S01E08 - Watching Professional CrossFit

Our next episode is watching pro CrossFit athletes. Is it solely entertainment, or is there something we as everyday athletes can learn from watching them perform? We talk about what professional athletes and the everyday gym athlete have in common, and which pro athletes do we like watching and following.

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TRANSCRIPT
S01E08 Watching Professional CF
[00:00:00] Sam Rhee: Hi, welcome to another episode of the HerdFit podcast with as always coach Dave Syvertsen and I'm Sam Rhee. This topic was one that I brought up with Dave, because I was. Watching a lot of CrossFit online funnels. Right? Right. I was watching the Mac and tour, a west coast, classic granite games, even some of the online stuff.
And I was like watching all these guys and I follow these guys on Instagram and I, and I was like, okay, wait a second. What am I really like? I am enjoying watch Wyatt, but is there something I should be taking away, as a CrossFit athlete from watching these athletes, because they, as a CrossFit, as a, CrossFitter a lot of, or a lot of CrossFitters follow them really carefully.
We know what you know, so, what Matt Frazier was doing or what Tia Claire to me is doing, or what Catherine David's daughter is doing, or we feel bad when Sarah you know, And, you know, we buy the stuff they endorse. And when Matt Frazier mentioned beta alanine, like you couldn't buy any beta alanine, the whoop is like [00:01:00] everyone's pushing whoop.
And these training programs like proven and, and hard work pays off and CompTrain. And I was like, okay, so what is it that we really should be getting out of it, of these pro athletes and CrossFit? 
David Syvertsen: Yeah, I mean, I, I think. We all know this, the vast majority of CrossFitters are never going to be on the level of a games athlete, or you could even say a semifinals athlete.
And I mean, they're, they are the top 1% of the top 1%. Right? So it's almost like watching, you know, the NBA and I played pickup basketball with my friends. Am I going to watch LeBron James? To try to implement his, his moves and into my game on the, on the parking lot. And the absolutely not what I think that the cool part about watching games, athletes in action is we do the same thing at the gym, right.
We literally do. Right. And again, it's like the cross it old school model. [00:02:00] All right. We're all achieving the same stimulus, even though we're using different loads, maybe some different movements, different intensity, different speed levels. You're right. Yep. But there aren't many sports where like, you know, the open this year, we did the same, like all those athletes that are at the games.
Now, the qualify for the games, their seasons started with wall walks and double unders the same exact workout. And that's a really cool thing. You can relate to that. More than you can relate to someone that plays baseball, football, soccer, hockey. 
Sam Rhee: Right. So, when we w like, for example, I was watching these athletes do Gretel, for example, right.
Which is the clean and jerks. And then the burpees over, we are 10 rounds 
David Syvertsen: of three clean and jerk three bar facing bourbon. 
Sam Rhee: Right. And, you know, I think we've done that, right? Yeah. We 
David Syvertsen: did it. Yeah. We did it when it came out. I want to say it was in February. Right. 
Sam Rhee: So if I watched. And then I am doing it.
Should I be watching them and say, [00:03:00] all right, so they're doing this and that's what, what I should be doing. 
David Syvertsen: I mean, when it comes to quality move, That's a tough one, because we've talked about this on past podcasts that some of them move so poorly because they're only pursuing speed. Right, right. Where we're here for fitness and we need to be safe.
But I do think there's something you, some things you can watch in a semifinal or at the games and apply it to your workout. We talked about breathing in episode one with coach Adam, right? A lot of those guys. And girls are very cognizant of how they're breathing in the middle of a workout. You can apply that to tomorrow's workout.
I don't care if you're a games athlete. I don't care if you're scaling and movement patterns and moving quality. That was another episode we did with coach, coach Adam. Your quality movement impacts your fitness and could impact your score. If that's what you're pursuing. If you're an inefficient mover, you're leaving something out on the table in terms of your, 
Sam Rhee: so did you watch any of the one-rep max stuff?
David Syvertsen: I did. 
Sam Rhee: Okay. And then did you take anything away from it when you were [00:04:00] watching? 
David Syvertsen: I mean, I always like to see how people approach the bar. I always liked to see, like, when I tell people here had contact with the bar is not a cigarette. It's crucial. If you ever want to find out what you can lift, you have to get that part of the hip, especially on a snatch.
