S03E108 FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS THAT BEST FIT CROSSFIT ATHLETES

Unlocking Your CrossFit Potential: 5 Essential Personality Traits for Success and Personal Growth

What if the key to unlocking your full potential in CrossFit has more to do with your personality traits than your physical abilities? Join us in today's Herdfit Podcast episode as Coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic explore the five essential personality traits that can help you get the most out of your CrossFit journey. From discipline and humility to coachability and selflessness, we discuss how these traits can not only enhance your fitness experience but also your personal growth and relationships outside the gym.

Discover how developing discipline and embracing humility can catapult you to success in both your CrossFit workouts and other areas of your life. By doing what you don't like to do as if you love doing it, and avoiding the mindset that you're better than others, you'll find yourself achieving more than you ever thought possible. We also dive into the importance of being coachable and selfless within the CrossFit community, emphasizing the need to trust your coach and give back to those around you.

Get ready to level up your fitness game and deepen your connection to yourself and others by tuning into our insightful conversation. We encourage you to do some honest self-reflection and determine whether your progress, or lack thereof, is more personality-based than fitness-based. Through our experiences and observations, we hope to inspire you to harness the power of these key personality traits and achieve your personal best in CrossFit and beyond.

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

00:00 Personality Traits for CrossFit Success

05:15 Discipline and Humility in CrossFit

15:59 Coachability and Selflessness in CrossFit

21:51 Keys to Success in CrossFit Community

S03E108 FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS THAT BEST FIT CROSSFIT ATHLETES

David Syvertsen: [00:00:00] all right. Welcome back to the Her Fit Podcast. I'm Coach David Syvertsen. I'm here with my co-host, Dr. And coach Sam Rhee. Um, last week we talked about some of the physical training backgrounds that people have prior to CrossFit. What works, what doesn't? What are pros and cons of all? Today we're gonna get into what are the personality traits.

That someone should have, if they're gonna really get the most outta CrossFit. I mean, look, you know, I wanna avoid the whole CrossFit as a cult thing. Like, you have to be like us. And if you're like me, you'll do really well with CrossFit. I don't believe that that's not the case at all. But we've been around, I've probably been around over two, 3000 people now that I've crossfitted, like good and bad.

This gym, that gym and um, know even more from afar. And there are certain personality traits that you see trend, right? Trends are, you know, Not rules, they're just trends. And I think you should do some self-reflecting on whether or not your progress or lack of progress is more personality based than fitness based.

Right? Very you'll, you'll have, a lot of times people say, oh, my knee hurts. Or my wrist hurts, or I'm [00:01:00] feeling, uh, bloated today. Um, you very rarely say like, Hey, just lost my discipline. You know, like, Hey, I'm just not that tough today. Or like, Hey, I'm just a really selfish person. You never hear that, but you'll hear them talk about physical issues that they come down to.

So, and this is gonna be probably a little more interesting and maybe even a little bit more subjective. Like, we might even get some disagreements either from you or might, we might disagree on a couple things. But basically what I did, Was I came up with five, uh, personality traits that I think you need to have three of them to really get the most outta CrossFit.

Yeah. If you have zero of them. Or you have one of them. I'm not saying this isn't gonna work for you. It's just based on my personal experience as an athlete, as a coach, um, and as a friend to a lot of people that cross it, that if you can really just do some self-reflecting on what are you in relation to these personality traits, and you have to be really honest with yourself about it, right?

I think that's a huge thing when we talk about our personalities and our thoughts and our mental state. You know, we [00:02:00] might want to come across a certain way to other people and you know, if you do that more power to, you don't really care, but do some really like dark room, self-reflecting. Look in the mirror.

Am I really like this? You know, if, and I think you could really help bring some clarity to, is this for me or. Is there more for me to bite off here if I can fix some of these personality traits rather than saying, Hey, I'll just come in and do an extra workout. You know, I'll, uh, I'll start doing this program, or I'll find a new training partner.

