S01E22 - CrossFit Then vs.Now

Our next episode is with guest Mike DelaTorre @coachmiked, fellow coach @crossfitbison and 2011 Regional athlete. As one of the most experienced CrossFit coaches we know, Mike's career goes way back. Of course, Mike was the perfect guest to bring perspective on what CrossFit was like then, compared to what CrossFit is like now. How has CrossFit progressed from being its "rebel culture" and anti-establishment attitudes to being one of the most popular fitness methodologies today?

@crossfit #crossfit #fitness #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #crossfitgames #crossfitgames #clean #fitness

TRANSCRIPT S01E22 - CrossFit Then vs.Now

Sam Rhee: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Botox and burpees. I'm Dr. Sam Rhee, plastic surgeon and CrossFit coach. Host of this podcast, where we talk about plastic surgery, CrossFit, and everything in between, you can find more information at our website, Botox and burpees.com and make sure to like, and subscribe wherever you listen to our podcasS01E22 CF BACK THEN vs NOW

[00:00:00] David Syvertsen: All right. Welcome back to the HerdFit podcast. We have a special guest with us again with myself. David's Iverson, coach David Syvertsen and Dr. Sam Rhee. We have coach Mike DelaTorre right in the middle of the table. Mike is a very special person to myself personally, but also to CrossFit Bison.

He started coaching here pretty much right before the pandemic. So he brought a lot of good luck over here. But I've known Mike since 2012. 2012, 2013 era, when he started working at CrossFit Hoboken and I was a member there, an athlete there, and here we are almost 10 years later and we're working at the same gym and we always kind of discussed this on the side.

It's kind of been destiny that, we'd be pair up coaching. Just, we have a lot of similar outlooks across it and similar kind of approaches to coaching and which is really important. And before we, Rhee, we have a lot of topics that we're gonna talk to Mike about, but we really wanna dive into Mike first.

If you're listening to this odds are, you're probably a member across the bison and you get coached by Mike at some point. And Mike is a, he's a very unique person. He's a very good coach. And I think that the more you get to know about him and his background, where he's coming from understanding his why I think that you can benefit from his style of coaching even more so he's the most

[00:01:18] Sam Rhee: experienced.

Yeah was fitter. We have, right? Yeah. Do we know anyone else who's done it longer?

[00:01:23] David Syvertsen: Laura teary might challenge us on that. But I, I know that Mike is probably her and Mike anterior, probably the only people that have been involved with CrossFit since pre 2010. Right. Wow. So yeah, like Mike, let's, let's dive into the background a little bit and talk about maybe some of your life prior to cross it and then how it intersected with cross.

[00:01:43] Mike DelaTorre: Yeah. So I, I majored in art history in college. So if any of you were like, oh, did you study exercise science or anything? No. I studied paintings, so it's great. Cause I, I do nothing with my major currently, but I got into coaching like really right out of high school. My former track coach needed somebody to be the throws coach on the track team.

So I started coaching high school kids my freshman year of college and that started my journey with fitness and I, back then I trained like a typical dude, just like body builder, meathead style or lift. No, no, no. I see nothing wrong with that. And I started working at a gym just as like a manager there.

And then as a personal trainer and I met a buddy, his name is Jeff thorn, and I believe he sold in the service. He was training to be in the service at first. He wanted to to go into the seals, but then I believe he went into the Rangers and he was doing CrossFit. I did like research and stuff as a trainer.

So I knew what CrossFit was. I just didn't know how to get started. So he gave me a workout and he was like, dude, do this workout. It's 20 minutes long. And you got to get as many rounds as you can. Five pull-ups 10 push-ups, 15 air squats. So the workout, Cindy and I, I remember, dude, I will never forget this.

I asked him how much weight on the squat. He was like, no, no, wait, no, wait, just your own body. And Well, I, at least I thought so like pretty fit at the time. I was like, I'm going to kill this and get 20 rounds. I got like six and a half and that's, that's when I was hooked. And I was like, wow, there's something to this.

And that was October of 2008. Wow. Yeah. Wow. And then from that point on. Back then I think there were like three gyms in, in New Jersey. So, you followed crossfit.com, right? So every morning I'd wake up, I'd see what the workout is. And I do the workout of the day,

[00:03:42] David Syvertsen: which is cool because back then, right.

Like you never knew the workout until literally the day that you woke up. Yeah. Right. But there was no programming sent to you ahead of time. There was no, like, I need this equipment for that workout. This, it was just like, here's the workout and I'm going to go do it. Yeah.

[00:03:57] Mike DelaTorre: Yeah. I, yeah. There's, there'd be some nights I would like wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

I just checked my phone, but what am I doing this morning? I still do that. Yeah, man. So I started, I S I just dove head first. And then I decided to get my, my level one. I took it the first time in March of 2009. And yeah, I took it down in a gorilla fitness in Montana. And I remember when I, when I took it, I was super, super excited.

I had not experienced anything like it, cause I was doing all my, all my workouts in a regular gym and just a global gym. Right. And I brought the idea back to the owners of the gym. I was like, I pitched it like a money-making thing, which makes sense. It was like, look, all I need is a little space.

There's this CrossFit thing, I think it can be like really profitable for the gym. And I will never forget this. I remember them saying, amen. We love that. You're like super excited about this, but we just don't think that it's going to take off. We just, yeah, they messed up. They definitely did. Cause they actually ended up leaving that gym like a few years later.

But anyways, it's all good. So at that point, what I did was I was still coaching track and field at the time. I was like, you know what, I'm going to, I don't care. I'm going to train my friends and eat the track athletes that they want. I'm going to coach them through CrossFit. And I started this little group.

I just did it for free. I didn't care. I just wanted to coach. And we met Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Roselle Catholic track in the afternoon and I just put them through workouts.

[00:05:28] David Syvertsen: That's really cool. Yeah. And I it's, it's it's amazing how even all these years later, I mean, that's what 12, 13 years ago, how that approach to CrossFit is still totally cool and acceptable.

Like just get a few people together. No, no background needed. They don't need to be the same kind of athletes and kind of goals. And you can just throw something together and it doesn't need to take an hour, two hours, three hours could be 15, 20, 30 minutes in and out. And it's that group fitness feel.

Yeah.

[00:05:55] Mike DelaTorre: Yeah. It was the biggest thing was like you said, man, that group fitness field, that feeling of. Like basically the group against the workout, right? So you, everyone fed off of that energy, which is really cool. Right.

[00:06:07] David Syvertsen: That's really cool. So you're at this stage, I mean, you're looking at, you're approaching 2010 and you're doing this free and you always recommend people that they're trying to get into a field.

Like that's a lot of times where you start, you just gain the experience and that is your paycheck, the experience. Right. And then over time you start looking at this, like, all right, I'm putting a lot of time thought effort, energy into this. And I need some income. When, how did you first find the first one that you worked at?

Was that more sound? Yeah. Okay. So how did they find you, how to

[00:06:37] Mike DelaTorre: do find them? So I was, I remember I started the group in, I think it was like March of oh nine and once I got rejected and I just, did it through the summer and. It was November, I think the second week of November of 2009, it was starting to get like really dark.

So I was like, guys, I think we're going to, like, we're going to have to put this on hold. I think maybe until, the spring and one of the last workouts I did a friend of a friend brought Leo Munoz. He was a coach at cross at Morristown. Okay. He brought him to one of the workouts. He's like, Hey man, my buddy's a coach.

He wants to work out this that that's cool. Like, yeah, for sure. And I remember the workout was like running in burpees. I remember there being like 400 meter runs and a bunch of burpees and I just put everyone through the workout. He was super cool, we said our goodbyes and then that was it.

And I didn't think much of it. And maybe like. Two weeks later, I got a, I got a voicemail, I got a call and I didn't pick up. Cause I didn't recognize the numbers of like, oh, I'm picking this up. So, but luckily he left the voicemail and it was Leo and he was like, Hey man Karianna of CrossFit, Mar sound and CrossFit, Bernardsville, she's, she's looking for a coach and I told her about you.

If you're interested in, in coaching she'd like to meet up. And I remember I was at the global GM at the time I was in the middle of a shift. I was having a bad day. Cause you know how it is like being a manager, like you have to deal with like stuff. And I remember just like sitting there looking at my phone like, oh man, this is what I've been waiting for for the longest time.

Cause dude, I put out feelers, I'd like emailed, gyms, the gyms in New Jersey at the time they, Hey, do you need a coach? You need a coach. Right. And they said, no, which is fine. I totally get it. And then yeah, you called. So I was like, all right, let's

[00:08:26] David Syvertsen: yeah, let's do it. That's what they that's where the opportunity comes.

Like you just always have to be ready for that opportunity, and you just don't get to decide when it's going to come, but you just, you keep plugging away, you keep testing yourself and there you are. So Motown just for everyone that does not know across it. More sound is still around to this day.

Carry on is still the owner there. And it's, I would say one of the more well-known gyms and even in the country, just because, I mean, Dave Castro supports them a lot with their shirts, I guess, was that on Instagram, on was like her, his right hand woman at the games for a long time, just like his assistant and, and I think they've helped, they've hosted several seminars, they're level one seminars, I didn't number.

And, it had a presence in a competitive cross it for awhile. And just, I think a gym, any cross, it that's been around for more than 10 years at this point. There's a lot of Rhee. From the outside given to them, because that means they they've done it right for a long time. And they're still trucking.

That means people are still going there and attracted to what they do. So Mike did coach, I think that's part of what made Mike A. Good coach. He's he started at the right spot, like, especially now, maybe not so much back then there are, and have been bad cross it's out there that if you coach that, it doesn't really mean that much.

Right. But if someone came here even to this day and said, yeah, I'm coming from my coach across it more sound you would immediately know in your head, like, all right, there, there's a standard at that gym that Mike followed that they, they were attracted to Mike and then Mike worked on there for a long time.

That really gives him a good base to work with. How

[00:09:51] Sam Rhee: did you get into the competitive side of CrossFit at that point? Because you did go to the 2011 regionals with CrossFit Morristown. So describe a little bit of what that was like, that high-end sort of competitive CrossFit.

[00:10:06] Mike DelaTorre: So are I remember watching the CrossFit games, there is a a documentary on the oh eight games called every second counts.

And it's really funny because like it's on YouTube. So, back then when I was watching, I was like, oh man, this is so cool. Like, these athletes are so good, but then like if you guys watch it now, I mean, the athletes are still good, but like, you look at some people's form. It's like, Aw man, great CrossFit.

