S03E100 DO CROSSFIT COACHES NEED TO BE GOOD ATHLETES?

"I expect my CrossFit coach to be at least as good, or better than me at CrossFit." - Is this a valid statement? Would you respect a CrossFit coach if they weren't?

Dave and Sam talk about how "good" an athlete does a CrossFit coach need to be to be a good coach.

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S03E100 DO CROSSFIT COACHES NEED TO BE GOOD ATHLETES

[00:00:00] David Syvertsen: Welcome back to the Herd Fit Podcast. I'm coach David Syvertsen. I'm here with my co-host, Dr. And coach Sam Rhee we have another fun, kind of maybe controversial topic building off our gossip topic from last week. Just kidding. Uh, but no, something more on the semi-serious side, but, um, want you to hear us out.

And this is something that's always come up over the years. Uh, I can remember this actually coming up when I started CrossFit well over 10 years ago, probably. I'm looking at, man, I'm getting old 12 plus years ago, and. This centers around. Okay. The athlete coach relationship and the ability, the physical ability of a coach to do certain movements work out to a certain standard and.

It is a natural and common thing to think, especially when you're new to CrossFit, that the coach should be able to do everything. Superman, superwoman, you should be able to do muscle ups and snatch 300 pounds and run a mile under five minutes and make the games and make you know, semi-finals. Just because you're coach and there's a reason why that is an an image, and I want to kind of get into this now.

I know immediately this is gonna go down the path of Dave and Sam are coaches. They're gonna have the coaches back, they're defending coaches. And I will tell you this, I'm not, there are certain expectations I do have coaches physically that I will get into and Amazing charisma. Yes. Amazing. Yeah. Um, but I also want to look at it like any time there's like a debatable topic, right?

You always have to look at it from, from two different perspectives, maybe even more. And we're gonna give the perspective of the athlete that actually thinks that, but then we're also gonna give. The perspective of the coach that's actually in front of people. Right. And between the two of us, we've coached a lot.

We've been through a lot both as coaches and athletes, and I think we have some interesting opinions on it. Some might actually surprise you. Um, it's possible. Some of it might offend you, but it's also, it's all coming from the place of, we all need to have a general strong understanding of both sides of this argument.

Sam, opening thoughts, because we actually had a decent talk about this when we talked about, uh, this actual topic on Thursday. Yeah.

[00:02:07] Sam Rhee: It, it, it. A great topic, uh, that was brought up basically from some discussion here at the gym. Mm-hmm. Like most of the topics come from Yeah. Things that happen at the gym.

Yep. And after we talked, I did Google, and it's funny how much there is out there. If you say, do you expect, if you Google, do you expect your coach to be better than you at CrossFit? Mm-hmm. There's a lot out there. Mm-hmm. And, um, it's sort of the same thing that I see. Do you expect your physician to be as healthy as you are or healthier than you?

Good question. Um, and so those are the type of questions you see, and then there are responses. And like you said, it's not all about. The coach's side and there is honestly a lot on the athlete's side. And I will throw in one or two responses I saw out there. Mm-hmm. And, and we can talk about whether they're

right.

Responses or wrong responses.

[00:02:54] David Syvertsen: Yeah. And like I, I like to almost tie some of these coaching athletes to being a parent. Cause I'm a parent now. My son turns three in a couple weeks. And I was laughing at myself the other night that, um, I, I just envisioned Brock at some point. I mean, like a lot of kids now, like getting attached to a tablet, a TV show.

Like the kid can watch YouTube, kids YouTube by the way, on his tablet for like an hour and like, not blink once. And um, the other day I was like, all right, Brock, time to put the iPad away. I was like, stop watching Swim to the iPad. And I'm literally sitting there on the phone watching YouTube on my phone and ashes on her phone.

That same thing. And this is where I think athletes can start to originate. This thought is, um, hey, a coach should only be telling me what to do if they do it too. Right. Whether it's their lifestyle, their, their love and passion for CrossFit, quality movement, RX Knob, blah, blah blah, right? Muscle ups pistols, right?

Um, so that's where the, the origin of a CrossFit coach. My personal experience was I started somewhat early, not as early as some others, right? But I really started getting into this in 2011. And at the time I started at CrossFit Hoboken, which at that time and still a very well-known gym, was probably the gym in the tri-state area.

It was so well known. Like whenever they ran, ran a competition, people would drive hours for the CrossFit Winter challenge at, uh, CrossFit Hoboken Winter Challenge. And it was like, kind of like the mecca of that area. Just a lot of people, a lot of members, and I. That back then, every coach that was there could do everything.

They had muscle ups, they had butterfly pull-ups, they could snatch, you know, 80% of their body weight. They could squat, snatch, and you just had this immediate, and one of their coaches was a regional athlete. He actually almost made the games one year. And you, that immediately kind of twisted my initial thought into a CrossFit.

Coach needs to be a really good athlete. They need to have the best scores in the gym. They need to look the best with their shirt off. They need to have every tool in the box refined because that's the only way you can teach it. So that was my original thought when I started CrossFit and I had no idea what I was doing.

Did you have any thoughts like that when you started?

[00:05:04] Sam Rhee: No, I. Think about my own capability, uh, when I was a CrossFit coach, nor did I.

[00:05:10] David Syvertsen: What about as an athlete? As an athlete, did you have an expectation of a coach? Yeah,

[00:05:13] Sam Rhee: because I sucked at CrossFit and this is what a lot of people see on the internet. I suck at CrossFit, so of course the coach should be better than me.

Mm-hmm. In terms of capabilities will talk about what we expect coaches for sure to do. Yep. But certain. Um, I didn't think I was good at CrossFit, so if I saw someone who was coaching me who was not good at CrossFit, or at least not as good as me mm-hmm. I would've

[00:05:35] David Syvertsen: definitely not respected. Yeah. That definitely would've been like, just like, uh, maybe like not respected, but not respected as much because you start questioning in your head, does the person that's doing the talking actually believe in what they're talking about?

Right. Or they're trying to, uh, collect a paycheck. Now, I'm not gonna go into what makes a CrossFit coach a good coach, right. I'm sure like, we'll probably touch on that a few different ways, um, for different reasoning in this podcast. But the origin, origin of bison coaches right here at CrossFit, bison, there's a lot of reasons why, and I've said this before, right?

Um, there's probably 35 people in our gym that could coach, right? And they, they would do a good job. And it's not necessarily these people are better than those. Um, there's a lot that goes into it. Um, but the, here are the traits that like I personally look for, all right? They have a passion for CrossFit.

They have a strong desire to help others. They have a selfless approach and a consistently selfless approach. They're a team player, um, with their ability to contribute. They have personality traits that balance out the rest of the staff, cuz you don't want everyone being the same. Um, their current life situation, their availability, right?

That's, that's a big part of it as well. And then knowledge of CrossFit, movement, nutrition, lifestyle, the desire to learn more, right? Um, when you have some free time, are you ever looking into a better way to coach a certain movement? Are you trying to learn something for yourself? That's what I mean by knowledge of CrossFit.

I don't want someone reciting like the L two guide to me, right? Um, just someone that is really trying to learn more and just kind of have more, kind of increase their, like we always talk about increasing aerobic systems to have a better engine. This would be increasing like your baseline knowledge of CrossFit to make you just a better coach.

Like, I, I think that's, that's something that I look for now. I just listed off what, seven or eight things. Did any of them have anything to do with performance, uh, in the gym as an athlete? Not one of them. And that's why it's like, I've reflected on this a lot since we decide we're gonna do this. I don't think I've ever in, now we're in year 10, try to get a good athlete to become a coach.

I don't think I've ever done it in, in a gen, like there are certain, um, caliber of quality movement and approach the CrossFit and again, knowledge of how to approach the program. But I don't think I've ever been like, yo, that dude just snatched, you know, 2 45, we gotta get him to coach. Or he just did uh, eight unbroken ring muscles.

We gotta get him to go. HEDIS was the best athlete in 21.2. We should probably ask him to coach er. I can genuinely say I've never gone down that path. What are your initial thoughts? Or what are just your thoughts on the bison coaches, and this is awkward because you're one of 'em, so you're gonna have to try to remove yourself from that a little bit.

Mm-hmm. And just some of the personality traits that we do and don't have, we bounce each other out. We have different strengths, different weaknesses, but in relation to why are they a good coach, why are we a good staff? Why, why do we think that they can help bring this community to another level that have nothing to do with workout traits?

Um,

[00:08:33] Sam Rhee: first thing, I am biased. I am a coach. I'm one of the younger coaches in terms of the, the length of coach that I've been coaching here. Most of the coaches here have been coaching a lot longer, but I do love our coaches. Every single one of them. I think they're all amazing coaches. So I'm gonna come with that bias, and I know I have it.

But that being said, I'm gonna ask a couple questions about you choosing coaches. Yeah. The first thing though, I do wanna mention is you mentioned a bunch of these, uh, traits or things, qualities you were looking for, and it, it actually kind of lines up with what, um, And I've used the, the three A's before, the, you know, when you're looking for someone who you wanna hire, they have to have the three a's affability, where they can be connecting with people, um, availability.

So, you know, the fact that they could actually put the time in and then ability, like actually know how to do things. Mm-hmm. And the, and the first couple were all mostly approachability. Motivation, like, passion, desire to help others, selfless approach, team player personality traits that are diverse.

