CrossFit NYC: The Black Box

Speaking of "Cleaning Up", the people from the evening class are a bunch of goddamn slobs. I'm not your frikkin' momma, people! This is your first warning to put the gym back in order before you leave for the night. In fact, the gym should be put back in order after every class. That means 1) put away equipment where it belongs, 2) crush and throw away your water bottles, tape and bandaids, and 3) take your smelly clothes and shoes with you. If I come in and find the Box looking like this again, you will ALL be fined 5 rounds of Kettlehell with the 24kg KB!

I bet they don't have these problems at Planet Fitness! :)

Sorry about that. I was one of the last guys, and I thought we stacked the plates and bars up just fine. I guess I missed a few..... a bunch of spots. No disrespecting the box! My apologies.

STOP THE INSANITY

One of our most precious natural resources is being destroyed: Hot Swedish Babes!!!

Forget about rainforests and global warming, let's deal with an issue that really matters!

http://www.physorg.com/news97950076.html

(AP) -- As every Western nation struggles with child obesity, the Swedes are puzzled by an unusual blip in the data: Why are little girls more likely to be fat than little boys? A recent study by researchers at Sweden's Uppsala University showed that today's 4-year-old girls were six times as likely to be obese compared to 20 years ago - a bigger jump than among boys.
"This indicates that there is a relatively recent change in our lifestyles that is behind this," said Ulf Holmback, the lead researcher for the study published in the April issue of Acta Paediatrica. "But it's difficult to say what that is."

The weight increase itself was expected - Swedes, along with most other Europeans, have been getting heavier.

But obesity experts are scratching their heads over the gender difference that emerges in obesity rates. In 1982, just 1 percent of all 4-year-olds were deemed obese. By 2002, 2 percent of the boys that age were obese, but 6 percent of the girls were. The discrepancy was similar for 10-year-olds.

An analysis of children who are overweight - not obese - the percentage of overweight 4-year-olds has roughly doubled to 20 percent for girls and 18 percent for boys during the same 20-year period. (Generally, a child 42 inches tall weighing 50 pounds would be considered obese; the same child weighing 45 pounds would be considered overweight.)

"It's hard to come up with a smart explanation for this," said Carl-Erik Flodmark, head of the child obesity center at Malmo University Hospital. "One biological explanation could be that boys are more active, and when the calorie load increases, maybe girls are more affected."

Flodmark, considered one of Europe's experts on childhood obesity, said the research could be skewed because it studied children from just one part of Sweden. But, he said, other studies also reveal the gender difference in obesity rates for that age group.

According to data compiled by the International Association for the Study of Obesity, IASO, the situation seems unique to Sweden.

The IASO has compiled surveys from all European Union countries, and typically the differences in the obesity rates for boys and girls are very small. In countries that have large gender discrepancies among children - such as Greece and Estonia - it is the boys who have higher rates of being overweight.

Hey, I second what Paul says. Everyone at the very end stayed back and tried to make sure that everything was put away properly. Do you think a chart or checklist might be useful so everyone is on the same page as to what should go where? Coming in on evening classes and the second weekend classes means I rarely get to see the box in "inspection" condition.

Re: clothes/shoes that get left behind at some point during the day - should the last people to leave throw them out ala the water bottles?

I just got out of bed to try a handstand pushup and was only able to dip down a little bit before falling over.

There's not shot I'll be about to do 12 5x.

Is there a trick to doing them successfuly or is it purely having lots of upper body strength ?

Hey Allison? Allie? A2?,

The following worked for me:
1.) Do pushups with elevated feet...as you get stronger and more comfortable at that angle, increase the elevation until, over time, you are vertical.
2.) Handstand holds.
3.) Partial range handstand pushups. Do the hspus with a stack of books between your hands...just go down enough to lightly touch your head. Decrease the height of the stack as you get stronger in order to increase the range of motion.

I'm sure there are other tips, but these worked well for me. Actually, for me the 2nd toughest part of doing them at first was the feeling that my head was about to pop...that fortunately went away over time.

Good luck!

18:50 today

Subbed hanging power cleans,
My HSPU rom is pretty poor, prob 6" of vertical travel
grip is fried

I tried some pushups with my feet on the edge of my bed and did a handstand against my wall for over a minute. Both were easy enough.

I guess they will have to do for now. I'll keep trying the HSPUs

Thnk you Yoon

Going to have to take a rest day today as the shoulder is still pretty damn sore, and dont think its a great idea to do HSPU. They pretty much suck for me on a good day.

Regarding clean up, I kinda saw this coming as this is an ongoing cfnyc issue (I remember a few times staying back at 5 points to clean). The weights that were being done late were put up, but I knew the bottles/trash and clothes were going to be an issue.

