S02E46 RECAPPING CHRIS HINSHAW - DEEP DIVE Part 1
Dave and Sam take a deeper dive into their interview (Episode 43) with Chris Hinshaw @aerobiccapacity, one of the top CrossFit coaches in the world and founder of aerobiccapacity.com. Dave and Sam break down some of the more impactful concepts and discussions with Chris Hinshaw and how to apply it to coaching and training.
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S02E46 CHRIS HINSHAW DEEP DIVE PT 1
[00:00:00] David Syvertsen: All right. Welcome back to the HerdFit podcast. I am coach David Syvertsen. I'm here with Dr. and coach Sam Rhee. We are going to do a couple of episodes. Now. We think it's going to be two. We'll see. Sometimes we don't know. We just start talking and say, all right, that's long enough, but we want to reflect on our Chris Hinshaw podcast.
For those that don't know, it that's still was a huge deal to get him Adam rans and calls him my new boyfriend. I think it's just jealous because he used to be the most listened to podcasts on the heard fit and now Chris and Shaw pass them. So that means Adam's going to be back on at some point with some vengeance here.
But yeah, I mean, that was, it was a huge deal for us. I did feel like I watched the YouTube video and I was kind of embarrassed by how I looked the whole time. I clicked like a little kid in a candy shop, but I'd really, that's how I felt, just talking to him. I really, if anyone can think about either your profession or just something socially.
So there's someone out there that you really look up to and you try to emulate, or you try to learn from that's that's who he was to me as a coach, you know? and like that is he's the top, he's the top coach in all, cross it, in my opinion. And to be sitting next to him and just getting to talk to him an hour.
And that's the day before I got to spend the entire day with him at the aerobic capacity seminar it was, it was like almost a little dream come true, not to get too deep about it, but that's, that really was how big of a deal. That was. It's amazing
[00:01:13] Sam Rhee: how gracious and Thoughtful and kind he was to actually do that with us.
He clearly, he is one of the smartest guys I've ever met in CrossFit or outside of the CrossFit space. The comments he makes are very thoughtful. And he really takes the time to, you have to actually kind of pick apart his answers a little bit because sometimes what he doesn't say is this.
It holds as much meaning as sometimes the things that he does.
[00:01:36] David Syvertsen: Just, just like real, a quick, funny backstory on, on how this even happened, because in all honesty we know that the HerdFIt podcast, not yet is at the top of the ratings for CrossFit podcasts yet. Right. And how does a little podcasts like us bag a guy like Chris Hinshaw to come on and talk to us for an hour.
Face to face too. A lot of times when you do interviews with some like that, it has to be zoom or busts, right. Or some sort of online format. Basically I signed up for the aerobic capacity seminar, which was the next day in Morristown, New Jersey. So I knew who's going to be in Jersey and I just sent him an Instagram message and kind of just politely asked him if he would be willing to spend 15 to 20 minutes with us on our podcast, 15 to 20.
And that we would, come to him. And I don't even think I asked Sam at this point. I don't know. I just, I just threw it out there thinking I would never get a response. And I think within 20 minutes he got a response to said, Hey, Dave, I'm really busy right now. My time in New Jersey is very limited.
So I start reading it. I'm like, all right, he's politely saying no. And he goes, but I do have a window on Friday between three and 4:00 PM. to support your podcast. I would love to support your podcast. And I was like, holy cow, screenshot it, send it to Sam. I'm like, dude, you might have to cancel plastic surgery.
[00:02:47] Sam Rhee: No, what you said was dude, he said, yes. If you can't make it, that's fine. I'm going to, I'll have to do it myself. This is an opportunity I can't miss. And I was like, wait, let me try to rearrange my schedule. I'm going to try to be there.
[00:02:58] David Syvertsen: It really is. I mean, I do feel like something like that is once in a lifetime, and. That this was also during the open and Fridays. Not that anyone really cares about my schedule Fridays are tough, just tight time-wise they start early, they end late and It's during the open, it was 22.2 weekend delis, burpees, everybody, if you don't remember that, and that's a hot time, that's a really tough time for, to make anything happen.
And I just said, dude, we're making this the priority for today. And as long as it's okay with my wife and it was, she was at work, my, my son was at daycare, so that wasn't impacted at all. And so I said, Don, let's do it. We commit to it. I think this was a week before we were supposed to. We were going to do it at his hotel and he wanted to do in the lobby.
I did ask him, I was like, would you prefer, like you don't know us, so I'm assuming you want to just in the lobby somewhere at. Or your room. And he said lobby. And I was like, all right, I get it. I'm just like, I did this when I was an intern in college where I had to take all these like fancy people to business meetings.