Those show that you really care about how people interact with others. Mm-hmm. And then the other thing was, you know, and their motivation to, to be with others and to coach. And then the other thing was the availability in terms of how their life situation is. Um, are they able to coach, maybe they're really busy at work.

And then ability, which is what you mentioned, the knowledge of CrossFit movement, nutrition. Mm-hmm. Now, what I wanted to ask is when you look at. The coaches you hired, did their CrossFit ability play any role? Like what if, would you have hired a coach who couldn't do a

[00:10:12] David Syvertsen: single pull up? Um, good question.

The answer is yes. Like I don't, I don't think I would ever not pick a coach because they couldn't do a pull up. Right. But I, one thing I do know is I would never hire a coach that's been here for a year or even, or maybe even at this 0.2 years, right? Cause you don't know 'em that well yet. And that, but in those two years, like what kind of progress did they make with quality of movement?

Caliber of movement, strength skills? Because in a lot of cases, right, someone that's truly into CrossFit and values fitness and really wants to do all these things outside of the gym to make what the, in the gym better, you would see progress with that movement. So if they showed up day one, And there's nothing wrong with this.

They needed two black bands to do a pull up. No judgment whatsoever. And I know that's not always easy to believe, but trust me, there's no judgment there. Don't care if you can do 10 in a row or zero. Don't, do not care. I would care that you want to get better, right? If they in two years are still on two black bands and they haven't really worked on it and you know, kind of have a don't care approach, which again, I still respect.

If, if that's not your goal, then it's not your goal. But if, if, if you are not making progress with quality of movement and you don't really seem to care that much about it, then I probably wouldn't want you to coach at the

[00:11:30] Sam Rhee: gym. Yeah. Okay. How about this? What if, now when I look at the coaches, they all look amazing, all different shapes and sizes, but they all look very honestly to me, they look very CrossFit.

Right? Right. Like, would you hire someone who was clinically obese or mm-hmm. Just, you know,

[00:11:49] David Syvertsen: Had issues in terms of that sort of issue? Yeah, I mean, I think we all have that, I don't wanna even call it shallow, but all that kind of like, or judgmental, it's kind of like, again, we're all like, I mean, I'll use myself an examples and I wanna gets embarrassed.

Like I'm not the most aesthetically pleasing looking athlete in the world. If you go to across a competition, and I know that, and I'm not upset by it, insecure about it at all. I But you fit in. Yeah. No, I know. I know I fit in. But you, but I would hate to say I would, and I've had this said about me before, and then the, the person I was at a competition didn't even know I was behind them.

It's like, I think I won a comp or second place or something. And like, did you see the guy that won? He's fat. Like he and I was right behind the person. I just like, kind of like nodded my head like I laugh because you know that. So did it make you feel good in that moment? Absolutely not. So I would, and then because I've been through that, I would never want.

To tell someone or even, you know, give this notion to anyone that, yeah, you need to look a certain way to coach. But I do think, and like one aesthetic thing I've always wanted for myself, right? Other than the Sam Rhee abs, right? I'm just kidding. Wish I knew a plastic surgeon. But anyway, is like, I just want to look like I work out.

Like, I would, I want to, oh, and that's, that's my shallowness of myself. I want to be able to go anywhere and be like, oh, that guy works out. Like, now that I am so entrenched in this space, if I go to the airport, I can tell you like, that person works out. I could also tell you that person does not work out.

Am I being judgemental? Call me judgmental. But like, it's just, I'm around it all the time. So that's kind of like, I would want someone to have that look like they work out, whether it's muscle tone, whether it's less body fat, whether it's, you know, an, you know, Adam storm's, quads, right? Like there's gotta be something about them that says they work out.

And then you could actually watch them work out and be like, all right, they got their shit together. They move well, they, uh, they breathe well. They don't break down. They don't, they have a strong midline. They're stable. Right? They're consistent. I do value that, that is an expectation I have. For coaches is that, you know, what is, you know, clinically obese, what is overweight?

You know, like, again, I'll bring myself up. I don't have the look that a lot of other good athletes have, but I can hang with the good athletes. So if I go and tell someone they can't coach because they don't look a certain way, I'm kind of like contradicting what I actually believe in. So if anything, I might even be more biased towards someone that doesn't look like the traditional, you know, Scott Panik, rich Froning, Tia.

Right. So what do you think about that? Because your space, Sam, your space, like we're gonna do an interview on you someday, because I do think it would be really fun to do. You are in the aesthetic field, right? Am I, do I have that right? Yep. Okay. So I don't know if like that terminology is right or wrong.

Yes. So, and they're, they look matters so much and because you're around that all the time and because you are, you know, a very fit looking individual yourself, and so is your wife, right? How much does that weigh to you? And you, you can remove yourself from, as a coach, you know, like as an athlete. What, what did you think about it?

[00:15:02] Sam Rhee: You know. Well, there's no doubt, and I know this and I was about to ask you this, but I'll ask, I'll answer it myself

[00:15:08] David Syvertsen: too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want you to, it's, it is easier

[00:15:10] Sam Rhee: as a physician and as a coach to be respected by people who just look at you face value if you look like you work out, done. And

[00:15:18] David Syvertsen: that's the reality of life.

That is true.

[00:15:20] Sam Rhee: That is true. And if, and fortunately, or unfor, I mean, just because who we have, everyone looks like they work out, everyone is, is um, they look very crossfitted. Mm-hmm. And so when you first look at someone before you even know whether they coach, you're like, They must be a good coach, right?

Because they're, they look like

[00:15:39] David Syvertsen: they work out, or even it, they might be a good coach because, or they might be a good coach. They, they, they've, they've opened the door, right? To my

[00:15:45] Sam Rhee: opinion. Now, uh, someone who does not look like that right, might have a harder time proving to others that they are a good coach.

Mm-hmm. It's not impossible. Or, or by any means, they're gonna have to do a little bit more. You gotta do more work. And that's the same reason why Matt Frazier automatically carried more legitimacy as a coach just because he won whatever, four or five, uh, championships before Shane Orr was considered a good coach.

He had to wait until Tia Clark Tomi won a bazillion championship. Now everyone thinks he's an awesome coach. Great example. So those are the type of things where you have to, some people have to prove themselves more than others just by their appearance

[00:16:21] David Syvertsen: or what they've done. Great example is that that's actually just a great kind of thing to think about and.

That it's not necessarily Dave and Sam that think this way. Right. Matt Frazier had never coached in his life, retires and starts a training program after he retires. Thousands of people go and sign up. Yeah, because he, what if you, what did he accomplished? Maybe not necessarily what he looks like, but uh, maybe part of it for some, um, I know of another famous games athletes that's gonna be starting a master's program soon.

I don't want to give that up yet, but it's, um, the second he puts it out there, thousands of people are going to sign up and the, and it's, it's, that's what credibility is, right? These guys have credibility because of what they went through. What they accomplished, right? You as a cross a coach, let's dumb this down, but you're not a games athlete, right?

And you're not trying to start your own master's program with thousands of people and make it your career. But let's just say you just, you just got hired to coach at a gym. There is going to be some credibility or a lack of credibility based on ma, your aesthetic, right? But then also what you can do with your body, what you do in the gym.

And that also centers around what you do with your lifestyle. So what are things that we think a coach should be capable of physically, right? And remember we have coaches that do cross that coach CrossFit from a wheelchair, right? Um, Kevin Ogers, the kind of like the guy that kind of stands out in my head.

Yeah. Really unfortunate accident, uh, paralyzed doing a snatch at a competition years ago and has become a, a, like a, a face of CrossFit for the, uh, for the adaptive, adaptive community. So, you know, you're not gonna tell him that he's gotta be capable of doing certain things as a coach, but let's take the extreme cases out.

And are there certain movements that every coach should be capable of doing? Are there certain loads they should be able to hit across all lifts? Um, or is there a certain percentage of workouts that athlete should, or that coach should be able to do RX prescribed, right? I wanna talk about those three things, the quad, uh, what movements, what kind of loads, and then what percentage of workouts should they be able to rx?

And you know, there are flaws in all of those, right? Because it comes down to programming, right? If you follow bison programming, it's gonna be probably a little bit tougher than, you know, your random gym down the street where they don't really go after it that hard. So a coach there could RX everything.

A coach here cannot RX everything. Right? Um, what movements do you think a coach absolutely needs to have down at a pretty high level?

[00:18:48] Sam Rhee: I'm gonna pull comments that I found on Reddit, okay? And you can tell me what you think about each one of these things. Okay? So the first thing about certain movements, this was a pretty common thought.

Gymnastics skilled mastery for a coach should be a little more than what's included in the open workouts. So kick up into a handstand wall, walk relatively smoothly, double unders, pull-ups, toes to bar. I'd be more understanding if they couldn't handstand walk or do ring muscle ups or

[00:19:14] David Syvertsen: bs. Okay. How do you feel about that?

I mean, I think that's a, a general statement, right? Um, I don't think it's like a template, like you have to be able to do toast bar and pullups and chess bar pullups. Um, I mean,

[00:19:25] Sam Rhee: for a coach, any coach that's sort of the expectation

[00:19:29] David Syvertsen: movement wise. Uh, I, I would say any gymnastics movement that you don't see, I, I have, like, in my head, I have different level of skills, right?

