S03E107 WHAT IS THE BEST BACKGROUND FOR CROSSFIT TRAINING?

Unlocking Your CrossFit Potential: How Your Athletic Background Shapes Your Fitness Journey

What if your previous athletic background could have a significant impact on your CrossFit journey? Join Coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic as they dive deep into the world of pre-CrossFit training and its influence on an individual's progress. In this eye-opening episode, we explore five distinct training backgrounds - bodybuilding, endurance training, running, team sports, and more - and discuss the advantages, disadvantages, and potential pitfalls of each.

Discover how your own athletic history may help or hinder your CrossFit success as we discuss the importance of mobility, the challenges faced by endurance athletes transitioning to CrossFit, and the implications of introducing CrossFit to children. Are you a triathlete looking to make the switch? Learn valuable strategies from elite athletes who successfully completed the transition and achieved outstanding results.

As coaches, it's crucial to understand our athletes' backgrounds to help them reach their goals effectively. In this episode, we share our personal experiences with comparison, the importance of being an unbiased outside voice, and ways to prevent burnout and tension between coaches and athletes. Whether you're a CrossFit veteran or just starting out, this informative and inspiring episode has something for everyone looking to improve their fitness journey.

@crossfitbison @crossfittraining @crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates #supportyourlocalbox #crossfitaffiliate #personalizedfitness

00:00 The Impact of Pre-CrossFit Training

05:06 The Best Background for CrossFit Success

14:38 Sports Training and Long-Term Fitness

20:18 Elite Athletic Backgrounds and CrossFit

29:56 Coaching and Mental State

S03E107 WHAT IS THE BEST BACKGROUND FOR CROSSFIT TRAINING

[00:00:00] David Syvertsen: All right. Welcome back to the Herd Fit Podcast. I'm coach David Ston. I'm here with my co-host, Dr. And coach Sam Re, fresh off coaching the Thursday five 6:00 AM Thruster run workout. Saw a lot of smiles. Not really, no. A lot of people lying on the ground afterwards. Actually, that was a tough one. So, so his, his endorphins are running high.

Just got it always helps to, you know, be around CrossFit before you talk about it. So, um, it was fun. I got to come in and watch like the last minute of that workout. And kind of got me fired up to talk about today because this one relates to everyone. This today's topic, it can be more biased towards people that are starting out, um, and or people that are going to do CrossFit at some point.

And I want to be sure that before we get into it, if you've been CrossFitting for 10 years, I still think this relates to you. Um, you know, based on, it can bring some clarity to why you struggle with some things, why you do really well with some things. And why others are seeing progress compared to you.

Right? I think comparison is always the thief of joy, right? Where you just, you think you're doing a really good job, but the second you start bringing other people into the evaluation of yourself, uh, you can go down a really dark path and not really see the light of, of how well you're doing, right? I mean, I think.

I, if you're on a consistent workout routine, you're top 10% in the world because a lot of people just don't do it at a certain point. Um, and I think that's something you should be very proud of. But I'd understand, and I've been there down myself, where why am I struggling with this and other guys are not?

Whether it's competitively or just fitness wise, why, why do I have a knee issue and someone else does not? Right? I do all this stuff. They don't and they're not struggling. Right. Um, and I think that's, that's the wrong idea. I don't think you should go down that path when you're self-evaluating and it's hard to, um, opening thoughts on that, Sam, because I know you've been around this for a long time.

You've probably been down that path as well. All right. Comparing and, um, good and bad, you know, just before we get into what I'm gonna talk, what we're gonna talk about today, what is just that, that thought of. When you really reflect on your personal experience and progress, or lack thereof, does it really come into your head what other people are doing when you're com uh, really evaluating yourself?

Absolutely.

[00:02:06] Sam Rhee: I have always compared myself to people in CrossFit. You can't help it. You have a whiteboard every day, right? Um, I have at times used it in. Positive and good ways. And then I've also used it, unfortunately, in negative ways where it's kind of brought me down. Mm-hmm. Uh, I feel like you're, you always have ups and downs, uh, in your health, fitness, what have you.

