S01E09 - CAP or NO CAP? CrossFit Affiliate Programming

Our next episode is about CrossFit Affiliate Programming (CAP), a brand new program from CrossFit Home Office providing programming and class plans. We discuss what we know about CAP, and speculate what it means for athletes and boxes in the future.

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TRANSCRIPT
S01E09 CAP NO CAP
[00:00:00] Sam Rhee: Welcome back to the herd fit podcast with coach David Syvertsen and me Sam Ray. And today we are talking about a recent announcement at the end of June, that CrossFit home office made, which was that they are starting a new program designed quote to benefit affiliates in good standing. It's called the CrossFit affiliate programming or cap where they will provide daily programming, class planning and coaching development tools distributed daily. They rolled out the service July 6th in English, expanding to other languages by the end of a fourth quarter.
And this is their first time that they have officially offered direct coaching support and programming for the 12,000 gyms worldwide that are CrossFit in the past 21 years. And this is I'm pulling all of this info for morning chalk up as a brief summary. In the past 21 years, there were other companies like CompTrain, Meum NC fit that offered daily programming solutions.
This is the first time. It's been official by home office. [00:01:00] They're going to make it free of charge for all affiliates until December 31st. And then they're going to start charging January 1st, 20, 22nd. The guest is maybe 150 bucks a month, but nobody knows for sure. Yeah. And they offer. This is the, some of the features they list.
And then I want to hear what you have to say about it. Exclusive daily plans and coaching videos related daily at home and travel workouts available only to affiliate members preload into leading platforms, such as sugar WOD, dedicated support from CrossFit team members and the three members or sorry, the three people who have organized this or are leading.
It are Austin. Malleoli James Hobart and Spencer handle. And if you know these guys. If, you know, you know, so, and then dedicated sorry, monthly focus areas and options to help members target their weaknesses and updates and enhancements based on affiliate feedback to support caps, continuous improvement.
Yeah. 
David Syvertsen: So I have mixed feelings on it and I'll start with the positive. The positive is, and I don't have a personal relationship with Austin, James or Spencer. I had my level two from [00:02:00] James and I have a good friend of mine that is very tight with them, but I still don't S speak to them on any sort of regular basis.
I think those three are as good of a fit for this kind of role as any I pay attention to a lot of different programming in the CrossFit space, and a lot of different guys have great credibility. They have great results. I love, but like this, I think they're as classic, they have the perfect mix of classic CrossFit from a fitness perspective, blending it into the sports slash competitive. All three are multiple times games, athletes. All three were affiliate owners and actual coaches, not the guys that say the coach and they're they're, you know, five or six times a week. Like they're there 10, 15, 20 times a week in front of a crowd.
And they've been along for a long time. They were seminar staff forever. Yeah. And they're yeah. Seminar staff is another reason to pump them up a little bit, but. So that that's like my positive. If there's three guys that I would want to kind of be in that role with CrossFit, I would probably pick them.
[00:03:00] So it's ironic that you know, that and they had their own program called the hand plan. Yup. That they started years back for individuals, for competitors, for affiliates. So they're well versed on multiple fronts and very deserving of that position with CrossFit. So with that said, like, I'm very happy that they're getting that opportunity.
Now my, my fear with this process is a, is this going to, at some point, be mandated for CrossFits to follow their program. They swear that they're not. Yeah. And I hope it, I really, that would send me down a pretty dark side. I would love to try it. I don't know if we will. I kind of want to feel it.
Kind of look at a few months, not just a week worth of programming. I'm sure the actual workouts would be totally fine, but what most people don't understand about programming for an affiliate is logistics play a huge part in what you do day to day. Sure. How many ropes do you have? How many rowers you have?
How many pull up bars? How [00:04:00] many racks, how long is your class really supposed to be? How you know, all that kind of stuff. You know, I look at some workouts from affiliate programs, mayhem OPEX, not OPEX, so much ham plan where I'm like, Hey, that's a sick workout. We couldn't do it. You know? And it's a really tough thing because of logistics, ability or anything like that, 
Sam Rhee: Could you scale them and adapt them? 
David Syvertsen: You'd be could, right. For every movement for a road climb, there should always be a scale for the assault bike or rogue echo bike, which they're now pushing cross it. You could have a scale, you know, machine of your choice, change it to a run.
