills to help them make favorable decisions on the court.
I think to myself “9 minutes, its crunch time”. In fact, almost every minute spent at the box is crunch time. Soon after our work sets are complete, we move on to a WOD where I start to tell myself that this is where my endurance for Goalball will come from. It’s in these next 10 minutes of double unders bounded by blindly following Gais around the block that I’ll become the best Goalball player New York can offer. The exhilaration of running feels amazing to say the least. Every crack on the street and and every change in texture feeds a my body with an unparalleled sensation of information. I never imagined being able to run around south slope with my visual impairment. Nevertheless, after nearly running into a tree and off a tangent on Degraw, the WOD is finally finished. My lungs burn and remind me of the time I played against the Russian Goalball team for the Bronze Medal in 2011. That game made it to overtime and with barely any energy left, , USA scored the winning goal in the last minute of OT.
This is what a day at CFSBK is like for me. It reminds me of every loss and win I experienced on the Goalball court. It reminds me that there’s still a ton of things for me to learn about my own fitness and capabilities. In fact, a few days ago coach Jessica guided me to do a cat skinning. (Forgive me if I misquoted the exercise name). Never in my life did I think I would be able to make such gains in strength, mobility, flexibility and endurance both in the Crossfit box and on the Goalball court. I would like to thank the coaches at CFSBK for their patience and support in my athletic and weightlifting endeavors. A couple of weeks ago, my team brought the gold medal home for New York in the Western regional competition. It has been over 10 years since New York has brought home a gold medal from a regional tournament and I believe that Crossfit deserves much appreciation for this accomplishment. I am now preparing for my last competition of the season, the Goalball Nationals, which will be held in Vancouver Washington through the dates of June 20-23. I will be competing with my team the New York Knights and hope to contribute towards bringing home another gold medal.
In conclusion, Crossfit has brought me to a profound realization about my visual impairment and it’s that my blindness is nothing more than a nuisance. it’ll sometimes make things more difficult for me, but it’ll never make them impossible. So thanks to all the CFSBK members and staff who choose to light a new candle with me instead of blindly cursing away in the dark.
– Izzie
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Check out the trailer to “A Shot In The Dark” a documentary about Goal Ball Featuring our own Izzie