And you're never going to watch a high level athlete, not do that, you know, and they're not even real Olympic lifters, to be honest with you, you know, they're good at Olympic lifting, but. Guys and girls that actually in the Olympics, it's the same thing. It's they all hook grit. Right. You know, like I don't like hook grip, it's uncomfortable, Mike, you need to hook grip.
It's not a debate, you know? And it's, you know, you won't understand the benefit of the hook grip until maybe, or you're a year into it and you got to tape your thumbs and it hurts a little bit sometimes. 
Sam Rhee: Oh, it took me like two, almost three years to finally get to the hook grip. 
David Syvertsen: Yeah. And I get it. Trust me, like when the first someone first suggested to me, I was like, no, that's stupid.
And then once I started taking it more serious, I kind of understood why I was like, all right, this [00:05:00] makes a lot of sense. I'm like, I can't do it without. Yeah. Like I can't remember to not, I hurt my thumb a couple of weeks ago. So on this thumb right now, I can't hook grip. So I have one hand hook gripping and the other hand is normal and it's having a significant negative impact on my lifting.
And that's it. That's the only thing that's changed. So it's, it's not the beatable. So I like to find little things, how they walk up to the bar, hip contact hook, grip, it kind of reaffirms. You got to do it that way, even if you're not trying to get to that level. How about like when I was watching them break up there, watch the movements, you know?
Sam Rhee: Okay. This the really crazy good athletes will go unbroken. Right? That's how Tia clear to me one, the mag, like she just went unbroken on everything, right? But if I try to go on broken on anything, any workout, it would die right away. Yeah. So I was like, I can't like, there's no strategy that these athletes are employing is not the strategy [00:06:00] that I can employ on a daily basis.
David Syvertsen: That's where I think there's a little disconnect with, with us and the immortals of the games athletes is that there are certain things they're physically capable of doing that. You're not. And if you try to do something, you're not physically capable of injury. Crappy workout. And I'm more interested in seeing, like, how did someone get to that level?
Like, what did they do? These tee will post videos of once you started CrossFit. Yeah. It looks like your normal person. That's never done CrossFit before. This is how you do a clean, how did she get to that level? And how long did it take that's one benefit. We were just talking earlier about how it's hard to be a new person at bison right now because the programming is so much harder than it used to be.
There are so many more. Competitive athletes fit our athletes. Like our base clientele right now is so much fitter than it was five years ago. Now I think the advantage of being someone new at this time, [00:07:00] and we can relate this to Tia and watching them is we can now teach them how these people progressed.
Like I can teach a lot of people how you progressed from the guy that did not account wall balls to someone that makes the age of lawn qualifier two years in a row and can do a little. Really impressive things with your body. So instead of them going through a five-year Trek, like you did, maybe they can get there in two, three years.
So how did Tia get to the point where she's doing everything so unbroken and every movement is the same. That's what I'm more interested. So that's where, you know, you follow them on Instagram and you listen to podcasts that they're featured on of what did they do? In that process and like, w what's the, where's the advice?
Do you, you find a commonality when you listen to them about their discipline or their mental approach or their habits? Yeah, I do. It's they've made their entire life about it and I don't think that gets seen enough. Right. Is You know how much they sacrifice other things in their life to get to [00:08:00] the point where they are right now and how it's a never ending grind.
You know, there there's a lot, there is a lot of skill is associated in the sport, but it's a sport that constantly needs to be had. Like you can't just. Chill for four or five months and then expect to be at the highest level. Right. If you're already at the highest level, then yeah, we can talk about more like off season type training, but I didn't feel that way about basketball and baseball for, there are some very noteworthy best football players ever that were drunk at games that were high at games that maybe they still are Dennis Rodman.
You know, longtime NBA player, like he would go play a game and then just get as drunk as possible the next day. And like shop, he was an athletically gifted and that athletic gifted shows up on the court, right. Where you can get away with certain things where in CrossFit, you basically need to be good at everything.
Right. And to be good at everything you gotta, you gotta train all year. So 
Sam Rhee: do I feel like that's even [00:09:00] more the case now in professional CrossFit is how you train. Reflects directly on your performance in competition and the better the training program you have, the, and the harder, you know, 
David Syvertsen: the more careful Lee you follow 
it.
