S03E112 Is Your CrossFit Gym's Programming Too Hard?
Coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic kick things off by addressing the question many CrossFit athletes ask - can a gym's programming be too hard? It's a delicate balance, one that requires the programs to be challenging yet safe, and above all, enjoyable.
Both gyms and individuals play in this puzzle. We caution you not to be offended as we delve into some personal biases and perceptions. Then, we explore how to determine if a CrossFit program is a good fit for a particular gym. It’s not as simple as it seems. How do you tailor programs to the community's specific needs and diverse range of abilities and fitness goals?
We examine the pros and cons of outsourcing programming and delve into the critical role a coach plays in this process. We also discuss how to build effective workouts that challenge athletes, deliver value, and foster unity within the gym.
Lastly, we look at the importance of athletes understanding their own bias, and how this knowledge can improve their perspective of their gym's programming. We wrap up the episode by discussing the art of scaling workouts and the implications of programming for various ability levels and goals.
Whether you're a gym owner, an athlete, or merely someone interested in CrossFit programming, this episode is packed with insights and takeaways. So, gear up for a mind-opening discussion and join us on this exciting journey through the world of gym programming.
@crossfitbison @crossfittraining @crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates #supportyourlocalbox #crossfitaffiliate #personalizedfitness
00:00:05 Gym Programming
00:07:23 Goal and Needs of CrossFit Program
00:19:50 Programming Challenges and Individualized Training
00:27:51 Effective Programming and Coaching in CrossFit
00:38:27 Athletes, Programming, and Fitness Cycles
00:43:08 The Importance of Scaling Workouts
00:51:45 Considerations for Gym Programming and Levels
00:59:51 Trust in Fitness Programming Importance
S03E112 Is Your CrossFit Gym's Programming Too Hard? TRANSCRIPT
00:00:04:34 - 00:00:30:23
David Syvertsen
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Herd Fit podcast with Dr. Sam Rhee and myself, coach David Syvertsen. This podcast is aimed at helping anyone and everyone looking to enhance their healthy lifestyle through fitness, nutrition and most importantly, mindset. All right. Welcome back to the Herd Fit podcast. I am coach David Syvertsen and I'm here with my co-host, Doctor and coach Sam Rhee both just got down with our own little training sessions.
00:00:30:31 - 00:00:34:01
David Syvertsen
Also, it's the day after Bison ball eight.
00:00:34:04 - 00:00:34:29
Sam Rhee
Or 13.
00:00:34:29 - 00:01:04:21
David Syvertsen
Not 13. Inside joke. So you know where I want to go right into a topic today that has been coming up several times in discussions, both when I'm around, both when I'm not around about gym programing. And a lot of this discussion will center around CrossFit bison, but it definitely can relate to any gym out there that outsources their programing, mayhem and see fit cross sitcom.
00:01:04:24 - 00:01:26:23
David Syvertsen
Or it could really pertain to the gym that we are at right now. That's where a lot of our experience comes from. And the question is this is your gym's programing too hard? And it's funny, I had a discussion yesterday after the bison ball with someone that had recently come to our gym from another gym, and we talked about programing.
00:01:26:23 - 00:01:45:23
David Syvertsen
And I told her I was like, Hey, we're going to talk about this actual topic that you and I are talking about right now. Tomorrow when we record. And she said she's going to give it a lesson and she's going to give me some stuff. She agrees with, disagrees with. Right. About the actual programing of a gym that she used to go to that was just way too hard all the time.
00:01:45:32 - 00:02:09:18
David Syvertsen
And I have four I'm going to admit this, I have fallen victim to that in the past of you always as a programmer, you always want to make sure you have this pressure over your head. 24 seven 365 Literally, that the people that come to your gym are always getting a good workout in because we don't have the same schedule.
00:02:09:25 - 00:02:29:31
David Syvertsen
Everyone takes different rest days, they skip this day, they come in on that day. So it's really hard for us to program easy, medium hard when it comes to intensity, heavy light, medium for everyone individually, because we don't know your schedule. You don't know your schedule. Sometimes you plan on going to the gym and you don't or you didn't want to, right?
00:02:29:34 - 00:02:56:31
David Syvertsen
And it's really hard to create a program for a lot of people. 350 460 people now. And so I always used to go back to saying, hey, just make it really hard. And then, you know, whether it's the volume, the intensity, the way you approach workouts with delivery at the white board, which we're going to get into, and at the very least, at the end of the day, you can sleep at night knowing that the people that came to your gym worked really hard.
