S02E75 THE CHALLENGES FACING NEW CROSSFIT CEO DON FAUL

In August, CrossFit named a new CEO replacing Eric Roza. His name is Don Faul @donfaul. Originally from Allendale, NJ, Don Faul is a former U.S. Marine Corps platoon commander who has a Stanford MBA and recently worked at a number of tech companies including Pinterest, FaceBook, and Google.

Dave and Sam discuss the challenges facing Don Faul, and their hot take on his first three months on the job. How can the new CEO usher a new era of growth and success for CrossFit?

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S02E75 THE CHALLENGES FACING NEW CROSSFIT CEO DON FAUL

[00:00:00] David Syvertsen: Welcome back to the Herd Fit Podcast. I am coach David Syvertsen here with my co-host, doctor and coach. Sam Re, we are going to talk about for the second time in Herd Fit podcast history, maybe even the third, the new CEO of CrossFit.

Is that crazy? This is just an ongoing topic. Hopefully this one will last. We're gonna talk about Don Fall, who is a local. He's from down the road. He grew up in Allendale, New Jersey. Yeah. A couple people from our gym know him personally. Yeah. They went to high school with him. So maybe someday Mr.

Fal will be sitting in between us. We'll try to try to get that going for you guys, but if not, we're just gonna talk about, you know, his. his plan to, to make CrossFit better. I've listened to him on a few different outlets. He's definitely making the rounds with different podcasts and he is not, in my opinion, he's not cherry picking which ones to go on.

He just went on with Sivan. I listen. That was a very good one. It was a good one. And you could tell Sivan was like trying so hard to like not make a confrontational. And then he did, but then he pulled back a little bit. He's such a suck up.

[00:00:58] Sam Rhee: You know, he wants to get back on CrossFit media

[00:01:00] David Syvertsen: to you. There's no question.

It's so obvious. No question. But you know, I, I kind of want to talk about just some of my reflections as a CrossFitter, as a coach, and as a gym owner, where I think this is gonna go under him where I hope it goes. I think anyone that takes on the CEO job of CrossFit has. A, a less than 50% chance of, of really taking it to another level.

I just think it's a really hard job and it's a really unique business. To quote Sivan, he called it like a miracle small business. And it's so true. Like you can't use case studies from Apple, McDonald's to, and Burger King and Starbucks to cross it. It just doesn't work. I know a lot of smart people in the, in the business industry and every time they talk about what CrossFit should do, like they just don't get.

And that, that's where I think Eric Rosa and his team that he hired I think that's where it went south. And I think they found out very quickly, like, it's just not like your Oracles and your Googles and your out, It's just not like that and it won't ever be. So I, I just think it's its own entity and just listening to him talk, it was fun.

So Sam, give just a really quick kind of background information on Don Fall, the new new CEO of CrossFit.

[00:02:11] Sam Rhee: Yeah, So as you know, he went to school in Allendale, or he grew up in Allendale? Yep. Went to the Naval Academy, graduated in 98 with an engineering degree. And then he served for five years as a platoon commander.

With the first light armored reconnaissance Battalion. And after that left the military went to Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and then he took a couple years and made the rounds with some of the Silicon Valley big tech firms. He worked for Google for. About a year and a half.

And then Facebook for about four years. And then he was at Pinterest and then he worked for a company for the past six years called a Ethos or atos which was some sort of sports performance measure, like metric type place. I'm not even sure what that was. I mm-hmm. and then and then he just got hired in August.

Yeah. CrossFit CEO. Really odd, I think you know, talking about the search process and, and why they picked him over say others.

[00:03:11] David Syvertsen: What do you think? So I, I think the reason I, I think one of the biggest reasons why he did get picked over other candidates. What is his military background? You know, I think Dave Castro, who is back with CrossFit in some sort of, I still think an undefined role.

I know he's there for affiliate support, but I don't think he has an official title, at least that I know of. And when Castro came back, I do think he had a lot of say in who they were gonna hire for the ceo. You know, who was gonna be Dave's boss. So he was representing sort of the old guard of CrossFit.

Yes. And Dave is a huge military guy. You know, he was a Navy Seal and he doesn't talk about it a lot. I do think that he is trying to put himself out there more. So I have heard him talk about his time in the military. A little bit more frequently now than he used to, but you can pretty clearly tell that he has a very strong affiliation with military and cross.

It does too. And that's part of like old school cross it, which I love. And I think that is, if there was a tie at some point between two candidates, I do think that is what separated him. And it's not just like, you know, military or die. I think it's the, the, the approach. There are a lot of people in CrossFit that.

The business itself is very similar to the, to the military in terms of the amount of respect, the amount of accountability and the amount of self responsibility that everyone needs to have. It's not a very do this, do this, do this, do this. It's like, Hey guys, here's your job. Go out and do it. You know, like for example, as a local affiliate, no one is over the top of us telling us what to do, and we like that, right?