And I was, I was very unimportant. I was literally basically just walking people or chauffeuring people to their meetings with other important people. And I would just kind of sit in the corner and this was like one of my internships in college and it was in Manhattan the day before every single I had to do this, probably these eight or nine of these throughout the course of the summer.
And the day before every single meeting, I would go to eight or nine different stops. There was like a meeting every hour and I would walk to every single building so that I could see visually what the building was, so that when I was with these important CEOs and all this stuff, I didn't act I didn't know what I was doing.
I was like, yep, that's the building right there. But I would go the day before, so I wanted to be prepared. So I had that mindset always I always like to go somewhere before I have to be somewhere. Does that make sense? And just to kind of get a visual. So I go to the hotel. I think this was the Tuesday before we were, so we were going to interview him on a Friday and I go to the hotel and immediately I'm like, okay, this is a nice hotel.
And I think it was called the Robert Morris. Yeah, it's Robert Morris hotel, whatever. It's a nice hotel. More sound. I think it's like the nicest one or the only one it's a very nice hotel in this area should have a million weddings there. It looks like, yeah. And so I walk in the lobby and I immediately know this is probably not going to happen in the lobby.
It's just too nice. There's too much going on. So I'm looking around, I have like my, no matter what sweatshirt on with a skull on it and my workout pants, and I'm looking for outlets in the wall. Yeah. That's
[00:05:23] Sam Rhee: what I told him. I was like, when you go there, check out and see where the outlets are so we can hook up all of our equipment.
[00:05:28] David Syvertsen: So I'm looking, I find some, I find some on the ground and I can immediately feel there's some eyes on. Because everyone in there is dress nice or has a suit on. And I'm like in my gym clothes, I think I just got done working out too. So probably don't smell great. And , I had this like gut instinct, like I got to stop doing this.
So I walk up to one of the guys, the manager security guard or whatever. I said kind of fit a little bit. I said, I have a podcast with two other guys and we're going to record here. One of us is staying at this hotel and we're going to, we would like to record here. Is there anywhere in the lobby?
We can do it. And I got an immediate, no, and I'm like, oh no, wait. So she goes, would you like to rent out a room? And I'm like, well, I'm going to be here. I was thinking like 35 minutes, 45 minutes. By the time we set up, introduce ourselves, like I'm not going to rent out. What is it? 500 bucks to do that?
No. And they, they bring me up to the front desk and said, let me see if I could do some for you. So the guy was nice. All right. But they were definitely like, you're not even going to want to do in the lobby Friday afternoons. It's one of the busiest times in the hotel and it's just noisy. There's backup music.
There's like elevate. It probably would have messed up the aesthetics a little bit. Right?
[00:06:32] Sam Rhee: Yeah. It would've been hard to record without all this stuff going
[00:06:35] David Syvertsen: on with all the music. So yeah. I go to the front desk and he's okay, what's the name? And I'm just like, Henshaw his name, not mine, but I just said Hinshaw and oh, okay.
So you have two reservations. And I was like, oh yeah, yeah. And he goes, I can upgrade one of the rooms. That's this is what I can do for you. All right. I can upgrade one of the rooms to a conference room suite. And the conference room suite is basically if it's a conference room, a front like big circle conference table, and then the back is about.
All right, but it is one room. In my head I'm like Chris and Charles never met me. He has no idea who I am and now I'm being asked to change his hotel reservation. And I really I tried to message him and I couldn't, I tried to call him, I had his number and couldn't get through, we went right to voicemail.
So I said, all right, screw it. I said, let's do it. Let's change the hotel reservation. And. They're like, are you sure? And I said, yeah. And I was like, no fee, right? We're not paying for this. No, one's paying them. No, no, no. We're just going to give you a free upgrade. You guys can record up there. And I was like, cool.
And I walked out and I'm like, what did I just do? A very ballsy move. So I walked back to the car. I probably called him 10 times in the next hour. And it just kept on going to voicemail. I think I found out later he was traveling. And so that's why I sent him a message on Instagram. I sent him a text message.
I think three in the next 24 hours. It's now I think Thursday night and I still haven't heard back from him. And I have like, when this situation happens, I always assume the worst that he changed my
[00:08:03] Sam Rhee: hotel reservation
[00:08:04] David Syvertsen: without asking me, yeah, I'm going to take away your CrossFit affiliate and you're going to be kicked out across it forever.
That's how, where my head started going. And I eventually got a hold of him Thursday night. He called me and I told him, I just told him what the deal is. Cool. Thanks. Thanks for the upgrade. She let her, so that's how that whole thing happened. And Sam and I showed up Friday afternoon we run it right up to his room.