It's definitely evolved. So that, that got me into it. I was like I, it'd be really cool to do that, to do that one day. And then I remember watching the oh nine games and I was like, And this was, the game was totally different back then. I was like, I can probably do this if I train hard enough.

So that's what it became. I remember watching, like Jason Philipa and Mikko Sailo and like pat Sherwood was in the games then, and like watching these guys were like, man, like I really, really look up to these guys. I bet I can get there if I train hard enough. So that's, that's how that started.

And at Morristown, with Tariana being like super involved and she's a very good athlete, very good athlete. She, really pushed us like in a good way. She motivated us. That's what I'm trying to say to, to, to train, and we had a really good group of people there.

Not just athletically, but also just like, good people. And I remember we. We made it to regionals in 2010. I think it was, I forget what the criteria was. I think we just had to, had to sign up if you were like part of a team and then in 2011, that's when the open started and we qualified for it.

Yeah. Yeah. So

[00:11:34] David Syvertsen: back then, just so people don't know, like the back then the cross it open and, and this is still true to this day. The team, the team numbers were different back then, there were six people, but the way you would qualify for regionals, right? The regionals was the one stage after the cross at open and basically your top three guys scores and your top three girls scores would combine for your team score for, from your affiliate, from your affiliate.

Yeah. And that would so that you would get a rank every week. And if you were at one of the, was that one of the top 40 teams? 60 wow. 60 teams, mother. That's a lot of people. Yeah. A lot of people it's 360 people showing up for team. Wow. So you have 60 teams making it to regionals from the crossover. And and, and cross it more sound ended up being one of those two one of those 60 teams that made it to that stage.

Yeah.

[00:12:20] Sam Rhee: So, I wanted to ask you about the workouts and because, if we're comparing then and now, like what you thought about that. I remember I talked to Tim Carol about the individuals and they were still hella bad. Like there were some very, very, very challenging workouts. So the first workout was a team workout for time for a four by four row for people rowing at 750 meters, 50 handstand pushup.

And then another row for 750 meters. Do you remember that one?

[00:12:53] Mike DelaTorre: I, yes. I remember that I didn't participate in that one, but I remember that one.

[00:12:57] Sam Rhee: Okay. Because not everyone participated in every workout, but then four did and then two who didn't or had to compete in the second workout. Right. Which, which was a thruster ladder, which you competed in.

Right. And so the men's weights were 155 pounds, 1 65, 1 75, 180 5, 1 95 to 2 0 5 and then two 15, all the way up to 2 95. And you had 20 seconds to come one attempt, and then you had 10 seconds. Interval. And then you had another 20 seconds to make one attempt. If you did not make that attempt, you would basically wash out at that point.

Is that right? Right. Right. Okay. And it was a one man and one woman on the team who did it. So you were the thruster

[00:13:40] David Syvertsen: guy? I was a

[00:13:41] Mike DelaTorre: thruster guy. Nice. That's a

[00:13:43] David Syvertsen: nice table.

Were you the

[00:13:47] Sam Rhee: crusher guys out of the row? Handstand pushup guy. Were you the best

[00:13:51] David Syvertsen: thruster guy on the team? I, I,

[00:13:52] Mike DelaTorre: at the time I was, I was good at thrusters. I was really good at thrusters. And I mean, my, my engine has never been my strong suit, which, which is probably why you so much engines like 10 years later.

Why do so much engine stuff now? So, I was better at like, Painful short burst type thing. So what was

[00:14:14] Sam Rhee: that like? So tell me about that workout for you.

[00:14:17] Mike DelaTorre: It was, it was really fun. It was really

[00:14:19] Sam Rhee: you did all right. You did 26 out of like 25th or 26 out of like 40 some teams and at the, at the, at the regionals.

So that was a good showing for that.

[00:14:29] David Syvertsen: So what'd

[00:14:29] Mike DelaTorre: you do? The, the first thing was, I remember stepping out on the field and it was at the it was at the, at the Reebok headquarters up in Massachusetts and this competition was outdoors. It was outdoors was outdoors. So it was on the Reebok headquarters campus.

And they, they made like a stadium essentially. Yeah. And there's a bunch of platforms, all the weights out. And honestly, the first, my first thought was when I stepped out, like, what the hell am I doing? There's they was there. It was pretty cool. But then, like the clock starts and then you just go on, go on autopilot from there.

And. It was like another workout, like all the outside noise and all the like dumb pressure that you put on yourself, it just kind of goes away. All right. So that was like the biggest thing with that thruster ladder. I was just like, all right, man, like, you've done this a million times.

Just you just move, just move to

[00:15:22] David Syvertsen: push her the press or did, what did it have to be like that single extension present top.

[00:15:27] Mike DelaTorre: That's a good question. It had to be like one smooth extension and you couldn't move your feet.

[00:15:33] Sam Rhee: Oh, that's right. That's what Carl said. Ah, that was a, that was a real sticking point with some people.

Cause they'd make the thruster, but they'd moved their feet a little

[00:15:41] David Syvertsen: bit and they would be dqued. Are you saying you couldn't move the thrusts or after you caught the barbell on the squat? Like you could like pull from a spot and then land with flow wider feet or your feet were literally not loud.

[00:15:52] Mike DelaTorre: I think, I think he could land with wider feet.

He just couldn't like. Do the thruster and then shuffle around.

[00:15:59] David Syvertsen: Yeah. Yeah. I remember it's funny that I never knew why Kevin, your check at cross at west Essex, they used to run a really good comp rock, the wad, and they did a few years. And one year there was a max thruster, I think at the end of a workout.

I don't, but you weren't allowed to move your feet now. And I had never heard that before. I'm like, where did the hell did that come from? I guess that's where regional standout was probably only three years after. They the, that regionals, it was like 2014, 2015 arrows. So that's pretty cool. And your check was there and your check was there.

Yeah. So

[00:16:30] Sam Rhee: that's probably why he also traumatized by that. And for us to

[00:16:33] David Syvertsen: know that one of the questions off my list.

[00:16:35] Mike DelaTorre: Well, I, dude, I remember because I think Rob Orlando, it was Rob Orlando. He like won the event or like finished, in the top three, whatever. Yeah. But like he clearly moved his feet.

They have a video with the judge, the judge didn't call it, so people were like pissed about that or, yeah, that's a

[00:16:50] David Syvertsen: shaky standard. Like I've been a part of a few comps in the past where the, like the max thrusters tested or a squat clean thruster and a. It evolved into, and we'll talk about this later on his podcast about how just movement and all that has changed, but there are people like thousands, one of them, like, he's so fast that, but he's not good at push pressing, but he's great to push jerking, right.

Because he's fast underneath the barbell. So he would catch the squat clean, go up and then he basically just pop his hips and then get back underneath it and then stand it back up. It's like a very hard movement to do. Like you have to be a very fast Twitch athlete to do it, but it definitely made a thruster to me is an extension of a push precedence on squat, front squat, straight into a push for brute strength.

Right. That skill. And that's why I want to know like what that standard was. So you weren't even allowed to move your

[00:17:37] Sam Rhee: feet. So it snaked. Right? So you just kept going up the ladder

[00:17:41] Mike DelaTorre: until you tapped

[00:17:42] Sam Rhee: out. And how far did you go before you temped out? I can not

[00:17:45] Mike DelaTorre: remember. Oh my God. I want him to know. So I don't think it was that.

What do you think

[00:17:51] David Syvertsen: it was approximately? Because I'm curious, you were

[00:17:54] Sam Rhee: like 25th place.

[00:17:57] Mike DelaTorre: That's great. Pretty sure it was over to

[00:17:59] David Syvertsen: some dude, dude, especially in a ladder, like you're doing a lot of reps in a matter of five, six

[00:18:03] Mike DelaTorre: minutes. It was, I remember people were joking around we were like, oh yeah, it's good.

Cause like, you don't really need cardio for this. And literally two like two reps. And I was like such a bullshit man.

That's a

[00:18:16] David Syvertsen: lot of rest. And so also while Sam's looking this up, you're the platforms that you have, wasn't it like just basically a piece of plywood on grass. So

[00:18:25] Mike DelaTorre: they made like, it was definitely plywood on grass. I can't remember if they made like anchor actual platform or I think it was just play with me too.

I

[00:18:35] David Syvertsen: remember seeing pictures of it and I'm like, and like here I am years later and that you're so like OCD about doing things right. And being safe for the athletes that. Like that's, that, that would be really, that would be another factor that would make your, it would really tough to not move your feet because you're on an unstable surface with grass blades instead of concrete, right.

Like right now at the Rogan rotational, which is going on right now. Yeah. They have last night that did Bella complex, which is a squat, clean squat, clean and jerk front squat, and then other jerk. And they had these like, really like fancy platforms for every single athlete, and like, it's, it's just one of the ways it's evolved so much.

They take so much care of like logistics and athletes safety. Yeah, sure.

So

[00:19:14] Sam Rhee: it's listed you, you guys placed 26 in that workout and the number must be an aggregate of you and your female athlete. It says three 20. So I don't know what she hit and I don't know what you hit on there. What's her number.

I'll sit her up,

[00:19:31] David Syvertsen: text her right now. I don't find out what'd you hit on your throws to,

[00:19:37] Sam Rhee: so then did you do the third workout, which was 21 to T teams of two. So one man, one woman deadlift box jumps to 75, 180 5, a 30 inch box jumps 24 inch for women 25, 15 9. So it was just like a

[00:19:52] David Syvertsen: very quick point at 1 59.

Yeah. Okay. Yes,

[00:19:54] Mike DelaTorre: you did that one too. I did that one and that it is a huge reason why I don't like jumping on 30 inch boxes. Did you crash? No. Yeah, actually I did. I fucked. A lot of people did in that one. I did. I, so I remember,

[00:20:06] David Syvertsen: That would be really tough even now. I mean, after the dead list, your legs must feel like jello jumping up.

Back then the athletes are not what they are now. Like that must have been really

[00:20:15] Sam Rhee: tough every time you program and you do this a lot box jumps and some friggin lift movement today. Like

[00:20:21] David Syvertsen: yesterday we went fun squad. How'd you feel about today's workout. So great.

[00:20:25] Sam Rhee: I watched it from,

[00:20:26] David Syvertsen: I was at home looking at it and I was like, wow, I'm so glad that this was not something I did on the same way.

I hate jumping after anything like intense hate it. It's it's good. It's

[00:20:36] Sam Rhee: great training and scary as hell. You, you have to,

[00:20:40] David Syvertsen: well, I'm a soft box guy, so I

[00:20:42] Sam Rhee: don't really risk it, but it's, it's awesome training to do that lift and then actually go back to the lift. Right? Cause you really have to focus. Your form being explosive,

[00:20:53] David Syvertsen: both the

[00:20:54] Sam Rhee: box jump and yeah.