Some gyms don't, but we like, They trust us. They trust that we're gonna deliver their product to the people and help grow the brand. Where there are some people when, let's say Eric Rosa took over the way a lot of these businesses take with Apple, Google, like it's very authoritative. A very template, very, you have to do this way, wear this shirt, use this programming, have your gym look like this, have this much equipment over here, that much of equipment over there.

And I think that was one of the fears. Of having a new person come in with a business background, but not so much a military slash CrossFit background that

[00:05:21] Sam Rhee: that legacy is from Greg Glassman. Yeah. He didn't want anyone to tell the affiliates what to do. Yeah. But on, you know, on the other hand, that just demonstrated how wide of a.

Quality level there were between affiliates. I've seen some horrible, absolutely horrible CrossFit affiliates. Agreed. And obviously some amazing ones. And I think that that's such a, That's one of the biggest issues I think Don Fall has to face is how are you going to raise the quality of affiliates without actually instituting the things that a McDonald's or Starbucks or F 45 or Orange Theory does with their franchises and

[00:05:58] David Syvertsen: affiliates.

It's funny, I've talked to people again in the business world. You know, they like to always just talk business, right? And they're like, whether it's solicited or not, and they like to say like, All right, this is what CrossFit should do. Like, I, you know, went to school here and I understand this, and I remember asking, I was like, What can you do to make affiliates really want to be a part of CrossFit now?

Because it's really, it's not expensive to own an affiliate and pay an affiliate fee, Right? It's not cheap, but like for most people, it's not, it's not an expensive thing. Right. And his first answerable was like, You have to increase the bottom line. You have to get people to, to, you know, we need to show support with more finances.

Where do the finances come from? He goes, You have to raise the affiliate fee . And like I was like, I told him right away, people will just like, they'll laugh at you and leave. It's that kind

[00:06:45] Sam Rhee: of business, never. If that happens, there will be so many functional fitness gyms out there. Yeah. Right. That are doing CrossFit but not having

[00:06:52] David Syvertsen: the CrossFit.

Right. And, and Don Hall kind of started to touch on this, and this is where I feel like I did connect with him a little bit when I was listening to him on Sivan with Sivan, I should say. And. He talked about instead of trying to get more affiliates right, and just, you know, get to the number 20,000 affiliates, like where does that number even come from?

Right? Like Rosa's, like, we want 500,000 people signing for the open. Where does the number come from? Like, why? And it, it's just an objective sign of growth. He was saying more, he's like, We just need to support the affiliates by just getting more people to come to their gym. Right. And that was, that stood out to me.

It, his number, his, his line was not let's get more affiliates. It was, let's find the people that are not, not CrossFitting right now and let's get them to the currently existing CrossFit affiliates and that. That was the first thing that I heard that I was like, Okay, we're, we're kind of on the same page here.

And then we started, they started talking about the CrossFit journal on, on that podcast about how that really is, like, that's the Bible of this thing, and it really does not get put out in the open that much. And there's so many articles back from the early days and. Written by so many different people.

It's not just Greg Glassman and Dave Castro and Adrian Bosman. There's so many articles in there written from different walks of life, and he said that we need to get those messages out to people and, and they talked like, I was like, All right, that is, I read those articles so much when I first started and when we first started opening the gym.

And that's been the foundation of what we've been, and I think a lot of people kind of disconnected from that.

[00:08:24] Sam Rhee: How do you get that and translate that into more people going to the.

[00:08:29] David Syvertsen: So I, I think you need to do similar to, I mean, this was not our intention of having Ron on last week, but you, I think you need to get messages like his story out there as often, if not more often than who won the CrossFit games.

You know, a lot of CrossFit media, especially the stuff that gets the most attention, is the sport. It's the rich froning, the Matthew Frasers. The TIAs, right, The Cains, right, where they're just doing insane things with their body, and it is so respectable. We love it. , You know, we admire it. A lot of people aspire to be there at some point, but I think the messages that you can give to people on the outside that, to quote him, not all CrossFits, I, No all CrossFits are not a bunch of 30 year olds Jack, 30 year olds, you know, thrown rates around and doing mu ups.

That is a very small minority of CrossFitters. Most of them are just normal. You know, 40, 50 year olds that just wanna come in and get a good workout. We need to get those messages out there.

[00:09:30] Sam Rhee: I, I remember him saying that. Yeah. And I remember Sivan saying, Yeah, you need to just make it grassroots and have all these little stories and all this.

Yeah. Yeah. And I, I can see that to a certain degree, but, CrossFit and I, but they also talked about there are competing messages here. CrossFit is aspirational. Yes, you should. I mean, not that you ever would expect to be a Jack 30 year old doing muscle ups, but you should, you know, a lot of people do CrossFit because they wanna do a lot in terms of their performance.

They want to reach their peak potential. They also wanna do muscle ups. Yeah, they wanna look good. I mean,

[00:10:03] David Syvertsen: Ron just said he wants to get a muscle up by the age of 70. Yeah, yeah.