And again, credit to him. He did have some backup with him though. So I will say he wasn't like in alone with his room in a, in a room by himself. That, we show up with a briefcase. I feel like I've seen this in a, in a murder movie before, like these two guys show up in the briefcase and the duffel bag.
Yeah. Okay. One of them looks smart. One of them looks like a meathead, so the. But it all worked out, shook our hands and we basically small talk for about 10 minutes and just got right into it.
[00:08:52] Sam Rhee: Yeah. It's funny. He was with his better half Heidi and also the guy who owns a or no, or is part of TAC five uh, five 11
[00:09:00] David Syvertsen: Yeah, five 11 tactical tactical.
[00:09:03] Sam Rhee: And from my standpoint, I almost EFT up because. Hooked up. We use lapel mics, and I totally missed leveled the lapel mics on the recorder. And it was unusable. The audio was so bad. There was so much feedback on it. And when I first listened to it, I was like, Oh, my
[00:09:23] David Syvertsen: God, we just
[00:09:24] Sam Rhee: ruined the credenza. I didn't ruin this.
And I was messing around with it. I finally pulled audio off of the video recording and it didn't sound as good as like when we talk. Right. But it was
[00:09:35] David Syvertsen: acceptable. It definitely acceptable. And
[00:09:38] Sam Rhee: lesson learned for me. I should have backup plus backup has
[00:09:41] David Syvertsen: backup on these things. Thank God you did have backup because we liked this was Sam's idea to record it on the phone and put it on YouTube.
If we, if we weren't going to be putting this stuff on YouTube. We would have been out of luck, right?
[00:09:50] Sam Rhee: Yeah. I just need to be a better technical person
[00:09:53] David Syvertsen: when it comes to yeah. Everyone should know that Sam does all the tech stuff with us. I don't do any of that. We're going to try to teach me how to do it soon, just because it's a lot of work for him.
But so I do kind of want to dive into the actual discussion that we had with him. Some on some off-camera kind of stuff and. Just what is life for us? And there was so much content in that podcast. I have a, I'm going to pull up a text that he sent me. And this has nothing to do with Sam and I, it really, it has to do with what he said.
He sent me a text that. And he goes today was amazing. You guys came 100% prepared and delivered great questions that made it easy for me to provide solid content. This was my favorite podcast. Thank you. And then he actually came up to me the next morning. I showed up to their robot capacity seminar and I was, I'm always early to stuff like that.
I was one of the first people there just sitting, waiting for him. Start the thing. And he comes up to me and we talked for about 20 minutes, just small talk. And he really is yeah, we went out there last night and we were talking about your podcasts all the time. That was just one of the best I've ever been on.
And it wasn't necessarily like us at all. It was more like it was content that he got to share that he'd never shared on another podcast. And he's you got to send this to morning charcoal on Tony. He goes, there is so much good content on that. And normally if someone's comes up to you and says, man, my content was so good, like dude, relax.
But it really. Because of the status he has. And, we were just reflecting on him a little bit. He really is a good, smart, genuine person. I really do think that all of his intentions are positive and unselfish. Absolutely.
[00:11:19] Sam Rhee: He wants it. He, when he says, and he talks about the Matt Chan wanting to share his content.
That that's
[00:11:25] David Syvertsen: truly what he believes in. Yeah. Yeah. Sharing everything, not hiding anything. Absolutely. And, for factors, there's snakes out there stealing a lot of his stuff and not giving him credit for it and it doesn't bother him. It doesn't stop him from doing it. I mean that funny story that he told us about.
Giving the running workouts at the front from getting them from Froning Froning was you copying and pasting the workouts? Like I've been mad about that before on a much lesser not as big of a deal scale, but you see Jim's who's our workout sometimes. And like, you should always give credit if you took it from another gym, I'd do that.
I'll take a I'll workout from another. And I'll say workout was taken from blah, blah, blah, just out of respect. A lot of people don't do that for hinge on him, draws a much bigger deal than me. And just the fact that we can laugh about it now, it's just it's funny. That's how it, that's how it works with him.
So what we're going to do right now is just kind of dive into the podcast episode if you missed it. And sometimes when you don't have the same perspective as someone else that's listening to it, if you hear someone else discuss what their opinion was. What they took from it, it kind of broadens your view and it might actually help you learn more.
So I have, we have about eight or nine topics. We'll probably dive into the first, maybe two or three in this episode. And the next one we'll, we'll finish it off. The first thing that really caught my attention, this is something I feel strongly. Both in the sports space and in the CrossFit health slash fitness space and how important it is that coaches are also athletes or have been athletes.