And the lift, because that plyometrics like fast Twitch, you gotta, you gotta incorporate that. Yeah. So I love that. So you guys did all right, two on that one. It was a 26th place again and 1251. So again, an aggregate probably of you and your, your teammate on that

[00:21:10] David Syvertsen: one. So Mike was probably like two minutes and partners are like 10,

[00:21:14] Sam Rhee: I mean, 2 75 now is, and 180 5 for women while heavy is not.

Like at like you'll program, something like that on occasion. Yeah. Like maybe 2 25

[00:21:26] David Syvertsen: and a workout that has 45. So she had 21 straight. Yeah.

[00:21:30] Sam Rhee: Like any open or Rhee, like regional type workout. It's going to be three 15 for sure. At this point. Yeah. And then the L the last workout that you guys did I assume you didn't compete in, because you already did work on three, which was 250 chest to bar.

Pull-ups 250 kettlebell swings, double unders, and 250 overhead squats at 95, 65 two

[00:21:50] David Syvertsen: hundred and fifty four, four. Oh, okay. I was going to say, all right, for those two next Saturday.

[00:22:00] Sam Rhee: So as bad as the deadlift box jumps, where you're like sitting there cheering your team, like yay

[00:22:05] Mike DelaTorre: for workout for, I was done well, obviously we would've liked to move on, but like, it was nice to not do that workout.

Although the funny thing is that's that's a work at that. I would have liked to do, because I like Chickasaw workouts like that,

[00:22:18] David Syvertsen: they're really fun. Yeah. It's a good challenge. Yeah. So

[00:22:21] Sam Rhee: what was your, what are your takeaways like when you think back about that whole time? Like doing that? Like what, what was like, what do you think about like,

[00:22:30] Mike DelaTorre: I, I just think, I feel I'm super lucky to get, to get into CrossFit that early, because it's been really cool to see the evolution of, of the sport.

Like. You take that 21, 15, 9 work out and yeah, it was, it was a terrible workout for sure. It felt really bad, but you would probably see that program at a regular gym

[00:22:54] Sam Rhee: get 30 inch boxes and we do heavy deadlifts dude. Yeah.

[00:22:56] Mike DelaTorre: Yeah. And same thing with that, that shipper workout. Maybe like, less reps if it's just two people working at it, but I could totally see something like that being programmed for sure.

On a Saturday here, I remember, I do remember thinking to myself, like I felt like I had a imposter syndrome when I was there because like a lot of dudes I looked up to were, were there like Rob Orlando was there. Awesome. Malleoli was there. And I remember thinking myself the last day I was in the athlete area and I looked out onto the field and I was like, I'm never going to be here ever again.

Like I just kinda knew. So like I'm not, I'm not like a great athlete. No. I had to like grind really hard. Like I'm not a naturally gifted athlete, you know what I mean? Like I have decent strength. Really that's about it. I'm not very springy. I'm not very coordinated. If you guys ever seen me, like cat, try to catch something and just like knock it down.

But like, I just, I just kinda knew that eventually like really good naturally athletic people are going to start coming in and I'd say 2012 when we didn't make it to regionals in 2012. That's what I knew. I was like, it's really going to start changing,

[00:24:07] David Syvertsen: yeah. Because you did see, I mean, you could probably, I don't want to speak for you.

Just tell me if I'm right. Like you saw cross it. It was like, that's when it's really started to boom, is that it's not even from the competitor. Perspective, just from the, the gym perspective, like your gym was probably growing class, getting bigger, more people getting involved and naturally that filters over into the competitive side because the competitive CrossFit is, is a bullet point under cross it.

So if cross it itself has growing competitive side will also grow. Right. Right, right.

[00:24:35] Mike DelaTorre: Exactly.

[00:24:36] Sam Rhee: And then tell me, you transitioned from Morristown to Hoboken and Hoboken is where I feel like it was the wellspring of a lot of what I see in my experience of CrossFit in north Jersey is a lot of people came out of Hoboken.

Everyone who was anyone kind of, they came forth from that place and seeded a lot of other places all over the place. And it seems like that was a huge central point at that time. How did you end up leaving Motown and going to Hoboken then?

[00:25:08] Mike DelaTorre: Well, I didn't leave Motown on great terms.

Tell

[00:25:13] David Syvertsen: how it is facial expressions. I mean, we don't even need to go into that deep of dates. I don't think we should, to be honest with you, but it wasn't, it wasn't a great ending right

[00:25:20] Mike DelaTorre: now. It wasn't a great ending. I, I wish, and, and both, both parties like could have handled things differently, live and learn, live and learn.

Yeah, exactly, dude. And then I locked out, man. I got so Martha, Martha Mistretta. Yup. She was friends with Kariana and that's how, that's how I met her. We were on the regional heat team together for Motown. She ended up moving to Hoboken and then was going to, and coaching CrossFit, Hoboken. And she heard that I wasn't at Motown and.

And her and her husband's Caesar went to Craig, ourselves, the owner, the founder, and owner of, of CrossFit Hoboken at the time. And they were like, Hey man, you should, you should hire this guy, Mike. And I remember, I, I wasn't sure what I was going, going to do. I actually was considering not coaching anymore.

As like a, I dunno if w if I want to coach again, I was going to move out to, I was thinking about moving out to Colorado, to be honest with you. Oh, wow. Yeah. But then my stepdad got stepdad got sick, so I was like, all right, like I got gotta, I got to stay home. I got the call from, from Craig and same, same thing.

Like I remember a random number. Isn't going to ping this number up. And then it was Craig he's like, Hey man, it's Craig from CrossFit, Hoboken. It's fun to see if you are interested in coaching, went down there and met him. And I started in June. My first workout was June 6th, 2012. Oh, wow. Yeah.

That's first, the first workout I

[00:26:45] David Syvertsen: coach there. Yeah. First time at Hoboken just to come see the place he came at during a class. I'm pretty sure it was a Saturday. And I was working out in that class. I remember he was just like him and his big ass smile was just sit on a box. Like, just like, like this, it was like a typical, it was almost like a bison Saturday, just a lot of people, a lot of things going on going nuts.

And like, he just, you could tell he was like eating it up. He loved it. And me and my buddy Mike deal, or like, how's that guy, he was like Jack too. And it's like, it's like, whatever, like typical guy

[00:27:16] Mike DelaTorre: would get out of your

[00:27:19] David Syvertsen: and I remember like Craig, Craig actually just called me this past week and I I've been keeping, I've keep in touch with them, not on a regular basis, but every now and then we'll hit each other up.

And, you can say a lot of good things about Craig. I mean, he did grow Hoboken, like CRA like almost like until like an epicenter of New Jersey CrossFit and where a lot of people came from, they had over 400 members at one point. Wow. And I'm that little rickety place and Craig, but Craig was just very, he was a pretty aggressive decision-maker with like knocking walls down, making the gym bigger, getting an extra room.

He never got a permit. Just like, literally what's a landlord is like, I'll take that room. I'll take that room. I'm not getting variants or anything like that. But, and he did the same thing with coaching. Like I think at one point we had like 22 coaches on the side, we had a

[00:28:02] Mike DelaTorre: ton of coaches

[00:28:03] David Syvertsen: and and he just, he was good at, he was just, he had balls with like, he just like made hard, fast decisions and never over-thought it.

And I remember him saying it was like, Mike was one of the best decisions he ever made. So it was

[00:28:16] Mike DelaTorre: pretty cool. I was really happy to be

[00:28:19] Sam Rhee: there so fast forward through that time. And then like, I don't want to dissect every little part of you. Oh, that's fine. Yeah, for sure. Accelerate us through Hoboken to bison.

Then how did, how did that arc

[00:28:32] Mike DelaTorre: go for you? So I remember when I, when I first got to Hoboken I mean, like you said, like so many people came out of there and, that's where I'm at Dave. Our task was Tafaro wife, your wife my wife

probably talking about crossing

[00:28:50] David Syvertsen: that. That's why that was she wasn't the first,

[00:28:51] Mike DelaTorre: yeah. Sorry, dude. So many people. But then, like Hoboken's a really, it's a young town, but typically no one stays there forever. So I remember a lot of turnover, a lot of turnover. Dave and Chris were like, oh yeah, we're going to start our own gym.

And I was like, super happy for him, but like, I was also like really mad. I was like, ah, that sucks. They're going to leave eventually. I was there for almost four years I believe. And it was just my time to go. I also, a couple of factors happened. I got, I got hurt training, like an idiot, and I'm sure we'll, we'll probably talk about this.

I was and this is where the difference between competitive CrossFit and, and, general training come in. Right. Like I was just, I did something that I should have been doing. They got hurt really bad. And I started going to physical therapy to get better. And I feel like at that point I needed a change.

I've been coaching CrossFit for so long that I knew I needed something different. Yeah. So that's when I went to parabolic performance and rehab, and I was a strength coach there for a short period of time. And I learned a ton of stuff there, which is really cool,

[00:29:57] David Syvertsen: different side of fitness, but also probably a lot of things there that we miss out on at cross it that are very important, I would say.

Yeah.

[00:30:04] Mike DelaTorre: I, th there's definitely stuff there. Like th there's when you're working with an athlete that plays, say like professional football or. Baseball or whatever. I mean, the way that you train them is definitely a lot different than the way that you train a general person.

For sure. So I learned a lot of stuff, which is cool, but I got that itch again to come back to CrossFit. And then I started coaching part-time at CrossFit Caldwell where Martha was Craig Craig, when he left Hoboken Craig and Martha found a CrossFit Caldwell. So I started there or went there and then eventually that turned into a full-time gig.

Like I wanted to get back to CrossFit full-time so, fast forward through that, I was there for a couple of years and same thing. Like I just needed certain things, happened and I just needed something different. And I remember, like, I always told Melissa I always want it to be.

At bison. I remember back in 2014 at the old space, when you guys had the grand opening party, a whole bunch of us from Hoboken. Yeah.

[00:31:05] David Syvertsen: I went up there. Yeah. That was probably 85% of who was in tenants that there, our crew from Hoboken came out. Yeah. Yeah. We looked a lot cooler than we did, to like the wide tracks were there to check out bison.

And we had like 40 people there and I'm like, none of them are going to be here, but I didn't want them to die at all. They're all members

[00:31:26] Mike DelaTorre: and dude, I remember like, it was so far we did fight combat. I remember that being the workout. Awesome. Yeah. And Melissa couldn't come because she was working and when, when she got home, she was like, how was it?