Like bring muscle up, handstand walks. Bar muscles. I think those are high skills. Then I have like chess bar, wall walks, even regular pulps, kip handstand pushups. Those are like medium skills. And then you have low skills, um, burpees, handstand hold against the wall, maybe even like a regular kip pull up, not even butterfly.

Um, a toes, the bar, maybe not stringing 'em together yet. That's more like medium skill. I do believe at some point a coach should be able to do. Once you get to that medium skill, butterflies, stringing reps together, doing things high volume or even high, high skill level, I don't think they need to be able to do them, but, but they should be able to coach them.

Okay. They should be able to teach them. Yeah. And trust me, I've coached movements, whether it be injury or can't do that, you have to find a way to coach it. It might not be the best coaching in the world. Like I know when I coach pistols, I know I don't do a great job coaching them. Um, even though I can do 'em on my right leg right now, pretty easily.

But on my left, I've tried it twice in the past three weeks. It's my left knee strength is not there yet, so I just fall to the ground. Yeah, but you know how to do 'em. You've done them right. I've done them. And like, I, but, and now I, I feel like I've gotten better at coaching them and showing scaling options because that's a big part of, of coaching or progressions.

Right. Or be able to explain here, here's a thing that I think a coach in relation to skills that you just talked about, gymnastic skills, right? You need to be able to explain. Different components of every movement. And what helps the fact that you can't do one that should actually help you coach someone, right?

If I can't do a toaster bar or I can't string five reps together, you need to know why you can't, right? I'm not telling you to go fix it, but why can't, so like, why can't I do a pistol on my left leg right now? The stability around my hip joint, left knee, the hip joint is very weak. My, my muscles there are very underdeveloped.

So all this pressure, and it goes to my left knee and my left knee is banged up still, there's some structural stuff in there that is still not fully back. So that by the point, so I'm putting all this pressure on a, on already weak kind of beat up joint and I don't have enough stabilizer muscles to sup to come up, uh, to make up for that shortcoming.

So when I get to a certain point, I just, And it's not so, but other people, it's, uh, Dorothy flexion in the ankle. Your ankles are so tight you can't keep your heel on the ground. Other people, it's, you're just not flexible enough. If you can't get your hamstring to get near your calf, or when you do a, a quad stretch, that's a huge shortcoming.

And, and, uh, like that should help you coach. Like, if I can't do toes to bar, right, is it my lap strength? I can't lean back further enough. I can't get the angle of my arm to be, uh, a little bit more acute to the, to the ground or so that's a lap strength issue. Or, Hey, your core is not strong enough to lift your legs up.

That might be a big thing. So, but do you understand that? And can you be humble enough to maybe even use yourself as an example? Like, I, I, Mike Deltor does a great job of this. He will, he has no issues telling his entire class. Like, I, I suck at this part. I can't do it, but hey, this is how you do it. You know, this is why I can't do it.

That, that's, that's a big part of coaching to me. I, I can't emphasize

[00:22:44] Sam Rhee: that enough. I believe that was one of my biggest points. For today was co good coaches should know how to scale and use their life experience. So someone who is a naturally gifted athlete who never had any issues with this and is like, RX bro.

Or, or

[00:22:59] David Syvertsen: Right. Or go home. Right. The fact that

[00:23:02] Sam Rhee: you had to struggle on that left knee. Yeah. The fact that recently, you know, like for the past couple weeks I've been sort of babying my shoulder and rehabbing it. Mm-hmm. And I've been doing all these scaled progressions in the wads and that gave me so much more insight over the past two weeks about doing ring rows, about doing bear crawls, about doing all these movements.

And honestly, most athletes are not RX seeing everything. Mm-hmm. Most if they're doing it properly, are gonna be scaling more. You'll see more scaled numbers up there than RX most days. Yep. And if you don't know how to, you know, personal experience is such a strong, um, N you know, fountain of knowledge for coaches.

Like you can actually teach people stuff so much better if you've gone through that. Mm-hmm. And that's actually made me think this past two weeks about, you know, how do I do my scales better? Mm-hmm. How do I bring more intensity to the scaled movements so that you get the stimulus, so you can get the stimulus?

Because I'm doing these movements, I'm like, wait a second. I feel like it can be more Yeah. Without, in upping the skill level, but increasing the intensity. So I'm thinking about how do I do those things? Yep. And those are, um, mo more important than necessarily being able to do every movement cleanly or

[00:24:16] David Syvertsen: flawlessly.

Yeah. As, as a coach. Yeah. So one, one of my kind of philosophies on coaching athletes, right? Because this is a struggle for a lot of coaches that also train to be an athlete. Like you're really pursuing something. I believe they don't need to be separate. Not everyone agrees. There's some good coaches that don't agree with it.

Like I've had, uh, A, a former coach of mine say, if you're really pursuing your top level performance, you can't coach. I'm like, ah, well, we'll see. I mean, I, I don't think about that. I don't think that's true. But, and this is because of this philosophy. If you are trying to become a better coach, truly, and what is a coach, you're helping others, right?

It should help you become a better athlete. If you are truly trying to become a better athlete and you're trying to find all these ways, like what you just talked about, that should make you a better coach. Like I really do think like it's a, like a, you know, the relationship is, they both go up together.

And I do feel like in some ways, other than just getting a little older and, and having to, you know, balance my life out a little bit, I do feel like in a lot of ways I'm a better athlete. And because of that, things have worked. Cuz I'm not a natural with a lot of things, it's asked me, it's helped me become, or maybe even gave me more potential to be a better coach.

Right? You still have to capitalize on things and put it into practice, but you, like right now, you just broke everything down. It's like I'm thinking about. How to get this movement a little bit more intense without jeopardizing your shoulder. I'm thinking about trying to get my shoulder back to a hundred percent.

That's really a lot of what it takes is just putting yourself into these deep thought, critical thinking stages. So in terms of movements, guys like, you know, I hope we answered that a little bit, but like, how about this loads and just the percentage of a workout that's RX and let's say. We use the open asar gauge, right?

So there's only three workouts a year now because, you know, every gym is so different with programming. Like we saw mayhem programming from Waldwick, like a lot of people couldn't a, those workouts. Right? Right. Um, so I don't wanna use them as a gauge. I don't even wanna use bison as an, as a gauge. What is there a percentage?

Does one exists? Is there a template answer for, hey, if you're a coaching cross you should be able to do X amount of workouts. Rx what do you think? Well,

[00:26:20] Sam Rhee: again, let me ask you this. I'll throw out a comment and see what you think in terms of loads people have said, I expect good lifts from a coach at a percentage of their body weight.

Good form and technique.

[00:26:31] David Syvertsen: Yeah. So like Bec and when they say a percentage, you know, no one's gonna say you need to go snatch your body weight. No, no, no. But you should be able to back squat your body weight. Right? Like there for every lift, there is a percentage out there that you should be able to lift.

That's what that common is, I think is saying. Correct. All right. Um, so yeah, I mean, you have to, on this podcast, I'm not gonna go break down every single lift like you're deadlift. You should be able to body, you know, right. 150% of your body weight for, for free. I'm not gonna go down that road. This is what I think in relation to loads, whatever your one rep max is, and I don't really care about your body weight and what percentage it is.

I care more about whatever your true max is or approximate max is of any lift. Can you move it for three reps at 90%, you know, five reps at 85%, six reps at 80%, like, and it look good. That's what I care about in relation to loads. Now you're saying, Dave, that you're talking about a quality movement discussion, and we'll probably get to that at some point.

I'm not, I'm talking about. A percentage of your true max, can you still move it well from multiple reps or does it start to break down? That's what I look for in coaches and I come up short here sometimes, like if I go for a really heavy clean, sometimes I get a little wonky with where I catch the bar, where my feet end up.

Especially on power clean. You do too, right? Starfish. Oh, totally. And, um, you know, you fix it. I'm not, no one's action, uh, asking or expecting perfection, but I think there needs to be some breaking down. And I've seen this with coaches where they're, they're probably biting off more than they can chew with certain loads and certain movements, certain percentages.

And I think that's something a coach should be cognizant of, that, Hey, what if the entire gym was watching you work out right now? And they were gonna check you if, hey, is he doing what he tells me to do with quality movement and reaching a stimulus? I try.

[00:28:16] Sam Rhee: Sometimes I don't. How about this, how about for cardio?

It says cardio should be better than average. I find it hard to take advice from someone if, um, they have. You know, long times or bad splits for, uh, for those type

[00:28:31] David Syvertsen: of cardio pieces splits. I think that's just a CrossFitter thing. CrossFitter suck it split. Right? Right. Um, you know, this is gonna get to some stimulus talk.

All right. I mean, does a CrossFit coach need to run a sub seven mile sub, eight miles sub nine mile, do Murphy under an hour, whatever? Um, I, I do think because conditioning is a bigger portion of CrossFit programming than strength. Me personally, I'd rather, if I had to pick a physical trait of a coach, I do want them to be well conditioned.

Okay. All right. Dave, what is well conditioned like, here we go. You know, you should be able to get through most CrossFit workouts with a consistent pace there. Right like that. Like you shouldn't be falling apart six minutes in, and that might mean slow down a little bit at the start, right? But if you know that anything more than six, seven minutes, alright?

Or anything that has a cardio feel to it, if you know you fall apart, I'm not talking about where you rank, right? Because that's, that's two based on external factors that have nothing to do with how good of a coach you are, right? That that's more about other people than yourself. We're talking about yourself.