[00:10:06] Sam Rhee: And you know, they wanna look good. Right. And, and so to then, Sort of flip the message and say, Okay, you know, dude who has you know, who's five two and 280 pounds, like, come to the gym.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know, like it's a, like, it's a very disparate message. It's just very, it's very, very conflicting

[00:10:28] David Syvertsen: in some ways. So I would say this, like I could tell you about a personal struggle that I've had at the gym, and I think a lot of gyms could probably reflect to this. Like, I control our social media.

Not saying I could do a good job or bad job, I'm just telling people that I control it. So like every Instagram post that we've ever made, I've made right. , I've always had this internal struggle with, I wanna find the proper balance of displaying what our top people can do. The mu ups, the prs, and the lifts, the fast times.

The Dan Koda. Currently at Masters Fitness Collective, qualifying for an elite workout, elite division work competition in Indiana, three day comp. Right? The best of the best of our gym, right? I want to highlight that. I don't want to ignore, and I don't even wanna say that's the majority of the action that we put on our Instagram.

So if you do, and I think I've heard this kind of like, not to my face, but kind of, I've heard this through other people, like, Oh, he only puts certain people on social media only does certain caliber athletes. And if you do, like I actually have an Excel sheet on who has been on our social media and if it's performance centered, Community centered health.

Oh, you do? And it's very balanced. Where am I? What? Where do you rank? No performance or community. Oh. Oh. When you're on there, performance. Oh, I'm just kidding. Stop it.

[00:11:39] Sam Rhee: You are. No, you. I've told you before. Don't, Don't ever feature. Don't ever put me on Instagram

[00:11:44] David Syvertsen: feed. The time that Sam got most mad at me was when I put that shirtless picture of you doing it.

Pretty heavy. Lift on the next level. Oh my god. You know how

[00:11:50] Sam Rhee: much crap I got for that. Please do.

[00:11:52] David Syvertsen: But I, I think that this is what I think Don Falls talking about is there's nothing wrong with highlighting what your top athletes can do because it does inspire other people. Yes. I can tell you for a fact that every one of, if you wanna say our top athletes, I'm putting that quotes for those that are not watching our top athletes.

Right. What does that even mean? But the people that can RX all of our workouts are the fastest ones. Right. They are not on our social media more than the people that are not, that can't do that fact and that that, and I know for a fact that's a fact cuz I keep track of it and it's something I think CrossFit can do.

But I also don't want to only kind of ignore them. And go down the path of like, Hey, let's only put the people that are overweight on our social media so that people from the outside can say that there's people overweight here. Or let's only put the beginners on our CrossFit so that other people from the outside can be like, Oh, not everyone does pull ups.

Like a lot of people do ring rows too. Like I think that. Both sides need to respect both sides. Like if you're someone that gets really inspired by seeing people do really hard things on social media and that's gonna make you want to go join a CrossFit, cool, go for it. If you're someone that gets a little intimidated by that and you wanna see more like quote normal people and people that struggle with some of the basic components of fitness they're gonna be on there too.

Be inspired by that. Go for it. But I do think that both sides of that argument need to kind of look into each. And say, Hey, it's okay if either of those are featured. Now back to what Don Fall's mission is. And what he was talking about is he wants to get out some of these stories. And Savan said they always used to do it right.

You know, find the overweight stories like the guys that you know, were really overweight, really sick, and now they're healthy, right? Because they are both along the lines that they think CrossFit, they're sitting on something that could really change the landscape of. , what do you think about that?

[00:13:43] Sam Rhee: This is such a hard task for him and I think it's almost literally impossible because what moves a needle on social media?

Like if you said, Hey, look at this story about Sam Re, he's an old dude who learned how to CrossFit and now look at him. He's so much better. Yeah. Or you. Look at Justin Maderas or Danielle Brandon and look what she's doing. Yeah. Like the needle will always move when you post Daniel Brandon versus very true, like some Joe Schmoe dude, like me.

Very true. And, and so how, how are you going to change that message or make it. Appealing or marketable. I mean, one thought I had was, you know, find, but then this is

[00:14:23] David Syvertsen: really that you can see that they do this. They make commercials that are like people like picking up like jugs off the ground and stuff.

They look corn, they're cornea out, . They're so

[00:14:31] Sam Rhee: stupid. I mean, I think part of it might be, and this is where I think. Noble has it. Right. You know how they're affiliating with the nfl? Yes. And they're sponsoring the what NFL combine and some of this stuff. Yeah. NFL combine. Yeah. Right. So if they were to get more non CrossFit athletes, doing some of this stuff.

I think that would be good. Okay. I don't, I think I don't want them to sell out because I know this is gonna look like selling out. Right. But if you had more media figures, like bigger media stars mm-hmm. , who are ordinary people. That's a good point. I mean, maybe not Danny DeVito, but I mean somebody who's like ordinary, who's like, You know what, I did CrossFit and this f-ing worked for me, and they're like ordinary.

Media stars,

[00:15:18] David Syvertsen: people, people with real pull. Yeah. So that's what kind of, what we're getting to, and I do agree with you on this, right, is there are certain people that have more pull Yeah. Whether they're celebrities, whether they look a certain way, whatever. And if you really do want to make a big impact, you have to get that kind of figure out in front.