I think personality traits go a long way. I would even, after doing this for 12 years now, I would even say it probably goes further than the physical traits. I would agree with

Sam Rhee: that. The other thing is, is that I was looking at this list and I feel like I. If you have at least a little bit of these traits to begin with, CrossFit will help enhance these for you.

Mm-hmm. So I feel like personally I have grown and, and some of these traits have actually gotten better in me, like the ones that maybe I [00:03:00] wasn't so great at at the beginning. Yeah. So, um, and I don't know if that's just, uh, that I had them and it just got uncovered more, or that I actually built up more.

And got better at these things. But I agree, like all of these things I think are, I mean, I think they're positive and I, and I would, um, agree that these are, I I, it's interesting. Three of five is interesting. Let's, I wanna break those down and see what, what you

David Syvertsen: think of that. Great point. I, you know, just to give a little, uh, Free advertising to Sam's Botox and Burpees, uh, podcast because you, you wrote, so you put something out there yesterday that I loved.

I said, if you really want to get, grow a business relationship, don't golf with them. You should cross it with them. Absolutely. I was like, holy shit. That's awesome because it's so true. I've, I've done both. I've golfed with people professionally. Like when I was in, worked in finance, that was a big thing we did with clients in Houston and Calgary.

We went, we went on golf trips and business dinners and fancy dinners and all this stuff. You don't get to know them that well. Everyone could put on a front in those situations, maybe a little bit more than you would in a [00:04:00] office setting, but in CrossFit, like Kyle Rader does this a lot. What's up, Kyle?

Okay. Kelly. Um, the, the, uh, he, he CrossFits with his, his, uh, his team a lot. Oh yeah. He's in charge of a lot of people and, and they cross it whenever they can or at least work out. Yeah, and we talked about that one time and it really does. Bring a different level of connection to people and in that regard, this can bring a different level of connection to yourself developing your personality.

Brian DiCarlo and Mike DeSilva went to high school with both those guys and they've both in their own separate ways have told me like, you've changed so much since. You're like, so different than the Dave I knew in high school and not that like I was a bad kid or like anything like that, but I do think a lot of my personality right now, how I am.

Solely comes from my last 12 years across. Absolutely. It definitely has developed a lot of different things. Same for me. Good and bad. All right. So anyway. Mm-hmm. Um, number one, the number one [00:05:00] trait that I think you should be looking into. Again, you wanted to go at least three for five on this discipline.

Let's define discipline first and then let's talk about it. Discipline to me. And if you have your own definition, I wanna hear what you think about it too. Discipline to me, is doing what you don't like to do as if you love doing it. So think about everything you don't like to do. Food, uh, meal prep. Pay attention to sleep, limit alcohol, work out hard, you know, do things you don't like.

I don't like back squatting, you know, like, like I just don't like it. I don't like snatching. Right. Um, but you do it as if you loved it, and that's what discipline is to me. What do you think

Sam Rhee: that's an interesting, uh, concept? I, I, I don't know if I actually fulfill that definition. Yeah. For the things that I do that are under discipline.

Right. I don't know if I love or act like I love doing them. Right. But I do do them. Okay. Um, I feel like discipline is doing something like, Automatic, like, you know, we talk a lot about motivational podcasts. They talk about discipline, always out [00:06:00] wins over motivation. Yeah. And I listen to Arnold Schwarzenegger and he says, listen, where, why do you work?

And they asked him, why do you work out when you're like 70 or whatever? And he is like, it's like brushing my teeth. Mm-hmm. Like do you have to get motivated to brush your teeth? Good point. No, you just brush your teeth. And that's how I feel about people should feel about working out like. It should be like brushing your teeth.

Like you have to do it right. You can't not do it. Yep. And to me,

David Syvertsen: it's still a

Sam Rhee: struggle. I still wonder every day, do I wanna come in to work out? Mm. But, uh, the discipline is that part of my body or brain that just says, Dude, you, you just have to do it. Yeah. Do I love it? Do I love, you know, wanting to do thrusters or run like the workout today?