And I remember saying to. I was like, look, if I, if I ever leave Hoboken, that's where I want to coach. So yeah, there were, there was that there was like the, the open in 20, I think it was 2017 in this space. Yeah. Was it this place? No, it was the old space. Yeah. It was like rowing and wall balls

[00:31:56] David Syvertsen: and like, yeah.

19 one. Yeah. Yeah. So that was yeah. 2019. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. That was the last open at old bison, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's what I was a nasty workout. Yeah.

[00:32:07] Mike DelaTorre: I remember like the vibe was insane. I hadn't experienced something like that since old school. Like since CrossFit Morrison and old school hobo.

[00:32:17] David Syvertsen: Yeah. There's nothing like that. Like, we're going to get that back this year. Hopefully, like we've been like put a couple of like event things on hold this year. Just, we make decisions on events. It's usually like late summer, early fall and just, with COVID stuff, we're still not sure, but we're 99% confident we're going to be bringing back the open party in February this year for like the 22.1.

And there's nothing like that environment and you like it. It was

[00:32:39] Mike DelaTorre: awesome. And I remember you guys like kinda ruined CrossFit and assess me cause I was like, ah, man, I'm not going to get this anywhere else. And fast forward again, like when everything was happening, I reached out to Chris and reached out to Dave Yeah.

I ended up coming here and I

[00:32:56] David Syvertsen: haven't looked back. And it's funny, like when Mike says that like, oh, I really want to be there someday. Like Chris. And I remember when we first started, that was like in our discussion, not even in a shady way, like we would never, we're not the kind of guys and we'd never have been, we never will be.

That would go to a coach and coaching at another set. It'd be like, yo, we'll give you more money. Like we didn't, we didn't have any money, to like give. So like we couldn't like Chris and I coached and Ash coached almost all the classes. And we had 40, I think 45 classes a week for 50 classes a week when we started.

And we did all of them for like almost a year. And then we started hiring some people. And even then that was only two, three classes of per week that they were helping out with. And we just didn't have the money to pay Mike, and he's at that point getting married and having kids like you, can't just be like, yeah, I'll come and work for free.

So. We, if the decision was ours only and money, wasn't an object. We would've probably got him in there four or five years ago, and that just the stars aligned, about a year and a half ago. Yeah. Yeah. I

[00:33:54] Sam Rhee: want to go through your profiles on social media. Cause I looked at them and I thought they were interesting.

And maybe you could explain a little bit of it real quick. So your CrossFit profile says husband, father, coach, and friend, which I understand proud to be part of the herd at CrossFit, bison, God country, and heavy ass weight, which is great. And then your benchmark stats. And then you can comment on these a little bit.

I know you got injured back squat, 400 pounds clean and jerk to 60. Snatch 180 8 and deadlift 500. So those numbers, are they still holding or they not holding? What would you want to say?

[00:34:33] Mike DelaTorre: The snatch number? Definitely. Definitely not holding 188 pounds in there. No, I, when I snatched now it's really just for demonstration purposes.

That's what happened tested in like six years. I, realistically I think the heaviest I've hit in recent times is 3 35. That's not bad. Yeah, it was okay. Like taking into consideration just where I'm at. Like in terms of, how often I train the squat and everything. Right. The, the deadlift is my party trick, for sure.

So. I'm dead. I'm under 500, but I'm pretty close. If I'm willing to bet. There are a bunch of

[00:35:09] Sam Rhee: guys old, older guys here at bison and deadlift insane amounts of weight. Yeah. Like you J a swing swingset J swing set. J

[00:35:19] David Syvertsen: and he's like, he's sneaky strong. He's sneaky. Strong tat you got TAF. Yeah, I think that deadlift is probably my favorite lift because it it's from an athlete perspective, not from a coaching perspective, but I just feel like it is the most functional thing.

And it carries over into so many other movements. Like there's nothing like, like a heavy deadlift day, like the feeling you have after everything is so engaged and. I guess if you're a polar or a squatter, like, I just feel safer going for like a really heavy deadlift. And I do a heavy squat, when you fail, like, all you gotta do is drop it.

Like, like, like get your hands off the bar, back squat. There's a few things that can go wrong. I used

[00:35:57] Mike DelaTorre: to think that the opposite, I used to think, oh man, like the squad is safer and it's like, Hmm. Like, like you said, like with the deadlift, you just got to drop it. Drop the bark

[00:36:04] David Syvertsen: out. Yeah. Yeah. Fran

[00:36:06] Sam Rhee: time of 4 33.

[00:36:08] Mike DelaTorre: Yeah. It's not going to happen.

well, I remember the brand man, like the last time I did that, like the last in PR I mean, my shoulders were like a hundred percent healthy. Like my pull-ups are so much faster. Thrusters were so much faster, like anything with shoulder overhead or hang on the Rhee on the rig. Now I have to go really careful.

Yeah. Just like a measured pace controlled.

[00:36:30] Sam Rhee: Yeah. Dude. Your Twitter profile, coach athlete, friend, hashtag CrossFit angry, hashtag nix fan disappointed, New York Rangers fan sad, New York football fan passionate red Sox fan. Sometimes I say bad word. New

[00:36:48] Mike DelaTorre: Jersey USA. So yes. So all of those things pretty much still apply, especially the bad words part like I'm really trying hard, not to just like say bad words might be good so far.

Yeah. I have a sailor's mouth, I was just telling the eight, 15 class, the gym thing.

[00:37:02] David Syvertsen: I feel like this too, just as, you just, you hear it all the time, like you're around just like, fuck and shit bowl, whether it's a celebration or a voice, a frustration, it's, it's just kind of like your environment

[00:37:15] Mike DelaTorre: and I've known I ever had a normal job.

Like I, I was just listening to. I read Anthony Bourdain's book, kitchen confidential. Yeah. Yeah. And I started listening to the audio version just cause like, I, I really I've always admired him. And one of the things he says in his book is he, he doesn't know how to act out of the kitchen.

Right. He doesn't know like how to act in the, in the normal world. It's kind of how I feel sometimes. I don't

[00:37:43] David Syvertsen: know for sure. In gym,

[00:37:44] Sam Rhee: out of gym. Absolutely.

[00:37:46] David Syvertsen: Yeah. Some people are we're, we're both kind of introverts like outside of the gym and like, it's so funny how people are like, how could you be, how can you consider yourself an introvert with what you do?

I'm like, it's just a separate life, and like it's, it's a. You're like, I don't really know how to be that social outside the gym sometimes where in the gym you have to be, because it's a job, but it's, it's a huge, it's a huge part of just like, you're a professional coach and that's why you are the way you are, and it's yeah, you probably wouldn't respond well to a corporate setting on a day-to-day basis,

[00:38:18] Mike DelaTorre: no, no,

[00:38:19] Sam Rhee: I are it, you might actually make your corporate setting better by bringing your gym culture into that. Yeah, it could be. I will say I fist bump everybody now at school and I go to like soccer games and there are like, other guys are looking at me like that sort of weird, but yeah.

[00:38:33] Mike DelaTorre: Okay. Yeah. A

[00:38:34] David Syvertsen: bunch of Walsh readers. Like they

That that's what I did now. Sorry,

[00:38:44] Mike DelaTorre: bro. Yeah.

[00:38:46] Sam Rhee: So then your IgE profile says Mike Delatour coach had CrossFit, bison, and then you have, and this is what I really wanted to ask you about the own symbol. And then the wheel of Dharma, which is a two emojis representing the symbol of oneness. And the wheel of Dharma is a wheel shaped symbol divided into eight equal parts representative of Buddhism or the road to the soul, very spiritual, which I never, see that often at the gym.

So I wanted to ask you about that a little bit.

[00:39:15] Mike DelaTorre: So, years ago I started following YouTube channel on a YouTube channel called barbell shrugged. Yeah. And back then they were super, super involved with CrossFit and the original crew included this guy's name is Chris Moore. And Chris Moore had an offshoot podcast called barbell Buddha that I was like, read that I I'm still like really into.

And it was really interesting because on, on barbell shrugged Chris Morgan could be like, I could see how people could find him, like kind of annoying. Cause he always like interrupted. And like he had like all these ideas in his head. He didn't know how to like exactly. Smoothly, I guess, but then he, so he comes off plus he was an old, like an old school, like, X powerlifter.

So he kind of comes off like a, like a stupid meat head sometimes, I guess, but then you listen to barbell, Buddha, and he was a really deep guy and a lot of the stuff that he says, he talks about coaching and he ties that into. And how coaching is much more. I'm sure. Like the three of us can agree on this man.

Like coaching is much more than just the knowledge that you have. Absolutely. There's so many other factors that go into being a good coach, namely making, being able to make connections with people. So that was something he was really big on. So I've been like heavily influenced by him just in terms of like outlook and for sources of like, inspiration and knowledge.

And another thing that hit me about him was he would have been my age. He passed away in 2016. I think it was. And For me, like, oddly hit me hard because here's a guy who was my age and he was really starting to come into his own. Right. At that point he was, he had come out with a few books.

He had moved to Europe and he was getting his podcast going and he was going to do all this stuff and then boom, like that he was gone. So for me, that was a signal too. And honestly, man, like that probably started the process of man. I don't know if I was at parabolic at the time. I don't know if parabolic really is the last stop.

Right, right.

[00:41:22] David Syvertsen: So essentially was he by himself on barbell, Buddha? That podcast? Yeah. Yeah. He was just why, like you responded to that podcast a lot better. Then the one that he was on with others. Right. Like it just another guy that is at the end of the day and introvert, he probably does his best work when he's by himself.

Yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:39] Mike DelaTorre: It's, it's Rhee. He's funny because he talks about that. Like he's really while on the podcast, especially barbell shrugged, it comes off, it's like big and like, really loud. He was very shy, very introverted, which I, we definitely are, like, so,

[00:41:53] Sam Rhee: so you know, so we want to flip back into the CrossFit then and now.

And one of the things I wanted to comment on is when I was looking at all. Older 2011 pictures and stuff. The first thing I want to say is that the culture, I mean, not the culture that the clothing was so different. People wore some of the weirdest shit. Pardon? My French. Like you think about now and the noble aesthetic and like these muted colors and these really slick looking clothes, then it was like baggy shorts, like converse high tops, the Ryan Ratcliffe.

Yeah, that's fine. I like high stockings, like just all this stuff that is classic 20 10, 11, 12 CrossFit that you never see any more. And I was like, why don't we wear that

[00:42:42] David Syvertsen: stuff anymore? These six running shoes?