Sam Rhee: It reflects directly into your score or your place in a 
David Syvertsen: competent and no. What we're starting to see more of is who they're training with. Like, this is becoming a trend now. CompTrain is, does this proven, does this I know conquers trying to put something together like this now where, and the guys underdog athletics out in Las Vegas.
Yeah. They all train together all year. They ha they move. To a central location and how their living arrangements are lined up. I'm not sure who pays for what? I'm not sure. Yeah. You can see, I think the top three are three of the top four girls from the west coast classic are training. They all train together.
I think the top two [00:10:00] from mid Atlantic, they trained together. You know, I think a big part of this, what we can learn from them is if you want to be your best, you got to get around other people that are on that same level or have that same ambition. There's one or 
Sam Rhee: two, like the brute strength athletes, like. And Macquarie, I would want, I want to say they're online. They're coaching is primarily online. Right. And they stay home at their, you know, wherever they are. Yeah. So there are a few that are still doing absolutely remote. Not many though. 
David Syvertsen: Not many. And she's, she's a, she's a teenager. I think she's still in high school.
She's like 17 or something. So I think that's part of the reason why. But I do think you're going to see this in the coming years. If you want to make the games, you're going to have to travel to a central location and try and train with other games, athletes. Not everyone, but I just think that's a trend.
I've noticed that people from all over the country are just coming together and just literally just getting after it. So you have to ask yourself what's more important, is that the training program or the people you're [00:11:00] with, I 
Sam Rhee: was about to ask you. So what do you think about these training programs?
Yeah, 
David Syvertsen: because of it's template. I I'll say this. I think that who you're training with is more important, but there has to be a flow. Like it can't just be like a random workout. And I think, you know, what a lot of these camps do, they call them camps is they all do their own thing. For the first two, three sessions of the day, but then they all come together and do your classic work classic workout at the end of the day.
So there's always that intensity because the sport is always going to revolve around intensity conditioning and your capacity. And that is best trained for most people when you're around other people doing the same thing. So I would challenge people that if you're here and you feel like you're in.
Right. How can you relate? Even if you not have competitive aspirations, how can you get out of that rut? I'm going to S you got to stop training with your friends every single time you can do it here and there, but I think every now and [00:12:00] then you got to gravitate more towards someone that really pushes you.
You know, and Hey, maybe you have friends that do push you, but do they really push you? Like when I say push you, get you out of your comfort zone, right? There are some friends I like to train with and I'm fortunate that they are a lot faster than me, but I'll tell you what it's different when I work out with them.
And. Do our own individual workouts than me trying to beat someone that I'm not friends with. Right. 
Sam Rhee: Right. So definitely it sounds like being with people, first of all, is better than just Connie and isolation. Absolutely. And then finding the people that really push you is the next step. That would be the next step.
Right? I mean, I feel like mayhem sort of did it. First. Yeah, but they, I don't think they formalize their training program the way say some of these other places have, it was more like, oh, whatever rich Froning really wants to do that day. 
David Syvertsen: And I think, I mean, I've listened to a [00:13:00] few things of people that know rich and I've listened to rich a lot.
He knows what he's doing with programming. He really does. And he's, he knows CrossFit. He knows cross it. The sport really well, too. Like he knows what's going to be tested. He doesn't know the workouts, but he knows what's going on. So he knows how to train. Things. And they do say they do some, you know, they're classic workouts in his garage.
If they do stick to a lifting program every now and then, like, I do think there's some Clara. He also has Chris Henshaw working for him. Mr. Aerobic capacity. Right. He's had burgeon or workout Mr. Olympic lifting. Right? Like in my opinion, that's the stuff that you really need a coach for is like the skills, the skill training, the aerobic training, the weightlifting training, the why.
Like, I think that's more about getting around the right people. 
Sam Rhee: You know, they talk about some of this stuff and it's, it's more of the 1% or 5% of improvement, which just makes my head spin sometimes. Like does that matter? Like for example, I'm in the west coast classic, they were [00:14:00] looking at that super long ruck run and they were talking about heart rate and calculating your heart rate and calculating your breathing.
And I was like, if I had to do this, it would just, yeah. I, I couldn't. Yeah. I 
David Syvertsen: think it's hard to write. Well, that's again, the difference these guys are pro athletes. You know, the jobs go out there and compete and win money and make the games and their sponsorships come from that. But I think that the sport is evolving so much.