Yeah. I don't know if I'm gonna love it, but I will

David Syvertsen: come in and do it. Yeah. And you can apply this to other areas of your life. I bet there's some parts of your job that you don't love to do. Like there's probably things about your dad that you like to do more than others. Mm-hmm. But you still have to do it because it's automatic.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Sam Rhee: Uh, and, and that's grown over time. I think most people [00:07:00] can relate the workout. And how hard it is, and they're d and you know, coming in and doing it to other aspects of their life, and that's how you get better both in and outside of the gym. With

2023_0615_0649 (enhanced): that,

David Syvertsen: it's like, part of me thinks, you know, part of the reason why we have a class size issue at 6:00 AM right now is it's a very disciplined group of people.

Very, like they, they're like, no, I don't always wanna come in and trust me. I get plenty of feedback on what workouts suck, but they're so disciplined that they just automatically, they get up. Brush their teeth, hopefully. Right. Put deodorant on, hopefully. And then they come and they, they work out. And then I'm up there as the coach and owner of the gym and trying to figure out the issues and try to come up with solutions to fix the class size issue that I do.

I don't want people not to come in. I don't, um, I don't ever wanna come across that way. Um, I also don't wanna have the problem of people getting waitlisted and not being able to come in. So you're trying to go up and I do tell people it's like, I don't think all you guys need to be working out six days a week.

And I think they know that too, but they're so disciplined very, that it's [00:08:00] just like, Hey, this is how I start my successful day. Mm-hmm. Like I need to check myself sometimes and be like, Hey. I'm here all the time. I'm at bison all the time. This is just an hour of their day that they get to themselves and it, it kind of catapults them to the rest of their workday.

Yep. Like, I forget that these people have lives sometimes, like, they're like, you know, careers and, and parents and all this stuff. Like, there's a lot of stuff they had to do and they do it at, at a high level. Mm-hmm. And this is how they started. Absolutely. So that's why I tell 'em like, you know what, maybe come in and hop on the bike in the back instead of.

You know, working out every day and, and beating yourself up. But they're so disciplined and like that's a good trait to be around. And I do think it can, the more disciplined you are, the more disciplined you can make others around you. Um, number two, this is probably my, my favorite one. Um, and it's humility.

I think it's probably, if I had to rank this discipline and humility would be one A and one B to be a successful CrossFitter. I'm not talking about performance. I'm just talking about someone that gets fit and healthy and, and, you know, increases their longevity through [00:09:00] it improves their, improves their quality of life.

You have to be humble and humble to me can go down. So I wanna do a podcast on humility, but humility to me, if I had to say it in just a very short fragment or sentence, avoid thinking you're better than others. That's it. Always place yourself at or below others, you know? That's what real humility is.

You're never above others. I'm not talking about being in charge and coaching a class. I'm not talking about that just on a person to person level. You are not better than one person in that gym. What do you think about humility

Sam Rhee: might be one of the most important things in terms of longevity for a CrossFitter?

Yeah, I, I have seen so many new people come in thinking they were fit and they, they got hammered on workouts or, or someone just said it today, like some girl out uplifted them and they are like, what? What's going on here? And either you can accept that and say, I need to get [00:10:00] better or say, This is not right and there's something wrong and I am really fit, so I'm gonna go find something else to do.

And we have seen a lot of people try it and then leave because they felt like they weren't good at it. Mm-hmm. And you know what? Guess what? Nobody is like really good, good at it. Like or at everything. Right? You know, like as good as you are. Like, let's match you up against someone who does pistols and see how that goes.

Yeah. Or a run Right. Or a heavy lift. Right. Or anything like, you're just not going to be that person all the time. Yep. And if you wanna be that person, you, you do have to find something else. Yeah. Um, it, that doesn't mean you can't be competitive. I still work hard. Absolutely. Yeah. To try to beat somebody for sure.