And I definitely want to get your perspective on this before I dive into deeper, but it that's the biggest thing that I think we. You got calls competitors, right? We have our masters qualifier coming at two weeks, but we're also coaches and we're also here just part of the bison community, how important it is for us that we do CrossFit.
We teach CrossFit, we coach CrossFit, but we, we D we do it 3, 4, 5, 6 days a week. And we really immerse ourselves into it for a long time. Yeah.
[00:13:15] Sam Rhee: I've heard this several times about the cross. Community one of the prerequisites for anyone who is going to be teaching it or be part of it is you have to, you have to bleed CrossFit.
And that means believing in its methodology and using it in your own life in every way, shape or form. And this was important enough for Chris Henshaw that he actually cut this up or had to cut up or someone cut it up for him and put it on. This clip of our podcast on his social media. Yeah, because I think he truly believes you can only, and we, we, you talked about this bill Belicheck, not an outstanding or hall of fame football player, great football coach, but CrossFit is different.
I think you, on some level you have to be able to. Understand what that success is like, what that athletic effort is in order to. Build confidence in your athletes. One of the biggest things he talked about was building confidence for athletes, and that's one of our topics
[00:14:12] David Syvertsen: as well. Yeah. And knowing
[00:14:13] Sam Rhee: that from an athletic perspective, he wasn't a CrossFit athlete before, but he was a triathlete and he knew how to compete at the highest level.
Right. And there is something that he's, and he mentioned that several times in his podcast about competing at the highest level, mind of a champion. And it's very hard, maybe not impossible. Almost impossible to do that. If you weren't
[00:14:34] David Syvertsen: an athlete yourself. And I will even say about, if you want to bring in the football analogy of bill Belcher, he did play football.
Like I got done reading his biography. I read that book twice too. And that he did play, he just wasn't very big or fast, and so it's almost like. One of us couldn't coach a games athlete because we weren't at the games. Now we were, we were in the sport and we've been in cross it for a long time.
So we do have enough credibility slash experience with the, the movements, the workouts, the stresses, the ups. That I think that's the biggest thing that I see within Shaw is he took all of his experience as an athlete, the ups, the downs, the failures, the success, the work ethic, these things that no one ever knows about that you do that have to get to that level.
He can truly understand what the athlete is going through. Right. And, Hinshaw, when he said he started coaching Matt Frazier, right. He said, one of the hardest workouts he ever gave him was I think it was nine rounds of 300 meters. In 54 seconds. I believe don't call me on that. Might've been 56 with a 100 meter walk.
All right. That was the workout. But the walks had to be done in a specific time and Frazier hit hit him up after he said that I, I failed. I couldn't do it. And it blew his mind. And Hinshaw said, because I am, I am numbers. I am objective. I, this is like you, if you're eight, if you're capable of running 400 meters in this or a mile in that, there's no question.
You should be able to do this workout. And. At that elite level. It really only, that really only matters if you're doing all the stuff outside of working out correctly, too. Right? Like I can't, you can't take Sam Rees personal best in the mile and then tell him to go do it after three weeks of vacation where he ate and drank a lot and didn't live a healthy lifestyle, like that's, but you're assuming at that level, Matt, Frazier's not doing that.
He's doing everything on his own. So that's why I think it kind of confuses. Hinshaw or confused him in the moment because you know, Frazier's doing that and you know, he's at an elite level of fitness and these numbers do work. It's interesting to me that he can take his experience as a high level athlete.
That we, we, we re we gave all the accomplishments that he's done in the Ironman and take numbers on a spreadsheet, which he loves a lot, his spreadsheets and it just basically, it's you're a robot almost, and it's hard for, it would be really hard for a coach that doesn't have any experience as a high level athlete, or even in the CrossFit space to tell someone to do that.
At the end of the day, if you're an athlete and you can't do something like you fail, but the coach is telling you that you should do it. A lot of people have that defense mechanism. The saying, well, Who are you to tell me that I should be doing this?
[00:17:12] Sam Rhee: There are multiple aspects to this. One of them is the credibility of the coach, so that the athlete has buy-in, which was one of the big things that he also talked about.
The second thing is. I think coaches have to be able to get into the mindset of what that particular athlete is thinking. And it helps if you yourself have experienced, it's not impossible for you to understand what that athlete is thinking, but boy, it's a lot easier. If you've gone
[00:17:39] David Syvertsen: through it too, and I'll even, we can even get away from the sport because I know a lot of us, I wouldn't say most of the people that listen to this are not in the sport.