00:02:56:32 - 00:03:18:03
David Syvertsen
They burned through a lot of calories. They're building strength. The problem is if you just constantly do that six or even seven days a week, a lot of gyms run classes seven days per week. So their programing is seven days. If you just keep throwing really high volume, really heavy weights, really high skills, yes, every individual workout is a good workout.
00:03:18:06 - 00:03:40:05
David Syvertsen
But you compound that over time, especially with an older crowd, people start getting hurt, they get burnt out and all of a sudden the program kind of sucks. So how does a gym, how does a program or how does a coach play play around with how hard their programing should be? And I think before we get into that, we need to discuss what is programing that's too hard.
00:03:40:08 - 00:03:44:35
David Syvertsen
What is programing that's too easy, What is programing that's perfect?
00:03:45:02 - 00:04:05:35
Sam Rhee
SEM programing that is perfect is it's like the three Bears, right? Like it's very relative to everybody. And the first thing I wanted to say is, I love that your you decided to talk about this. I think it is a rabbit hole. We can go down really deep and it affects everybody. Yeah. Like you go to the gym because of their programing.
00:04:05:35 - 00:04:34:16
Sam Rhee
You go for their coaches, you go for the facility. But if the programing sucks, you're probably not going to stay at that gym. You could you could put up with one coach you might not like or the music not being so awesome or or the facilities being, you know, small or whatever. Yep. Dirty. Yeah. But if the programing is is not good, like you're going to go and, and the first thing I will say is as an athlete, I have a responsibility for myself, All right?
00:04:34:16 - 00:04:52:08
Sam Rhee
I am not an idiot like I do. No, I show up to and I don't want to think too much about my programing when I come in. That's why I take CrossFit. I don't figure out my own plan or whatever, but you yourself have to come in and figure out what's right for you as well. You have a responsibility.
00:04:52:08 - 00:05:22:25
Sam Rhee
I have a responsibility. If I look at the x weight and I'm like, Ayers, no way. I'm doing 135, I'm doing 105. That's great. The programing wasn't too hard. It was right for me, right? So that's the first thing. But but there are a lot of other things. The special sauce in programing that is important for the programmer and I want to pick your brains on that a little bit today because, you know, I'm sure you'll delve into like, you know, the movement choices, like how you structure your week, month, year.
00:05:22:32 - 00:05:30:02
Sam Rhee
Like those are the things that really tell you whether programing is too hard, too easy or just right for you. Yeah.
00:05:30:05 - 00:05:46:09
David Syvertsen
So yeah, and that that's a little introduction to this topic and we'll dive in. And I think the first thing Sam kind of touched on on it already is this can be a touchy subject and people can get offended in a conversation like this. And I really want you to try as hard as you can to not get offended about this.
00:05:46:09 - 00:06:07:10
David Syvertsen
And me too, because when I say being offended, the programmer and coach can get offended, right? Like every now and then I'll hear. And it's always dangerous when you hear like, Oh, this person said, that person said because you never really that whole game of telephone. The gossip episode that we did that always gets a little touchy, but there are times that I'll hear things about the workouts, the programing that someone said and I do like.
00:06:07:10 - 00:06:22:23
David Syvertsen
My initial impression is like I get a little angry because it is almost always about one person's bias. You know, so good. Sam was choked on the water down the wrong tube or good. Is that a is that a Hartman verified?
00:06:22:23 - 00:06:27:11
Sam Rhee
What? I'm thinking about it. I try. I'm trying to change up my plastic's a little bit here.
00:06:27:14 - 00:06:49:05
David Syvertsen
But so we're going to go down this path. But I want you as an athlete to understand that you have to remove your bias from what is it, quality cross it program? Because I think that's the first thing we need to talk about. What is a quality program for a CrossFit gym. Let's let's remove individual athletes. This is for a community and you might not like pistols.
00:06:49:05 - 00:07:05:35
David Syvertsen
Pistols need to be in programing. You might not be able to do muscle ups. They need to be in programing. I was with a few guys last night and we talked about what would be the perfect CrossFit test. I mean, came up with 16 movements, right? And basically a one minute at every station. How many reps can you do?