And we do that day to day. So I don't think that's a, it would just take, it would take a lot of extra planning, right. Because part of how I program for the gym is logistics space. So if I had to wait to see what the workout is, and then. Moving things around based on that without really knowing what their thought process is.
It's it would add a little bit more to my plate.
Sam Rhee: I think actually, I want to ask you, I want to go a little deeper into that later about [00:05:00] programming specific for specific boxes, right. But I will say I have been following ham plan for a while and my thought, and I want to talk about a specific, like an example workout that they might have.
My thought was they programmed frigging heavy. And it's a lot, it's big volume, daily, big volume. And so I know we've had discussions at the gym about what RX should be. Why is it so heavy, Dave? What are these numbers that you keep making us do? And then I looked at ham plan for a while and I said, If you follow these workouts, you would never RX RX.
If you were RX athlete at bison, you might RX maybe 25% of these, and you would need an immense amount of recovery every day in order to handle that kind of boldness. 
David Syvertsen: A lot of people that come to CrossFit, bison, that's pretty much the only CrossFit they know. Maybe they've dropped in at a few different gyms.
Maybe, maybe they follow a few people or accounts on Instagram. Maybe they came from one other gym that's in this [00:06:00] area. Right. They don't know the big picture, cross it as well that they don't know the big picture, cross it that well. And that's nothing against them. They don't need to, they're paying members here.
Hey D this is D this is your job. You show us across. It is right. So, but this happens every year in the open. So every now and then you come across an open workout where someone's like, what? That's way too much. That's way too heavy. That's way too much volume. That's way too hard. I look at it. I'm like, no, it's not.
It has nothing to do with me as an athlete. That's just like when you program, okay. This is what James Hobart, one of the guys that's not working for cross it. He said this at his level two at the level two certification will always stick with me. And this is what we do at bison you program for the best athletes in your gym.
And if you get offended by that, I don't too bad. And then it's your job to scale down from there? 
Sam Rhee: I think one of the checks on any boxes programming is how are their athletes [00:07:00] doing in the Open. Right. And I think we measure up, as well or better. I looked at the number of Aycock athletes that may M was proud of the number of quarterfinal athletes that came out.
And I mean, we stack up well, you're write really well. Yep. And you know, I don't think any of our athletes would look at our programming and say, boy, we are so deficient and underprepared for the open. So when I look at these workouts at ham plan have been programming. I said, I was thinking. If I had to, well, maybe this is okay if I scaled all of this stuff.
Right. But it's, it seems, it seems like a competitors' training plan to me. 
David Syvertsen: And it, it might have a spin on that. Whether it's conscious or subconscious, like those guys are all, they're not competitors. They're games, athletes. So the way they view CrossFit, even a third, they're trying to avoid the bias. It's still going to be a little biased towards competitive style fitness.
Sam Rhee: An example, it's [00:08:00] called the dark side. I thought it was kind of appropriate. This is a daily workout, a regular daily workout for time 12, 9, 6, 3 front squats, 2 0 5, 1 45. RX and bar muscle ups. Now the one thing I do like is that when they present it, they have a little like pie chart where they say, yeah, it was a cool time.
So how much time it involves like a lot or a little loading. Is it heavy load, light load volume, light volume, heavy volume and skill. And so this one is a short time wad, heavy loading, moderate volume, heavy skill, and then they give some comments about it.  Have a plan to split up each movement to avoid failed reps, excessive fatigue, prolong rest.
If you need to scale BMU is consider setting a one minute cap for each set. If you can't do 12 or nine reps to the bar muscle ups or front squats in a row, consider splitting it into say three, like this set of 12. 6 43. So they do give some, but when I look at it, I just look at, like I said, it [00:09:00] just really smacks of competitors training, right?
Yeah. 
David Syvertsen: Yeah. Is that fitness training? Is it at the end of the day? Probably not. It's very high end fitness. So like, I'm thinking about a couple of people in our gym that would get something out of that. Right. Dave Bo could do that workout, you know, he, he can rip through those front squats. He's good enough at bar, most loves, like, that'd be a good workout for him.
Right. But I really think there's probably less than six or seven people. And then in the gym that could really do that workout. Now I'll even say it's not a bad workout. And if I programmed that bison, you know, there are people here that can do it. And the rest of the scale down again, keep the ego out of it.