And I think sometimes it's really tough when you might be banged up or injured and you feel frustrated because you, yourself don't look like you're making progress in relationship to others. And I, I do love that. Uh, saying, you said comparison is the thief of joy. Mm-hmm. Like it takes time to figure out that you have to move at your own pace and other people are not you.

But you know, that still is tough even on an everyday basis. Mm-hmm. I will look at that whiteboard and be like, man, yeah, I wish I had done better, even though for myself I did great. Mm-hmm. So I try to remind others. Especially as a coach, um, that they are doing awesome regardless of what they might be comparing themselves to, because we have a very fit group of individuals.

Very. And if you just keep looking at them and not just sort of looking at your own progress, you could easily get

[00:03:20] David Syvertsen: very discouraged Absolutely. Any day, you know, any class even now at this point. Um, but I'm, what I'm glad you said there that I kind of just want to bounce off a little bit into, into what we're gonna talk about is the fact that.

You make sure because of what you've been through mentally, you make sure as a coach that you tell other people you want to be the unbiased outside voice that can overshadow someone's inside voice of saying, you're doing a great job and you truly are. And I know sometimes it's coach speak and sometimes people say, oh, well you have to say that you're a coach.

Let's take the coach out of it. I think this is a challenge I would give a lot of. Veteran CrossFitters, when you're around people that are new, is use it as an opportunity to maybe give them some of your personal experience. Hey, I've been there and hey, trust me, you are doing a good job. You might not feel like it, but you are.

I've been in your shoes before. Um, and what we can do is, what today's topic is about is consider your pre CrossFit training lifestyle. What did you do? Workout wise, prior to starting CrossFit, how much impact does that have right now, or did it have over your history of starting CrossFit on your progress or lack thereof?

And I have six I, I might blend two of them together, so it might be five topics. We'll see. We're gonna a little short on time today, but. I have five training backgrounds that most of you fall under. I know at some point you're gonna be like, oh, well I don't fall under any of those. Coach Liz, for example, what she did prior to CrossFit, which is nothing, um, which is to me, I think is actually more impressive than anything.

Right? Um, there's a lot of people in the Shin, we had her on, she talked about this, right? She didn't do anything. She didn't see the inside of the gym for 10 years after she graduated high school. And you don't know that. You would never believe that if you've started at bison over the past 5, 6, 7 years.

You just see, you know, someone that can do things with her body that most women cannot. Most people cannot, right? And, but she didn't have a background. And in some ways it actually helped her. In some ways it hurt her. And that's kind of like there's a pros and cons to all of these. So yes, do I think there are certain things that are better than others, background wise, prior to starting CrossFit?

I do. And I'll let you know where I would kind of rank these. Um, But I want to go through them first and then we'll go back to the top and kind of talk about what is probably the most ideal background. And here's something that came into my head on the drive here this morning. I've had so many people over the past few months inquire about their kids starting CrossFit.

Um, like 10 year olds, 11 year olds, 12 year olds, and they are looking into having them join our classes. And it's a, we have a policy here with age and there's a lot that goes into it. We won't, we won't get into that. Now. That might be a fun topic to talk about down the day. Yeah. Down the road. Yeah. Um, but this is what I would, you know, if I was going to make a CrossFitter and a factory, there are one of these backgrounds that I do lean towards.

And that would help my son do CrossFit when he's ready to do it. Brock, listen carefully. Yes. Uh, he's here five days a week, which is probably pretty cool just to be around the gym environment. But I'll tell you what, you might not believe me on this. He's not gonna be doing classes, you know, earlier than he should be.

And CrossFit kids, that's a whole nother discussion and. So, but these backgrounds, he's gonna have at least one of these. He'll probably have multiple, and some of you guys have multiple. So let's go through them real quick and then we'll go back to the top. One of 'em is the most common body building plus endurance training.