But if I don't, I, I don't base my life, my self worth, my self-esteem on. Beating everyone or being better than everyone in the gym. Mm-hmm. And anyone who does, if they don't have that humility or lack of ego,

David Syvertsen: um, they're not gonna do too well here. Yeah. I mean, I, I think the people that I've always said, [00:11:00] I always, my line with CrossFit is everyone should try it.

Every single person on planet Earth should try CrossFit. If you have the opportunity to, if you have the means to. It, but it's not for everyone. And I think the people, it's not for, if you really struggle with humility, and that's a hard thing to admit, right? I don't, you know, you don't see a lot of people out there saying, no, I'm not humble, but there are people that do lack it.

And I think it, it creates a lot of problems for themselves and people are around them. Um, but what is, I'm gonna put you on the spot here. What is something you can see from a coaching perspective if someone has humility or not? That's a good question. Do you wanna think about while I answer it? Yeah, go ahead.

So my answer to that, probably unfair cause I didn't put that in the outline. Uh, my answer to that is I observe how someone acts before and after a workout. All right, so how are they acting before and how are they acting after? But that's not always the answer. I think a better answer would be, how do they act before or after a [00:12:00] workout on a day?

They do very well on how do they act. Verse slash in contrast to how do they act on a day before and after a workout on a workout that they really struggle with? Borderline may be even embarrassed by. And if you are a completely different person with how you act on a bad day, verse a good day. I think that's a, a red flag.

Because that means you're a great person to be around when things are going well and you look good and your score is great on the whiteboard. I mean, who isn't in a good mood on those days? Right? But if you turn into a train wreck and. You're, you're angry towards other people or you're ultra quiet on the days you don't do well on.

I think now you're thinking a little too much about your perception or your performance or your score. I'm not, you are allowed to be upset on bad days. I, it would be a bad job of me if I said, you can't be upset on a bad day. But if you treat others and you treat the coach and you treat the class, you [00:13:00] treat the community different on your good days versus bad days.

That's lack of humility to me,

Sam Rhee: is a lack of humility. I would say also lack of maturity. Okay. I mean, you've seen kids who lose games and then they're like throwing their glove into the dugout or, yep. Whatever, like. A a and that, that's just a lack of maturity in my mind. Great point. Um, I have tried to do that.

I, in fact, I, I had to consciously try to do that this past week. We did the triple touch, uh, crossover workout two days ago. I was sucking it up on the crossovers. I. Couldn't even, my didn't feel like doing the true tip, triple touch. I scaled it. Uh, I wasn't RX on it and I just felt really crappy afterwards.

But I had to make that effort. Say, what would I do if I crushed this workout? Mm. And I would, I try to do the same thing. Yep. Fist bump the people that I normally, everyone that I can Yep. Be happy about it. Like, Don't, don't grump around. Yep. It's hard. Yeah, it is hard. And, but it's something that I think we can practice, practice, be mindful of, be

David Syvertsen: [00:14:00] mindful of.

And, uh, please don't take this as like, you have to be perfect all the time. Like, I was upset about my workout yesterday and like I had like a little moment, had a minute, cursed at myself a little bit. But then after, in my opinion, no one knew, no one in the, no one in the gym knew. Right. Because what do you do after the class?

You walk around fist pound, thank the coach, pen up your stuff. Yes. All the same

Sam Rhee: things. And, and I, you're right, the most. Uh, the best athletes I see do the same before and after every workout. Yeah. And, uh, regardless of their performance, uh, you're right. I mean, I'm not gonna crush on the people who like, are super happy after they crush it.

Right? Because sometimes they don't, don't want you to be, because sometimes they don't always crush it. So the few times they do, they're like really happy that they did. Right. And I wanna celebrate that for them. But you're right. If you didn't do well, don't, don't be

David Syvertsen: that person. Yep. Um, now the next one, coachability.