No, but is that a fitness workout that, that really screams sport fit? Kind of sport, like performance, competitor style training to me you know, with that kind of workout, pop up on cross on CrossFits the cap programming. It might I think I'll be honest with you. I think that's what the actual workouts.
How hard they are, how easy they are. It's less important from their [00:10:00] perspective. Then what else comes with this program? It's like class planning, how to tell people what to scale, what, like, I love the explanations and we tell our coaches to do this all the time. Yep. Hey guys, here's the workout. Oh, it's too hard.
Okay. Or you don't know if you should. Can you do 12 months? Love's in two minutes, right? If you can't let's scale it, can you pick up that barbell and front squat? It at least half the reps I'm broken. Right. Can't okay. You got it. Those are things that in their lesson plans, I bet a lot of gyms would benefit from because I bet their coaches don't talk.
Sam Rhee: So let's look at it from an affiliate perspective. Okay. If you are a young or just starting out affiliate, right. Or a very small affiliate. This is a great benefit. It's a notch and it's not expensive either, because I mean, when you first started programming for bison what was the learning curve? Like how much time did it take you?
Like, what were you thinking about? 
David Syvertsen: I mean, I remember I went through so many different cycles of I'm going to do it this way. I can do it that way. Like I like the flow that [00:11:00] I'm in now. Maybe I'll change it in two years. I don't know. But in the early days it was easier because our classes were solid. And, you know, we had 30 members, three, one sin.
You never had a class more than six, so it was much easier logistically. Yeah. Logistically. Now what were the workouts? I get still remember one of these workouts, Justin Ratner still remembers that and he gives me a hard time. It was like a, I think it was like a 10 round workout that had burpees box jumps and one thirty five, a hundred thirty, five ninety five for the lady's front rack lunges.
And he was like, I was sore from that workout for like seven days. And he was an experienced crossroad at the time. You know, and I remember like, thinking back then your con that one thing about cross it, that is a negative. And is someone like me? I was doing CrossFit for two, three years. Could be programming workouts for everyone off the street.
How credible was I back then? I don't know. And I don't have the answer and I wouldn't argue against anyone that said you probably should not have been programming workouts back then. I would argue for my case, but I'm not gonna argue against [00:12:00] yours, if that makes sense. But I think that as someone new to CrossFit or new to owning an affiliate, you know, there's so many things that you have to do when you're running an affiliate, especially when you're starting one little nervous, starting from scratch.
There's so many different moving parts. If in my opinion, the program is probably the most important part beyond, beyond the building of your community. That to take that off your lap and don't have to do any of that work. And you know that the credibility behind this is there. That, that would be a huge benefit for, for an early affiliate, but, but there are aspects under that.
I mean, one of them is logistics. You need to be good at adjusting the, and you need to be good at following like their lesson plans. How detailed are there and how do you scale down? That's an, that's a skill for a coach that, you know, if you want to consider yourself good coach, you should be really good at scaling whatever needs to be scaled.
Sam Rhee: Absolutely. Do you feel like. As an affiliate. Okay. So if you're a new box or a small box [00:13:00] helpful. 
David Syvertsen: Yeah. And you haven't built that credibility, 
Sam Rhee: if you're a bigger box. Yeah. Say bison, one of the biggest in the world. Right? How is it 
David Syvertsen: helpful for us? I don't think so. And again, I'm going to say, knowing that I haven't really looked that deep into the programming, but.
I don't think this is going to be much better than what's already out there from a hem or other guys that already do it. So I don't like, I don't think it's a big benefit and I also think it could impede across it, Jim, from getting better because it's a major challenge to program. And I think when you're challenging yourself and actually weighing yourself, are, is this program working?
Do I need to dial it back? Don't need to dial it up. Am I not doing enough of this? It takes all that critical thinking out of the process for you. And I think a big part of why CrossFit is successful. Is it challenges gym owners really a lot, because you basically have to do everything on her own. You know, I'm a part of a Facebook group.
That's a full of CrossFit box owners. [00:14:00] And some of the, I never interact I've rarely interact on there with anybody, but it's, this is it's like, it turns into anything else. Social media turns into just a bunch of petty fighting. But it's, they were a lot of gym owners were upset that cross, it was not helping them out enough, whether it was marketing, whether it was something like this, whether it was, you know, other like equipment, like giving them discounts, you know, everyone's looking for free money stuff.