00:07:06:02 - 00:07:18:29
David Syvertsen
And there are some of the movements in there. I'm like, No way, I don't want to do that. But then there's others. Or I'm like, Yes, I love that. You need to know as a cross sitter that your bias can really control your opinion about a program. And you have to be to control that.
00:07:18:29 - 00:07:40:02
Sam Rhee
You can't complain about any given day. It's like the weather. Okay, Like there are certain workouts and I have complained to you. I was like, Is workout sucks? Like I thought it was? And listen, nobody is perfect about programing. Yeah. And so if any one particular workout isn't to your taste you're liking or was not like as awesomely programed as you thought it could have been, that's totally fine.
00:07:40:02 - 00:08:00:25
Sam Rhee
But you have to look. You never look at a programmer based on a day a week. You got to look at a month like multiple months. Yep. So if you're going to complain, you better really know what it is that you're complaining about and it's okay every so often. I'm not saying don't like I think programmers do well with feedback if they have, you know, a thick skin.
00:08:00:25 - 00:08:12:21
Sam Rhee
Yep. And I've complained to Dave all the time. I complain every Sunday pretty much when I do the Thursday workout I bitch at him and, and he takes it as, you know, mostly constructive criticism to me. So that's okay.
00:08:12:23 - 00:08:36:05
David Syvertsen
Yeah. So to me, what, what is the goal of the quality CrossFit program for a gym? The needs of your community. You need to know that right? Your community is not going to be like the one down the road. Your community will not be like the one two states away. This is why it is hard for people to program for other gyms and we're trying to thrown our hat in that ring a little bit, trying to get some other gyms on our program.
00:08:36:12 - 00:08:54:00
David Syvertsen
But I'll tell you what, I've gone back and forth in my head that if I don't see your gym, I don't see your people, I don't know your people. And especially if I don't see scores and like how you guys record stuff and whatnot, you could you could be off pretty easily there had you had to have a pulse on what's going on.
00:08:54:00 - 00:09:16:12
David Syvertsen
And I do this all the time like I will. But what Sam was just saying, if I have someone in the morning, some of the midday, someone at night, a good athlete about a new athlete, old athlete, veteran athlete, you know, strong person, gymnasts, if they're all kind of complaining about the same thing, being tired, shoulders are hurt, knees are banged up, legs are sore from, you know, two days of roll of squatting and lunging.
00:09:16:14 - 00:09:34:30
David Syvertsen
I will tweak things for next week. I've done that a lot over the years where I'm like, you know what? I'm going to take down the volume next week. I'm going to take down the loads next week. I'm going to put a bodybuilding day in this week because you're listening to people. If you are not in that community and you're not listening, you never get that.
00:09:34:33 - 00:09:54:05
David Syvertsen
And that's where I think you can start going past the line of having your athletes do too much. So that's one thing you have to know the needs of the people that are actually doing the workouts. And part of that is knowing who is there for sport. Slash performance. I'm not even going to say competing just who's there for like, Hey, I'm trying to perform at a high level.
00:09:54:05 - 00:10:12:04
David Syvertsen
I'm trying to get the most out of my body. Who's there for health? Who is there to simply just check that box? I want to have live healthy. I want to live longer. I don't want to be beat up. I heard this yesterday at our Bison Bowl while teams were talking about the weights with the front squat and jerks the strength event.
00:10:12:07 - 00:10:32:09
David Syvertsen
And I heard someone say like, Dude, I just don't want to get hurt. Like. Like what weight you doing? That was his weight. His weight was, I don't want to get hurt. He didn't want to push to his max. And we have a one rep match day tomorrow. The back squat. Oh, yeah. The people that are for health, your body doesn't really care if you're squatting to 25 or 155.
00:10:32:12 - 00:10:46:20
David Syvertsen
Like, if it feels kind of heavy, you're working hard, you feel the activation. You don't need to go past that line. You don't need to find your max. If you're here for performance, you're here for competing. You're here to try to get the most out of yourself. Then, yeah, you're probably going have to go push that boundary a little bit.
00:10:46:20 - 00:10:53:34
Sam Rhee
I want to say you have been building up to this. It wasn't like you're throwing this one rep Max at us. Like we've been working towards this for weeks and weeks now. Yep.
00:10:53:35 - 00:10:56:07
David Syvertsen
You did the first one. You coach that first one.