If you fall apart and can't maintain pace, you can't, you have no attention to a aerobic system, right? That's where I think it's an issue. And you should check yourself as a coach. Now, I wanna bring this up now, it's gonna come up again later. If you're going through something physically, an injury, of course, a sickness, right?

Like I'm not, that does not pertain to you, all right? Just, I don't want any coaches getting offended by that, right? But generally speaking, if you are a, you know, decent version of yourself right now, right? With health injuries, right? You should not be falling apart in the middle of a workout because you can't breathe.

All right. So I do, I think that's the one thing I do feel strongly about when it comes to performance. Do you agree with that? I

[00:30:14] Sam Rhee: agree. Okay. I mean, people go up and down with this stuff. Listen. Yeah. And you could, you find coaches who are sort of at a low point, like you said, right? For whatever reason I've been there.

Yeah. And then you could be like, look at, look at Sam. He's not, you know, like he's dying it like minute 10 into the workout this

[00:30:29] David Syvertsen: week. You scaled a lot this week. Oh, so much. And you're probably gonna continue to do that cause you're trying to rehab your shoulder. Yeah. So yeah, no one has any right to look at Sam like, dude, that guy can't even do the wall facing straight tan Sam pushups.

And he's a quarter finalist. That's been coaching for a while. Like, come on. Like you gotta know the situation. And again, we're not saying this from a judgmental perspective, but that is where this discussion started is an athlete said a coach should be able to do things. Yeah. So this is where we are gonna defend the coach a little bit.

If you're going through something, shoulder injury or shoulder rehab, whatever you want to call. Um, you know, the, the, the people around you kind of need to be aware of that, right? No, you're not gonna, you don't have to make a post about it or, you know, tattoo your forehead saying like, Hey, just because you beat me today doesn't mean anything.

I'm rehabbing my shoulder. We don't wanna go down that path. But I believe that coaches deserve some grace there throughout the year that they're not always gonna be the best version of themselves, whether it's out of gym stuff, whether it's an injury that they're rehabbing, but generally speaking from a macro, a year long perspective, Sam, even though he's rehabbing shoulders right now, usually embodies a well conditioned athlete more often than not.

All right? Um, so, but what should a coach should embody? This is where I'm gonna put pressure on a coach, and I'm only apply pressure to a coach because I feel this pressure 24 7, 365, and I mean that. Okay? Here are the five things we could break 'em down a little bit. Quality movement, pursuit of stimulus, attention to detail.

Coachability slash respect, and then long term goals with actions that align with them. Okay. Those are the five things that I think a good coach that is actually trying to walk the walk and not only give the whiteboard talk a good warmup and maybe even a good cue or two when you're coaching, that's part of your job.

The other part of your job, which could, you could make a case as equally as important as the classes you're coaching. Are those five traits right there? I'm gonna say 'em again. Quicker quality movement, pursuit of stimulus, attention to detail, coachability slash respect, long-term goals and actions that align with them.

So Sam, now put your coach, pat back on. Mm-hmm. All right. You don't have to remove yourself. Okay. Do you think you embody these five traits as a coach? I try. Yep. Okay. I try. Honestly, that's all. That's all I care. I mean, I will say from my perspective, you do, and I think, you know, most coaches I know that are good coaches do this too.

You know, consistently 24 7, 365. Probably not. I mean, I know my movement sucks sometimes. So, but again, the intent and only the coach knows, that's where I think the pressure really is on the coach. You know? And like, we're so into this, like, what do people think about me do anyway? That's where a lot of coaches get insecure with, with their workout scores, performance, their aesthetics.

You need, you can answer this question, like if you're a coach, you can answer this question right now and don't be pathological liar about it. Can do you embody those five traits? So quality movement, Sam, um, whether it's yourself or other coaches or you can use yourself as an athlete perspective, you know, does it bother you when you see a coach move like shit, not even in this gym.

Like if you drop in somewhere and you see a coach move like shit, or on Instagram, Yes. Does that bother you? Very, very much

[00:33:41] Sam Rhee: so. Same here. Yeah. Like, it bothers me deeply. I mean, if you're not more importantly, I mean, it, it really, that's a snapshot of somebody. Yeah. Obviously. Mm-hmm. And you know, if you saw me when I first started CrossFit, or when I first started coaching, that's a snapshot.

And you would. Like you said, progression and improvement. Mm-hmm. That's what you mentioned before. Right. And I can't emphasize that that's exactly what people should expect from coaches, so mm-hmm. If some of my movements are better than others, for sure. And everyone, everyone, and there are some movements that I struggle with and I think all coaches are never perfect at everything.

Mm-hmm. We all struggle with certain things. Mm-hmm. So you could probably program or pick out a workout for me and I would look really bad

[00:34:27] David Syvertsen: mm-hmm. Doing it. Yeah. Yeah. But, but the

[00:34:30] Sam Rhee: issue is, is that coach also trying, just like they are athletes to improve and work on what they're doing. Yeah. And if you see that, then I would expect you would think that they

[00:34:41] David Syvertsen: have good qualities as a coach and you can even keep this as standards.

Right? Like we, we've done a lot of talk on standards. We always will because I think it's a really important thing and it's a person standards to me are as much about personality trait than it is a physical trait. Right. Um, Quality movement can be like, do you hit the points of like, do you hit all those points of performance, all the standards?

Like when you squat, do you get below parallel unless you got an issue? Right. Do you lock out your elbows unless you got an issue? Um, you know, do you extend at the top of a burpee? You know, we did a nasty burpee workout the other day. I videotaped my whole one because I wanted to see splits and, uh, it was that Friday workout, the burpee pull up, burpee jump rope, burpee, tobar interval workout.

Yeah. And one of the real things I was looking for was like, do I actually extend everything at the top of the burpee? And I've, I've been on the other side where I'm like, oh, I didn't do it, but that, like, my intent is I gotta do it right. And you gotta be honest with it and humble about like, all right, you know what?

I need to make that better. So it, it could even just be like, you know, I'm never gonna look like Nick Squier when I snatch that, that dude moves. So, Right. It's like fun to watch 'em lift. It's pretty, love it, love it. Uh, I'm never gonna look like that, but I am trying, like, that is one of my goals is to really improve the quality of the movement.

Right? The biggest thing on here, well, I don't wanna rank these, but pursuit of stimulus is big to me. Um, as a coach, you know, when I coach other coaches, that's one thing I'm actually looking for is, will, will they scale when they, when they should scale, right? Um, you know, and someone, RX is a workout that they shouldn't in and they have a strong reason behind it.

Cool. Like, I'm, I'm cool with it. That's attention to detail. You put thought into it. But if it's like, nah, dude, like I've been RX in the workouts for six years, like I'm just gonna RX it. Well, you suck at those two movements and now you're not gonna get the stimulus of the workout. And this is something we struggle with as coaches all the time.

People overshoot, overextend themselves, and if you have the coaches overextending themselves, it's gonna, it's gonna trickle down. So every workout has a stem and I know not everyone is a natural at. What is today's stimulus? What is today's feel? What should I, what should I be aerobic, anaerobic? Should my splits be the same?

Does it not really matter? Today, I do my best on the write-ups, um, when I'm talking at the whiteboard to really explain like, Hey, use this weight, but if you can't do six on a row on Wednesday's shoulder overhead, wall walk workout, you should scale the. Right. If you are in round, if you're in the first third of the workout and you're breaking them up because it's too heavy, you fail to hit the stimulus of the workout.

So thoughts on that? We have

[00:37:08] Sam Rhee: a lot of Rx bros. Yeah. Just like every other gym does. Right. And it's Rx or bust and forget if whether you're finishing under time cap or you only finish 50% of the wad under time cap, but you still are. And that's all that matters. And I've been guilty of that time and time again myself.

Mm-hmm. And it is, is it is a

[00:37:26] David Syvertsen: struggle. Cause not that often though. Um, thanks. I know, I, I mean, I know we're trying to like not come across as preachy. We, that's so, just so you know, Sam and I are o is like, let's make sure we're not coming across preachy. But we do have anecdotal advice and it's just a struggle

[00:37:40] Sam Rhee: because you're dealing with your ego.

Yeah. And it is hard not to put your RX up there. And I know a lot of athletes who feel that way. Mm-hmm. If you are a coach and you don't. Practice what you preach when you go there. Mm-hmm. Not only are you not helping others, but you're gonna hurt yourself. Right. I mean, there are certain times where you wanna cut loose.

Mm-hmm. You wanna see what you can do. Yeah. You, you know, let the regulator off and, and go for it. Mm-hmm. And sometimes coaches will help you. They'll say, sometimes, listen, this one, I think you should RX or you should go for it. Like, you know, but most of the time you have to figure out what that is. And if you can't figure that out for yourself, you know, and someone's like telling, like, telling you, dude, I'm just gonna go for it.

Mm-hmm. And if you're just like, not, not even giving one piece of like, information about it, like, you know that this is, this, this, and this. Right. And you know that usually you're doing this right. Think about that. Right? I mean, I, you, you and I never will tell someone not to, like, if they're gung-ho about something, unless we're about to see them run into a

[00:38:44] David Syvertsen: brick wall, if it's a safety thing Right.

It's different.

[00:38:46] Sam Rhee: But most of the time we're gonna let athletes go. Yeah. But on the other hand, athlete, you know, if you are an athlete yourself as a coach who doesn't know what that is mm-hmm. It's hard to give good advice to athletes that also don't know what that

[00:38:59] 2023_0416_0925: is.