But it's a, it's a fine line because you don't want it to be like the rock, you know? You don't want it to be like a freak, a freak

[00:15:40] Sam Rhee: of nature. No. Yeah, yeah. I understand that. But, but I think the other thing is you gotta look at the demographics. What is the breakdown of men, women at CrossFit in our gym?

First, The

[00:15:51] David Syvertsen: last time I did it, it was 60 women. 40 guys. Yeah.

[00:15:54] Sam Rhee: Where is the growth gonna be? You gotta target the women because the women are the ones who are driving growth. Mm-hmm. , They're the ones who have embraced CrossFit, especially at our gym. Yeah. And let's face it, they're just, Better athletes in a lot of senses, like, you know, most of them, I mean, I hate the gender stereotype people, but they're coachable.

Yep. They, you know, they're mobile. They're mobile. Yeah. You know, they, they

[00:16:18] David Syvertsen: work their asses off. I do think. and I, I'll say this to any guy out there too, I think they just, they have less ego issues, way less, you know, like, yes, I do think women get competitive with women, blah, blah, blah. Let's not , let's not go there.

I'm saying when it comes to a coach telling an athlete like, Hey, you probably should not do that, you should scale this. It's almost never an issue. Yeah. With, with, with guys that it can be a problem. So

[00:16:40] Sam Rhee: I, I really feel like they need to hit the women demographic. Okay. Because that's what's gonna drive growth.

You get a bunch of you know, middle aged, you know, moms or. Or other athletes like, and you know what, Those are the ones that we see at our gym that have made the most progress. Absolutely. You know, they're the ones who are like, You know what, I've had three kids, and like, I wanna do

[00:16:58] David Syvertsen: something. Your stories are a little more inspirational

[00:17:00] Sam Rhee: too.

Take a look at any one of our athletes at nine 30 or or 7:00 AM or in the afternoon, they, they're, these are the ones that have made the most gains. Yeah. And. I

[00:17:10] David Syvertsen: hope, I hope he focuses on That's a great point. I, I haven't even thought about that angle because, you know, at some point they didn't bring this up.

I was like, Do you go into the kid market much? Right? Like, not even CrossFit kids, I'm talking more like teenagers, like you're a kid's age. Like do you try to get them, Is there a way for CrossFit to grow through teenagers, but they're not doing the full blown program? I, I just think that what's one thing that we've heard almost everyone say, I wish I started this earlier.

Oh yeah, I wish I started this when I was a teenager. And now it's like, all right. Let's see if we can get that, that, that, I think that's another angle that he could approach CrossFit with is getting teenagers involved in CrossFit, maybe on a safer scaled back option. Right. But I think that is where the growth of CrossFit is.

The problem is, is that, Especially with a community based program, is there, They're all over the place in terms of like Sasha with our seasons, like in and outta soccer, she's going sports, she's going to college soon. Like how many times have we lost a high school to college? And I'm like, I get so upset when they leave.

I'm like, This is what happens. Yeah. But if I'm, That's more of like a selfish gym owner approach. Like when I see. Olivia Webb Cross doing the open in Virginia after starting it here. That's, that's a pretty cool impact that I think that some new leadership in Cross it could kind of capitalize on and really steer the growth of it.

The long term sustained

[00:18:29] Sam Rhee: growth too. That's where social media's gonna be. There's a whole market for teenagers that I have not even realized. There are so many people on YouTube. people making 48 million a year. That all of this, that demographic is following that, I have no idea. Right? So if you can enlist them into CrossFit and say, Listen, Mr.

Beast does CrossFit, or you know, Did you even know who Mr. Beast is? I don't have no idea who he's talking about. See, I'm telling you like, this is a dude who's like one of the biggest dudes in, in YouTube

[00:18:56] David Syvertsen: ever. Okay. Is he a fitness? No,

[00:18:58] Sam Rhee: he just does YouTube challenge videos or stuff. I don't even

[00:19:01] David Syvertsen: know.

I've never Mr. Their beast. Right. I know what I'm doing tonight on my Friday night. Yeah. Look him up. You

[00:19:05] Sam Rhee: see how much money he makes? He just opened up a ginormous restaurant in or, or fast food place in American Dream. Okay. And like, it was like swamped. It's like sold out. It's so crazy. That's their beast.

I'm, Dude, you don't even know this demo. No, I

[00:19:18] David Syvertsen: don't. I don't. I definitely don't. I'm not a trendy guy at all. I'm

[00:19:21] Sam Rhee: telling you. And if you were to get any media figures who they follow Yeah. Start talking about CrossFit in a, in an honest, true, real. Yeah. Not bullshit marketing way. Yeah. Like and that's what that is supposed to be.

These YouTube stars and social media stars are supposed to be honest. Yeah.

[00:19:40] David Syvertsen: Unfiltered. Well, that's kind of what I do think fall kind of had. An understanding with Sivan when Sivan was talking about, Hey, instead of you hiring a, hiring a $250,000 production company, hire all these young hustlers that are just trying to start off on their own because the cameras that they use on iPhones now are just as good as, and I think the point was making it more raw.