But I think that I always want it to say on there, I'm like, you're a business owner. Like there's a huge, when it comes to programming and help, like you got to take that on. That's your job. Do I want a little bit of help from CrossFit, with like advertising and marketing and trying to change to some of the stigmas, or I want to promote more like one of the things I think they promote well is how women and cross it has changed the landscape of fitness more than I think any group has ever changed.
We should talk about that sometime. Absolutely. I really think the women in CrossFit, whether you're a games athlete or [00:15:00] you're, you know, a mom from here or you're just, you know, any women here working on cross it and you're lifting weights. That really has changed the landscape of fitness. Absolutely enormously.
Do I want more help with marketing that and showing women don't be scared of this stuff? Absolutely. But it's, I should be doing that for bison itself. Like I should be, make highlighting this stuff on social media and we've done that a few times and you know, a couple of our podcasts are going to be lined up in, in, in that realm.
But I, I don't think it really should help an F a big affiliate. That's been around a long time. 
Sam Rhee: Doesn't it mean make the market more competitive because now these affiliates that have weaknesses and. Coaching, I mean, listen or, and programming, but I mean, obviously if you're a, we're trying to, if you're not a good, like a great owner, you could take, you could have the best instruction and they could hand you the most valuable information in the world.
And if you're not [00:16:00] executing on it and you don't, you know, you're not doing a good job within your own box. Right. You know, you could teach, you could try to teach someone anything. Not good. They're not going to pick up on it. Right. So, yes. I'm not going to just assume that just because cap is handed to someone, suddenly that box is going to execute on cap, so well, 
David Syvertsen: yeah, but it's execution is still, but 
Sam Rhee: level the playing field is now leveling to on these for these aspects, at least to a certain yes.
David Syvertsen: And from CrossFits perspective, CrossFit, HQ, cross at home office, that's what they call it now, right? Yep. They want that, do I want that? You mean, you want it Dave CyrusOne owner of cross advice and build the park New Jersey doing pretty well. Yeah. 
Sam Rhee: We've been doing well and this does not necessarily help you and it helps your competitors.
David Syvertsen: Yes. So from that perspective it sucks and you know, I'm trying, but I'm also thinking from CrossFit. Big picture I want cross it to do well. I don't want only cross it bison to do well. And I mean that, like, I'm a cross, it's a huge [00:17:00] part of my life and I want to see it do well. And in this immediate area, like we had gyms within 10 square miles of here and yeah.
Do I want to see them do well? I genuinely do. Do I want them to see, do I want to see them do well at my expense? No. All right. Like that would be stupid to say, but no, we live in such a densely populated area. That there's enough room in this area for multiple quality CrossFit gyms. So even, and I'm not even thinking of a particular gym right now at all, I promise, but say there was a crappy one in the area and they get this programming and it elevates their quality of product and they, you know, get closer to where we are and you see their enrollment going up.
Or maybe you start seeing people from here leave because like, Hey, the program is great. There it's from James Hobart. I'll send in and Spencer handle. That would, that would be a tough pill to swallow because a lot goes into where we are right now, a lot has went into like a lot of like blood, sweat, and tears have gone into what we are right now.
And, you know, if you start to reap benefits from it, but [00:18:00] now you start to not reap benefits because other gyms are doing well, you know, is it fair? I mean, I don't really want to even get into that because life isn't fair. And I think the sooner you accept. You know, the, the better off you're be. I 
Sam Rhee: agree. I would say this, I have mixed feelings for, and I try to compare it to like I compared to my situation.
So I'm a doctor, I'm a plastic surgeon. Okay. There are, are a million plastic surgeons in this area. Yeah. I don't feel like I didn't really, I don't, I don't have to compete with them. Right. And I don't feel like I'm competing with them. Right. I do my thing. Right. And you do well, and I do fine, but if society of plastic surgery says, you guys all now have to start doing it.
This way, or at least we're officially endorsing a certain way. And now you can either be part of that or not. Now they're sort of making it harder for me to be me, right? Just like it's a little bit harder for CrossFit bison to be CrossFit advice in and differentiate yourself. [00:19:00] That might bother me a little bit because now those changes are being forced upon me and I can.
They're they're almost forcing me to compete in a certain way with these other guys. Yeah. 