They're here for fitness and yes, they care about performance. They want to get better, but they don't really care about competing or even getting to the elite level. They're here for the workouts. They're here to be healthy. I think this applies to that coach as well. And I'll tell you why this happens a lot.
When I coach, when I, when I do my pre-workout. Workout talk at the whiteboard. I like to really dive into details if I have the time, if we're a little tight on time, I have to be a little quicker with it. And. Sometimes I'll shout out to Ella Ella. Sometimes when I talk about a workout, I will talk about, what's going to get hard.
What's going to sneak up on you. What's going to suck, and she goes, Dave, why do you have to tell us that? I don't want to know what's going to suck. And sometimes I think the PR and we all laugh about it. Perspective is not for you to be like, all right, guys, this is going to be really hard, like nine at a time, nine out of 10 times, when you come here, it's going to be really hard.
And we all know that by now, but I do think it helps that a coach has done this workout or has done the exact version of workout or has been doing it for so long that I've probably done this kind of workout 30 times. And I can give you a lot of my coaching experience when I talk like that is not to scare.
Someone are obviously I hope you know that it's I wish someone prepared me for that. Right. I always like to give the story of the open workout, 15.5 21 18 15, 12, 9, 6 3. I think it's one of your least favorite thrusters and bar facing burpees. It's everybody's least favorite. Yeah, it sucks. And I still.
Like that there was, to me, there was no pacing back then and that's, there's good and bad from that, right. It got me in decent shape for a while, but then at some point you, you bought it. You just can't get any better doing it. That way, where I did my 21 thrusters and my 21 burpees in a minute 37.
All right. That is really, really, really fast. Okay. It was like a sprint. It's almost like as if that was the time. If that workout was just 21, 21, that's how fast I went. And I remember I bottomed out so hard at when I think I was in the set of 12. I was laying on the ground for eight seconds in between every burpee.
It was so bad. I remember we almost went to the hospital after that. And that was, that was like a moment for me where I wish I had a coach tell him like, No one cares about how fast you do 21 or 18. It doesn't, you're not even halfway and when I'll talk like that and workout, and everyone's well, why do you talk like that?
I wish I had someone that I, that would tell me that. And that's a disadvantage of being a young CrossFit box owner that programs and coaches, and back then it was coaching almost everything right where I didn't have. So I just did everything on my own, but if I had a coach they're telling me right now, Hey, you got to solve it.
That's why I remember when I redid that workout, I did the 21 and 21 in three minutes, twice as long. It took me to do 2121. And my time overall was two minutes. So it, but that's like a learn from experience. I wish I didn't have to go through that. And that's why I think it's really important for a coach to do CrossFit because you make a lot of mistakes as an athlete, and then you make a lot of, you have a lot of successes in athlete and cross it if you're in for a long time.
And I think that kind of experience can really help athletes out. What I took away
[00:20:41] Sam Rhee: also from this was to maintain a certain level of empathy
[00:20:45] David Syvertsen: for your
[00:20:46] Sam Rhee: athlete. Yeah. I think especially when I'm coaching beginners, there's a certain level of frustration as a coach and impatience that naturally comes to play because I remember when I had a beginner and we went through box jumps and there was a huge hangup about just jumping in general and a lot of beginner athletes have a huge hangup about jumping. And that was a pretty young, raw coach. Yep. Didn't have a whole lot of empathy finally, with. Okay. How about 12 inches? Okay. How about six inches and presently, I think I put like
[00:21:20] David Syvertsen: a 10 inch plate on the ground, which is one inch and said, jump
[00:21:24] Sam Rhee: on this.
And she did, but I wasn't particularly nice or I could have been a little more empathetic. And so when I think about coaches understanding the mindset of athletes, it doesn't matter if you're coaching Frazier, a champion. You need to understand the mindset of every athlete. And when I think of this, I think about all right, I really should try to get into the mindset of an athlete.
And when I was faced with a challenge and I was really scared about doing something, what was helpful for me, what wasn't helpful. And I should approach it as a coach that way too, and having the CrossFit experience because we all face challenges, big or small. I think
[00:22:07] David Syvertsen: Hinshaw hits on that. Yeah. And he does, he does a really good job of reflecting on his own shortcomings physically.
He, he says it all the time that he has a genetic physical advantage that allows him to compete in the Ironman at a high level. Yes. It talks about his VO. He talks about a slow Twitch muscle fibers, which you can get measured and he has a physical advantage over it, but he also knows at the same time, he's never going to be strong.
He's never going to be fast. He hates sprints because he's not good at it. Right. He is like us in that regard. And he, and he started CrossFit. I want to say at Jason Cleveland gym, 2009, 2008, I think that era. And he reflects that. He talks about that story all the time, how he showed up, he was too scared to walk in and he left his first time.