Give these opinions, give these influencers on YouTube, TikTok, whatever it is, a, a real raw opportunity to grow because that is how CrossFit grew. It was just raw word of mouth. You. Low budget real stuff. And I think that is where what you're talking about, that direction that can go in. He has

[00:20:19] Sam Rhee: some Silicon Valley experience and hopefully he can leverage that into figuring out how to ride that social media wave for that.

Yeah, especially

[00:20:28] David Syvertsen: for the younger generation. One thing he didn't touch much on, and I haven't heard him touch on this with others, I don't know if you agree with me. I haven't heard him talk much about the open. I haven't heard him touch, talk much about the games. And I have not heard him talk much about the CAT program.

[00:20:45] Sam Rhee: You're right. He had And that, you know what, what's interest? That's so smart because when you listen to these guys, it's not about what they say. Cuz you know what they're gonna say. Right. It's what they're not saying. Yeah. That you can figure out what the, what's going on. Right. Right. And you're right. He hasn't talked about cap, he hasn't talked about the sports side of things much.

I do know, I mean, just as a side note, before we get into that part, I saw Jason Kapa on the Buttery Brothers. Okay. And, you know, he's not affiliated, NC Fit is not affiliated. Yes. He has, he owns like multiple locations of his NC Fit gyms. Yep. Out in California. And that

[00:21:20] David Syvertsen: capitalized on Crust getting a little broken up during the pandemic.

They

[00:21:23] Sam Rhee: did. And he, it sounds like he's. He hinted that he's going to be coming back into the CrossFit fold. Interesting. So I think he, I think CrossFit realized that there are some big players out there that they need to sort of work with on the affiliate side. Okay. To make CrossFit more, more.

[00:21:40] David Syvertsen: More big.

Okay. I like that. So yeah, so some of those like OG CrossFitters, again, those guys have pull, right?

[00:21:45] Sam Rhee: Right. I mean, but you haven't heard maam or Rich Froning talk about corporate cro, like, you know, he was more positive when Rosa came in. Yeah. Than he hasn't said boo. I think about Don fall. Yeah. These guys are monsters in terms of, a lot of people follow Manam programming.

A lot of people follow, They're huge. Yeah. You know, a lot. I am shocked how many people follow Manam programming, either as an affiliate or on a competitor track. Yep. And if you're going to, if you're going to be corporate CrossFit and you're going to work and grow. How, you know, I think Mam sees CrossFit as a competitor.

Mm-hmm. , they see Cap as, you know, CrossFit affiliate programming as a competitor. Yeah. And they're looking at them like, Hey, you guys are trying to take our. Share. Right. You know, we're of the market. Yeah. Of our market. Yeah. You know, we're growing. We have, you know, you know how many people are of maam?

Affiliate, branded affiliates. Mm-hmm. . There are a lot out there. Yeah. There are. You know, like you, you went, if you ever go to the MAAM website and you look at. Find a mayhem affiliate near you. Mm-hmm. , there's a bunch of 'em. Yeah. And so what are you gonna do? NC Fits doing the, trying to, was trying to do the same thing.

It sounds like they might be coming back into the CrossFit full. Yeah. What is Don Fall gonna do about all of these other sort of competing

[00:22:58] David Syvertsen: interests? Yeah, that's actually, that's a really good point. I mean, that brings me to the next point was, you know, some of the current issues that OG. Have with CrossFit, the corporate side of it, and what happened under Rosa.

And I think that's part of the discussion is all these guys over the past couple years, because there's been so much change at CrossFit, so much instability. You know, one of the advantages of being in the game for so long, and some of these guys like Froning have been there from the beginning. They have such big pull that they really could branch off and create their own thing.

I don't think he'll ever do that based on what he has said about CrossFit, Like I don't think he's ever gonna leave CrossFit and be like, All right, it's Ma Mayhem versus CrossFit. Now, I always think, but I do think there's probably gonna be a conversation at some point between him and fall, because he probably does have, in my opinion, the biggest pull of any.

Person that is not currently with corporate CrossFit. Do you agree? Yes. Yeah. He has the ability to pull, I should say.

[00:23:51] Sam Rhee: Yes. And that's why I think the whole concept about CrossFit affiliate programming is going to be very interesting. Yeah. Because in the past

[00:23:57] David Syvertsen: year, I would love to know how how well that's doing.

[00:24:00] Sam Rhee: It's, I think it's doing awful. I mean, yeah, just I was, I was such a big, You knew. Proponent. I thought they were gonna take over the market, right between, you thought we were gonna be all under it. I thought we were

[00:24:10] David Syvertsen: all gonna do cattle. And we both love James Hobart too, which he's a big, and we love him personally.

We love him

[00:24:15] Sam Rhee: and, and Austin Mall and those guys who started it, Spencer handle. But I will tell you,, it's struggling and you can tell by the way they're marketing it, the way they've changed it, the way they're pushing it. And then, just the fact that I see so many people growing under Mayhem s affiliate programming.

