Brooklyn CrossFit Gym Hosts Free Tin Slingers Night With Josh Bridges and Danielle Brandon

• CrossFit South Brooklyn hosted a Tin Slingers pairs night earlier this month with Games athletes Josh Bridges, Danielle Brandon, Madeline Sturt and Jay Crouch.
• R.A.D’s community director called it one of the most successful Tin Slingers events the company has run, judged by numbers.
• Any gym can still enter the global version before October 18 for a shot at R.A.D shoes and $1,500 of Rogue equipment.

The Friday Night Workout That Felt Like a Neighborhood Party

The lights were low, the music was loud, and a DJ and an emcee worked the room at CrossFit South Brooklyn on a Friday night earlier this month. Danielle Brandon, a Games athlete, spent part of the evening working the door. Josh Bridges, Madeline Sturt and Jay Crouch, all sponsored by the footwear brand R.A.D, waited their turn to compete. Adam Klink, the brand’s director of community and partnerships, described the night as a party disguised as a workout.

The gym opened in Brooklyn in 2007, and its Tin Slingers night filled the athlete brackets in advance. The gym asked every spectator, members and staff included, to register for a free ticket through Eventbrite. The partner workout was free, and the evening included food, drinks and prizes.

Sponsored athletes did not stay in a separate bubble. Klink explained that they competed alongside community members in the final heats, and every pair worked the same standardized workout, with men paired with men and women paired with women. Community members and Games athletes shared the floor for the finals.

What the Workout Asks of Two People

Tin Slingers is a 14-minute AMRAP for teams of two, which means as many rounds as possible before the clock stops. The pairs work through a ladder of 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 reps of two movements: the power clean, a lift that carries the barbell from the floor to the shoulders in one fast pull, and the burpee over the bar, in which the athlete drops to the floor, pops up and jumps over the barbell. Men use 135 pounds and women use 95 pounds on the power clean.

Add the ladder up and one full pass equals 45 power cleans and 45 burpees over the bar for the team. Only one partner works at a time. Partners tag in and out, and each athlete changes their own weights. When time remains on the clock, each partner takes one max-effort clean. The team score is the heaviest clean from the first partner plus the heaviest clean from the second. Ties break on the time it took to finish the clean-and-burpee couplet.

The format suits a mixed crowd. A newcomer who has never touched a barbell can scale the load and still contribute to the team score, and an experienced lifter can chase a heavy max in the closing seconds. The standardized pairing also keeps the workout the same in Brooklyn as it is in any other gym that tries it.

Why a Footwear Brand Is Throwing Gym Parties

Klink told The Morning Chalk Up that the company set out to bring back the art of creating experiences for the CrossFit community, a skill he says the community is losing. He called the Brooklyn night one of the most successful events R.A.D has put on, measured by turnout.

The brand and its athletes have worked together before. R.A.D and Bridges released a special-edition training shoe in 2025, and the company now builds community events around the people who wear its footwear. For a gym, a visit from athletes like these gives members a story to tell and a reason to invite a friend who has never stepped inside a box. Tin Slingers is not new. The 2025 edition opened on November 10 and closed on December 14, with professional athletes kicking off the challenge at gyms in Los Angeles, London and the Gold Coast of Australia. The top male and female pairs worldwide won $2,500 in cash, two custom Rogue barbells and R.A.D shoes, and the gym with the most verified score submissions in each region, including the United States, won a $5,000 prize pack. That pack held three Rogue Echo Bikes, two barbells, a bumper plate set and shoes for the coaches.

The 2026 version changes the prize structure. Five gyms will win R.A.D shoes and $1,500 worth of Rogue equipment. Rogue Fitness describes the series as an underground lifting league for disaffected mutants, and the Brooklyn night suggests that members of ordinary neighborhood gyms are happy to join.

How a Gym Can Enter Before Sunday

Any gym owner or coach who wants a shot at the prizes has until Sunday, October 18. The process takes three steps. First, register the gym on the Tin Slingers 2026 page at rad-global.com. Second, film your gym doing the Tin Slingers workout and post the video to Instagram Stories before October 18, tagging @rad_global. Third, watch your Instagram messages, as R.A.D will contact the winners on October 19.

The workout needs a barbell, some floor space and pairs who agree to tag in and out. Coaches can scale the load for beginners, and the same ladder works with a lighter barbell. Last year’s version asked for more: a 12-minute AMRAP that opened with a 100 or 80 calorie Echo Bike sprint, then climbed through clean and jerks at 135, 185 and 225 pounds before a max attempt at 275 pounds. The 2026 workout uses a shorter couplet of cleans and burpees in place of the bike and the heavy jerks.

What It Says About Gym Culture in the United States

CrossFit gyms have long served as neighborhood hubs, and events like this one lean on that habit. A Friday night in Brooklyn gave members a reason to bring a friend, meet a Games athlete and watch their gym crowd fill with people who might sign up for a trial class the next week. The format asks little of the host: one workout, one room, one night.

For readers who have never tried CrossFit, a night like Tin Slingers is a low-pressure way to see the sport up close. Watch a few heats, ask a coach how to scale the power clean, and find out whether a partner workout feels right before you commit to a membership. For gym owners, the October 18 deadline offers a reason to run a community night of their own.