[00:38:59] David Syvertsen: Right. And you know, I'm proud of a coach when, like, I had a, I've had a couple coaches over the past couple years say like, Hey, like I'm probably, I'm gonna scale every open workout this year.

And they, they've never done that before. And I'm like, I'm proud of you for say, for doing that and saying that. Cause I know it's not always easy. Right. There's some of you go involved in it or just some acceptance of where you're currently at. And I know it's hard, I've been there too. But when a coach comes up to me that normally RX is a workouts, let's say 75% of the workouts, like, and they scaled for whatever reason.

Right. I'm proud of them for saying that cuz I still think there is a problem in this gym and in CrossFit in general that scaled is perceived as bad. Because I still, to this day, when I write, I write down everyone's score. When they come to the gym, you hear a score and like, but I scaled. I'm like, it's not, but you're scaled.

You just scaled, right? Like, like I, I can't wait until maybe it'll never happen. Maybe it will where it's just, that's not the result, right? Like, you worked hard and hit the stimulus. Right? Maybe someday there will be a better way for us to record this. Maybe we don't write down RX scale sometime, you know?

Um, we talk about that all the time. I think about all the time. You know, um, that's big, pretty cool podcast topics. Maybe talk about like different ways to record workouts that you kind of get away from that RX scaled. But here example, we've done workouts with, there is no RX weight. Just pick a weight. Go for it, right?

Um, body weight or just pick a weight that you feel like moving today. And you could tell there's a different feel when some people get their scores. Because what'd they do? They hit the stimulus. Good job. Awesome. Um, the only time I would say, Hey, you failed to hit reach a stimulus and it's okay, is if you were testing yourself.

Like, I kind of wanna see if I can do this. Oh, I failed. Okay. Like now I know, and that's okay. All right. Uh, but if it's the majority of your workouts, I think that's a bad job by the coach.

[00:40:41] Sam Rhee: I also think athletes should not be looking at coaches and be like, you know what, they're only doing 55 on those cleans and I'm always doing 65.

Yeah. So they're not good. They just keep scaling everything. Yeah. Like

[00:40:51] David Syvertsen: maybe that's not the point of that person's workout. Yeah. You know, I remember I made a post about this long time ago on b Instagram and you know, it's, uh, if the, if your score was the quality of the movement, not your, how many reps, what your time was, would you approach your workouts differently?

You know, and that's a very subjective way. So we can't really do it like, Hey, you got a six outta 10 day, you know, on your quality of snatches and handstand pushups. But, um, maybe that coach that usually less weight than you moved so much better and got a better stimulus and safer workout than you that used 65 pounds.

You badass, right? Um, but you moved it like shit and you're kind of sore the next day and you really didn't get that much better at any quality movement The coach got, the 55 pounder, got the better workout. Absolutely. So that's something, you know, you can't always use surface level observations like a weight on a barbell or a score on a whiteboard to say who did the better job?

I mean, you shouldn't go there in general, who did a better job? But if you can't help yourself, you can't use only the score on the weights on the board. The other thing

[00:41:53] Sam Rhee: is, is that I would say 95% of. At the time, our coaches move fantastically well and you don't even see what happens on the whiteboard.

For example, I remember the other day, I've used this example a bunch of times, it was one of those weight progressions where you move up. Yeah. Uh, like he, you know, and you just record the heaviest weight Yep. For something. Yeah. And Adam storms started at, like, everyone starts at like 95 or 75,

[00:42:18] David Syvertsen: the overhead workout.

I can't remember. Strict press push,

[00:42:20] Sam Rhee: press pusher. It was like, it was a year ago. Oh. Oh, okay. It was really long time. Yeah. Okay. And I remember, um, he started at like 75, or everyone starts at like 75 and then they finished at like 1 55 or 1 65 or 180 5 or something. He started at 1 35 and he did the whole workout at 1 35 and he recorded 1 35.

Yep. And you know what you didn't see on the whiteboard what his performance was. Yeah. But I watched him do it. Yeah. And I was like, that was 10 times harder than me starting at 75 and doing one last rep. Yeah. At 1 75 and looking better than him and I classic. And I told myself, This is where you don't see what's going on, right.

In real life. Right. Look at what these coaches are doing and judge

[00:43:01] David Syvertsen: based on that. Right? Right. Yeah, that's, that's a great example of a situation like that where the, the numbers on the whiteboard don't tell the story. Um, attention to detail. So what I mean by this is, and this is hard for me to talk about because I know, like I'm a numbers guy with a lot of things like percentages, paces, reps per minute.

How long am I resting between, um, like I had a very specific goal and a workout that I just did, bison, the one that I just talked about, Friday squad the burpee to bar burpee pull up, jump under. I had a very specific like goal that I was going for. Um, but I'm. It's natural and easy for me to look at a clock and know exactly how long that round took.

Like, I don't need to write down the splits. I just knew, right? Um, and I knew if I tripped up once, it was six seconds slower than the previous. Like all that stuff that comes from a lot of experience. But it also comes from, I am, I do know that I need to get everything out of every workout for me to move the needle and get better.

And every little details matters. Like how many steps I took from my burpee to the pull-up bar the other day, like that mattered to me. Liz told a story that Adam Ramson was doing burpees, um, and every rep taking another step closer to his jump rope, so that by the time he was done with his burpees, he was at his rope.

He was, and he crushed the workout that day too. That's attention to detail, right? Um, so if, if a coach, I believe, and this actually helps you become a better coach, when people start asking for advice, you know, uh, if I wanna get better at Fran, we can't just say, try harder on your thrusters than your pull-ups, right?

It can be like, Hey, You're thrusters, you get them done pretty much one rep every two seconds. So you're only gonna be doing 42 seconds of thrusters. So if you know you're gonna rest for 10 seconds, you should be off that barbell at the 55 second mark. You know, like the, some athletes will be like, wait, wait, what?

What'd you just say? That's attention to detail. How long does a thruster take? About two seconds. If they're a little bit slower, squatter, maybe three. Right? How long does a wall ball take? If you told the entire gym to go on one minute of unbroken wall balls, everyone would probably get between 30 and 35 reps.

Like that kind, those kind of details, they help a lot. And then you get into the machines, like your pace is on machines and all this stuff. Attention to details. A big part of being a coach. And if you apply that to your workouts as an athlete and start to really break things down, write some things down, I, it's gonna help you out a lot.

You know, there are a lot

[00:45:11] Sam Rhee: of athletes and I've been one who, you hear that from the coaches and you. Okay, whatever. I'm just gonna go, right. It doesn't always click. I'm gonna go hot and, and that's fine. Mm-hmm. But at some point, as an athlete, you're gonna want those details or you might be receptive at some point.

Right. And once you actually do, start thinking about it, even if you're a very casual athlete, start thinking about those things, it will help tremendously. Yeah. So, Coaches keep giving that information, right? Even if people don't seem to be registering and they're just going out hot as f. Right. Um, and then athletes, at some point you might be receptive to that information and you might start incorporating it into your workout, right?

Tomorrow might be the first day you actually

[00:45:50] David Syvertsen: do. Absolutely. You know, give it a shot. Yeah. Um, and that if you wanna take, you know, we're two meatheads talking about working out, like let's take the workouts out of it. Your nutrition. Like if you wanna get into macros, like those 1, 2, 300, you know, hundred grams of, uh, or sorry calories, they matter.

At the end of the day, if you're trying to fix something with your, your body weight or your body fat, or your energy levels or your recovery, right? If you're prescribed to eat 180 grams of protein a day, but you're only eating 140, that's like every single time you eat, you came up about maybe seven or eight grams short.

Not a big deal in the moment, but those little details they add up. You do that every week, every month for a few years. Yeah. Maybe you're the person that can't recover if you're eating, you know, 20 grams of carbs extra every single day. Not a big deal, right? Like had a couple jelly beans before I came to the gym today and, um, nice Easter candy's still sitting in that cabinet.

Um, but you know, if you do that every single day, Or a couple times a day, you multiply it by, you know, 74 days over the course of the year. Then like, Hey, maybe those are the five parents you wish you could lose, right? Maybe that's why you struggle with gymnastics. Like you, all these little details about how many, how much what you're doing before you go to sleep to get, ensure that you get a good night of sleep.

Like these details can go into all these different angles of your life and a lot of the changes that people want, they're not drastic like a lot, they're not. It's just a bunch of little baby steps that add up to something so that attention to detail as a coach can help you out so much, but can help you really help others, right?

I think a lot of coaches need to take that on. It's like when we tell you to have attention to detail, yeah, I care about you, but I actually care about you coaching others more than that. And I think that can really help you out there. Um, coachability and respect. Um, you know, this is tough for a coach sometimes.

You know, you're the one in charge, especially if you coach a lot, right? If you're a head coach or you're a full-time coach, you need to be able to be coached yourself. You know, like I hired a coach for a few years for this reason. I was like, I thought I was getting too biased towards what I think is right.

And I loved getting the different perspectives from different coaches, um, that, you know, if you are not a coachable athlete yourself, whether you just don't listen, if a coach comes here, if a coach comes up and tells you, yo, take 20 pounds off your bar, Hey, you're gonna, you should scale this workout and you don't do it, you're not coachable.

What do you think?