And again, another thing we can learn from as mortals here is the, the progress that you're going to obtain 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years in is in the smallest details. Like it's not, it can't just be try harder, right? Like you're trying hard. You're trying as hard as you. But there might be some little details that you're overlooking that pertain to your heart rate, that you're breathing, you're pacing your foot placement, your hand placement on different things, right?
Like that's where your, your next [00:15:00] progress like you Sam, your next 3, 4, 5 years of progress will not be you trying to. It's going to be finding these little minute details that you're overlooking right now to get you just a little bit. How 
Sam Rhee: about all the stuff they endorse? How realistic is that stuff? 
David Syvertsen: I don't know. I'll tell you like the beta alanine. Yeah, we'll have more on that for you guys coming up, but you know, that's beta alanine, creatine, protein, like that stuff is all, you know, as clearly objectively helpful as you can. But there's a lot of stuff out there. That's still kind of out in the open that these guys are guys and girls are endorsing.
Do you get it? Because they're using it. And a lot of us do and you want to try it out. Yeah. I think that you need to know that there's financial interest in there. Like they're being paid to make these posts there's, they're being paid to. And then there is a question I've been told in the past that restraining YUSA endorsed something.
I don't want to throw [00:16:00] anything under the bus. That he doesn't take, but he was being paid to portray that he did take it and it wasn't anything unhealthy. I just think it was something that he just did not take and he was getting money to tell people. That he, that he uses it. 
Sam Rhee: I see an ad for this portable rower that he endorses.
Now, have you seen 
David Syvertsen: that? I have I've I I'm like, can he, does he really use this portable rower? I mean, I've never seen them use it on their stories, you know, like I love, I love the mayhem program. Like I, like if I ever had to pick like a template to go after it, that'd be it. But they don't, they never use that.
So I follow them a lot. I've never seen them use it other than the advertisement that they're using it. Right. 
Sam Rhee: I mean, I did buy the AirWave because the mouthpiece thing, because he did, he uses it. Yep. So I don't know. I mean, there's some stuff that I watched them do. I, I got a whoop. Yep. I mean, I don't know how much this is really helping me.
I would like to think it's helping me.
David Syvertsen:  Yeah. And I think it's all about. You know, trying things out. I don't think there's anything ever wrong with trying things out, you know, and [00:17:00] again, your progress from here on out is going to be so incremental. It's gonna be so small, you know, little by little that if you find a mouthpiece and a loop and things like, maybe it helps you get a little bit better.
I say, you go for it. I just think that you always have to know that. Using these things in addition to a really clean lifestyle, you know, like you can go take beta, alanine and creatine, but if you're garbage outside the gym, it's not going to do anything for you. It's just an accessory to your clean, leaving, clean living.
Sam Rhee: Which athletes do you like to follow that you think sort of exemplify or do well in terms of I'll 
David Syvertsen: give you, I'll give you a guy and a girl. The girl I like to follow is Bethany. Shad, Bern. She just won the west coast classic. And she's one of those girls that moved from Texas to Vegas to train with Justin Kotler, who used to be a Northeast guy.
And he's training with Carrie peers. Danielle, I forget her last name, Cola. They all compete together. They all train together there and [00:18:00] she was got, she's been injured for a long time. And to the point where she almost kind of backed out of competition, does she just felt like she was always in pain, always grinding through workouts.
So you and I think a lot of people could relate to that. And I like following her to see how much she does beyond the sexy stuff across it. Like she will do an hour of a warmup for snatching. She will do. She's got a great, a great accessory. A list of movements that she does, based on what she's doing during the day for running, for jumping, for pulling, for pushing.
And it looks so boring. And I think a lot of people like, oh, I'm going to do that tomorrow. You get here. And like, you'd rather go talk to your friend. And then five minutes later, you're holding your wrist. But if something hurts, right, she's someone that went through this like constant pain did not. Then all, she fixed a lot of things where their warmup sheets fixed, who she's training with.
She had a lot of friends back in Texas. I think it was either on the gym or coach [00:19:00] there. I bet that was very hard for her to do, but she's like, you know what? I need to get out of this comfort zone. That led me to where I was right now. I packed up my bags, went to Vegas, I'm doing all this accessory work.