[00:42:45] Sam Rhee: Like, why don't we do that? So, just thinking about that. W w when you think about your coaching then, and your coaching now, like, what do you notice is the biggest difference?

I'm sure the energy probably. Is always has to be there. Right. Because coaching has

[00:43:00] Mike DelaTorre: energy. Yeah. Well, it's funny. I was thinking about this last time, cause I was, reading through like the, the, the topics and everything for today. And I remember something like really bothered me a few years ago.

I was talking to a friend from, from CrossFit Mara sound. It was like 10 years ago now. And we were talking about the coaches at the gym. Right. And he's like, oh yeah, like so-and-so is this guy, so, and so's the other guy and you're, you're the energy guy. And. But like, he made it sound like that's all I did was like fucking run around the room, like yell at people.

And I'm like, I'm definitely not just the energy guy, man. Like I can't be like really mad. Yeah. But I will say that like, you always have to bring you, we always have to bring good energy to the gym. So that has not changed. Like there's times where, I'm listening out again to a fight or the kids are being really hard or, we, we all go through like our own shit outside of the gym, but over the years I've gotten, I've definitely gotten better at leaving that outside because there's been times when I was younger, when I was like a younger coach, like a newer coach, I would take that energy and I would leave most of it at the door, but I'd bring some of it into the gym.

And even if, if there's like a little bit of that, I feel like people can tell. Yep.

[00:44:18] Sam Rhee: You've talked about how that's hard, Dave, like, oh yeah. When you're not feeling great about doing a class and you do the class for

[00:44:24] David Syvertsen: sure. Yeah. And it's a, again, that's what being a professional coaches. That's actually probably going to be one of our topics on one of the, our upcoming episodes with Mike is just the biggest mistakes coaches make.

So I don't want to give too much of a spoiler, but I do think that's a, when Mike started at Hoboken, I remember his first few classes that he was running around the gym. He was dripping in sweat after getting on his knees, like supporting and yelling and giving cues. And we talked about him. Like, we were like, he's showing off, like, there's no way he's going to sustain this kind of ability to coach like that.

Like, because honestly, like we couldn't do it. So it's like, I can't do it. So he can't do it. And he did it and he still does. So you sit very into coaching and we, we did a podcast, same with Botox and Burberry's like different coaching styles. And I think the, the ch the sign up to me, my opinion, the sign of an elite coach, It's the one that can change their coaching style at the snap of a finger, right.

Based on the workout, what the gym is going through, who they're coaching. Right. And that's what he does really well. And maybe that's not what he was able to do when he was an early coach, like, the outside perspective as yes, Energizer buddy, but, that's, only the coach really knows like what their true mindset and intentions are, but and it's only proven over time, and I think that's a big part of it. Like Mike's been doing this for so long, longer than any of us, right. That that's where you know, that, that background of knowing where cross it was back then and what was expected from a coach versus what is expected from a coach now is different. What do you think about

[00:45:52] Sam Rhee: athletes are athletes the same now as they were back then.

[00:45:55] Mike DelaTorre: In terms of like skillset or anything, well, from a skillset perspective, way more advanced now. Yeah, it's crazy. I remember, like, I think we've talked about it like that back when I first started, like, if you could snatch. 1 55 or even 1 35. You were like a God. Oh my God.

[00:46:15] David Syvertsen: There's plates on that bar.

[00:46:17] Mike DelaTorre: He's got the big wheels on the Barb.

[00:46:20] David Syvertsen: Do you remember the scoreboard? We tried this at, at bison and it just didn't work, but it had, it was a all time Jim leaderboard of all the benchmark workouts that Hoboken had. Oh yeah. We had like Fran, grace, Isabelle, a lot of people, a lot of gyms have that post, like the best times in the gym for that workout.

And I remember looking at it like I, to look at that. Oh, I wanted my name up there, Hoboken so badly. And that's like Fran, like Fran back then 2159 thrusters and pull ups. We did it this fall. It's coming back soon, this winter before the new year. And the, the fastest times, if you were in the threes, you were like, like if you were sub four, you were like, delete, you are going to regionals.

Or you're a monster. I, if you're not sub three now, like it's like, ah, no shot, no shot. Like I see map alone with my two eyes, did it at 1 59, but you know, like, and like part of that's how he's built, just the anatomy. Like he just like short femurs, short forms and like can just fly through everything, but,

[00:47:17] Sam Rhee: and a very good athlete, like

[00:47:20] David Syvertsen: mentally fast water I've ever seen in my entire life.

He's gifted, very gifted. And it's just like, I think that's one of the biggest things. It's like all these benchmarks that you were around in 2000, even up until 2015, Like, they're just, they keep getting beat. Yeah,

[00:47:35] Sam Rhee: I think one of the, so I think Snapchat is a great example because that's so technique dependent.

Right. So you really, it doesn't matter what your strength is, your form, like really, really just to be on duck too. Yeah, sure. Which is why it's, and we've talked about this. Why like squat snatches, for example, are not something that everyone should be doing because it's so technique dependent.

It takes a lot of skill. It's a very high skill movement. Yeah. They've added a lot of movements into CrossFit that maybe you didn't see back then as well, which we're routinely doing now to like where you routinely doing bar muscle ups, ring, muscle ups.

[00:48:07] Mike DelaTorre: Like all that crap. Definitely not bar muscle-ups.

Rhee muscle-ups like they started to really gain traction. And I remember like once, like. If you had your ring muscle up, you always wanted to do them. So like I did them fairly often because I thought it was the coolest thing, but it's also interesting because like, remember, like if you had a, if you had a ring muscle up, if you could do handstand pushups, it was like, oh my God, this guy is so good.

Just like five in a row. Oh yeah, yeah. Now was just like, like any, like literally I was every, I feel every person in bison can I call, you know what I mean? So that's definitely changed. Like the, and it makes sense, right? Like, the sport's evolved. And with that, like when there's good coaching and good programming that has to evolve as well.

So you just see the level of athletes, like just increase. That's definitely changed about you discuss

[00:48:57] David Syvertsen: in relation to that, have the quality of coaching and just understanding how to coach movements and progress people, understanding the methodology behind CrossFit. We, we I've always been around good coaches.

Like I'm blessed from that respect. Like my coaches at hobo could, like, I think about like Maris and Stephan and Martha and Mike, like I had good coaches. So I feel like I had a little bit of like a, an, an easier curve than some, but the coaching back then was not nearly as technical and as deep as it is now.

[00:49:28] Mike DelaTorre: Yeah. So it's interesting, right? Like it's at the, a lot more technical, definitely a lot more technical, like, especially with stuff like the Olympic lifts gymnastics and nasties, for sure. But it's also. It's it's like, both ends of the spectrum too, right? Like with all that, like technical knowledge, you have to be able to break it down, like super, super easily.

So yeah, that's, that's been, one of the big challenges and I love it. Like one of the big challenges of coaching is all right, man, here is some new techniques stuff that you want people to do. What's the easiest way to present it so that people actually get it, w I feel like there's so much more information out there too.

Right. So much more, so much more so like, even on Instagram and I've taken like a little hiatus on Instagram, just cause. So there's just too much bullshit on it, but like keep all like, it's good education it's yeah, yeah. Do you like juggernaut catalysts, athletics? I forget how to pronounce her name.

Pamela lake Lygon or something. She was she's a CrossFit like gymnastics person, there's so much knowledge out there now compared to back then where, back then, you really just relied on the sources that CrossFit presented to you. Right. So like, yet CrossFit weightlifting with, with coach Bergner and that kind of stuff like CrossFit and with, I think Brian McKenzie at the time, not that that stuff was bad by any means.

Right. It was, it was great. But that was like really the only avenue that you had or that you were aware about.

[00:50:57] David Syvertsen: Yeah. Just less material and in good. And there's a good and bad thing that social media wasn't as big as it was back then. So there really was not as much. Yeah. There's just less volume of stuff out there.

Like I felt like when I was starting and I was trying to learn some of this stuff, I would just go on YouTube and there was never, like, there was not a lot of instruction on YouTube. I would just watch people do workouts that had snatches in it. And you just try to teach yourself, like that's how I learned the butterfly pull up.

I remember watching Joey, Dylan, the middle of a workout. I'm like, okay. So he sends his feet there, then he waits and then he pulls and he kicks back. Like there wasn't, there wasn't a lot of like, but right now there's a lot of like, Material that you can find on the internet that can help you break down the movement in so many different ways that, okay, I can eventually get this, but also think about this, like in the open back then there was no scaled until I think the scaled open the first scale, I want to say 2015, I think it might've been 2014.

It was one of those two years. And so that's three to four years of the cross it open, not having a scale division. So think about right now, like when we do an, an open workout here, we probably have 30% of our gym do the scale diversion and imagine that did not exist. Yeah. And like, that's like, I don't want to call it an irresponsible thing by cross it at all.

Like that that's a sport and that's what it's separated sport and fitness all the time. But to get people involved, you had to come up with scale divisions. Now there's age group, that age group, adaptive teens, like there's so many different versions of every single open working. And that's another way to evolve just with the open in general RX for skills.

[00:52:27] Mike DelaTorre: And it makes sense to, because, since, since CrossFit has evolved from a technical standpoint, they needed to do a scale division for inclusivity. I'm like you want people to participate and really like, as corny as it sounds like your spirit experienced the magic of the open man, the opens really, really

[00:52:44] David Syvertsen: amazing.

And you, and like you were cross, it has fought this. I don't think it's as much a fight anymore because again, time proves everything or disproves everything eventually, but, cross, it had a bad rap for a long time and about just like injury rates and poor. And honestly it there, it was irresponsible for some people to do what they were doing from 2010 to 2014.

It wasn't really like coach Mike's fault from Morristown. It's just what was fed from the top there. Like people would be like, what's scaled, it's like now it's like I pushed scaled on people more than often than I push our X. And I. Yeah. And it's I think that's a huge evolvement cross.

It that like scaled is, does not mean bad RX designing. Good. And you still fight that with some people in their egos all the time, but that it's, it's a much more acceptable and understanding thing. Now

[00:53:36] Sam Rhee: I th I think there's a couple reasons. One is you're right. CrossFit, home office, or HQ as they used to call it had a very rebel mentality.

Pukey the clown. Yeah. Like Greg Glassman was an iconoclast. He would always like crap on everything else out there. And it was definitely where the rebels, we're shredding the rules, we're doing things different. We have different lingo. We have different, attitude and. Definitely. It was always

[00:54:03] David Syvertsen: about pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing harder, but go hard, go hard.