Just because weights are left *near* the platform does not mean they were put away. The weights get stacked according to their weight, i.e. ONE pile of 45s, ONE pile of 10s, etc. Also weights, no matter how small, do not belong on the desk.

Regarding water:
Pay for it, drink it, take it with you, crush and throw out the bottles. Do NOT leave your water bottles all around the Box.

We don't have some magic system that requires a lot of training to master. Use common sense. Take weights off the bars and put them back neatly. Put stuff back where you found it/where it belongs. Try to create the illusion that our gym is not a total shithole.

I feel explaining things like that is beneath us, we should all be working to make this place function at 110%. We should be setting higher standards in human interactions as well as fitness.

Josh, please write an essay on why people should NEVER sit or stand or jump on stacked plyo boxes.

Sorry about the clean up, guys. I like Moon's idea for the checklist. Or maybe we can have a 'before' photo of the room so that we can reference it to try to replicate the arrangement before we leave.

As for Josh's essay, does this also mean I should stop doing jumping squats on the stacked plyo boxes? Ha ha, just kidding. (They were jumping deadlifts.)

Keith, Understood. Sorry.

Todays wod as R'xd
18:44
Sets broken on HSPU's from 6 to 1
Power cleans from floor unbroken first 2 sets then groups of 7

23:24 (Sub 72 lbs)

New and interesting functional skill of the evening: Breathing through a soaking wet t-shirt covering my face while upside down.

3 sets + 12 power cleans in 20 min. Best. Sweat Angel. Ever.

I think CrossFit means also getting an empty subway seat next to you on the way home. I'm not sure - I was busy watching my falling sweat drops coalesce into a full floor puddle.

32:09
sub 95lbs push presses

No dumb blonde jokes:

4 rounds 35lbs? 13 minutes

a 2 minute break before figuring out I counted wrong
then
added 20 lbs and finished for the second time at about 18 minutes?

I didn't write it down right away so the times are a little off.

I wish I listened to Keith and started with the heavier weight but I figured I should learn how to do it correctly first.

I can't count but I can do a Power Clean!!

Again- no dumb blonde jokes.

I just looked at the XFit affiliate blog and saw a picture of Fionna who visited the box this week ..
Check it out

Guys you all did amazing tonite while I was there! The energy at the box was sky high!
Thanks Keith for letting me observe and help out. No sweat for standing me up Josh!

What did you guys do in this mornings class?

Mad Blackbox Skillz Day!

Skin the Cat, Weighted One Arm Squats, Jumping Rope (3 rounds of 3 minutes, 1 minute rest), Weighted Lunges, 1 Min of L's, Toes to Bar, Pistols, Handstands, there some more stuff I cannot remember and finishing with Tabata Squats.

Lauren, Allison, Keith and I had a lot of fun!

Oh sounds like a fun filled class!

Oh No.. Jumping Rope ..

REST DAY

SHOULD BE VIDEO DAY

speaking of which.
Whats the best supplement (thats not a supplement) for recovering on your rest day.
All kinds of sore from the last 3 days, (feels awesome though)and I don't really love the idea of spending cash on powders and crazy muscletech pills.
Whats the best bet? Load up on protein, by having bigger meals on rest days, or maybe even taking the less expensive, multi-vitamin supplements that my grandma takes?

Oh - just to be clear, I did yesterday's WOD @ 62# (if my math is correct).

Skills day was awesome today. Glad to have worked on a variety of stuff that I havent done in a while. Thanks Keith

My hands are a mess and I have a bruise on my collar bone.

Do gloves help at all?

Ok I got an early Mothers' Day card from my 6 year old son which reads:
"Dear Mom-you plan the best trips ever. And thank you for letting me come see your cross-fit class".

Get them while they are young!

No gloves... Your hand will get used to it. Its just another part of the fun.

Today's skills class was great. Man, my skin the cats were awful. Had no problem doing them when I was a kid. I just know tommorrow is going to be back squats after that set of Tabatas.

Gloves suck, don't waste your money. These grip thingies are nice, though:

http://www.lynxpt.com/performancegrips.php

Of course, Keith says they're "cheating". Whatever.

I only use them some of the time, as I like having calluses and you can't always use the grips in every situation. But the grips do help when your hands are really killing you but the rest of your body can handle the exercise, be it pull-ups, knees-to-elbows, etc.

As far as the bruises go, get used to it, I'm always in a state of bruisedness (yes I just made up that word).

yeah I just went to a fancy party in a really short dress and had to use body makeup all over my legs bc i was covered in bruises. though I guess it might have made for interesting party chatter.