All right, so basically that's a fancy way of saying you lift weights and you do some cardio work. All right. Um, sports high school. Yeah, I was thinking more college or professional, right? Like, that's your background. There's a lot that goes into that, but I would say at minimum high school, but leaning more towards college and professional.

Uh, number three, Ironman slash triathlon slash endurance bias. We have a good amount of those in the gym right now. Um, that's, you know, that's your background workout for a long time. Do a lot of endurance work, but it's mixed modal in their world anyway, right where you're swimming and biking and running.

Um, the other one would just be running, sometimes swimming. But really, we know a lot of people that their fitness regimen is running. Cost effect. So that's really, like, that's a fitness background that a lot of people have when they come to cross it. They get their heart rate up. Heart is pretty healthy, they run.

Um, the last two I can blend together, um, bootcamp slash class, base fitness, so that you go to a gym, you pay membership, you with a group of people and you train and, or one-on-one individual training. You hire a personal trainer, you probably pay a lot of money for it, and you work out with them three, four days a week.

Those are the backgrounds that I have. Is there any that you think I'm missing out on? Like do you think if you start cross that you probably have one of those, or you've never been to a gym before? I know

[00:07:59] Sam Rhee: some people who have a more of a like I. Yoga slash pilate slash bar training type

[00:08:07] David Syvertsen: thing. So I would group that.

I was, when I was thinking about that, I was grouping that with the group based Yes. Classes. Yeah. I mean some people do do that stuff on their own. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's probably, and that we do have a good amount of people, especially early on. That was like a bigger thing I think. I don't know much about the Pilates business, but I do feel like we had a lot more people came in with that background.

10 years ago than we do now. Yeah. That is one of them. That's more mobility

[00:08:29] Sam Rhee: based, right? Than say, some

[00:08:30] David Syvertsen: other fitness disciplines. Yeah. So maybe, we'll, we'll talk about that when we get to the group based stuff or individual training. Mm-hmm. So the first one, if, if I did have to make. A CrossFitter. Let, let's say I was one of these dads that was gonna live vicariously through my son.

And What do you mean you are gonna do that? You do that now? Well, there's this story in, in, uh, that's very popular right now about this dad that has taken like a, a seven year old, I think, I don't even, I think he's seven or eight now. And he's, he's called Baby Gronk. Oh, yes. And he's got like this enormous social media following and he is gonna be the best football player ever.

He is got like fake tattoos. I've seen these stage interviews that they do where they stop the interview. They tell the guy what to ask and then he tells his son what to say. The kid is obviously has no idea what's going on, and I feel so bad for the kid, and I've been around sports. I was on a couple. Um, good baseball teams growing up with, uh, high level club baseball, and there were a couple kids on our team that were much better than us and they, they quit baseball before they ended high school.

Their dads were so hard on them. Wow. And their dads were obviously living vicariously through. So I bring that up because, If I was like that and I wanted to create my son into this factory made CrossFitter, mm-hmm. I would have him body build an endurance until he was probably 15 or 16 years old. Mm. All right.

So I would probably start him at age 10 and he would lift and just do cardio for five years. No thrusters for time, no muscle up for time. It would just be strengthen your muscles. Get some joint integrity, find that proper bend of stability, mobility, but also train your heart, right? Get some aerobic work in rowing, biking, running.

Kind of mix that up. I do, and I think that's probably the most common background of a successful cross hitter and I'm gonna take sport out. It just someone that gets a lot out of CrossFit. And how many times do we have someone come in? I had someone come in yesterday. I go to the gym, I lift, I'm by myself.

I do bench, I do buys, I do back, I do legs once every eight weeks. Um, and I go for runs. That, that's my training background. Awesome. You're healthy, you're working out, you're fit. Should be proud of that. We even have some guys at the gym right now that they've taken one day of CrossFit away and they're going to Fitness 19 to do some swol work, some body building work.