David Syvertsen: I mean, from day one, I've always with bison. Like I've never like crossed my heart. I've never gotten involved with another gym on a bad level like that. Like, oh man, I hope I get their members. I'm going to go hire their coach and get their members.
Like I know. And I know that's that happens a lot. Yeah. In in this area, like I've been told it's happened with other gyms in relation to us. And my response is like, I just kinda like smirk and just move on. Like, I, the more attention you're putting on other gyms and other people, the less time you're putting into your business.
So I've never really thought about that. But now that you're bringing this situation up, I'm trying to relate it to myself and yeah, it would definitely, it would bother me. 
Sam Rhee: Let's talk about it from an athlete's perspective. So if you're looking. The features that cap is offering travel wads, home Watts, able to log [00:20:00] your data into a, beyond the whiteboard or a sugar wall idea.
Compare yourself against your buddy in San Francisco, who is going to a different box and say, dude, I kicked your ass on the dark side today. Like 
David Syvertsen: that is cool. I'll say that. That's kind of cool. And I liked the idea. Of part of what makes the open so special is you can really do a workout and you assume that most gyms, you know, make people follow standards.
So you can see your score against your buddy across the country. And you kind of go after it with each other, so on. And if you got to do that on a day-to-day basis, it is kind of cool because you know, not every gym is loaded with talent, the way bison is. So like, if you come in and you go put up a score and you want to see how you stack up, you're going to find out how you stack up.
It's there's a lot of good athletes. So if you go up there and you have a top five score of the day, like that's a pretty good job here. Right. But if you're at a gym that doesn't have a lot of competition, they don't have a lot of people that really care that much about their scores. And you're constantly at the time.
Then it's like, all right, am I actually doing well? Or [00:21:00] I don't need, I don't even know. Like when with, when I work with my coach, I'm doing an online competition next week and I'm really looking forward to, because I haven't had this really opportunity to kind of see where I stack up competitively in a while in that kind of environment.
I'm really looking forward to that. The guys I'm competing against are from all over the world. They're not from just this gym or just this area. So I do think that's a good thing for an athlete. And there's actually a lot of things out people from bison. I would like to see them. Kind of get a reality check a little bit, sound like you're pretty good here at that movement, but you're 944th in New Jersey, you know, like kind of something like that.
I do think an athlete would benefit from that kind of humble pie every now and then. 
Sam Rhee: I mean, I have mixed feelings about it. I think. As an athlete, it's a good there's. There is a tremendous draw to be able to compare yourself to lots of people. Yeah. 
David Syvertsen: If that's what fuels you. 
Sam Rhee: I don't think that that's what really [00:22:00] drove me.
I've been to other boxes where they list in order how you do you know, on a big computer display. And I hate that stupid bitch. I, and guess what's going to happen on camera. Yeah. You're going to see that. Well, every day 
David Syvertsen: you see that all the time with, I used to be a part of beyond the whiteboard. And at cross it Hoboken, we used to log our scores and be on the whiteboard.
Not everyone did it, but, and you would see some times up there. I'm like, definitely not. You know, like it, it will, it will. That is what capital do. It will start right. Creating unnecessary competition. And like, dude, you can't put up your 4 58, Karen. Like you weren't even squatting right. That it will create a lot of that.
Yes. 
Sam Rhee: I did see that beyond the whiteboards. So many people you'll see 
David Syvertsen: scores on there. You'll see scores on there that it's like, you can't even lie about it. It's so like obscene that you're not. Yeah, no, I 
Sam Rhee: know. So I don't know. I, it, but on the other hand, I can also see a lot of athletes [00:23:00] demanding cat programming, just for these reasons that 
David Syvertsen: we're seeing, especially for the people that.
Don't come train at a competitive gym like this, or they train by themselves, you know, like that would be a huge thing for them to just every now and then it helps to have a number sometimes. And if 
Sam Rhee: you're moving from some other place, which was that had cap programming and Yukon, you move to New Jersey.
If you like, I, I wanna continue doing cap. Yup. That might be an issue. Yeah. I think the things I kept misses and we'll talk a little bit more about this. I think. If you're a beginner. I think our w the way we bring along beginners is better than pretty much any gym I've ever seen. We, we watch our beginners, you know, listen, you have to put time in and, you know, we we're, you know, it's not like we're going to hand or spoon-feed everyone.