00:10:56:07 - 00:11:14:05
Sam Rhee
Yeah. And so and we had and they were in singles, they were all like the last one last week was heavy too. And then it was a heavy pause too. Before that. Yeah. We were doing smaller set like other sets before that. So this isn't, this is where the programmer is mindful of the health and condition of the athlete.
00:11:14:05 - 00:11:19:19
Sam Rhee
Like, I would never go for a heavy one rep if I hadn't done what we just did for the past couple of weeks.
00:11:19:20 - 00:11:20:08
David Syvertsen
Absolutely.
00:11:20:08 - 00:11:35:33
Sam Rhee
So let me pick your brain on that, what you just said. So about knowing your your community compared to the average CrossFit community, what would you say bison is like different, same as what you might think An average CrossFit gym is like.
00:11:35:35 - 00:12:01:10
David Syvertsen
So I would say CrossFit Bison as a community is probably top 3 to 5% in the world where when it comes to the average level fitness of of your entire gym, maybe more biased towards like if you took the top 100 athletes in the gym, they're probably fitter than the top 100 athletes at nine 95% of the gyms around the world.
00:12:01:12 - 00:12:20:23
David Syvertsen
Now, we don't have our top though our top of the line athlete is not as good as a lot of gyms have, right? You could use that in the open. I don't think we had a single athlete that was ranked in the top 1300 this year in the world. So that means there's 1300 men and women out there that are better than every single person here.
00:12:20:26 - 00:12:32:30
David Syvertsen
So on a competitive scale, on a performance scale, so I don't think we're not very top heavy. But when it comes to general fitness, I think that the gym is probably top 3 to 5% in the world.
00:12:32:33 - 00:12:34:17
Sam Rhee
And age group.
00:12:34:20 - 00:12:36:21
David Syvertsen
Age group, I would say top 1 to 2.
00:12:36:21 - 00:12:39:04
Sam Rhee
Percent. I mean, sorry, like our demographic skewing.
00:12:39:04 - 00:12:57:27
David Syvertsen
Oh, sorry. Our age group is an average of 37 to 45. That's probably like the most of our members are in that window. We have a growing group of sub 35 athletes right now and we have I would say, a few dozen athletes that are above 4550.
00:12:57:29 - 00:12:59:30
Sam Rhee
Okay, So that's who you're programing towards. Yeah.
00:12:59:31 - 00:13:32:31
David Syvertsen
Okay. Yeah. So like, I'm kind of like honestly, my age is kind of like what I'm programing for that, that, that demographic. All right So but you also when you're programing you know we just talked about health and performance and nonlinear community. Rob Sharer reminds me this a lot when we talk about programing. He goes, I want the warehouse to be fun, you know, and it's or like something that kind of like is mentally stimulating because to me, my version of fun is not necessarily everyone else's version of fun.
00:13:32:31 - 00:13:35:02
Sam Rhee
Yeah, you know what? Rob's version of fun is? Heroic Week.
00:13:35:02 - 00:13:35:27
David Syvertsen
Yeah.
00:13:35:30 - 00:13:38:04
Sam Rhee
Okay. So that's his version of fun.
00:13:38:08 - 00:13:55:12
David Syvertsen
Yeah. And sometimes, you know, when you remove yourself or from how you feel in the middle of a workout and like, like, let's say like that hour after the workout, you've already gone home, you showered, you're in, you look back on what you did with a community of people that you like being around and like, you know what we threw down today?
00:13:55:12 - 00:14:10:32
David Syvertsen
That was a fun workout. That was a fun time. And that's been one thing I've always taken very serious is my life would be a lot easier if we just did like an amp on Mondays, lifting on Tuesdays for time on Wednesdays, shorter amp on Thursdays intervals on Fridays.
00:14:10:34 - 00:14:13:20
Sam Rhee
A lot of gyms do that and.
00:14:13:23 - 00:14:36:12
David Syvertsen
Nothing against them. But to me that brings up that what is what makes fitness industry a fat industry is that it gets old, it gets too repetitive. You know what to expect. You know how you're going to feel. To me, I almost never throughout this back squat cycle and snatch cycle that we've just been on as a gym, we do not do it the same day every week.
00:14:36:17 - 00:14:54:04
David Syvertsen
All right. Based on some other things, every now and then you'll get like a back to back Monday or back to back Tuesday. But pretty much we switch up what days? We left every for a lot of different reasons. But I want to keep people guessing. I want to keep people off that steady routine. Now, if you're performance, competing coaches won't agree with that.