Body building is not, When I say body building, it's not standing on a stage in a bathing suit that's too small with a fake oiled up tan and flexing in front of people. That's not what I mean by body building. That's more of the competition side. Body building to me is just lifting free weights or lifting weights, I should say, to try to strengthen muscles and muscle groups around your body, but also put some endurance training in thoughts.

Uh, I.

[00:11:01] Sam Rhee: Sort of agree. I would say the big thing about body building is if it is done with free weights like dumbbells or barbells, that's great. I see a lot of body building where they're using machines at least. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not a huge fan of machine work, maybe just cuz I have been CrossFitter.

Mm-hmm. The other thing is, is most of the people who do additional body building work, and I don't. Fault them for it. Uh, we don't probably train chest as much in CrossFit or biceps. True. So a lot of people are doing bench or biceps mm-hmm. Or something again, for aesthetics. Right. And that's totally fine.

Um, the other thing is, is I probably would push my kid to do gymnastics Okay. As well. Because I think when I see people learning movements, In CrossFit, the ones who have a gymnastic background of any sort. And I think of Patrick Vellner too. Mm-hmm. Like they have a. A great advantage when it comes to learning high skill movements.

Mm-hmm. I mean,

[00:11:56] David Syvertsen: you can pick

[00:11:56] Sam Rhee: them up. Yes. But I would say anyone, and, and if you do a lot of gymnastics as a kid, there's a certain point where it gets really dangerous and crazy. Yeah. So I would say not like, but a foundational experience in gymnastics. I would say can be

[00:12:11] David Syvertsen: very helpful. Yeah. So let's go right into the next one, which is sport, because gymnastics can be included in sport.

Now you're talking more about like, Hey, kids fitness, go to like, Hey, rock, when you're five, go to gymnastics class. Yeah, yeah. He's not competing. No, no, no, but. You know, I, I do agree with you that I can usually tell, and you probably can too, if someone has a gymnastics background, but just watching their first few times on the rig.

Yeah. Like, I remember watching Tara doing some Kip motions on the rig, Kathleen, back in the day. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, we didn't teach 'em that and they already know it. Right. Where, where does that come from? You talk to them, you have a conversation. Oh, I did gymnastics when I was a kid. Duh. Like, I can tell, and I do, I do agree with you that gymnastics is such a great background because of how much.

Body weight movement you do in CrossFit. We've said this all the time. You, most of the movements we do in CrossFit are just your body. Yep. And the body awareness core strength. The per the concept of flexibility. Yes. And how important it is. Yeah. Um, that all gets hammered into people when, when they're doing gymnastics.

So I agree that. That's probably one of the best, if not the best sport background to have. Okay. Prior to starting CrossFit. Now let's talk about sports on a macro level, generally speaking. Mm-hmm. And again, I was gonna err more towards college professional because, and I bring that up, not because they're better athletes, but because when you are in a college sport, you are more likely on a strength and conditioning regimen for years.

True. True. So, I have, I'll use Dave Bos as Dave Bo as an example. He was a college football player when he came to the CrossFit. He was obviously a big strong dude, right? And you don't have to play sports to be a big strong dude. But one thing that he had that others guys just had that four years of training his, his lower body, his posterior chain, like I remember doing Bulgarian split squads.

We were on a big Bulgarian routine when he started, and I remember. Us telling the gym about Bulgarian. And a lot of people are like, oh, cool, cool movement. Like new movement. Let's do it. I'm gonna get my butt strong and my hamstring strong. It's gonna help me squat more. And Bo was like, no. He's like, I did way too many of these in college.

I'd never wanna do these again. Mm-hmm. And it's funny to me, I always bring this up cause I didn't play a college sport while I was partying. I thought I was a big partier. Or just being a normal college kid and not eating well and watching a lot of TV and trying to skip classes. Those guys were in the weight room four days a week all year, four years straight.