Right. But we take time to write. Talk amongst ourselves to know the capabilities of our beginners and to bring them along 
David Syvertsen: well. And we do kind of program around them more than they think. Like when I say we program around your best athletes for [00:24:00] that workout of that day. When will you program, there's still thought process that goes into all right.
So how are we going to scale this one? How does it begin to do this workout? And if, sometimes I'll be honest with you. Sometimes it doesn't work like I'll program, like a workout that would be great for the gym or a great for your top athletes, but I'm like, you know what? This would just be too difficult to come up with legitimate, credible, safe scaling options for everyone.
I'm going to scratch this one. So we, you know, we do put a little bit more thought and I do think we do a good job of bringing it up. Newer people. And part of that is not even the coaching programming. It's the amount of people that we have here that were in those shoes. So like that whole community build of interacting with people, whether it's a partner workout, whether it's just like your daily routine, it helps people to see.
That wow. That girl or that guy we used to be in my shoes. I couldn't do a wobble, you know, like, and they're doing that now, you know, like, I think that's a huge part of bringing along beginners in relation 
Sam Rhee: to the pros. I think that's where CrossFit, bison has evolved too, [00:25:00] because it used to be a small gym of OGs.
Yeah. And now we have so many new people, but we've done a re I feel like a good job of integrating for sure, by some bullets part of that. And I would say like I was just thinking of watching an athlete the other day. Jen Allen. Yep. And I remember onboarding her and I was watching her lift in a workout with Amanda Brogan.
And I was like, oh, these guys are moving well. Yeah, good athlete. And I was like, 
David Syvertsen: you know, it takes time though. It took her a long time. She was very uncomfortable for a long time, long 
Sam Rhee: time, but she came from a rank beginner and now I see her move to the barbell. I was like, yeah, that's an app. She's 
David Syvertsen: a gymnast background too. So it's not like she had this like developed Background in weightlifting, no training. No. She never picked the 
Sam Rhee: first time. She's touched you. I remember when she picked it up and, and I felt very inadequate doing her onboarding. Cause I, I, I. Didn't know where to start and now I watch her what she's done and it's, it's really impressive.
And I give it, I want to give bison some credit for over the past couple of months, but I also it's all on Jen too [00:26:00] for, you know, working with us on that and being motivated. But I think we do a good job with that. I think we do a good job with community. I mean, it doesn't matter how good the programming and all this is, if you don't have a bunch of like-minded people working out with you. Cool. 
David Syvertsen: It doesn't really work. Yep. Yeah. And like, and I do think part of our culture here is the w has stemmed from program, you know? I actually, it would be insulted if someone said to me, like our program is just the workouts like that would, I would feel very insulted by that.
And. You know, part of our culture here stems, from what we do workout wise, you will lose some of that culture. If you're getting someone else's program, some gyms are okay with that, you know, but a gym that's been around for seven and a half years now, part of our culture will have a bite taken out of it.
Not the whole thing, obviously we're too strong now, but there will be some culture bitten out of it. If we, you know, like I like it. Sometimes I program a workout and so. Dude, you're a douche dude. I hate you, dude. Dave F you for programming this, right. And it's like, you're going to lose that [00:27:00] if I'm like, oh, sorry, man.
It's some guy that doesn't know you, that program that workout. 
Sam Rhee: No, I really want to see how not pamphlet cap does because when I see how you program over the years, you do take in to account. Health and our community. So if you were to program for a box in a retirement beach or retirement community down in St. Petersburg and then your programming for one in Manhattan. Yeah. They can't have the same program and I don't care if you scale the hell out. The everything is so different. So I'm, I'm really sort of interested to see how cap handles it. And listen, if anyone's going to figure it out, it's going to be Spencer, James and Austin.
Cause those guys are effing geniuses and they have the most experience. But dude, this 
David Syvertsen: is, yeah, I didn't think 
Sam Rhee: about that. That's a good point. I think I bet you, this is what they're thinking. They're thinking. Okay. So I'm going to talk a little bit about home office, because there are some [00:28:00] things that really bug me about this whole thing, but the first thing is, is Eric Rosa had a, a webinar or an interview or whatever you want to call it, the intro video.
And he said that right now, 20. Some percent of affiliates use like an NC fit or some other outside programming and 80% program that their cells. And in a couple of years he expects a third to use cap, a third to use other programmers and then a third will still program by themselves.