This. This can kind of go in with both of the topics we already talked about, but Coach Coachability to me and short, is you take in respect and follow coaching consistently. [00:15:00] I would even maybe ponder taking the word consistently out and putting in always. Mm-hmm. If you really are truly coachable, you're always taking in the coaching and respecting it, taking it in, and following the coaching Now, wait.

This is where I kind of devil's advocate myself if you don't agree with the coaching. Mm-hmm. You know, like I've had, uh, Heidi has said to me a few times that there's a few moves that she gets better at, wants to get better at. I throw her, her scaling option. She goes, you know what, like, I think I'm gonna get more out of it doing this way.

She's not necessarily wrong. Mm-hmm. But does that mean she's not taking coaching? So this is a little sensitive and Heidi's very coachable. Um, that. There's a few different ways you can approach this, but I do think if you want to be, have a successful process, especially at the start of your journey, you gotta be coachable.

I spend more time talking about this with my beginners when they start in our beginner sessions. We spend more time talking about this than talking about movements. Like I actually teach the movements less now and beginners and I have more conversation with them about being coachable. Yeah.

[00:16:00] Coachability

Sam Rhee: means you have to trust the coach. Yeah. And if you don't trust the coach, then why are you even there? True. Um, now there are different degrees of trust. Uh, and sometimes you have to work with the coach. On a longer basis before you really sort of understand their methodology and what they do.

Like there's certain coaches, uh, that I have been skeptical about, and then it took me some time to really understand what they were doing. Yeah. And then, and then really sort of embrace their methods. Mm-hmm. And I'm not perfect as an athlete like. Uh, I mean, I'm not like some people in the, in the gym where the warmup happens and they disappear for like 15 minutes and then show up again afterwards, uh, and don't do anything.

Uh, but I do really try to embrace what that coach is doing. The coach really cares. Yes. Like the, and I think everyone at our gym, if you're a coach, you do care. You want people to get better. Yep. Um, everyone has different ways of doing it. Mm-hmm. You, you need to embrace that. Uh, it doesn't mean you have to do.

Everything exactly the [00:17:00] way you like the coach wants per se. And I'm pretty liberal as a coach that way. Like, you know, maybe your shoulders aren't feeling so awesome, I'm sure you're not gonna do that stretch or whatever. Mm-hmm. Or maybe this tip doesn't really help you so much. I don't care. Like, just keep an open mind.

We see people come in all the time who are new and they have like, No interest in listening to

David Syvertsen: what a coach says. I'll tell you this. Uh, thank you for saying that. It's like we're almost like we're a podcast partner. Sam sent me a text last night. I was just giving him some, uh, notes about today's workout thruster run, and he goes like, I could have predicted every single one of those thi things you said, it sounds like, you know, I could finally just do this on my own.

I'm like, here we go. I think it's because we, we spend so much time talking to each other. It's like natural transitions almost. Mm-hmm. Um, where. What is the moment I think someone can really tell you they're coachable or not is at the whiteboard. Yeah. When you're talking about, so you just said, are they really truly listening?

Mm-hmm. Right. And like I'm not saying you have to like be locked in eye contact, right. But. [00:18:00] There's people on their phones, there's people having side conversations. I had someone the other day like literally turn their back to me as I'm talking about the workout, to have a conversation with someone else.

Wow. And it's like, okay, I mean, obviously that person's not seeing progress right now. Obviously that person's banged up often. Um, and I'm not saying that's why, but it's a, it's a part of these personality traits that are Oh, going to help or hurt you with, with cross it as you get into it. And when we do our white part whiteboard talks, we put a lot into them and they're very important now with big classes.

Because you, you can answer a lot of questions there rather than answer 20 individual ones that if you're not paying attention to that talk, even if you think you have it all figured out, that's, that's a red flag to me if someone's coachable or not.

Sam Rhee: 10 years I've been doing this, and on Monday you gave that tip during the cleans to not the clean and jerks to approach it and not stay static.