That, that development. And that's really when like a lot of our bodies really have the most potential to put on muscle mass and get stronger. Right? Like that age 18 to 24 GA time. If you're just being a normal college student during that time, and then you have someone that's similar background to you, but they're training for a sport and learning about strength and conditioning and in the weight room in the morning and then going to class, then weight room at night, they're gonna have a huge advantage over anyone.

That starts CrossFit eight years later just because of that base was strengthened. So while I was partying and eating Easy Mac, those guys were lifting weights. Why do we not accept that as a fact that that's gonna have a huge impact on your future long term progress with strength and fitness? It does.

I mean,

[00:15:13] Sam Rhee: we've talked about training age. Yeah. And so very similar topic. They have an advanced training age. I would say the two things I always caveat with when I see high level athletes at that level is one. What kind of injuries have they picked up? So Dave Bo could not even deadlift like a regular deadlift cause his back was so bad.

Yep. It, it's actually amazing how much he's rehabbed and now he can do regular deadlifts, but at first he had to do trap bar. Trap bar and all that. And so we see a lot of John Hartman like his like, There are a lot of people with residual injuries from, uh, sports, high level sports when they were younger.

[00:15:47] David Syvertsen: Yeah. Contact sports. Yeah.

[00:15:49] Sam Rhee: Football especially. We see a lot of that, the second, and so it takes time for them, some time to recover from that. Um, the second one, um, Mike McKinney probably too. Yep. The true. The second issue is, is like you said, some of them are burnt out like nobody's business in terms of fitness and exercise.

We've seen pro former pro. Athletes. Remember that really big dude who came in with Barefoot all the time? Willie Colon. Yeah. Yeah. Like he, like these guys don't necessarily want to exercise anymore. Yeah. Like you said, Bo was like, I don't wanna see another Bulgarian split squad. Yeah. They don't

[00:16:18] David Syvertsen: wanna be yelled at anymore in the right room.

Yeah.

[00:16:20] Sam Rhee: Um, even people like, um, Nick Squier was a high level swimmer. Yep. He never wants to swim again. Yeah. So anyone who has been in that environment, they might be almost too. Like overloaded, been there, done that. Yeah. And so to find a joy in fitnessing and exercise. Yep. You, you gotta have to recapture that

[00:16:37] David Syvertsen: sometimes.

Yeah. And that's a negative, right? Like we, we could have some pros and cons of all these. And I do wanna touch on both and another con, and I'm gonna bring up Hz, right? Hines was another college football player. Yeah. Um, banged up still. But here's another thing. And he admitted this to me. And Hines has come a long way.

Oh yeah. Since we were just talking about this last week. Oh. I had him demo with thrusters today. Yeah. Oh, RA wow. He's come a really long way. Um, but he, in his defense for, for a long time, Hines, if you don't know, I'll just give you the background. He's probably the, the best athlete in this gym. Like if we did like a, a scouting combine that graded your strength, power, speed, quickness, he would crush all of us, right?

Um, and he, you could tell he is a little bit competitive guy and in these intense big class environments, You know, his range of motion is not always there and we bust on all the time. We bust on him all the time for it. We've said things to him and he's obviously, Heiss is a great dude. He's very receptive, but he gave me an explanation that made so much sense to me and it's really not his fault.

He said in college when we lifted, it wasn't about range of motion and standards and rep versus no rep. He goes like, we just had to move load as fast as we could so that we can get more explosive so that when we play football we are stronger, faster, and we do more damage. Right. And like I remember thinking, I've watched so many athletes, Sequan Barkley, watching him clean in college and other pro at like I, I look into a lot of.

College programs and how they train. And I always walk away saying, man, they move like shit. But these guys are hand cleaning 3 85 for six reps. Like that's an insane amount of weight. And But they're all bad reps. They're not teaching anything about elbows through, they're wearing lifting straps. Their backs look like a shitting dog.