And now I'm like, she's one of the favorites to win the games now, just like that. A guy that I like to follow here. Give me you give me. Okay. 
Sam Rhee: So in terms of women, I think I actually followed, even before the west coast classic, one of her training partners, the one with blue. Dan what's her last name?
Hello? Brandon or Tanzania? 
David Syvertsen: Danielle. Brandon. Yeah, 
Sam Rhee: only because you know, Instagram throws, you suggested stuff and she had blue hair and she was working out really well. I was like, oh, that's kinda cool. Yeah. And then the other one. Yeah. That I was following also before the CrossFit games. And then she just was a big news item was Emma tall, 
Who got disqualified because of the secondary [00:20:00] review where they said the coach couldn't help settle the barbell. And she, they had an already announced that she had made the games and then they actually changed it like three or four days after announcing it. And I only was following her because she. Like her body, like if you seen her lift for lats, like she's huge, absolutely huge. Yeah. And, you know, watching her do like 40 unbroken ring muscle ups. Yeah. Like, so, so I don't really. You follow for substance? Yeah. I follow for style. 
David Syvertsen: Yeah. I'm not, I'm not a style guy.
Sam Rhee:  I love style. I love watching Instagram and watching good looking people do really amazing shit, 
David Syvertsen: basically. Sorry. Hey, that's your line of work? You make people go looking. Another one. I like, again, this is more substance, right?
It's funny. You said that it is Cole Sager. I like Cole Sager because the guy's always there. Yeah. He's not Mr. Som. And he's a good looking dude, right? Actually, Ash, my wife always says he's very good [00:21:00] looking and looks nothing like me. And but he's by himself a lot. And he just had a kid and just had a baby and he just won the west coast.
Classic. Yeah. And again, training background was, he was a college football player at the university of Washington. So, you know, there's a background that he had to work with, but I think he started to creep up there in age a little bit. Yeah. I don't think he's old yet, but I think I want to say approaching 30.
Yeah. Or 
Sam Rhee: maybe 30 or 
David Syvertsen: 31. I don't know. It might be about like, so in this sport, The other side of 30. Yeah. You're, you're considered old because you're competing against 21, 22, 23. Yeah. Ben Smith is another one. Yeah. And what I like about Cole is he's just like Mr. Consistent and he's a little good at like, he's just kind of good at everything.
I don't think he's ever really the best at anything, but you see in mixed modal work, which means like conditioning, gymnastics, lifting. He's always there because he doesn't have a weakness. And he's a very, like, he's a wholesome guy. He's very humble. You know, this, this gets misconstrued on Instagram a lot.
It's like, oh, this guy is posting his [00:22:00] workouts. He must be full of himself. I'm like, actually think he's trying to show you that he's grinding this out by himself, in this little garage gym, that's the size of our lobby. And he doesn't have people next to him all the time. He he'll travel up to CompTrain every now and then and train with those guys.
But a lot of what he does is by himself and it's just good, old fashioned hard work, and it's really hard to get to that level. It's even harder in my opinion, to stay on that level. As you get older, as you have a baby. Right. And I just think that he's a good a good guy to follow because he just seems like a normal human being to me.
And he, I don't think he takes advantage of his fame. Like I don't see him endorsing much at all. There's a few things he does. And I'm very confident that he actually believes and uses those things. 
Sam Rhee: I like Cole Sager. You're right. He's really the very unflashy guy, like sort of like Scott pancake, sorta Patrick was my other one.
Yeah. You know, those guys just [00:23:00] sort of grind it out and I, and and, and they just, because they're really nice guys, it looks like they are. They are deadly out on the field. Like he saw that ruck run where Cole Sager just frigging, just crushed the guy Spragg at the end, 
David Syvertsen: when I look up at her mental reality, we've got the competitors.
That's like, we've talked about this privately. Like I don't have a lot of confidence when I compete online because I don't have anyone next to me to try and beat or run away from. And I think that's a mark of a real competitor, is that when they get in person. Like they want to rip your eyeballs out.
Yeah. That that's a competitor to me. Like we're not friends. I don't care if you get hurt. I don't care if you get crushed, like I want to rip your eyeballs out when we're competing and he doesn't get to do that day to day. But when he shows up game day that that switches flipped. Yup. And, you know, I CA I have so much respect for the people that can do both.