I, I think they're struggling. Mm-hmm. . And what do you, I mean, have you looked at the CAT program and what do you think of

[00:24:38] David Syvertsen: it? I mean, I look at it every day. I don't look at like the lesson plans and all that stuff. I'm kind of like over that kind of stuff, but, I, I, It's like crossfit.com programming in that.

I think they're great workouts. I think if someone was alone in the garage by themselves and like, it's a great program, but it just, I would hate it if we had to do that programming at the gym because, well, logistics are a big part of it. Like there's certain workouts, like it just wouldn't work well. And I also think you need to know the personality and overall feel of your gym to create workouts and know.

Challenges can be presented where you need to pull back a little bit and that can change year to year. Right? Where I think this is just too templated where, you know, you, you can't tell me that this gym should be doing the same programming as a gym, you know, six miles away that doesn't have the caliber athletes that we do.

Right. Because again, when we talk about programming here, it's you program for the best athletes in your gym at that particular workout. Right, and then everyone scales down from there. If this, you can't compare a gym like this to, I would say 95% of the CrossFits worldwide when you're just talking about athletic ability, you know, over the, So why would we be doing the same program as someone else?

[00:25:51] Sam Rhee: Do you think the creativity of CAP is lacking? Yeah, I do. I, I do. Yeah. That's where I think the problem lies. Yeah, I do. Is I have looked at their, Programming in, I don't think it's as creative as it should be. Right.

[00:26:02] David Syvertsen: Like Ryan Radcliffe. Right. It's uncomfortable for me to say, but when he says one thing he doesn't like about.

You know, not that he doesn't like his new gym, he does like his new gym down there. He goes, and there's some things they do programming that we don't, that he likes. All right. So I'm just gonna put out that. But he goes like, I can tell there's not a lot of thought that's put into the format of workouts.

Like today's workout had a lot of thought into going into it with the switching of the orders. Yeah. What made the runs harder? What made 'em easier? Why did we do the muscle ups that way at the end of the workout? Why did we do them that way at the beginning of the workout? Based on people's capacity.

But that takes a lot of thought, creativity and just knowing the gym and wanting to make sure that it's fun for people. It's challenging for people and it's new. It it like we, my life would be a lot easier if we just did AM wraps on Mondays for time, on Tuesdays, Lift on Wednesdays, Amap Fridays, EAMS on Fridays.

It would be a lot easier. That would get old really quickly. I'm telling

[00:27:00] Sam Rhee: you, the creativity of your programming is what has made people stay with it. Right? And you're a

[00:27:06] David Syvertsen: thousand percent right, and you're challenging people in ways they don't even realize. That's another thing about some of these workouts, like that one that workout, the one that you coached with the, the double unders and it's the max rep.

Like that was the fastest. I've seen some people move, like, I don't think I've ever seen Mark Ollie do jump rope burpees that fast ever. But like it, it created. Why don't we just do. Hey guys, five rounds for time, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Like it's just, it wouldn't be as stimulating. And I think that cap

[00:27:31] Sam Rhee: lacks that.

It, It totally does. You know why? Cuz it's based on classic CrossFit programming right? Now the other thing is, is I think mayhem actually, I was reading on Reddit and some of these other forums. The reason why they've done so well I think is, is two things. One is they've upgraded their. Ancillary stuff like their lesson plans and their other videos.

Like they've actually, they have a lot of resources now to help, make these programming lessons more complete. But the second thing is how do you think most CrossFit affiliates program, they program, you know how it goes? Heavy strength. Yep. And then a Met Con or, or some kind of, Burner Within the same day.

In the same day. Yeah. Everyone does that. Yeah. Right. And that's why I think. There's a lot of burnout at a lot of gyms. Mm-hmm. . And they're not as popular as they could be. Right. Because you know who wants to do five by five back squat and then do a bunch of thrusters running? You, you're just smoked.

Yeah. You

[00:28:25] David Syvertsen: get so beat up, you know, and you're doing the same thing the next day and the next day. And then they're

[00:28:28] Sam Rhee: squatting heavy for like three days in a row. Right. And so, but mayhem basically. Sort of plays off of that, but does it in a smarter Yeah. More creative way. A

[00:28:40] David Syvertsen: more creative, more efficient way.

Exactly. I've always loved mayhem. If there's one thing I've been the most attached to programming wise, an organization, it's mayhem. Right? And, and to tie that to the new ceo, we need to know, like, I think he needs to know that that's someone he should be talking to. Because you could make the case that Mayhem has done better than CrossFit.

Big picture over the past four or five years?

[00:29:04] Sam Rhee: Yes. I would say mayhem s growth has been more impressive over the past four or five years than, than CrossFit Home Office or HQ or whatever you wanna say. Yep. And why is that? Because, you know, CrossFit has the, the muscle ability, and I, you know what it is? I really think it's.

It's the people in there. So you, you have the old biker gang that's in there. Yep. And you, you do respect the Nicole Carrolls and, and the Chuck Carls Carswells and all that seminar staff. Yeah. And, and I've watched the old, I've started watching more and more of the old Greg Glassman videos. Yep. But that that foundational programming, as important as it is, has to be updated, tweaked, made more creative, Right?