Right. And move as you approach it. Right. And I was like, Awesome. Like that helped me. I can never, I will always listen to a coach. Maybe I will, I'll like think about it and be like, well, maybe that's not for me, or yes for [00:19:00] me. Absolutely. Yeah. But I have to take everything in. Right. 10 years you, I'm still doing it.

And I can't expect anyone who's who's, who's

David Syvertsen: not doing that. Right. And like a coach needs to check their ego and say like, Hey, you're not gonna be helping everyone out. Not everything that comes outta your mouth is helpful. You have to be humble enough coaches, you too need to be humble to know that you are not the best coach.

Your lines, your cues, they're not the best for everyone. But there, there's a give and take here with coaches and athletes that when the coach is talking, especially at the whiteboard, I still think it's the most important part of class. Yep. All right. Um,

Sam Rhee: so what do you do about the people that show up late and then like miss half the whiteboard talk?

Ah, I

David Syvertsen: just think bad thoughts about 'em. Okay. Uh, I will say though, it's, for me, maybe it's a fault of my own. It's easier for me to help someone that's coachable than not. So true. Like, like I am much quicker to help someone. I, I've had some people tell me that I play favorites in this gym and I, I don't, I will prove that I don't.

But, um, the people that I do like to favor are coachable, has nothing to do with their talent ability level. Guy, girl, young, old, are they [00:20:00] coachable? Mm-hmm. Do they listen? Do they show respect? If you want respect, you gotta show respect. Showing respect is, is. Is not turning your back on someone while they're talking to him.

Like imagine that you did that at a business meeting. Wow. You're at a business meeting. I'm in a room with you, you're up there giving a break presentation, and then I turn my back and start talking to someone else.

Sam Rhee: I'm not getting that raised next

David Syvertsen: quarter. Um, so I've, I've two left here. One of 'em, this is gonna be a little outside the box, um, and it's totally okay if you don't agree.

Selflessness. I think it's one of the most important traits if you want to get the most out of CrossFit, to be selfless, not selfish, selfless. Um, and my note that I have next to this is nobody likes to help someone that's selfish. And I bring that up here. You know what? Gimme your opening thoughts on this is, this one's a little weird.

Uh,

Sam Rhee: It is helpful, but I would say we have some high level CrossFit athletes at our gym that are not considered selfless. Got it. Per se. Okay. But I, I [00:21:00] understand that their focus on performance is, Maybe paramount or, or significantly high or to the point, and maybe they just haven't gotten to that point where they can expand their mind out more.

Right. It's not that they're selfish, it's just their, their focus is pretty narrow.

David Syvertsen: Right? And there are certain points to be a high level athlete. There are, I mean, the high level athletes say it's about themselves. There are certain times of the year you had to be selfish. Um, I don't wanna put myself in that tier, but I don't wanna talk about someone else because they're gonna get upset.

So I'll say when I get close to Legends, like a week or two out. Yeah. Or the quarterfinals, if I'm competing in it, yeah. I will make some selfish decisions. Absolutely. I'll give a class or two away. I'll tell someone else to go coach my classes. Ash is on Brock duty. I even feel going out to Legends a couple of those times was like, I'm left Ash with a baby by herself while she's working a full-time job.

That was selfish. Yeah. So I'll, I'll acknowledge that. But

Sam Rhee: from an everyday standpoint, right. Like be a good human being and being a good human being means not [00:22:00] like being

David Syvertsen: selfish. Exactly. And I think the reason I feel good about doing that stuff, going out to legends and making someone else coaching an early morning class, for the most part, I do feel like I'm selfless with a lot of the stuff that I do here.

Right. With with the scheduling and the coaching, all this stuff. Right. And that's why I bring this up is. At some point, you're gonna need something. You're gonna have to be given something. You're gonna have to take something in. You can't, you're not, no one here just gives, gives, gives. You do take in.