[00:48:05] Sam Rhee: Yes, I agree. But it's hard both on, on both sides. So it's hard

[00:48:09] David Syvertsen: to coach coaches. It's hard. It, it is. Yeah. And I've had you in my class. Yeah. And I don't really say much because I'm not sure what to say exactly. Yeah. I mean, whatever. I mean, so I, I'm actually hoping to get to your class Thursday morning.

I mean, I'm literally at that point now, I have to like, map out every hour, but gimme an example. Cause I've come I think two, two weeks in a row. Yeah. Um, recently just a thruster cowra workout. I'm still sore from that thing. Um, Do you ever see something in me that you're like, you know what? I think he should be better at this.

Uh,

[00:48:35] Sam Rhee: only one thing. What, uh, you talk too much in the warmup with Nick Squier about golf and stuff, and I'm like, please

[00:48:41] David Syvertsen: shut the F up. Well, hey, I mean that's like, that is, that's a real thing, right? Like, and that's a respect, like maybe I was being disrespectful. I know you're just bro talking. But, but still like, yeah.

I will say I'm calculated with when I do talk, this is something that comes up a lot with coaches and it's not necessarily about other coaches, but we do get frustrated. When there's like side conversation as you're trying to teach something. Now I'm pretty diligent about not talking during like the really important coaching components, but if we're warming up and like we're in the middle of like a leg swing set, we start talking and then you start talking about, you know, the importance of a leg swing.

Like, I probably will keep talking maybe Sean, but if Sam really doesn't want me to, I won't. I mean,

[00:49:23] Sam Rhee: I'm not gonna sit there and tell you like tips to as you're attempting your 2 75 clean.

[00:49:28] David Syvertsen: Right. But yeah, and, but I'm still

[00:49:30] Sam Rhee: looking like they're, when I do coach other coaches, I still look at, I actually look at them more carefully in some ways just because I'm like, they're generally moving very well.

Yeah. So what is it that I can. Pull out. Mm-hmm. Or give, because I think that's, I'm trying to think of an example. Right. That's one of the hardest things for me to do, is to see people and point out faults. Well, right. Because I think a lot of people actually move pretty well at our gym. Yeah. But there's always stuff you can pull out.

Right. So, so that's the same thing when I'm being coached Yeah. Is generally speaking, I, I am looking for that as well. Yeah. So,

[00:50:06] David Syvertsen: but it's hard. And I think from the athlete perspective, right? Like me, the guy that was talking too much on Thursday morning, it's like, all right, now it's like, Sam just says that like, if I do come this Thursday, like I need to know.

That, like, just don't talk while, and like if there is like, Hey guys, you got five minutes to work out. That's your time to talk, right? Um, like I'll tell you when I'm not talking, it's during my workout because that's about me. But when you're into class as a coach, it's not about you. Right? Like, you really do have to, and maybe like, you know, the other day, like, I should have just kept my mouth shut when we were talking about golf, although we're so pumped for it.

I'm very excited. Um, but that's, that's, that's a big sign to me that if a coach does tell you like what Sam just did to me, like if you do it again now it's a problem. That could mean you're not coachable. Like you think you're too important to listen to rules that you want others to follow. And again, what are we talking about?

We, what are these traits that we want to coach to embody and what other athletes should expect of that coach, right? Like coaches, there are eyeballs on you if you don't embody the things that we want you to do. It's a, you are reflecting poorly on yourself As a coach, that's what

[00:51:09] Sam Rhee: I worry about because you.

Have so much respect at the gym. Mm-hmm. What you do

[00:51:13] David Syvertsen: during

[00:51:14] Sam Rhee: my class Yeah. Reflects on the class, but it reflects on me too. Absolutely. Because you're one of the biggest, you are

[00:51:22] David Syvertsen: arguably the biggest part of the gym. Right? Right. Yeah. Um, so now here's the last one about this. What should a coaching body, the long-term goals and the actions that align with them, right?

Does a coach need to have a long-term goal? That, that's the first question I should ask you, ev. Everyone should Including coaches. Yeah. So the answer is yes. Yes. You should have long-term goal. Yes. Um, what is long-term? You get to decide it's your long-term. You know, it might be the end of the summer that's coming up.

It might be for the open next year. It might be for the next time you're in a new age group, which is three years from now. Like it really can be anything that you want. Should they have coaching goals that are long-term. Like in terms of what? Quality of a being a better coach. Yeah. I think a coach would always try to be a better coach.

Okay. If a coach ever thinks like they're a good enough coach and they don't need to work harder, that that's a really poor job by that coach. What are your coaching long-term goals? So I would, I mean in terms of like, I do wanna get better at coaching skills, like the actual skills, like there are more people than I thought that got really into the handstand workout.

They really want to know a handstand. I'm, right now I'm not in a great spot with how to teach a handstand. Like there's a few things I'm trying to pick up on myself. I mean, I'm not very good at myself. I can walk, but like stay still is really hard for me and there's gotta be something I'm missing. So I'm trying to, you know, research on my own, apply it to myself as an athlete selfishly, but also can I use that anecdotal advice to help them as a coach.

Um, and I do feel like I haven't done a great job. Over the past few years, for whatever reasons of not helping people progress in skills, rope climbs, rain, muscle ups, handstand walks, um, stringing together, toes bar. Now, a lot of it, it's tough cuz a lot of it is like the person just can't do it yet.

They're, they're not there, right? They want to be, but they're not. And there has to be a baseline level. So there's a couple athletes right now, like, I'm kind of just like using them as a case study a little bit. It's like, all right, I'm really gonna try these things out with this person because I know there's someone in our gym that's, I have a feeling's, gonna get a muscle, put them next like three months.

But I don't want to just tell 'em to go try, I want to try these like 3, 4, 5 steps and see if I can apply that. So that's one of my goals is to like, and I don't feel that way. I don't want that to come across as a, a kind of like a template soft answer because I don't feel that way about Olympic lifting, you know?

Right. Like, I don't. Right. And it's not that I don't feel it's important. I do think I need to get better there, but I want more of my attention on, Hey, I want Dave to be the person I go to if I'm close to a ring muscle, but something's cl not, not clicking and that that's what I wanna get

[00:53:53] Sam Rhee: better at. Yeah.

We all have strength and weaknesses as coaches and we all work. Quote weaknesses to be better at. Right. I mean, personally it took me a while just to get the group management part of things going. Logistics. Yeah. And uh, and that was

[00:54:07] 2023_0416_0925: one

[00:54:07] David Syvertsen: where you've thrown yourself in the fire though, because you're, you coach the toughest classes a day.

[00:54:11] Sam Rhee: Yeah. I feel like coaching 20 to 26 people a day, like for a class

[00:54:16] David Syvertsen: at five and 6:00 AM too. Yeah. We'll, we'll help you get

[00:54:19] Sam Rhee: better or you're gonna suffer Yeah. Pretty, pretty handily. And I've done both,

[00:54:22] David Syvertsen: but, right. Um, now Saturdays every now and then, right. So it's,

[00:54:26] Sam Rhee: it's a different level. Yeah. Group management skills have gotten better.

I think the issues still always is going to be pointing out, like finding flaws in, in, in, in athletes and looking at it like, I don't want to get to the level of like an L two where you're just like nitpicking at stuff. Right. But on the other hand, there is stuff that I know. I could help athletes with.

Mm-hmm. But, you know, that's just something I have to keep watching. Yeah. Athletes and sort of, and also watch other coaches. I look at all of you guys when you coach. Yeah. And when you guys give correction to others, I, I'm like zooming in on that. Like I pay a lot of attention to that because that's very important

[00:55:03] David Syvertsen: to me.

Yeah. Yeah. Great. Um, so we have a couple things left here. Um, so now we kind of just like told the coaches, like, Hey, some pressure you should feel, you know, um, those five traits that we talked about, athletes, it's your turn. Um, why, why athletes need to avoid judging how good slash bad a coach is. And everyone has some judgey in them, right?

Some more than others, some, a lot more than others. I'm always very judgey. Um, do you, here's the thing about like, you, you come to the gym and you see someone for an hour, all right? Or less. And we're big on the hour is important here. The other 23 hours are more important. Right? And they all kind of like should add up together to make yourself the healthiest version you want to be.

Right? Do you critique lifestyle the same way? You know, I, I wanna use the word critique. I don't wanna use judge because I do think there is an expectation for the lifestyle of a coach. You know, I have seen coaches that are without a doubt, unhealthy people, right? And I'm talking from a big picture perspective.

Not like the, the summer binge, the weekend binge, the vacation binge, like going through a rough spot, stressed out, got a lot of stuff going on. I stress eat, I stress drank. Like I, again, that's the extreme to me. I'm just saying your normal day-to-day life. You can see someone's, it's obviously they're not buying what they're selling.

And one thing that has made CrossFit successful, in my opinion, and it's something that could be the end of a business, whether it's this one or another one, there's a lot of things that could end it, is that the leaders, they don't, they don't eat what they cook, right? They, they dish it out, but they're like, dude, I ain't touching that.

You know, like if I was gonna, I wouldn't wanna cook for people. I'm not a good cook. So like if I'm gonna cook for an, you know, 50 people, like I ain't touching it, it probably sucks. I'm gonna go to the diner and get something in different, like, are there coaches that do that? And I think that's where some athletes will only look at someone's score, the load, the movements, the rx, the.

But they don't put as much attention on, like, dude, they're healthy. You know, they're, they're, they're happy, they're glowing. They, they're, they're not, they're never the coach that's injured all the time. Right. That's something I think you need to kind of shift this a little bit, like get away from these short term, what's your score in today's vibe?