[00:54:07] Sam Rhee: And I would say the first thing is, is because things have progressed to a very high standard. We talked about weight creep about how the level of RX is increasing, how the level in general, you see it both on the sports side with these competitive athletes, they're doing stuff that was unfair.

I heard of three years ago. Unbelievable. In terms of the numbers that they're pushing, the, the, the challenges they're facing and even within our gym, our workouts now are, definitely more challenging. And you look at, for example, just the regional workouts from 2011 and how they could with a little adaptation to be irregular wide at our gym now.

So I think part of it is that RX is, is so challenging that for most of us there's no the stigma of not being RX. Is being lost.

[00:55:01] David Syvertsen: The

[00:55:03] Sam Rhee: focus on injury prevention, the demographic is changing too. This is a mature. Industry now, if you're, if you were CrossFitting and you were 20 back in 2011, you're now 30, or if you were 30 and you're now 40.

So, there's a big difference over those that 10 year progression about how CrossFit home office approaches things, how we approach things, how you approach things how we bring up our athletes. The thing I do like though is, is that these newer athletes I think, are getting brought up to speed better, right?

So we're teaching them technique better. They're learning quicker before we never put people through going upside down as fast. Like I swear to God, I've never seen so many new athletes go upside down so quickly. They might be doing formats, but who cares

[00:55:49] David Syvertsen: going upside down as a challenge? It's like, I see these people

[00:55:52] Sam Rhee: where I know five years ago, we would've had them do it.

Strict dumbbell presses for a really long time. And now we're just like, yeah, why don't you try it? And they're like, okay. And they don't know any better. I think I've just read an article about CrossFit. Like one of the things from an outsider's perspective is, is that oftentimes we don't necessarily put psychologic limits on what we can do when you're, when you work in Ali, when you work in some of these other fitness disciplines, you, you, you feel like there are limits.

There are, but then when you take someone and this can be good, but it can also, I mean, it could be bad, but can also be good. And you're like, wow, look at these guys snatching 300. I should be able to snatch at least 200 for God's sakes. Why not? Rhee many times they get there, like

it's

[00:56:41] David Syvertsen: it,

[00:56:41] Sam Rhee: the barrier to what you think you can do if you don't even know what that barrier is.

I mean, how many times have we put plates on the barbell and then like, we don't actually know what it is and then we can actually, it's better for us sometimes. Just not to know. And I think CrossFit still has that mentality of not necessarily knowing what our limits are or putting a hard number on something.

And I think that that, that has, in a safe way, progressed in CrossFit

[00:57:09] David Syvertsen: really well.

[00:57:10] Mike DelaTorre: Right. Well, there's, there's that balance, and I, there has to be that balance and, and I think a lot of it comes through coaching experiences, right? Like coaching through years and years and seeing tons of athletes and also.

You've got to do CrossFit to coach it effectively, right? Like, yeah. Like you have to know how things feel in order to get a good perspective. Yeah. I I'd say that a few years ago, like one of the, one of the things that hindered my, my coaching ability with CrossFit was it, it was hard for me to work out with the class and for whatever reason, there's just like really lost motivation.

Like even just to workout by myself. Yeah. So I just do like, like normal, like bro lifts, like squat, deadlift press, which is great, I was getting stronger. But I didn't have that perspective of how a workout felt and how, how the athletes would feel. Right. So having that perspective is really important because.

And knowing your athletes, obviously it's very important because then you know how to push them, like, when someone is after limit and they should not do you know, maybe they shouldn't go upside down yet or they shouldn't put that weight on the bar yet, or on the flip side, like, I, man, like, you're ready if you want to try it.

You're good. You're ready. Ready to do this, so agreed. Yeah,

[00:58:28] David Syvertsen: We have a few other topics that we want to talk to that are very relatable to what we've already talked about. And I even think some of these topics that we've just discussed now, we're going to kind of creep back, creep their way back in.

So thank you guys for listening. Mike, we're going to see you for another few episodes and that was a great way to start it. Thanks man. Yeah, dude.t.

Today's episode is again with David Syvertsen owner and coach at my box, CrossFit Bison in Midland park, New Jersey. We talk about the terms RX and scaled for CrossFit workouts. What does RX and scaled mean? And why do some athletes think it's so important to have the RX by their name on the whiteboard?

okay. the topic we're going to talk about now is one that I love talking about, because I think it ties so much into athletes and motivation, ego.

David Syvertsen: [00:00:55] it's pretty much everything

Sam Rhee: [00:00:56] we've talked about. Yeah. It is the whole concept. And I, and this is again, unique to CrossFit, which I love.

Is scaled versus RX. So

David Syvertsen: [00:01:05] really excellent verse. You

Sam Rhee: [00:01:08] can't not say really excellent every time, this time, because brought up, all on Matt Wiatrak and, I just talked to Matt and, talk about ownership. he, he was a high level competitive athlete for many years. he was, He's probably one of the best,

David Syvertsen: [00:01:27] pretty sure he's in the hall of fame at Ursinus.

Sam Rhee: [00:01:28] Yeah, I almost said that, right? Yeah. In baseball. And I would say he, is one of them. In my personal opinion, one of the best athletes bar, none not forget about his physical capacity. I'm talking about his mental ability to have progressed. talk about progression. Like you're telling

David Syvertsen: [00:01:45] he's on a short list

Sam Rhee: [00:01:47] of the people who have really transformed themselves mentally, physically, emotionally into someone that you know.

David Syvertsen: [00:01:54] Yep. I tell him that all the time, he means a lot to this place. Yeah. just for a lot of different reasons. And, I hope he always knows that the, transformation that guy made from thinking that RX meant really excellent. So the guy that has 54 pairs of Nike Metcons no, but like he, that's a guy that came here with a pretty accomplished athletic background, started crossfit had to scale everything. we have some funny looking pictures of him trying to. Basically do anything here. couldn't do it right. But he didn't have an ego issue when he started, he knew like Matt knew his background. Yeah. He knew that pretty much every time he came to the gym, he was a better athlete than everybody.

It wasn't better CrossFit. It wasn't more competitive, but he was a better athlete, but he always listened. And they always said Hey, if we said do this right. And he would do that way. And the RX way it's, we'll get into this talk now, but that's a good example of someone that.

If you saw Matt day one to Matt at his peak here, that is a good example of someone that just trusted the process did not only chase after RX. It's okay to chase after it, but he understood the stimulus and the end. He respected those that were teaching it.

Sam Rhee: [00:03:04] yeah. And that's stimulus is so important when you talk about RX for scale.

so basically. To summarize RX is as prescribed. Not really excellent, but as prescribed. And, and when you, and when CrossFit, publishes a workout, the weights and the movements are listed and it says as prescribed, right? Which means what?

David Syvertsen: [00:03:29] I would say if you are physically capable of doing movements with quality technique and getting that workout done.

In the intended stimulus is time or rep range. That's the way that you're doing.

Sam Rhee: [00:03:43] so that is the way, it's set up, like you said, if you're capable of doing it in the way that it's supposed to be done, this is the record. The way it is prescribed. If you don't do it that way, it's. Called scaling.

Which is mean, which means you, substitute either alternative movements or weights or something you change it in order to, with the goal, as you said, to still reach the intended stimulus. But, but it might be different than what the workout is and it's so that it allows a 60, 85-year-old.

and, who's never worked out in their life and a 15 year old, games, athlete, teenage games, athletes to still do the same workout next to each other. Yeah.

David Syvertsen: [00:04:24] And get the same feeling.

Sam Rhee: [00:04:25] And get the same feeling. But even though they're vastly different in terms of their capacity.

David Syvertsen: [00:04:29] Right.

Sam Rhee: [00:04:30] So how do you feel about RX and scaled now as a programmer and at the gym and what it means to athletes? I'm not a violent person. All right. If I could grab people by the throat at this gym, this would be the discussion I'd have I said, RX does not mean good and scale does not mean bad.

Okay. And th that's all I want to say. And yeah, I can think of there's people that are popping my head right now that when they come up to the board and they're like, all right, Hey dude, what was your time in that workout? Like 1826. Oh. But it was scaled. I want to turn around every time I hear that and smack them because scaling a workout.

Like I still, to this day I scale workouts. And I've been doing this a long time and I'm trying to compete at a high level. I scale workouts. so I almost want to tell that person like, Oh, you scaled, you sound disappointed. I should not be disappointed because I scale workout sometimes. I almost want to say that to them to make them think twice about saying it with that tone.

Because when you say stuff like that in a gym, other people hear it. And that is what creates the stigma of good and bad. if I'm someone that's been doing CrossFit for a year, I'll come here. I work my butt off and I'm proud of the workout I just did. And I, cause I hear someone else go up to the whiteboard and say 1826.

But I did scaled that immediately will make me feel like I did not do a good enough job. So like you have to be really careful with tone and word choice. When you come through our scaled RX and scaled basically means, a way for you to record. Slash put your, your stuff on the board about this, ways that you changed the workouts that you got, what you were supposed to out of that workout.

how do you as a programmer determine what the RX is because I will hear athletes be like, man, why did Dave RX like two Oh five, two $25?

David Syvertsen: [00:06:14] We've had a couple of those lately. Got a couple of those workouts that were really tough. That's

Sam Rhee: [00:06:18] ridiculous for RX.

David Syvertsen: [00:06:20] So I'll give you a few examples, but that my approach on scaling and RX at the gym changed when I went and got my level two and James Hobart did the programming talk was probably one of my favorite two hours and CrossFit.

And just in general from day one, just listening to him. Talk about James Hobart is one of the best names and cross it. Absolutely. I could listen to him talk all day. I read his, all his posts. I comment, and we messaged back and forth and, He said that you should be prescribing RX and scale based on the best athletes in your gym.

I don't like the term best, but the asterisks that he puts next to it. And I agree with this and this, for that workout, the best athletes in the gym, because I can think of a Ryan Radcliffe in our gym. I think about that guy all the time. Not in a weird way when I'm programming, like, all right, can he get something out of this workout?

So in most workouts, he's very good. He's fast. He's strong Bubba, but there's some workouts and he'll be the first to tell you, I sure can't stand, push workout. Like he will really struggle. So let's say tomorrow's workout. I'm thinking about, all right, Ryan, we'll get this stimulus with this workout.

And so we'll 15 other people in the gym. All right. They're the best. They're the fastest at that particular workout. But let's say tomorrow, we're going to do strict Diane deadlifts and short tan stand pushups. 2159. I'm not thinking about him. I'm thinking about the people that can really rip through delis and shorthand San pushups so that day's workout is prescribed for the people that are in this gym that I know can really fly through the movements and get the stimulus that I want.