Mm-hmm. Whether it's attention, whether it's help. Mm-hmm. And the benefit that someone can get from a CrossFit community is life changing. All right. And I'm, I'm not exaggerating that point. It can change your life. The community take the fitness out of it. The community can change your life. But if you're someone that constantly has this perception that you're all about yourself, you want that pull up bar every time you want that zone, you wanna be with that person on a Saturday.

You want, you want this, this barbell, you want to be this close to the door on running days. You wanna be this zone [00:23:00] on ring muscle up days. There's a lot of people are gonna go to pick up on that. They're knocking, gonna wanna help you out. You're not gonna see the benefit. So I'm, I'm always big on if you want to receive, if you want to be given, you have to give out.

You can't just take now. Like I said earlier, it's similar to the coachability. If you are someone that has that perception, you build on that, you're constantly taking, constantly asking, constantly taking, constantly asking, but you're not giving back 2, 3, 4, 5 years in. That's gonna be your reputation and you are gonna be the last person that we wanna help out.

It

Sam Rhee: is about community. Golden rule goes a long way here. Yeah, I agree about you're, you're a thousand percent, you may last a little while, but sooner or later people are, you're right. They're not just gonna really be that enthused about helping

David Syvertsen: you. And like I've said, I'm, I've been here the longest I've coached here.

I own the gym. Like I need help from people here a lot. And I always am hesitating to take help cuz I'd rather err on that side than be the person that's always asking and taking and. I'm nervous about that all the time. It's like you [00:24:00] guys tell me all the time, like, you gotta do this, you gotta give this job to that person, give that job to that person.

You gotta take some off your plate, blah, blah, blah. And I've gotten better at that over the years. But part of my thought is this, like, I think to be a key part of the community that helps this thing grow and be selfless. As a gym, you have to show that yourself. Very true. All right, last one, curious. This is the personality trait that I think you need to be, to get the most outta CrossFit, you need to be curious.

All right. My note under here. Um, okay. And, uh, wanting to learn, spend your free time, trying to learn even more. So when I started CrossFit, Chris did this a lot too. We just sit at our broker desk and just watched YouTube videos of. Workouts, you know, Dan Bailey, rich Froning, that's back when like they were, you know, just, you know, very young guys in the sport and like, oh, today's workout has thrusters in it.

I'm gonna go watch 18 minutes of thruster videos on YouTube so that I can really be prepared for tonight's workout. I think that helped me a lot early on is that I was, I wasn't just showing up for that one [00:25:00] hour, and that's the only time I'm thinking about CrossFit. I was very curious about learning about aerobic capacity, nutrition zone, paleo, like just doing all this research on my own.

A trait that I've seen with a lot of people that start off is that might be used to a boot camp or personal trainer where they basically just did everything for them. Mm-hmm. So you just showed up and did your thing, which is fine. You'll get something out of it. But I think if you actually kind of dive into the CrossFit lifestyle and all the literature out there and the videos now with all the content there is on CrossFit, it's just limitless now.

You can learn so much that would help you at the gym. I,

Sam Rhee: I would also phrase this as wanting to get better, um, and not being complacent. So you, you, what you describe is constantly wanting to get better, to learn more, to expand your knowledge, to get better. I have seen some people who. Don't want to necessarily do that.

They feel very comfortable. You know what, I've always done, my power cleans at 65 pounds. Mm. This workout, [00:26:00] I'm gonna do the same. And that's it. And if a coach says, Hey, listen, like you've been doing this really well and your time is really good, why don't you push it to 70? They're like, what? Like, no, like, like pushing outside that boundary mm-hmm.

Is not what they want. Mm-hmm. And. I feel like the great athletes that we have are the ones that are constantly looking to improve. Yep. And whether it's, like you said, learning more or pushing on their movements or maybe their weights or getting, you know, all of these things, the I, and that's the thing about CrossFit is you should always be a little uncomfortable with what you're doing.