Like, who cares? Are they a healthy person? Are they pursuing health? What do you think? Absolutely.

[00:57:33] Sam Rhee: It's hard to get to know people's internal lives like that. It is. Um, and a lot of what I see from coaches, What they do in the gym. Mm-hmm. I don't necessarily know like, what

[00:57:45] David Syvertsen: is their outside life like. Mm-hmm.

What, what? You do know some. You do know some though. Some, yeah. Some even that you don't even know everything. Right. And I

[00:57:52] Sam Rhee: honestly, I try not to dig too much unless they offer it to me. Right, right. Like, I

[00:57:55] David Syvertsen: hate ask questions. Yeah. I hate

[00:57:57] Sam Rhee: bugging people about stuff because you might find stuff or that you really didn't wanna know or shouldn't know,

[00:58:03] David Syvertsen: or don't ask questions you don't want the answers to.

Right. Exactly.

[00:58:06] Sam Rhee: And if they tell me stuff, I'm really happy to hear it. Like, I want it, I want people to tell me stuff if they want to tell me. Yep. But, um, I think, you know, but their wad performance and what they do in the gym does reflect that. Mm-hmm. And if someone is, uh, they can reflect that they can.

Yeah. Um, I think all coaches should definitely buy into what's going on at the gym at the very minimum. Mm-hmm. So if you see a coach never showing up, like not jumping into wa not doing wands, not like doing anything that we're sort of espousing, never showing up during

[00:58:40] David Syvertsen: the open. Right. That kind of stuff.

Exactly.

[00:58:41] Sam Rhee: Not supporting others, not doing any of that stuff. Well then you're like, wait a second, what is this

[00:58:47] David Syvertsen: coach's role? Do you

[00:58:48] Sam Rhee: really believe it? Do they believe what they're saying? Like, you know, RA open, rah rah. And then

[00:58:52] David Syvertsen: remember when we had Tafaro on, uh, two years ago, a year and a half ago, over a year ago when we did the, like the four part series of bison history?

Yeah. Bison or origins. And he, I remember him saying this like, uh, something I remember from that was when we started bison, when he left his career in finance, he was in it for a while. You know, he's like, this was like the first product I actually believed in that I was selling to others. Right? Like, how many people out there are just trying to sell so they can provide for their family?

More power to you, by the way. Right? But you're not like truly believing it. I don't wanna ruffle any feathers, but like, you know, there's some industries out there like they are selling to only make money. They're not trying to help anybody. They're just trying to make money. Here at bison, whether you're an owner or a coach, the money's not big enough to make, like go in with that kind of approach.

Like, there's not a, a fiscal advantage to this that like changes your life, right? But you believe in it so much that it's like almost an easy thing to sell, you know? But if you don't believe in it, it, it can easily. Kind of come across that way. Oh,

[00:59:59] Sam Rhee: inauthenticity. CrossFitter smelled at a mile away. Right.

If you're inauthentic about something. Right. And I, I have seen it at other gyms when I've dropped in or seen it like, listen, and this is why I like CrossFit bison or one of the strongest points is regardless of what level you're at, a high level of fitness or a low level of fitness, the programming works.

Mm-hmm. So there are a lot of places where the high level athletes just don't even do the programming that's offered Right. At all. Mm-hmm. Never. Mm-hmm. And, and that's not something that you've ever believed in, right. Even your competitors, the ones that are really sort of working to, um, a very high level of aspiration mm-hmm.

Will still do wads. Yep. They may. Slightly different. You could even say scaling Yeah. If you wanted to, right. Yeah. Um, or they might do additional volume. Right. Different,

[01:00:53] David Syvertsen: you know, but, but they might not do six wads a week at bison, but they pretty much all do three or four. Yeah. And who, I mean, God, I could barely do three

[01:01:00] Sam Rhee: or four myself.

Yeah. Just regularly like scaled or whatever. So, so the fact that they're all involved and doing it

[01:01:08] David Syvertsen: mm-hmm. Like to me, if that, that shows

[01:01:11] Sam Rhee: you the level of commitment from the coaches mm-hmm. That if they're involved to

[01:01:15] David Syvertsen: that extent too. Yeah. And that follows your philosophy. Absolutely. Now the, I'm a big sports fan, right?

If you know me, like, I mean, for example, I talk about sports during Sam's warmups. I'm gonna go like, hit myself against the wall. But anyway, the, um, I'm really into sports and for, there's a lot of reasons behind that and not gonna get into it. But one thing I've noticed, baseball, basketball, football, I don't really follow other sports that much.

The best coaches. In the world in history, pretty much none of them were elite athletes. Some of 'em have NFL playing careers and they ended up coaching after, or, but like, you know, bill Belichick, for example, sorry, jets fans, um, the, he, he's gonna be considered probably the best coach of all time, all right?

Are one of them, let's say top five. Okay? You never played in the nfl. He's a, he's a five nine, like outta shape guy that's gonna tell the best athletes in the world what to do, how to do it, no matter what. And they will listen to him. The buy-in is there, there's credibility. So like right now you could say, of course Dave, like he's won all these Super Bowls, they've been the most successful franchise in football for 20 plus years.

Um, of course they're gonna listen to him and buy into what he is selling. But you know what? In 2000, 2001, he was a guy that was a former assistant coach that got. At from his first head coaching job did a really bad job. He didn't have credibility back then, but he knew what he was doing. And this is the challenge for the coach too.

Like, here's an example. Like, yeah, you don't need to be able to do anything, but you better be able to coach it. And if you can't, then yeah, that is a bad job by you. Um, but the athletes, I wanna challenge you guys to use real life examples. Like if you don't wanna buy into what we're talking about in this podcast, saying like, don't judge coaches and use them and, and compare your scores to them, which we already proved to you, that's kind of irrelevant.

You know, go use sports as an example. So many quality coaches, the best in the world are not the best athletes. That's a mistake a lot of CrossFits will make. Hey, oh, you made regionals cool, you're a coach. Oh, cool. Like, you look the GRA best with your shirt off. You're a coach. Uh oh, you could do 15 on broken muscles.

You're a coach. You know, we won't do that. Most gyms don't do that anymore, but it's happened in the past. I'm sure it's still an issue out there. But I think the athletes need to pay attention to if a coach is up there, just because they're not a great athlete, has almost no bearing and there's proof everywhere that this is the case.

[01:03:36] Sam Rhee: Why is it that the NFL coaches are the least fit looking

[01:03:39] David Syvertsen: people in the world? You wanna know why? Why? I know why? Because they work probably not 18 hours a day.

[01:03:44] Sam Rhee: Andy Reid, Brian, uh, day ball or whatever the heck. Yeah,

[01:03:48] David Syvertsen: he's on Franklin Lakes, by the way. These are the fattest guys I've ever seen in my life.

All right, well now he's not gonna be on the podcast.

[01:03:53] Sam Rhee: No, it's okay. You can explain why his fitness level and his coaching acumen do not, uh,

[01:03:59] David Syvertsen: correlate. Coach Daves, maybe you can come here and we'll, we'll, we'll train you for the summer before the season starts. I mean, hey, you do see this with coaches. A lot of 'em do like, I mean, Andy Reid, let's use him example.

Cause I think he's the best coach in the NFL right now. Andy Reid. And he may like, he's hilarious to listen to about, he talks about his, like his body shape and how much he eats. He just, the dude loves food, but, but there's also some coaches like the Jets head coach Robert. So that dude love, like he's a, a specimen.

Yeah, he's really cuts. He's a monster and it's. I'm not gonna get into judging, like who does what, but I do know those guys, like their, their hours that those guys work and the stress they're under is, I can't even fathom. I can't even relate to it. Um, I know a couple of people that have worked in the NFL even, um, as scouts, uh, college Scouts, and they travel the country, like they're on the road six days a week, never eating.

They're always eating out on the road in their car, right? It's not a healthy lifestyle. So, um, I don't wanna get too far off track here, but the. You know, the NFL coaches or a coach, you know, the NFL's a very, a fit, uh, league a a league of just very, um, fit individuals that Amazing athletes. Yes. Like the best in the world.

Um, and it's funny to me that sometimes these, like, you know, 55 year old, wrinkly old fat white guys can tell, like the best athletes in the world and scare them into doing training more, trying harder, running faster, lifting more weight. It's funny,

[01:05:19] Sam Rhee: I think on the CrossFit side, it, the takeaway really is, is keep an open mind as an athlete for any coach.

Mm-hmm. Someone shows up and they're a coach, even if you think they're a bad coach or a mediocre coach. If I drop in anywhere and I don't know someone, I will still try to take something from that class. Right? You always can as an athlete, right? Like, don't ever shut your mind off just because you. This person sucks.

Yeah. I'm not gonna do anything they say and I'm not gonna listen to anything they say. Right. Like, it's very rare that I'll ever be in a class where I'm gonna have to say, not like everything is, is not something I can take away. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. I'll bet you. I mean, not like, I bet you if you're a great athlete like this, and this speaks to you how good of an athlete you are, I bet you if Ma O'Brien showed up to my class, I, I'm like, yeah, she would still probably be able to take something away from it for sure.