Yes. That was a, that resonated with me. Yeah. And so he's been there and I just think it gives him more and more credibility. Imagine any Sakamoto? Yes. It's talking models. Gym, and yeah, he started coaching Colombo, but later, so that just knowing, and I, I hope all you athletes can really take that in the way Sam and I took it in as students.
To Hinshaw that when he gives these stories, he is telling you from a coaching perspective, like guys, I get it. So it also means that when a coach tells you, he told us a story at the aerobic capacity seminar about TIAA, the fittest woman on earth by a wide margin. How she, he, he had to tell her at a point, you need to suck it up.
You need to do better. And it was on these, those short interval polls, where you have to see how low you can get your, your pace. And she, her number was 1 27 or 1 28. That you was just like, that's what the workout was, is how, how low. So it only lasts about 10 to 12 seconds. You're training that specific energy system, like the ten second sprint.
And how, how low can you get your number? And she couldn't get to the number that she's been through in the past. And Hinshaw almost left. He goes like, all right, I'm leaving. You're not my I'm not going to coach you anymore. She eventually got it. And, but that coach you're allowed to do that when you have that credibility.
So there are moments when we, even as health fitness coaches, we will tell you to suck it up. We will tell you to go faster. We will type, we're not always going to pat you on the back and say, good job. We will occasionally say, suck it up. Stop being a baby. You need to buck up here.
[00:24:14] Sam Rhee: Right. Right. And that's where coachability and buy-in from an athlete is really important.
That's
[00:24:19] David Syvertsen: the next one? Mindset was the next topic here in the first bullet point under my mindset is, are they coachable? And he really, he spent a decent amount of time in there talking about what coachable means and he just the. No before you give your, your thoughts on that. His, the one that always sticks when I've heard him say this on other podcasts, Jason Khalifa is what really showed him what a coachable athlete is.
And Khalifa said to Hinshaw back when Hinshaw was not a big deal, nobody knew who Hinshaw was. If anything, he got a lot of flack for years from
[00:24:51] Sam Rhee: CrossFit traditionalist.
[00:24:52] David Syvertsen: Yup. For years, not, not a couple of months. Years of, of being told that you're doing it wrong. Okay. By a rising fitness program. Jason Kleber said I will do everything you ask.
And I will never question you that's coachable. Yeah.
[00:25:05] Sam Rhee: I mean, I think when you listen to him, you could tell he's a very experienced coach. And I also see this in other experienced coaches and just teachers in general. They get more and more frustrated. W w encountering lack of coachability or lack of buy-in.
I think there's nothing more frustrating for a coach to be experienced, to know they could take someone from this level to this
[00:25:29] David Syvertsen: level.
[00:25:30] Sam Rhee: And then just finding that that athlete is not willing to be coached or is not going to engage in buy-in because of any number of reasons. Right. And he's mentioned it.
Yeah. Especially some guy, CrossFit athletes, high level, who just weren't able to get past their ego and actually suck it up and believe in what was going on. And by the time they finally. Change their perspective, maybe got more mature, maybe were more humbled because they were not progressing in the CrossFit arena professionally
[00:26:10] David Syvertsen: that by then he said it's yeah, right there is.
When you're talking about the highest level of performance, there's a, there's a word. And we could talk about it later,
[00:26:19] Sam Rhee: but I would love to speculate on the athletes that he tried to coach that were not coachable. And by the time they came around to him again, They were past their prime and it was really difficult
[00:26:31] David Syvertsen: for them to, and that could be fun.
We could speculate, maybe we get some negative PR. I got a couple of names in my head that I'm thinking about. So yeah, so basically the mindset, because we asked him like, what makes these guys and girls so different? Because they're all physical freaks. Like there are unicorns, right.
And it really is like sometimes I have to sit back and like, when he says it, it makes so much more sense to me. Sometimes I don't spend enough time appreciating how truly fit the CrossFitters are and, people don't. And I mean, we just got done watching. You were part of it. These athletes that are taking on the masters qualifier in two weeks is watching them take on the workout.
We were just like talking about how impressed we are, but how, like what they can do. It's amazing because they're not specialists, they're not guys that go run a six-minute mile or five minute mile. They do that. And then they go lift their body weight with a power clean or a snatch, or do muscle ups. It's amazing.
But you know, what is it that makes other stand out? Why, why are the standings pretty much the same year after year? They're all unicorns. And one of them is how coachable they are. But the second one, it fired me up and it's still to this day, like I'm still fired up from listening. He goes, are they willing to take risk?