Right. But they're moving weight fast. Okay. So for the short term it works. Yeah. It gets them stronger, but as they get older, yeah. There's two things that happen. You could get hurt. Yeah. But also you don't understand standards when you start CrossFit. Correct. It's really, it's hard to reprogram an adult.

It really is very hard. Um, so that's a negative of sport, just that how often you got beat up and, and just not understanding why we teach things the way we do. Um, part of it's standards, part of it's safety, and it's usually a blend of the both. Hmm. Um, let's go into what I think has been a growing trend in this gym.

Maybe not yours, but over the past five years is our triathletes and I think about Reno, I think about Allison. Um, we have several, I don't want to forget anyone, but. They come into CrossFit with, and Reno was CrossFit first and Ironman, now he's back, right? Mm-hmm. But they come in thinking, and I'm talking more about triathletes, that they are fitter slash more diverse than just a, a marathon runner.

Mm-hmm. Which is true to an extent. Um, but a lot of their work is aerobic, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 hours of just constant movement, low intensity. Not a lot of strength, but just moving for that much time. Mm-hmm. If you tell Bison to go do an an hour run, they would, most of us would fall apart, myself included.

Or, or leave. Yeah. Or leave next Wednesday's what? 20 k run. Um, but you know, I bring that up because in, in their defense, that's what they were training for. Mm-hmm. Right. They were training these mixed modal pieces. Like we have the, uh, Indian Trail triathlon coming up that a few people from here are doing this weekend.

That, and I've been to one before and you could tell there's a lot of fitness there. Alright. Or a lot of endurance I should say. The question is, are you fit when you do that? I think you have a very strong component of fitness, but I don't think you have the broad scope. And when you go into CrossFit with such a broad scope, you start to realize, you come in with some ego.

A lot of triathletes have an ego because they, they do things that a lot of people can't, and it's a lot of work and you deserve to have an ego when you put that much time in. But then you're like, wait, squatting, pressing, lifting, and running. You know, I've even seen some of these triathletes come to workouts where today's workout thrusters and running like, oh, I'm gonna crush this because it's running.

But what about the 15 thrusters that you have to do five times, you know? So, you know, you've been coaching for a while, you've been around it as well. Um, have you ever run a marathon? Uh, no. Yeah. Okay. I hope Never too. Same here. Um, but what are your thoughts on, on coaching them, being around them, because all the respect in the world to them, because the amount of work that goes into it.

They, they struggle with this when they start. The

[00:20:50] Sam Rhee: strength training is the biggest deficit for, for these athletes and, and we actually see more than we might expect in terms of seeing these endurance slash tri triathlons because if you think about a lot of people outta college, Who are highly athletic, always are looking for a challenge.

And one of the easiest challenges that they sort of glam on and Don Fall did this too, um, he was a triathlete before he started CrossFit, is you do CrossFit right? And Chris Henshaw did the same thing. I mean, he was one of the most elite triathletes out there before he switched on to CrossFit. Mm-hmm.

And, and so you can see that these people do have amazing endurance, but. We have very high intensity for short periods of time. It's very rare for a CrossFit workout to be longer than 20, maybe 30 minutes tops. Right. And, and we do a lot of strength training. So the emphasis, and they usually have fairly limited ranges of motion because they have a lot of hip flexor tightness.

Yes. They're really, really tight. So when I see these athletes, I, I think build your strengths. Yep. Improve your mobility. Mm-hmm. And. In some way you're sacrificing some of your long term, uh, aerobic capacity. Yeah. But for your health, especially as you get older. Mm-hmm. There's no doubt if you don't train strength as you get older, it doesn't matter how many marathons you run at 60, you're not gonna be nearly as fit as someone who can squat.

200 pounds. Right. You know what I'm saying? Right. Yeah. So, so this is the sort of thing that you have to kind of switch their mindset into. Yeah. I love their, um, most of them have a really tough mindset. Yeah. And their, their capacity to endure, um, pain. Or I don't wanna say pain cuz it makes it sound bad.