Not because I'm a good coach. Right. But because she's an effing awesome athlete. And open-minded. And open-minded. Yeah. So I, I think, you know, it's incumbent on the athlete to work to try to get. You know, clear your mind of preconceptions, clear your mind of, you know, what you think an a, a coach should be or should do when you're in that class.

Take whatever you can out of it, make that your goal. Mm-hmm. For,

[01:06:31] David Syvertsen: for that class. Yeah. I mean, you can hinder your growth. Like if you do wanna make this about yourself, athletes, you will hinder your growth. If you're constantly trying to find something about a coach that can't do something, um, like you're always going to, you know, like, so if you do care about your own personal growth as a CrossFitter, as an athlete, as a healthy person that's just trying to live longer and prosper, right?

You're gonna prevent that from happening if your mind is always going towards what this coaching can and cannot do. Fact. All right. Um, the, the mindset of a coach. Okay. So almost, we're almost done with this guys, and this will dry down a little bit, but it's a good episode. Um, Personal experiences from coaching perspective, movements, squads, we struggle with, we kind of touched on that with coaching.

When you're injured, we've touched on that a little bit. Coaching, when we're not in our best physical, mental self, we've, we've touched on that. So the mindset of these coaches that we are normal human, human beings too. We are not machines. We are not robots, right? We have ups and downs just like you do, whether they're mental, emotional, physical, and that's another reason.

I think athletes should kind of stay away from these, these, you know, perceptions of you need to be this caliber of a person, of an athlete. The coach should always care and respect you and do a good job of coaching and running the class no matter what. But in terms of physical performance, the expectations shouldn't always be there.

And I, I think that the more we get away from always feeling like you have a right to judge a situation, always, you know, you don't always need to share your opinion. I know we live in a, a, a era where you can just go tweet anything out at any point. Everyone's gonna read it and like it or hate it and share it, right?

You don't need to share the opinions. You just don't. I, I would say almost all of your opinions that come to your head when you're thinking about a coach in quality of the class, like, keep 'em to yourself because it, in most cases, it's not gonna do any, it's not gonna move the needle good or bad. You know, sometimes you'll hear people say things about a coach, like where this podcast started from, a comment that Sam heard from a person, right?

It, it, it doesn't do anything. You're not, you're not making a difference. You know, you're only, sometimes you're only coming across as a douche bag, like one that's a little too full of themselves. Right? Like, I really think that in a lot of cases, those opinions should just be, you know, go say it to a wall or go say it to a dog, dog, and then you're good to go.

You don't have to say it anymore. Um, so yeah. Kind of like ending this on, defending the coach a little bit from that perspective, do you think that's too strong of a

[01:08:51] Sam Rhee: thought? No, absolutely. I believe at a thousand percent if I, as a coach, I take feedback, um, seriously, and not seriously. It, it kind of sounds weird.

Mm-hmm. But like, if someone, um, complains about a class or I, you know, and I could sort of tell like, you know, or something doesn't go right, like I do take that into

[01:09:10] David Syvertsen: account, right? But I

[01:09:11] Sam Rhee: also don't care. Right. Like, you know, if someone's like, that music sucks.

[01:09:16] David Syvertsen: I take that into account, but I also don't care.

[01:09:19] Sam Rhee: Same. Like it's, or, you know, that that's when I first started the group management issues. Like if I start a class and they don't finish quite with enough time, right. I take that into account, but I also don't care. Yeah. Like whatever comments people have. Mm-hmm. Listen, I'm working on it. Yeah. And I can't take it too personally, right.

Because I know I'm, I'm, I'm imperfect doing what I'm, what I can with, and you're imperfect. Right? And if someone has a comment that I can't change about myself, like how can I respect Sam if he doesn't know how to string ring muscle ups together, right? Mm-hmm. You know what? I don't care. Yeah. Like,

[01:09:51] David Syvertsen: I really don't care.

Like, and that's why I think people need to hear that because there are a lot of opinions that even like I have, and you have, they don't matter, right? They just don't. And not, and, and we're not being condescending. We're not being disrespectful to you. But you have to know. It usually those kind of comments stringing, bring muscles together.

The music, it does not matter, so don't talk about it. Yeah, I mean, I, I

[01:10:13] Sam Rhee: do try to make the class fun, engaging, try to teach. I try to make myself a better coach, but on the other hand, if I'm not perfect about it, Like, I realize that. Mm-hmm. It's okay. And if people like, and most people are pretty good about it.

Yeah, I could absolutely, I could come in on crutches and as long as I started the music and been there and got there, I'd be like, people are like, good. I mean, you know, I could look like a werewolf that morning and it would be fine. Like, it doesn't even matter. So, so most people are okay, but the people who nitpick at all this stuff.

Yeah. It's like, you know what, you're not helping the coaches. And the coaches honestly don't give a

[01:10:48] David Syvertsen: flying crap about what you think. Yeah. Right. And I, I think that's, uh, that, that's really important to know. Like, I think I was gonna wrap this up with what should, what's one thing I want, you want an athlete to walk away with from this podcast?

And then one thing you want a coach to walk away from, and I think we just got Sam's opinion on what the athlete should walk away from. Feedback is always warranted. Yes. But you, but you have to, not all types of feedback are bad. Like No, no, I know. Yes. And know you'll get a lot of positive feedback. Right.

Um, or, or constructive criticism. Constructive criticism. Right. And. You know, just to make sure we're on the same page with what you're saying, it's not that we don't care about your opinion, right? It, we always want to hear what people think about the qu quality of our coaching, the programming, the gym itself.

But when it gets into this overly judgemental stage, right? You have to know that almost all those opinions are not gonna change a thing about that situation. I mean, so you have to ask yourself, do I need to share it? And I don't mind.

[01:11:40] Sam Rhee: I welcome it. Like, I have a thick skin at this point when it comes to this stuff.

So if you do wanna tell me my music sucks, please tell me. Just know I might not change anything about it. Right, right.

[01:11:51] David Syvertsen: So then you have to ask what's

[01:11:52] Sam Rhee: the point? Right. But I don't mind hearing Yeah. Anything. And, and I think most coaches at this point, if you're a good coach, you, you, you will take that criticism.

You will take the comments. Yeah. But just also know that you may or may not make a difference per se.

[01:12:06] David Syvertsen: Right. Yeah. So it's like when Sam talks about Mike's Viking, shit music, Hey, you know, I've actually kind of grown fond of it a little bit. Sam's listened to it on the way, on the way to the gym, Bob being said to it.

What's a, a takeaway you want a coach to take away from this conversation?

[01:12:20] Sam Rhee: Um, you know, regardless of where you're starting, where you are, what you're doing, it's a process. And I understand, you know, athletes will have expectations of coaches physically, capability wise, they will prejudge you even before you start talking, whether you're an awesome coach or not good coach, okay?

You, you need to overcome those assumptions and prove that you are doing the best job that you can and that you are a good coach. Mm-hmm. And, and I truly believe no matter who you are, if you care, no matter where you start from, what physical capabilities you have, you know, um, you will, you can become a great coach.

Mm-hmm. It may not be as easy for me as it is for Matt Frazier. Right. But, You know what? I know I could become a great coach. I know everyone can become great coaches. Mm-hmm. And, and so don't let anything that anyone else says deter you if that's what

[01:13:16] David Syvertsen: you believe in. Yeah. Yeah. Um, my takeaway for Coach is that the, the sum of all of your actions are going to dictate whether or not you become a, a great coach, a respected coach.

It's not necessarily, um, the good days where the movements are in your wheelhouse and you're awesome at teaching them. Right. Um, but it's also not going to be detracted that much for the boomers that you're not good at, or that the ones that you personally struggle with. Right. Or the times of your life, you're injured, not feeling great about yourself physically not there.

The sum of all the actions over the course of like, let's say a year, really dictate a lot about how much respect you're gonna have as a coach. So if you have a bad day or have a bad week, it's okay, but at some point you're gonna have to turn that into a good week. Yeah. A, a good week. Yeah. You, you have to keep the standard really high for yourself as a coach.

And if you're ever kind of getting away from that a little bit, Or you don't think the standard, you, you don't wanna uphold that standard as an athlete. You kind of just wanna come and wad and disappear. I don't think you should coach anymore. I, I think that's something, a realization that some coaches should think about is if you are no longer want that bar really high and want eyeballs on your actions and words, and even in and out of the gym, if you don't want to do that anymore, I don't think you should run classes anymore.

Um, so that's, that's something I want to coach to often think about. And then my takeaway for athletes is, man, what's the one? I would say that one, the one takeaway I would take from an athlete is find coaches that you do want to embody the ones that you do. You know, we all like different coaches, different athletes flow to different coaches, right?

Whether it's their classes or who they hang out with outside the gym, you know, what, what they look like, what they buy, right? All this stuff, right? Try to find a few coaches and then look deeper than just how they warm you up, what music they play. Because if you really do want to become a better athlete and you find the coach that you really do want to follow, there are thousands of variables that make that coach that person.

And they're not always gonna be great, right? They're not always like, if you want to embody this coach, but that coach isn't good at snatching, it's okay. You're gonna get a lot of different traits from that coach that can help you kind of raise your level. Um, but in the same breath, the coaches that you're not picking to try and embody, trying to try to find something from them, it doesn't need to be the whole lifestyle.

Try to find something from a coach that you can embody and, and improve yourself. And I think if everyone's on that same page with respect, um, everyone's gonna get better. All right. Cool. Thanks guys. We'll see you next week. We have a special guest coming.