Like I am a little uncomfortable or a lot uncomfortable. Many days. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I always wanna see, and sometimes it's like, maybe it's a step back and then step forward, but you know, you should be after a year, look back and be like, Wow, look how much stuff I learned. Look where I was and, and how [00:27:00] much more I still have to do.

And there's always something in cross it, whether it's nutrition like you said, or, or sleep or your lifestyle or barbell technique or gymnastic technique or new movements like you're, you're, I mean, At this point I'm almost sick and tired of it. I'm like, triple touch. What the hell? Like, why are we doing this?

And it's because you're pushing us to learn new things. Yeah. Handstand holds like,

David Syvertsen: oh, just wait till that upside down complex. I have coming outta your eyes. Oh my

Sam Rhee: God. Like I, and you know, I have to fight that resistance to say more stuff to learn and just be more open to it and use that mindset of curiosity and mm-hmm.

The willingness to get better. Right. And

David Syvertsen: just to keep the wheel spinning. Yes. Like you see this when people sign up for a competition, it's like they've been crossing for six years and they're like, oh, garden state, open barbells and beard, blah, blah, blah. And it's like you'll have a random first timer.

Like they're curious, what is it like to compete? Then what is it like the process leading up to my competition? Like, what do I have to do at, there's meet here on a Sunday at like Sunday's my rest day [00:28:00] or mm-hmm. I have to practice ro toes to bar with people or like, what is this person's name even, you know, it's like, but then it's also like you could even take the fitness out.

Curious about the people here? Yeah. Trying to branch out at some of the social events that we do that, you know, Liz is doing a great job with. Like, just like getting there and meeting people and seeing people in a different light, right? Mm-hmm. Like you think you know someone at the gym, which did you do?

You see a lot of traits, but sometimes you really get to know them outside the gym. Like that's curious. That's curiosity to me is that you show it to a party or a bar, or. You know, just talking with someone after a class, and I think the more curious you are about learning more, whether it's about people, workouts, movements, energy systems, nutrition, it's gonna help you get more out of this, right?

Where it's not gonna just be an hour of your day. I do think the people that just come here for an hour and they don't dive into the other stuff, whether it's social or lifestyle stuff for yourself. Their progress is, is really, really limited. If they, if they're never looking into things outside on their own, trying to learn, read, listen, [00:29:00] watch.

So true. All right, so th those are the trades guys. Um, just reflect on those. Again, I want to just close it with saying you don't need all five of them. I think if you don't have, you know, if you have three of them, I think you're gonna be in a good spot. And this, this takes some really hard to do. Honest self-evaluation.

Look yourself in the mirror. But then even if you feel like, oh, I have all these, like what can you do to enhance them? Because I think if you enhance these five personality traits, you're gonna get more outta CrossFit. I think you're gonna get fitter, healthier, and happier. And you might see it from a different lens, which at some point, veteran CrossFitters, you're probably going to have to do, you're gonna have to look at this from a different lens than where you started.

Very few people have the same lens for 10 years in a

Sam Rhee: row. I would say I have three of these and maybe half of

David Syvertsen: two. Okay. Well, you know what? That's, that's. Well, you've met the MI minimum, right? So there you go. You just made the cap, Jeff. Just barely just under the cap. Uh, but yeah, if you guys, I would love to just, whenever, just so you guys know, whenever we get feedback on episodes, like we always appreciate that, whether it's [00:30:00] good or bad.

We've had both. By the way. We don't get upset if anyone disagrees with what we say or if we're missing out on a trait that you think, like Ryan Radcliffe just told me, he's like, I think toughness needs to be up there. And toughness to me kind of falls under the, the. Discipline factor. Uh, but that really can be a personal, are you tough or not?

And um, that's something you can work on and cross. It can bring the most out of. So I gotta go get my son. He's probably running on the, around the gym right now, like a madman, uh, before my wife goes to work. So we will see you guys next week.