Yeah. You can't evolve, evolve, evolve. Times, evolve. You just can't throw Nate out there as your wad of the day and expect that that's going to be sufficient. Yep. It's just not, And may. Done that. They've also brought in, they like put different

[00:29:59] David Syvertsen: angles on Nate. Like they, it's like a Nate, Hey guys, this is Nate on steroids, or a scaled back Nate, or something like that.

Right. And

[00:30:04] Sam Rhee: they've also incorporated Hinshaw in there. Yeah. And put in a lot of his principles. That's a big part of it too. And I'm, I'm telling you, it's

[00:30:11] David Syvertsen: gotten a little bit more like sophisticated and more detailed with

[00:30:13] Sam Rhee: the program. That's right. And so listen, you could go old classic foundational stuff, which should everyone know?

Yes. Yeah. But when it comes to growing cross, Like that's the problem that don fall, It's, it's an almost unfixable problem. Right? Cause you're never gonna disrespect the Nicole Carrolls in

[00:30:32] David Syvertsen: the truck car as well, unless you clean house. Yeah.

[00:30:34] Sam Rhee: Right. And, and you shouldn't. Right. But on the other hand, I think that that's what CrossFit corporate's role is always going to be.

The old school, this is the way you're supposed to learn CrossFit. This is the L one. These are the nine foundational movements. This is what you're supposed to do. They'll never be as nimble and as open as a mayhem. Mayhem only does what they do cuz they can spring off of what, And you

[00:30:57] David Syvertsen: wanna know also, they're very involved in their own programming, right?

Like you're doing the stuff Rich is doing in his team on a scale back version and those guys are chasing the games. It's different but. I, I've seen some of their content and like they're Rich is doing their body building version. You know, they have a body building program. Right. And like he does it. He posts about it.

He

[00:31:16] Sam Rhee: And you think corporate home office would ever do

[00:31:18] David Syvertsen: that? No. No. I think you need to see like, I mean, does Don Fall need to videotape his workouts? No, but I do think that there's. Like, this is such a raw thing still, in my opinion. Right? Like, just like the, the actual, like the 5:00 AM workouts with 35 degrees.

Like show us some more of that kind of stuff. Like you guys doing it, showing like, I, I do think it would help. I like watching James Hobart do some of the workouts or him posting about his scores on certain workouts that kind of makes me wanna do them sometimes, Right? I think that there's a personal connection when you really just keep it about the workouts, right?

If you combine that with the creativity that Rich has shown with this programming that a lot of affiliates have gotten much better at over the years, I think that could go a long way with getting a lot of people to kind. Following their lead. Because the point, That's the point of taking this thing over, right?

It's like, Hey guys, follow me. I'm your leader now. You know we're gonna take this thing to new heights.

[00:32:11] Sam Rhee: I feel like it's an almost unfixable program problem for downfall. He's gonna always have CrossFit be sort of what it is. Yep. But to make it grow and be like, explode like they want it to. Yeah. It's not gonna be him.

It's gonna be the May hems and the, and the other people that are on top of CrossFit that have the mobility and ability to do that CrossFit will never be able to do that. I mean, I don't see how it's gonna happen. Yeah.

[00:32:37] David Syvertsen: I don't know. Yeah, we'll see. The last thing I would say that I think Cross, one of his biggest challenges will be that the CrossFit leadership has just dropped the ball on since we've been affiliated with Since 2013 actually is communication.

And I, I hate being that kind of guy because I know how hard it is to always get back to people and. But like I, I've sent a few emails across it over the past three months and have not gotten a single thing back. And they're things that I want answers on in regards to the open that's coming up.

Something that happened last year that we don't have any clarity on. And you know, you get these automated messages, like you will be contacted as soon as possible, like you are, you know, we don't get like a number, don't

[00:33:15] Sam Rhee: we have like an affiliate

[00:33:16] David Syvertsen: regional manager? That's another thing we just heard from ours for the first time this past week.

So maybe that is part of Don Falls. Like, Hey guys, like we literally just heard and we're one of the biggest shims in Northeast. Yes. And we are. And we just got contacted by

[00:33:29] Sam Rhee: them for the first time. Weren't we the biggest ones in the open for the North America?

[00:33:34] David Syvertsen: For Worldwide. I think we were top 10 worldwide.

And in America, I think. Top three, top four,

[00:33:39] Sam Rhee: What the hell? If you have that many people at your gym and you're not actually being

[00:33:43] David Syvertsen: like proactive about

[00:33:44] Sam Rhee: that kind of stuff, like, I mean, come on, listen, this is just basic client relationship type

[00:33:49] David Syvertsen: stuff, right? Right. So I mean, maybe us getting contacted is, is stemming from Donal taking over and being like, You guys need to take the initiative more.

Maybe they need more resources with how many people are doing the contact. Because if it's just one person and it's not a full-time job, it's a side gig for them. There's a lot of affiliates on the, No. And it's just probably too many for one person to take on. But I do think that, it's not that I don't feel loyal to CrossFit, like I think I'm always going to, but I feel like I would feel more loyal to them if we were simply contacted more.