I think that's a load of crap. I think it's probably like he wants to take over more than 50 or 60% of the market and leave the rest of either self program or outside source programming. But I just feel like. They are looking at, they realize they can't program for every box out there. So they're probably like, okay, what is an average box?
Right. How much square footage, how much equipment can we, what do they have? What is their average demographic? Right. And they're going to program for them. Yeah. And, and if they capture. [00:29:00] 50% of the market. That's a win for them. So if you have if you're unique, if you're different, they're not even going to bother with you.
They're going to say, listen, we're just going to program for the vanilla box. And if you want to adapt it or you think you can adapt it, that's fine. But I don't even think they're thinking of. What's our demographics for the, for our box. What's our, you know, what's the injury prevention. Are we going to program heavy three days in a row?
Well, the goal, 
David Syvertsen: yeah. What are the goals for the box? I take into account. How many times we're on the rig in a week? How many days are in between certain volume workouts with pull up those bar? Muscle-ups right. And even then there's days, like, like we had one, a few weeks ago. I'm like a lot of people were up today.
Maybe I shouldn't have done that. You don't want to lose that kind of control. Like sometimes I look at other programming, like, dude, it's the same movement pattern three days in a row, you know, or you're on the boxes. Yeah. You're on the rig two, three days. Like you're on the rate twice in a row. A lot of gyms do that.
And I'm like, are you trying to get not, are you trying to get people to not come in the next day? Is that part of what the thought process is? I would [00:30:00] hate to lose that control. 
Sam Rhee: So I feel like if anyone can execute and figure this out, it will be them. Yes. But there's a lot of stuff in here which is going to be, 
David Syvertsen: they're going to have to prove a lot.
Yes. Because like the status they have right now, and they've earned, it is very high, but there's, there are going to be challenges and I'm sure they're ready for them. Most of them, whatever they can see, but there there's going to be a lot of, there's going to be a pretty low learning, pretty big learning curve for 
Sam Rhee: them.
The F, but that's the thing they're going to get feedback from thousands of gyms. Yeah. And I feel like it's a losing battle on a couple of, there will be a lot of complaining we're going to, this is okay. So my argument is going to be, and this is where we can agree to disagree. I'm expressing opinions.
We've done this in their sandals. We're going to eventually have to start following cap program. And that's my prediction for all of the things that are against cap programming. These guys are too big, [00:31:00] too good. And they're going to get too much feedback in order not to get better. Yeah. And there are days, like 
David Syvertsen: you said, there, like Eric Rose is a data guy.
You're going to get so much data so much. 
Sam Rhee: The real reason why I think these guys are doing it is for the data. Okay. So if you think about CrossFit home office, so these guys are venture capitalists. Yep. Maybe nice venture capitalists that understand CrossFit, but they're venture capitalists. And so when you look at, and he's a tech guy, so how did these tech guys make their money?
Did they, is, does Facebook charge us? No. Does Google charge us? No. Collect data from us. Yep. Like a shitload of data and they, and if you've ever seen the social dilemma, you know what they do with this debt, right? Yeah. So how much data is CrossFit home office getting from us an arm and hammer actually talked about this and it really sparked a chord in me.
How much that are they getting from us as affiliates about our athletes, about who we are, our demographics, what we spend, what we buy, like zero [00:32:00] nothing. Yeah. So this is a direct pipeline into. How old are we? How much are we spending on stuff? Where are we? What's our performance? How much time are we spending in the gym?
You know, what are our preferences? What are, what are our likes? Yeah. How much is that data worth? Oh, Dan Murray, the conspiracy theory, dude. This is the, 
David Syvertsen: no, I think there's a huge, I think you're making a very, very credible argument about that. And so that most of us aren't 
Sam Rhee: thinking when these. I know I'm people smarter than me have, but there is a point that Greg Glassman is not a good guy, but he was smart in the sense that he was so fiercely independent.
Right. And he did not want exactly what is going to occur right. Occurred across fifth. Yep. The independence that each box has the freedom to do what they want to do. This is one step closer to. 
David Syvertsen: Losing making this more Fran, because CrossFit is not a franchise, not a franchise, but this is [00:33:00] a step in that direction.
It's just star 
Sam Rhee: bucking. I don't want to be an alarm. I am on the alarmist, but this is Starbucks and CrossFit in the sense that it's just like, Facebook. So look at our markets. If you look at us, aren't we so valuable, we care about nutrition. We care about how we sleep. We care about how we, you know, eat what, what activity, this is a lifestyle.