And at first you don't understand what he's saying until he explained it. He talked about how he made Jason. Who just those that don't know what we'll touch on it very quickly. Jason Cleaver was the CrossFit games champion before it really blew up. Don't take any credit away from him. He was a monster.
He's a founding father of the sport. Still a very big deal with NC fit does not compete anymore, but he was a. But there was always a weakness in his game. There was always the endurance. He was always dead last. That's what he always was like dead last place. He was this, a big meaty dude that have more power than everyone.
And Khalifa started working with Henshaw and goes to the CrossFit games the next year. And I think he won three of the four endurance events and just from working with them and he made Hinshaw, made Khalifa run 20 miles a few weeks before the cross. And that back then everyone was criticized in Khalifa for doing this.
Yeah. It was
[00:28:30] Sam Rhee: basically marathon prep that he
[00:28:31] David Syvertsen: was having in, right? Yeah. He, the Yasso 800, I think that was a it's 10 by 800 at, so, so basically the workout is you run 800 meters. How long did it take you? Okay. That time that's how long you're going to rest. And you try to repeat it over and over. So I think he said he ran like a 2 55, 800 meters, 2 56.
So I'm like that. And. You had to rest 2 56 and then just repeat that pattern for 10 times. And it's a, it's an actual, the workout is for a marathon prediction that that's the point of that workout. So why are you prepared to run a marathon? If you're going to go compete in the CrossFit games where most of the workouts are short and ten's heavy.
Right. And he did it, he accomplished it. And he went out and I think he had his best year since the year that he won and he was dominating the endurance fence and he took a lot of heat for that. And that was a, that's what we call red. Right. And I think that that's something that Matt Frazier, when he started working with Hinshaw, Hinshaw was always afraid that he would make Matt Frazier weaker.
That was one of the fears Frasier Hinshaw had in the early days of working with rich Froning and Matt Frazier. These guys had elite level strength. Now they're going to work on their engine and Henshaw was very honest with Frazier and he said, Hey, Are you afraid at all that this is going to have an impact on your strength, the interference effect.
Right. And which has been debunked, but just I feel like year after year, but anyway, the Frazier said I never want to finish second and again, right. So he, in his eyes, he wants to come in first place or he doesn't care about anything else. So him coming in second, like that's a common goal for a lot of people.
I want to make the podium. Like second to him is the same as last. It's, it's win or lose it's dire, dire live. And to do that, he was willing to take risk of, Hey, I might make my engine a little better, but I might lose a lot of strength. And if that is the case, you're not going to win the CrossFit games.
And he took that chance.
[00:30:25] Sam Rhee: It's funny because he also talks about the other athletes and he asked them about their goals and that's because he wants to get buy-in and coachability from them. If they are able to name their specific. Kara Saunders web her mile, right? Matt Frazier wants to win the CrossFit games.
Everyone basically A-list he got from them what it is that they wanted out of it. And he accepted that. But then his. Exchange agreement was, then you have to buy in a hundred percent and be coachable, take the risk, what we are doing right here. Right. And I thought that that was really interesting because as a coach, how many athletes do we know at our gym that have, are not reaching their potential because they are not engaging in buy-in or they're not particularly coachable.
[00:31:20] David Syvertsen: Or end and not even, or, and they don't take risk and they're not
[00:31:23] Sam Rhee: taking risks. They're constantly afraid. That is exactly right. Right. So
[00:31:26] David Syvertsen: I'm, I'm guilty of this too. Like I, I do train some times afraid to get hurt and it's usually, that's usually either when I do get hurt or I feel like I plateau. Right.
And I remember this was, so this was 22.2. I don't want to even want to come across the wrong way here. But 22.2 weekend was probably one of my best open workouts ever. And I do think it was a direct result of talking to him today. About taking risk about really going for it. And, I've been fighting an issue with my hip for a while and I went into it saying F it I'm going for it.
And it was my best result worldwide in since 2018,
[00:32:03] Sam Rhee: it's liberating to be able to take risks. And you don't have to take risks all the time. Right. Exactly. Last year and the ago. The four rep max front squat. I posted about this actually. Yeah. I failed what to, I don't know, 55 or something. Yeah. And you pull, you told me to go up to 2 75.
Yep. Hit two missed on the third. That was a risk. But honestly that was worth it. It was liberating to be able to do that, to not feel like, just go for it, who knows if I'm going to make it or not. Right. Not be safe, not just go for a 2 45 and make sure I hit that. Exactly. Just like I just went for it.