Sam Rhee: [00:07:55] It's not the single best. I assume it's the group of the best, because otherwise if you program like. For Dave Boak the RX would be like friggin 5 million

David Syvertsen: [00:08:04] pounds. For sure. Last Monday we did work out called Freddy's revenge. I think it was one day or Tuesday, five rounds, five shoulder, overhead, 10 burpees.

Do it as fast as you can. RX one 85, one 25. I texted both the night before. I was like, you should do this at two 25. Yeah. I saw you're not going to make the gym, do it at two 25 and do it at one. Yeah. which is fine, but there are some exceptions to certain kinds of workouts where I will message someone be like, Hey, like maybe.

Elena last week, we, the deficit handstand, pushups, he did a four-inch deficit. I didn't tell her to do that by the way, but she knows she's experienced enough. She's so good at handstand pushups. having her do a one-inch deficit is it's no deficit to her. So she made the deficit harder to Brian and Carla did the same thing.

Right.

Sam Rhee: [00:08:39] I think the issue is this is that. Just because we can do an RX doesn't mean we should do an RX. perfect example is Freddy's revenge. The five rounds of a five shoulder to overhead at 185 and 10 burpees. Yep. So when I saw that workout, so this is my struggle, and I'm going to talk about, weight creep and how things have gotten heavier and harder over the years.

but I was like, I have done. 185 pounds, shoulder to overheads in the past. Yes. I could possibly

David Syvertsen: [00:09:12] you're capable

Sam Rhee: [00:09:13] I'm right. But it will be very taxing for me and it will be very slow. I am not going to sit there and be able to do. And I know, was a De la Torre who was coaching me that day, know he's like at least one or two rounds on broken to go.

And I was like, Whoa, that's really hard. And it's going to be a struggle and I'm going to probably hurt myself. If I try it, could I do it? I could. And maybe three or four years ago, I would have been stupid enough because I'm like, Oh, let me try, let me push. This is the RX. So I want to be able to see if I can do it and I might've tried it.

Yep. now, having gone through multiple years of experience, I'm like, no, 165. And that was, that was,

David Syvertsen: [00:09:54] that was tough. That was plenty tough.

Sam Rhee: [00:09:55] Yeah. And, so that's the issue is that, and I know what the stimuli, yeah. Fortunately Delatour was talking about the stimulus, which is you got to get through this in a relatively quick fashion, and this is not, singles and whatnot.

but it's still very tough, even for me at this point to not look at it as a challenge or something to shoot for. Yeah. how do we fight that?

David Syvertsen: [00:10:18] That's, it's tough because it's different for everybody. I think one of the things I remember, we. At a coaches meeting a few, a couple of years ago. Now maybe the coaches meeting was about the pre-workout talk at the whiteboard.

I sent every coach a workout and I said, you're going to go in front of all the other coaches. You're going to talk about the workout, the similar scaling options, blah, blah, blah. I think I will tell every member of this, if you. that talk at the whiteboard prior to the workout is one of the most important parts of the class is that's when you talk about, and I try to, and I'm trying to get better at this myself and I have the advantage, I programmed it.

So I have the thoughts in my head already where it's the other coaches don't, but I think they all do a pretty good job of it. Is, you need to really tune into what the coach is saying about the workout and what the goal is right at my level, too, we were talking about Fran and we were talking about stimulus and we're talking about ours.

This conversation we had, there was a guy in the crowd that was very stubborn. He owned the gym. He was very out of shape, very out of shape. And we were talking about Fran as a 2159 thrusters and pull ups. This is a very fast, intense workout. Cap is nine minutes. You should be done well under nine. If you're not, you should be scaling.

The weight guy raises his hand and he goes, no, like I want to do Fran. I want to do the RX Fran. This is part of CrossFit. It's one of the benchmark workouts. And he's what's your fan time? 1245. Like you're not getting what you're supposed to out of that workout. This is where the disrespect for programming comes in from the client's perspective, their ego wants to be RX.

The coach that puts a lot of thought effort. Energy into programming is saying, Hey, I want your stimulus to be that's, three to seven minute window, because tomorrow we're doing this. And yesterday we did that, So the stimulus is not only about that particular workout, right? It's about what you're doing on again, we talked about this broad fitness exercise approach that I'm trying to get you.

I'm trying so hard to get you fitter for the next two, three, four, five, six, seven years. I don't care about what you're doing today. I don't care about like you going home and being like, guys, look, I'm flexing. I did RX today. Like you can do Fran and do one thruster at a time RX, but that's not what Fran is.

So it's really important for you to know what is the point of the workout and why?

Sam Rhee: [00:12:34] Yeah. So then why even have a RX or scale at all for a while when we were in the pandemic, we wrote just the name. Yeah. We didn't write times we didn't write weights or RX or scaled.

David Syvertsen: [00:12:45] So the reason I, during out like a lot of, we've, and this is a debate that we've had with coaches and I love having this conversation.

It's a productive conversation. Every time we, we could bring up plus too. Y so the question is why is there an RX? I think it gives people something, an understanding of what the SIMIS of the workout is. That's part one, like this should be like, Hey, if you can, like in a perfect world, everybody in the gym would have the same time are the same score because, but that's never going to happen.

But it's also something to shoot for over time, right? there's people in our gym right now that can RX maybe half the workouts and it's a scale the other half, or maybe they can RX a third. The ones that they cannot RX right now are, it's like a subliminal, Hey, this is a weakness for you.

So over the next year let's work, let's really put a lot of effort, thought energy, extra work, accessory work into that movement. So the next time this kind of workout comes up. you can do the prescribed workout, the prescribed weights. I think it gives people more goals to shoot after. there is the negative behind RX and scaled is it creates the misnomer of good and bad, And it's a fight that I fight all the time in terms.

Sam Rhee: [00:14:00] the other thing is that what RX was now is different than what you programmed RX to be. Three years ago, 100%. And so the newer athletes that are coming in now are like,

David Syvertsen: [00:14:14] they're gonna have a longer

Sam Rhee: [00:14:14] Hill. How am I going to art? I'll never RX this because

David Syvertsen: [00:14:19] it's even worse than that. People that were RX in three years ago are now scaling no longer RX. And that's a tough that's a huge

Sam Rhee: [00:14:25] hit. Yeah. It's a huge hit.

David Syvertsen: [00:14:26] Yes. And I do sympathize with that. And I know my time's coming with that too. I don't want anyone to think, that's going to happen to me at some point too.

And that's part like that's being developed right now. Like I've been humbled so many different times within the exercise program, but the competitive program where there's certain things I'm just not good at. if we throw a pistol workout that has high volume puzzles tomorrow, I'm scaling it.

where like maybe put that's three years ago and I'm like, no, I'm going to fight through it and try to get through it. You have to know where you have to turn the switch off.

Sam Rhee: [00:14:58] Yeah. But it's going to be very, I think it'll be very useful. It's hard once you actually face that, especially since you RX plus, right?

Like for example, you did 75 pound hang, a dumbbell snatches and three 15 versus two 25 dead lifts. And you got the same score as your, brother Aaron

David Syvertsen: [00:15:17] on the, who doesn't lock his elbow out of him.

Sam Rhee: [00:15:21] He's a lot taller than you are. You got to give him that he was taller than me, but I will. But, so I, I always play around with that concept because first of all, it is used as a push for people, but then it's not supposed to be negative.

It's not supposed to be used as a badge of honor, but yet people use it as, competitive fuel in order to. and so finding that balance because you're right, it's a balance of these two competing, have, issues with it is very difficult, especially, yes, it's a moving target and moving up and getting heavier and more difficult for people.

it's one of those things that I think, I don't have a good solution for it. it's a useful tool. I think it's a powerful tool.

David Syvertsen: [00:16:05] Yes. I imagine you had every workout without weights up there. What would you do?

Sam Rhee: [00:16:10] we did for awhile and I, I think,

David Syvertsen: [00:16:13] no, we didn't that we never had workouts without a suggested weight, but we did not record.

Sam Rhee: [00:16:18] Oh, I see. Oh, you mean what an RX weight,

David Syvertsen: [00:16:20] like tomorrow's workout as 20 lunges in it at a time. It's 75 55. It's really light. You should be picking that thing up one time and doing all 20 lunges. If I wrote tomorrow's workout without any weight on it.

Sam Rhee: [00:16:32] you wrote down front squats. Choose what you choose.

Wait. She was not recording it. If you want to be cynical about it, the people

David Syvertsen: [00:16:40] who it's going to happen

Sam Rhee: [00:16:42] are going to go 95 pounds and just don't

David Syvertsen: [00:16:45] do it. The explanation comes in, right? Like right now, I don't know how many people read it, but on the cross, the bison.com website, when we post a workout, there's a little paragraph underneath it.

It's not long. It's two to three sentences usually. And there's usually some talk that could probably help you guide tomorrow. And I wrote this on the, when I sent the programming out to all the members. That I want you to think about a thruster. Wait, hint. And in terms of what's coming up in our programming, if I told you to do throw 10 thrusters and five box jumps and get it done in under a minute.

Ooh. All right. Because both of those notes are written in there and that's something I'm trying to get better at myself. That's something I coach all the time now. It's Hey, I'm going to tell you right now, do 10 front squats and five box jumps in a minute. Okay. A get it done in under a minute. B if I told you to do thrusters at that weight, could you do it?

Because what that's going to do, it's going to make people go a little lighter when you have some people that are like, screw that I'm going heavy, bro. and then they're screwed for the workout.

Sam Rhee: [00:17:43] I do appreciate that because you're helping guide us in terms of understanding what the stimulus is for the workout.

And that's why the guidance of the coach, like you said, is so important because then they say, you gotta do this. You can do singles on this. That's okay. Or you can go on, broken on, you have to go. You should go on broken. That that really guides, all of us, in terms of the stimulus, I will say, it's, it is, I don't want to get rid of it because it is such a powerful tool.

I do also feel that there are a lot of people who look at numbers, which is fine, I think, and they look at certain people's numbers, which I think is very. it's good. I think overall, I think finding that competitive juice and looking at somebody's numbers and trying to see yourself is great.

I do also like the fact that it's not purely a rank system, there are some, whiteboard systems where it just lists the top person second. And then it just keeps going down like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

David Syvertsen: [00:18:37] eight. That's a faulty approach.

Sam Rhee: [00:18:38] And I can't stand that because, It forces, it doesn't force, but it incentivizes people to just come in when they can do great on a workout and then not be 25th on a workout.

as opposed to,

David Syvertsen: [00:18:50] I'll say this, if you're giving competitive, if that is something that fuels you in my opinion, competition does not reside. It doesn't has no place when there's no judging. think about every competition in the world. There's an officiating source, a ref, an amp, a timer, a time chip.