[00:22:30] David Syvertsen: Mental, mental pain. Yeah.

[00:22:31] Sam Rhee: Mental like, uh, yeah. Challenged. Yeah. Uh, but, but that's the part you have to

[00:22:35] David Syvertsen: kind of switch 'em onto. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Those, those are really good points. And what you brought up was what I was gonna be the main attribute of the next guy group. Mm-hmm. Are the runners, right?

Mm-hmm. People that come in with just a running background. And there are still a lot of people out there that that's what they do. That's their workout. The no two strength. Maybe they stretch a little bit, but they run. Run five days a week and a lot of advantages to it. The runners, and I'm gonna group this in with the bikers as well, are, generally speaking, just from my experience, incredibly tight.

Mm-hmm. And especially like that long, slow type where you really don't open up your stride. So you and I think about this with bikers all the time, almost every biker that I've been around. Um, are tight, posterior have a really hard time with deadlifts. Mm-hmm. If you think about the position they're in when they bike.

Yeah. They're like that flex back position. Yeah. And at the bottom, the straightest, their leg gets at the bottom. It's still not extended their knee, so they're hamstring. If you think about it. It never truly extends. So they come into CrossFit. They wanted to try something new. Their legs are strong.

There's no denying that like Mark o Dylan, Casey, right? Like Dylan can't see Dylan Casey, the next pair of shorts that fit him are will be the first, like his legs are huge. And I remember seeing him without knowing his background, Tor de background. I'm like, that guy did something. Because normal people don't look like that with their legs and.

And he's actually on the, in my opinion, he's done really well with CrossFit really well. Um, but Mark o's a guy he did really well over the years, and I still, I miss that guy. He, he was, I gave him a lot of respect for how often he came in early and worked on himself to get ready for a wad it be half hour per day.

Yeah. But I think that came from the fact that when he started, He was a strong guy and a great biker with a strong lower half. But he, his, his backside was very inflexible and yet he struggled with that for a long time, just like staying on his heels when he squats, getting to the bottom of the deadlift in a good position.

Now his aerobic system was good and I always felt like he was someone that never fe fell apart and work out. And like you said, he was tough in that he would always be able to grind through a workout. Yep. Um, but it took him a long time to get comfortable with a a 75 pound thruster. Just because of the mobility.

So I see this with, I have a beginner that I just did last night. He's gonna be joining our gym next week and his background is running and, and I was like, okay. So like that immediately pushed me, you into a tear in my head. Like, all right, we're gonna struggle with this and with this and this. We do an overhead swat.

And those are the things that a lot of these guys run. Cause they never put their hands above their head. Mm-hmm. And if you sit a lot at work with your shoulders hunched over your, you're gonna be in a tough spot with anything overhead. We do. Mm-hmm. He does an PVC overhead squat and look great. I'm like, Where did that come from, dude, like I was expecting to see like a train wreck overhead swat, like I normally do in beginner sessions.

And he goes, oh, I used to swim. Like there you go. Oh click. You know that you have that shoulder mobility. Yes. A lot of shoulder mobility. So, you know, and he said, he goes like, my lower body is good. And he goes, he has a very well-developed lower body, but he, his upper body is just not developed yet. He does do some strength training and he can do a strict handstand pushup.

So we're not, we're not starting from scratch there. Um, but he's that kind of guy where, like that significant running background, I think he'll recover. Well, I think he'll get through workouts. Well, aerobic system will be fine, but um, some of that just like over body capacity work, like when you make him do 15 pullups, it's night and day different than doing three.

Just that capacity's not there and that takes a long time to build. Very true. Um, so let's group the last two together. Bootcamp slash class-based fitness with one-on-one training. I tie this to, this is a good start, not the best for CrossFit. And again, think about yourself. Where did you come from? Think about your kids if you want them to cross it someday.