I have a, I have a hard time. [00:24:00] Competing hard online when I don't have someone next to me, but I know that that mindset when you're next to them, like they will try to kill, you know. 
Sam Rhee: You know, the other there are a couple other people I like, I will say I like Noah Olson and I know that's controversial for a couple of reasons, but I will tell you why, like him, I like him because he is.
Yeah. Does he take like, is he famous? Yes. He probably one of the more famous guys for sure. Has he is there, like, there are a lot of people that knock Noah Olson tons of people love to knock him. I think it stems from jealousy. Right. And I will tell you this, first of all, the guy is not smooth in the sense, like, if you hear him talk and stuff, it's not like slick, he's, he's sort of awkward, like, like a big, 
David Syvertsen: a little kid, 
Sam Rhee: and he's just trying to make his way through all these slings and arrows. And he, he tries to find the thing that makes him comfortable. So he comes up with stuff like, all right, I'm [00:25:00] going to go with happy and humble, which sounds ridiculous. But it's, it's authentically him being awkward, trying to find the right mindset. Right.
And whenever I listened to him on a podcast, He doesn't really hold back two weeks before the west coast classic, he revealed he had a shoulder injury and there's very few like he's the opposite of Matt Frazier, right? Like he discloses so much and. 
David Syvertsen: It's real. It's real. And even 
Sam Rhee: if right, and even if it's awkward or, or people like want to make fun of it, like his old man bond or whatever it is, like, he just does whatever it is he does.
David Syvertsen: Yeah. And he doesn't change. He doesn't change that. I think that's a cool thing because he probably is like, he is the same guy that he was from our perspective, but you're grown. 
Sam Rhee: He has grown and matured personality wise. Like he was a little bit maybe. He's he's definitely quieter and more reserved now than he was a couple of years ago.
Yeah. But he still has that same openness to, [00:26:00] to the degree that he can without getting crushed. Yeah. And you, I don't know if you saw the Instagram post recently where he showed the lift that hurt his shoulder. Yeah. And I was like, he hyperextended back and it was just like snatch. Yeah, no, it was a clean, it was like a heavy jerk.
David Syvertsen: He, and he also goes wide too. He goes pretty wide on the bar, but 
Sam Rhee: On the jerk and and, and. For him to sort of share that, listen, I was like, he's not a winner. He's not winning second. 
He's up there every year. 
I mean, guys, this guy is amazing and he's really. Yeah. And just because , I, I don't know if you want to compare a Matt Frazier to like a Michael Jordan and then him to somebody.
Whatever, there's so many comparisons out there 
David Syvertsen: by the fact that he's still up there every single year. Right? I mean, it's so respectable. Right. You know, I love that. 
Sam Rhee: Huge  dude is so yoke. It's not even a yoked. Yeah. And that's why listen against style over substance. That's why I follow Khan Porter.
The dude is the best [00:27:00] looking dude and CrossFit bar none. Have you not seen this guy? I know who caught it. You know, really he has a long hair. He's really good looking. He had that dance fit. Did you see the dance video is actually pretty funny? Like the guy has style some personality, personality. Yeah. So for me, a lot of it isn't is entertainment, but then I also know that these guys can rip it up with anyone and they can throw it down just as well as anyone else.
So, yeah, I love the Scott Panchiks I love the Cole Sagers. Yeah, but you know, I will always have a feed with 
David Syvertsen: Porter and not looking forward to it. Find a fi following the new female prodigy Mallory O'Brien I like kind of like, I like her flow a little, but 
Sam Rhee: you like her, her killer mental attitude.
David Syvertsen: She has like fire in her eyes when she competes. And I just watching from the semifinal, like I I, I just. If there is someone that could take Tia down, you think that's her it's I think it's her. If there's someone, maybe not this year, [00:28:00] she's got to stay healthy too, but I loved watching her because like she, I don't know.
I just, I can watch people. I feel like I can pick up on nonverbal feelings, communication pretty well. And I could just watch her. She has like that dog in her where like, she's, again, wants to rip your eyeballs out when she's coming. So you really love watching that mental part of it. Yeah. Yeah. That's a huge thing for me.