You can't day to day. Like I want the best score on the whiteboard because I'll tell you what people that have done that here in the past. Like they cheat because they that's, their self-worth is on the whiteboard. They do 11 reps instead of 15. They, don't squat below parallel because it's faster.

They don't lock their elbows up because they don't stand to extension because it's faster. That's where. Looking at numbers and other people can become a detriment.

Sam Rhee: [00:19:32] Yes. again, that's ego and character, right? So if you're looking at it, not from an ego perspective, but from a, I want to push myself, I know I'm around this person's level.

David Syvertsen: [00:19:46] That's where I want the whiteboard to come

Sam Rhee: [00:19:47] in. And I feel like, wow, I am comparable. I know I put a real, or, you know what I knew, I didn't put my max effort in and look at that lap. Like I could see that. Yes. or, and some days I'm like, eh, I wasn't feeling my best today and look, it,

David Syvertsen: [00:20:01] that's another reason why you shouldn't be putting that much into the whiteboard because you don't know what the other person is going through right now.

Like maybe they on purpose want to move slow because they want to work on some technique things or. Wednesday's workout here is burpees and running. Like you really think it's fair for someone up here in zone one to be compared to them zone 15, stop, like it's so bad, like you're trying to tie this to the RX scaled approach.

The RX should always be used as a guide. If you want it to be a goal that you can RX every workout you are that caliber of an athlete and you're hitting the stimulus. I'm fine with that. I really am. but where that becomes a detriment is the, you can't stick, skip steps one through four, and just find yourself at step five, because now you have the fancy RX next to your name.

Like those skipped steps really impeded what you're trying to be. You're trying to be a better you're trying to be better. You're trying to be getting better shape, improve your capacity, improve your strength, If you're skipping those steps, just so that you can have two letters next to your name.

Because it makes you feel good about yourself. I think you're not really grasping the point, the concept of what CrossFit is. And I, I've been doing this for seven, like coaching here for seven years now, two years prior to that, I don't have the solution yet. And we've been tweaking it here over the past year or two more so than others.

We used to right. Scale than

Sam Rhee: [00:21:27] what you scale. I was about to say yeah, blah, blah,

David Syvertsen: [00:21:30] blah. And Rose are

Sam Rhee: [00:21:31] one 25 instead of one 35.

David Syvertsen: [00:21:33] And like now we're just writing our scaled. And now, for a while we said RX plus was scaled because you're scaling the workout up. And, I've gone backwards on that even though we try to for a year and I don't disagree.

It's not that I disagree with it. I just think that it helps create. If you are someone that looks back on whiteboards from two years ago, that helps you figure out, all right, what was I doing back then? And I wish more people took that in that the arts and scaled is not for where you rank it's for you.

When you do this shit two years from now, I want you to see what you were used to be doing used to scale this. Now you are exiting this there's objective progress, right? let's say, Fridays are vendors that work out five shoulder or at 10 burpees. Let's say two years ago, you scaled it.

Sam Rhee: [00:22:16] I did it at one 55, four years ago.

David Syvertsen: [00:22:18] And this year you are at one 65. Yeah. And so

Sam Rhee: [00:22:22] it's a progress it's progress. Yeah,

David Syvertsen: [00:22:24] because what is intensity? Intensity to me when I started was like, go as hard as you can, sweat breathe, heavy crawl on the ground. I still do that. Because I'm dramatic after I work out. Yeah. Intensity is doing more work in the same amount of time.

improve, like doing more work in X amount of time. That's what the intensity is. It's not necessarily more pain

Sam Rhee: [00:22:46] to me, but go ahead.

David Syvertsen: [00:22:47] it's not necessarily, it's more true.

Sam Rhee: [00:22:50] The more painful it is, the more

David Syvertsen: [00:22:51] intense, not always going faster right away and killing yourself through the workout.

It's improving the amount of work that you did in X amount of time.

Sam Rhee: [00:22:58] The work output given.

David Syvertsen: [00:23:00] So if I did TT yeah. At one 55 this year. And I did the DT at one 65 next year, and I got the same exact time. Yeah. That is an objective to me. Your workout put increased. Yes. Like I did more work in that period.

That's correct. So that's where I think RX and scaled can really come in to help people over the course of one, two, three, four, five years. That it, but it should not. it's a long-term thing. It's not today. That's why I get mad when people say I scaled today, I'm like next year, when you do this again, let's try to like up something.

And let's see even get the same time.

Sam Rhee: [00:23:33] I think it is. It's a time process for that reason, but also from an, a maturity process in terms of. Understanding it because, I was so obsessed with the whiteboard and the numbers and comparing

David Syvertsen: [00:23:46] myself to people I haven't been to

Sam Rhee: [00:23:48] for a long time.

And it was only after a while that I realized. It means less to me than it ever has. And it's not that it's not, I still look at the white for sure. I still use it because it's a very good

David Syvertsen: [00:24:02] tool for your self worth is not based on

Sam Rhee: [00:24:04] that is correct. But that's a maturation process. that is, it took me years.

David Syvertsen: [00:24:08] Some people will never get it.

Sam Rhee: [00:24:10] It took years.

David Syvertsen: [00:24:10] Some people don't ever get that. And

Sam Rhee: [00:24:12] I'm hoping that the way you set it up will help people get to

David Syvertsen: [00:24:15] them. One thing I can say that, No. When I started CrossFit the open, it was like, there was just the workout. There was no scaled, but that's one thing they've evolved with a lot, like I had no place to an RX workouts when I first started, And, my one or max snatch was one 45. I go right. Do one 35, 30 times. okay. but now they have all these, like that's where it cross. It has made a lot of strides. They scale every workout, but also something I've internally have been thinking about. Is do I start changing RX based on age. And you have scaled, you have RX and you have 40 plus or 45 plus.

And I, because the like, and I do, I model a lot of our programming after the open, if they're doing it, I feel like I should be where they don't really change the weights until 55. but in my opinion, it should be earlier than that. or. we've talked about this too, is you have RX and competitive RX, but I don't ever want to separate the gym in that way, because you're going to have people that do competitive RX just because, they want something harder

Sam Rhee: [00:25:19] maybe because it's my ego, but I don't want senior citizen RX ever to be a thing.

don't do that, please. I don't mind being scaled. I'm okay with that. Yeah.

David Syvertsen: [00:25:29] You're an anomaly though. I think there are some people that. it would make them feel better to see an RX next to their name.

Sam Rhee: [00:25:36] Oh, no, I still feel better if I have an RX next to my name, but I'm not going to risk myself to get that RX if I don't,

David Syvertsen: [00:25:43] but you've been through some stuff that got you to that.

I don't always want people to go through, a physical injury to have that. I want to teach people, you don't need to go through that.

Sam Rhee: [00:25:54] And I also realize with the creep of the fitness increasing at our gym. Like you said, I'm falling. Like I'm falling off that RX number way more now than I used to, but I am more, I like to think I'm a more mature athlete

David Syvertsen: [00:26:14] that

Sam Rhee: [00:26:14] I, my ego isn't bound up into it. but if there's a workout and I can kill it and I have RX next to my name. Yep. yeah, I'm a little shallow. it makes me feel a little bit good for that day.

I can't help it.

David Syvertsen: [00:26:28] I wouldn't call it shallow, again, if you're, if you got your access, your name, but you got the workouts on after the time cap.

Oh, it's a bad job. No, that, that you made the wrong decision.

Sam Rhee: [00:26:37] I don't feel good about that. No, I want to be able to do it the way it was prescribed.

David Syvertsen: [00:26:41] let's think about you could, you can bring up time caps. With RX and scaled. As long as you finish a workout under the time cap you did, what was the intended stimulus?

Now this happens all the time here, where I have a time cap on a workout and someone's Oh, I'm on my last set. I got to finish. if we're going to be objective about this and take personal feelings out of it, You did a bad job picking your weights, It's not, I'm not saying you're not fit.

I'm saying you did not chase the stimulus of that workout. I've been on that side before. Trust me, I've done that where I'm like, I went a little beyond my means there, but that's something that needs everyone needs to I want people to come here and think about workouts like that.

Not just RX or scaled I'm good or bad I'm experienced or not experienced. Did I chase after the Simmons to that workout for the sake of my own health and fitness down the road. I think

Sam Rhee: [00:27:31] there is something to be thought of and maybe kick around not competitors RX, but something, because I do see there are probably I'm thinking about 10 or 20 athletes at the gym who are just like you program it at an RX for them.

And they're finishing the workout in. Five minutes and everyone. And then there's this big thing where there's an unfit. Like everyone else is like 10, like 15.

David Syvertsen: [00:27:53] That happened a lot outside when we were out doing the outdoor

Sam Rhee: [00:27:56] workouts. And I know you want to challenge every, your best athletes and in order to do that, how do you program in order to figure that

David Syvertsen: [00:28:05] it's tough and it's part it's partially on them.

Like I chose to, I

Sam Rhee: [00:28:09] know four inch deficits as opposed to regular stuff like

David Syvertsen: [00:28:13] that, his workout where I wasn't heavy on the death. And have you ended up obviously, I hope you know this, like I'm not doing that to show off. Like I just know that I have good pulling strength and I've been dead lifting since August.

And I knew that I can do this unbroken. I can do that. I'm broken. I knew that I would be 56.

Sam Rhee: [00:28:30] I have a big group of people that, Could benefit from programming in a certain way, but I could see that, but I do agree. It's hard to do that without splitting the gym up. And

David Syvertsen: [00:28:40] yeah, like I, I see some people here do that sometimes where they'll just be like, they're going to, they don't need to announce it.

They just do the RX plus, because I said prior to the workout, you should be able to do these deadlifts on broken. Like I do like this, ain't gonna challenge me. I'm just gonna have to wait a little bit. It's okay. it's fine. But I think. That is comes with new site. When you call it a maturation within crossfit, you start to know yourself as an athlete at some point, and where you can push and, and I want everyone to think like that and, be a little analytical on yourself because if you're constantly trying to get yourself fitter, you're gonna have to push the boundaries at some point.

And like we are, we're one of the fittest gyms in the world. There's no doubt about that.

Sam Rhee: [00:29:18] Yeah. We gotta talk about that one of these days. Yeah. I love the discussion about it. I think a RX and scaled is, is a great thing to talk about and a discussion. And I think people should keep thinking about it themselves too, in order to figure out what they think about it.

yeah. and use it the way it's supposed to be used.

David Syvertsen: [00:29:34] So that's important. Yeah. Cool.