What this does prior to CrossFit that would help is it gives you structure of going to a class meeting with an instructor, a coach, trainer, whatever you wanna call them. And you are following instructions. You're not doing what you want, you're not picking and choosing. There are days you come in where you don't like the workout, but you still do it.

And this is where I think you can develop a lot of discipline in and out of the gym is going to a class and you're simply being told what to do. And that's really what a lot of CrossFit is. Not everyone, some people cherry pick and do their own programming, that's fine. But again, generally speaking, um, do you know, just reflect a little bit on some people, you know.

That have a background with a bootcamp. Mm-hmm. One-on-one trainer. Mm-hmm. And then they come into CrossFit. What is it like to be around them, coach them, watch them work out? Usually the

[00:26:58] Sam Rhee: level of intensity is, it varies. It depends. If you have a personal trainer, usually you're not always going to go super intense with that.

Mm-hmm. Um, most of the coachability is reasonable in some of the, in, in these athletes, but it depends. Was it Zumba? Was it like spin cycle, spin bar or something like that? Yeah, like

[00:27:16] David Syvertsen: in a dark room hiding in the corner. Right. Yeah. Was

[00:27:18] Sam Rhee: it orange Theory? Like there is kind of a range of motions and, uh, intensities that are involved.

Uh, we had someone who was an Orange theory in, uh, instructor for a while and she moved very pretty well actually. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so it, it, it. I can't really sort of stereotype all classes into like one type of athlete. Mm-hmm. Um, it does depend on their experience with it. I think people who are doing Pilates or bar or something like they, they actually are very mobile and they have good flexibility.

Yeah. Um, I would hope that most of these people are coachable. That's the main thing that I would wanna take out

[00:27:53] David Syvertsen: of it. Yeah. And one thing I noticed with individual people, uh, that have individual training, one-on-one training, The one negative on them, and it's not their fault either, um, is the expectation of how much attention you get.

Mm-hmm. Like if you're in a class of 20 and you're used to one on training, you're not gonna get the same attention. True. And that's tough to accept early on. And then you start asking yourself, what am I getting for? What am I paying for? Um, but generally speaking, um, You know, take CrossFit out of it. You know, we have some people that come from a bootcamp that's in the area, not gonna put them on blast here.

They don't teach things the right way. Mm-hmm. Um, so they weren't like, they're like, oh yeah, I've done thrusters before. Okay. Lemme say, oh boy. All right. Oh, like we used to do snatches all the time at our gym. Oh man. You know, it's like there are a lot of fake kind of wannabe CrossFits out there. Mm-hmm.

That you know, well, you could tell they, their education was watching a two minute YouTube video and, You know, there's people that under don't understand the snatches. Your elbows go to immediate lockout. You're not pressing the bar up at the top of the snatch. Um, I know some people do that because it's too heavy, but they actually think it's okay.

They think that, and they weren't taught the right way. To be fair, there's some CrossFit affiliates who don't do a, that's a joke. That's a very good point as well. Um, so I wanna wrap this up, uh, because next week's episode's gonna be a similar flavor, but we're gonna dive more into the mental state. Um, same kind of the genre of topic, but.

If you have someone that is not currently CrossFitting that you want them to, or they're going to, or you just see someone that's starting off, I think it would, it would help you help them understand what did they do prior to CrossFit and understand. You can just go through the topics that we just went through and really it would.

You, you really could do a lot for them if you knew what their background was based on. All right. They're definitely gonna struggle with this early on based on our anecdotal advice. They'll definitely do. They'll have progress with this on, or even at the mental state of being burned out from college sports and all that, or having attention of a personal trainer.

Because I think that's one of the arts of coaching. To me, science is never, coaching is never science. It's always an art that the more you know about someone's background, it's not being intrusive, it's not being nosy. I think the more you know about that person and what they used to do and what they're like, it's gonna help you, help them, uh, help themselves down the road.

So thanks for listening guys, and we'll be, we'll be back next week with something similar, but the mental state.