And it's, you can't always see it from the naked eye. Like some people are more obvious than others, like being dramatic in a workout. That's one thing I liked about Frazier. Like he would be mid workout. Like he literally was hemin frowning always looked at other guys. Like they would look at what their pace was on a rower like that.
Like it's a dog mentality. It's like, I remember Froning one time. He still appraisers chalk going up the rope. Ashley's still hates him for that. But there it's like, they don't care when you're at a competition, it's you win or you lose. And I love that mentality. I think 
we all, I feel like if I watch someone at the gym do a workout, I can tell a lot about them for sure.
[00:29:00] And 100%. Right. And so when you watch these guys perform. I mean, there's at a, such a high level. It's really hard to take much away because there's just so dialed in. But like you said, you can 
still, like last night I texted someone and I said like, I love the fire that I saw. She ripped her hand mid workout.
It was obviously hurting and it was a rip. It was a legit rip. And, you know, like that, like grim on the face, like, ah, and then banged up the next seven, I think the next seven knee raise toes, TOSA bars unbroken, knowing that every rep hurt. And I'm like, after doing the heavy shoulder overhead on broken, like, and if you have to do shoulder over out with a rip, it hurts.
Right. And like, that was like, that's one of the first times I've seen that. Like, that's like grit to me. The 
Sam Rhee: one thing I love. Pro CrossFit is the gender equality between men and women? Yep. I followed just as many women and learn from their performances as I do the men and someone is more because like the men just have so much brute strength. [00:30:00] I'm just like, I can't take much away from their lift technique because I just don't have that brute strength to move. Yeah. But then 
David Syvertsen: when you want to leave women move better. 
Sam Rhee: And when you watch the women and I, I love it because I think first of all, they have both the men and women comps together. Yep.
You got to watch all of it and don't do that, right? Yeah, exactly. And I, and the only one that I can think of that is similar as tennis, where the women have as much, if not more star power than the guys do. And, but the performance for these women. Insane. Yeah. It's absolutely insane. Yeah. It's the guys, it's not the guys, but it doesn't matter.
Yeah. Just, just, I feel like a lot of times I will learn more from watching them compete. Right. 
David Syvertsen: And I, I love, I love watching the women's too. Like the, the guys, when they show up. The semifinals on, on the game site, they go, you know, girls division guys division. Like I watch both with equal intensity and [00:31:00] sometimes like the west coast classic.
I like to watch them, the girls more just because I knew more of them. Yeah. I think it's also just for culture. Like, do you have a daughter? I think it's like just great role models for, for a lot of young girls to look up to that, like, you know, as time progresses, this becomes more and more like normal and accepted.
It's okay. For a woman to have muscles and be bigger than, you know, your average woman from 30 years ago. And I think that these give a lot of these young girls now, legit role models that, you know, like, Hey look, look at them. Like they're still a normal person go out out. They look beautiful, pretty girls, but they're snatching 2 0 5 and cleaning two 50.
Right. And they still look normal, you know, like that. You really, I know that a lot of women have to fight that kind of inner feeling, that stereotype that you shouldn't get too big. And it's like, so to, you know, like tell, you know, if a guy I always told, I told a girl this a few years ago, like that it seemed like a [00:32:00] guy was a little too afraid of him.
Getting strong and big. And I said like, why don't you just tell him to get stronger than, you know, like, like tell it, like, it's not you that has a problem. It's a, it's them, 
Sam Rhee: you know, I think when you look at the face of CrossFit and the women athletes that are prominently featured, like Katherine's David daughter Brooke Wells, Tia, Claire, to me, like they are constantly, like you said, redefining what it is to be I'm an attractive woman.
I'm an example for other women. They have real legs. They have thighs, they have backs. Yup. They have traps. Yeah. Not to the level of a bodybuilder. Right. And they're not, you know, to the point where it's grotesque right. By normal societal standards. Right. It does constantly send a more positive message to people that like, you don't have to have legs this big, like you can have arms that 
David Syvertsen: look definition.
Right. 
Sam Rhee: Kind of [00:33:00] traps. Right. Exactly. All those things. And you don't have to look like Hardy. 
David Syvertsen: Right. I don't even know. Cardi B Cardi is stop pretending she's she's part of WAP, whap, whap.
Sam Rhee: All right.