And in certain like you said, in injury is always in the back of everyone's mind, but sometimes especially if you're in the competitive mindset, correct. It's going to be liberating. Yeah. Even recreational athletes, if you feel like you're not hitting your potential. Think about it. How coachable are you?
Are you really following the programming? Did you show up Tuesday for Nancy? When you suck at overhead squats and you skip that workout? Hello, about 50% of the gym.
[00:33:09] David Syvertsen: That pissed me off. No, I know. I get
[00:33:11] Sam Rhee: like I, listen, I see what people's mobility. And you listen, you can't do 65 pounds or 95 pound overhead squat come
[00:33:18] David Syvertsen: in and do the bar bill, or even the overhead lunch.
We provide that as a scaling,
[00:33:22] Sam Rhee: you don't like running. Okay. But you hate rowing. Well, you know what for,
[00:33:25] David Syvertsen: we gave the Rowan options. So there was no excuse, not come in that day. I,
[00:33:28] Sam Rhee: I see the athletes that come in and they have buy-in on those days. And I look at, I look at the whiteboard on those days and I know who truly have.
Coachability and
[00:33:39] David Syvertsen: buy-in. Yeah, no, it's a great, that's a great point. And it's all about comfort, right? Being coachable. And taking risks is about running away from comfort. And I've said this so many times on my own social media, if you are constantly looking for comfort, you're losing. And if that never leaves like guys, we live in the most comfortable country in the, on the face of the earth.
Like we don't even realize how privileged we are. Your comfort level is fine, but if you really want to see gains, and this is why I do blending. So we'd done a podcast on this before blending sport and fitness together. This is under the same model. You do need to kind of get away from constantly wanting to be comfortable or doing the workouts you like doing or being with the people that you like when you work out your need, this pull up, you need this box right here.
We are venting. That really does. It leads you down the wrong path. And again, this is where Sam and I are coaches. We are allowed to talk like this because we do, we care about the big picture. And I think we see the big picture and athletes just like Chris Henshaw sees the big picture that the athletes, they just don't see it.
[00:34:39] Sam Rhee: I have major coachability issues myself. I acknowledge that. But when I look at this. It makes me want to try to be better as an athlete. And I want others to challenge themselves and look at it and, and say, am I truly buying in? Am I truly trying to be coachable? Am I truly when I need to take risks
[00:34:59] David Syvertsen: taking and that, and that's what it takes to win and, and win is not only competition.
It could just be the goal that you're pursuing right now. Right? I mean, he talked about that story with car Saunders. CareWeb at the time car Sanders now, right? About when she wanted to get practice on the bite. There's that one year they did the bug. I forget what it was called, this like a road bike. And the wheels are really thin.
People crashed on them all the time. I want to say cyclotron but
[00:35:20] Sam Rhee: it's not
[00:35:21] David Syvertsen: the it's something else. Yeah. And they went out and practice the night before. I think it was at nighttime nine. O'clock. And Henshaw was telling her, is that the key to being good on the bike is you have to get in the draft of the person in front of you, which means you need to be two to three inches away from the person's rear wheel.
Your front wheel needs to be two to three inches away from the front. I can't even, I can't imagine doing that because those got, you're going probably 20 to 30 miles an hour. And as something happens, I mean, I'd be afraid of running over a pebble, rather let alone running into somebody else. And Henshaw said this, he goes.
I can say that with my athlete background, because I have crashed going 40 miles an hour on that bike several times. And he goes, at some point, it doesn't even matter anymore because if you're in the sport, right, watch sports on TV, people get, they get hurt all the time. And that is part of what I have people this, this time of year, right after the open I'm meeting, I'm meeting with people every week.
About the next year. And this is a very popular time of year where people say, Hey, I kind of want to up it a little bit. And I make sure that I say in these meetings, okay. Just know this there's a lot that goes into this. All right. That could be another podcast sometime, but you're gonna have to accept riskier.
Yeah, your ma your entire mindset needs to change to, okay. If I am actually going to up my game a little bit, it's not going to be being true. It's not going to be trying harder on burpees, right? Like that's, that's a given that's like taking a left step after your right step, it's, it's no doubt that you had to do that.
That's the beginning stage. You need to accept that you might crash on your bike, and you can kind of relate to that, to whatever situation you're in. Agreed. All right. So that's gonna kind of wrap it up for this first episode on the headshot. We have a few more topics coming at you guys next week.
I think there's a lot for you guys to chew on in that episode. Some of it positive, some negative, but it really comes down to. What we can learn from the athletes that Chris Hinshaw has, has coached, and also the experiences that he has and just know that it is all about taking risk, being coachable and understanding that mindset controls everything.
And the physical stuff comes out to the mindset.