Right? Like I've got that at the gym before, like someone's like, Oh, I have no one's contacted me while I've been out of the gym. You know? It makes you feel less a part of it. Absolutely. And that's. That's something that I think the new leadership like, I think that's job number one. If they wanna show real affiliate support, I wanna see less videos of Dave Castro talking in his, in his garage, and more like physical contact, like people coming here and coming to events or Hey, how can we support you guys?

What's coming up on your gym? Not a happy birthday once a

[00:34:50] Sam Rhee: year. I, I honestly feel like they have a West Coast centric perspective too. For sure. Which bothers the shit out of me because it's like, how many times are you gonna go to fucking Diablo CrossFit or Roots, which is are great gyms, they're great.

Or Santa Cruz. Like, why do I have to hear about that? Yeah. Yeah. We're here. Yeah, we're in New Jersey. I'm sorry if you don't like New Jersey, but, And we're doing the same thing

[00:35:12] David Syvertsen: those guys are doing. Yeah. You could say we're doing at a higher

[00:35:14] Sam Rhee: level too. And you know what, we are in one of the densest effing states in the, in the country.

Yeah. And we have, like what? There's not enough growth going on in the northeast. Like, Like, I

[00:35:24] David Syvertsen: don't understand it. No, I, No, it's all, it's all kinda like, they kind of just do what they want to do. Right. And they'll, they'll respond to messages that they wanna respond to. They'll, they'll, they'll send you back maybe an email four weeks later.

That's the kind of stuff that. , you know, it's a very personal business and when you take that side out of it, it just, it's like a lot of just, you know, just empty talk to

[00:35:45] Sam Rhee: me. I mean, we have, I mean, not just bison, but there are a lot of fairly sizable affiliates in New Jersey. Yeah, there are a bunch. In the neighboring states.

Yep. I mean, you see how generally how com, like 9 0 8 is huge. Like you just see a lot of stuff and it does really, really bother me that I have seen 15 or 20, like 20 mentions of every, everything

[00:36:09] David Syvertsen: West coast, right, of these me, of these like, You know, Meetups affiliate owner Meetups with Dave Castro. With Dave Castro.

He all in

[00:36:15] Sam Rhee: California. Yeah, All Colorado, California. Yeah. You know nothing. And I know they're all based out of there. Yeah. But if you're a national, worldwide organization Yeah. Then you're right. We need to feel that and I'm in a customer service. Industry, I know what it's like to have to contact people.

I will contact people literally on a regular basis. A year. Yeah. Like, 18 months after I've done something for them. Right. Yeah. Because you know what? It, ma It makes a difference. It matters. It matters. It really does. Yeah. Yeah. And you're right. I think one of the things that Rosa dropped the ball on completely was he made all these, organizational changes.

Yeah. Nothing happened. Right. And, I don't know about Don Fall. I'm a, I'm a little like, he, he said, Okay, first couple months is gonna be sort of learning and all this sort of stuff, but the stuff I'm hearing him say is, I mean the normal stuff, CrossFit is this prescription for what the world ails.

Okay, great. And how are you gonna fix that? Where's the marketing? This is a very difficult problem. And what are you doing to reach out to your current affiliates? We haven't heard Jack. Yeah. At all? Yeah. So it's like, okay, so where is this coming? Like, I don't know. Yeah. You know? Who are you hiring? You know people who know CrossFit.

Okay. What direction are you taking? Yeah, what is this going? I don't know. Like, and the big, and the only person who spoke most positively about him was Kapa, who's out on the west Coast. Right. You know, Froning has not said boo. Yeah.

[00:37:42] David Syvertsen: So where's that leave everybody? Maybe. Maybe he hasn't seen him yet. , He's

[00:37:45] Sam Rhee: a East coast guy.

I don't know. Maybe he's doing some big negotiations and something's gonna happen, but right now it's

[00:37:49] David Syvertsen: like, Yeah. I mean, everyone deserves time. You know, It, it's been a, it's been a quick thing and maybe at some point we'll get to have him on here and ask him to his face. I don't

[00:37:56] Sam Rhee: know. Zuckerberg always said move fast, break things.

And I know you don't do that in CrossFit, Like you gotta be respectful and all that. But listen, there's a lot of stuff you could do right now that's a no brainer, which is contact the affiliates. Yep. Make sure that they're all on board with you. Yeah. , get their feedback even if it's not.

Effing don fall, like talking to us. Like somebody, like you said, you send an email, you're not even hearing anything. Right? Right. I mean, for weeks. Yeah. What's, what's that about? Yeah, so at first I was super hopeful and then I saw the podcast and I was like, Mm, okay. Yeah. And now I'm sort of like, Wait, is this gonna be more the same?

Right. Cause

[00:38:32] David Syvertsen: I mean, I would say, I mean, put 'em in a corner and say, that's let's, this is more of the same until you prove other. In my opinion, more the same right now is what it is, right? Absolutely. Yeah. All right, cool. Thanks guys, and I will see you next week. Take that Don Fall