This isn't just a gym, like planet fitness. This is even 
David Syvertsen: more than that. Just like how we treat each other. It's 
Sam Rhee: a lifestyle. This is the, you know, I mean like, like they make fun and there are memes about how we're all in on it, but there's a lot of truth to it. Right. It's a community. You have this market, how valuable is that market once you get it?
Right? Not only that, but it's when you actually look at a, if you were CrossFit and you're like, okay, what are the other players in the fitness industry? Who are you competing with? Peloton  orange theory. So you might think you have the best philosophy and methodology as CrossFit, but how many tech [00:34:00] players came in and got swallowed up by people who executed better?
Right. So my space was the first Facebook out there and they were, they were good. Yep. And then what happened? They got out executed and Facebook technology. So if CrossFit is looking at all these other players, what do you think home office is doing right now? They're thinking it doesn't matter if we have the best methodology we have to grow and, and be bigger than these other competitors.
And how do we do that? We got to bring our affiliates together. We have to have more. Information from them. We have to be able to draw more from them. We have to get more I don't want to say control, but essentially control from them. Yeah. And I think the affiliates are actually going to want this. And the reason why is, if you look at an F 45 franchise or an orange theory theory franchise, how much money do you think each owners making a ton way more than the average box?
Right. So, I don't think affiliates are going to say no to this. I don't think athletes are going to [00:35:00] say no to this. Yeah. Hobart, those guys are going to make this as good as they possibly can for sure. And am I going to bet that, I mean, I don't want to astound sarcastic or glib, but listen, Dave, Syvertsen in New Jersey programming versus.
Hobart Spence, you know, Spencer and at Austin. Yeah. With them getting constant feedback 
David Syvertsen: by thousands of gyms. Yeah. If you're going to make this as simple, like who's better, you would choose them. For sure. Like if 
Sam Rhee: you're a guy coming in from out of town or you want to join a gym, it's going to be really, really difficult.
Yeah. So my thought is, is that it's, I don't want to be a S like a loop, like a geek, but it's like the board or some other great evil empire. Yeah. I think it's inevit. I think CrossFit and Rosa are thinking that this is the first step. If I was a CrossFit. Person, I would actually lean in on it. I would say don't disaffiliate.
Don't get out of CrossFit. Now is the time to get as [00:36:00] big as possible and CrossFit be the biggest regional player in CrossFit. Grow your box and your franchise as big as you possibly can because the bigger you are, the more you're going to survive this. And And sign up for cap programming and look at it and decide what you want to do with it.
Yeah. I think if you can own multiple boxes, if you were thinking like like, if you had the finances, I would buy multiple boxes. I would go as big as I possibly can before Eric and home office starts. Digging in deeper, because once you're a big player regionally, they're going to have to, they're going to need you.
Right. Right. You know, they're not going to care about the small boxes, but at that point when they're really trying to pull in a lot of, even more data and work with everyone, like, so the NC fits like the country. Yeah. They're going to, they're going to do okay. Yeah. Eric Rose. Yeah. I'm going to steamroll them.
If anything, he'll assimilate them in some way. Right. So, you know, I just don't like that feeling because. CrossFit has always been built on independence, individual on individual, on being able to [00:37:00] do what you want to do. Right. And you know, this isn't bad. It's just really different. 
David Syvertsen: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, w I don't think it's bad at all.
And I think you're on that same page. It's, you're, you're really thinking what's the next step what's going to what's coming after this. There's some things, I mean, the new regime of CrossFit, they're definitely. Much more big picture focus then the previous. So this is a part of their big picture. AKA, there's a step after this that's coming.
And you've probably had that, you know, you just dove into a few of those that probably are likely what exactly are the steps we don't, we don't know. And I like the advice that, you know, if you're across the gym out there, whether you think you guys are doing well or you're struggling or you're somewhere in the middle, this is definitely aimed that providing a help for you, but it could also lose out right.
What made you successful 
Sam Rhee: individuality, right? Innovation, how many new programmers are going to be developed now that this is 
David Syvertsen: exactly. That is a, that's a huge deal too. You're going to start, you're going to really cut off a [00:38:00] lot of like the future generation of CrossFit coaches and programmers, and then maybe that's what they want.
So we'll see.