00:14:54:04 - 00:15:09:31
David Syvertsen
They said you need to be in this routine. I don't agree with that, but I don't want to go down. That whole can go down that whole another time. To me, I want to always keep it stimulating. And then you had to go down the creative path, right? You have to innovate and be open to new ideas. Right?
00:15:09:31 - 00:15:35:13
David Syvertsen
Let's talk about the two extremes. When we took this Hinshaw seminar. Yeah, we got to interview him. Yeah, we've started throwing in a little bit more pacing workouts, negative splits, active recovery, go for a walk, right? But we still do, friend. We still do. Karen We're doing Isabelle this week. We're doing that old school. You have to find that blend of old school CrossFit, things that have worked, benchmark workouts that your gym has done.
00:15:35:16 - 00:15:41:17
David Syvertsen
But you need to be open to these new ideas as smarter people start to get involved and offer their advice on programing.
00:15:41:17 - 00:16:05:30
Sam Rhee
I think a lot of smart programmers have done that. If you see even the competitors at interval stuff, the recovery portion of it like all that is playing a bigger and bigger role in terms of increasing the level of intensity for your athletes and, and their ability. Yeah, and I can tell you so many times after we've done those types of workouts, I'm like, I could not have gone harder if you just didn't take out that built in rest.
00:16:05:31 - 00:16:11:32
Sam Rhee
In fact, I think I went a lot harder right for that built in. And I think I improved my ability because of that.
00:16:11:32 - 00:16:39:15
David Syvertsen
And that's part of the programmers obligation to educate yourself more and learn and try to learn new things. Right. Like I over the past few years have taken the OpEx course, I've taken the aerobic capacity. I'm considering going down the level three train with my certifications over the next couple of years before my L2 expires. And you know, this is funny because I've been listening a lot to Awesomely yellow.
00:16:39:17 - 00:16:58:03
David Syvertsen
Yeah, Downfall. They've been making a lot of appearances on podcasts leading up to the games. Yeah, we had them both first, by the way, here on the Hartford podcast we did. But yeah, those actually I did listen to Dan Falls a couple of times. I think you guys should go back and listen to those back from February when they were here for the announcement we had them on.
00:16:58:06 - 00:17:10:15
David Syvertsen
There are awesome enough to work out with us and then do an interview after. But one of the things that they're pushing it, it sounds like they're going to get aggressive with it at some point. Is making CrossFit coaches get more education? Yeah, especially.
00:17:10:15 - 00:17:13:35
Sam Rhee
Owners. They said that the before and they said they are they're continuing to say that.
00:17:13:35 - 00:17:23:34
David Syvertsen
Like it almost seems like it's a going to be a requirement that if you own a gym you have to be L2 and then you're going to have to start pursuing your L3. Yeah, which is it's a lot of work.
00:17:24:07 - 00:17:48:01
Sam Rhee
You know, I kind of have mixed feelings about that. I just feel like I want them. I told them, actually, I told Don fall straight to his face as after the interview I said, You should structure this just like you do for physicians. So physicians get licensed and then and you get your specialty board certification and then you need X number of CME credits every year in order to maintain your certification.
00:17:48:09 - 00:18:01:07
Sam Rhee
You don't have to. And then every ten years, you actually have to research for your board. But but they're actually changing that a little bit. But the long and the short of it is why are they not making coaches and owners take X-number of credits every year?
00:18:01:07 - 00:18:03:02
David Syvertsen
That's kind of what the level three is.
00:18:03:02 - 00:18:21:21
Sam Rhee
Yeah, but you know what you don't have to do anything until between your L2 and L3 until you study for the L three. Right. Right. Like you could sit there like a lump on the log. Yeah. Why not make everyone do 20 credits? And so you might look and be like, Oh, you know what? I'll take the kettlebell, course I'll take the nutrition, course I'll take the CrossFit kids course.
00:18:21:28 - 00:18:43:01
Sam Rhee
So every year you're kind of making them and you can discount it if you want or incentivize it, but just like make them do more courses to help them and then maybe the incentive is if you do enough of these courses by year five, that kind of almost gets you to your L three. Maybe you take a short test and then you're there, right?
00:18:43:03 - 00:18:57:10
Sam Rhee
Like how much incentive would that be? That's sort of what they're doing for us actually in our board is like, if you do X number of things every year, you don't have to research after year ten. Got it. And so.
00:18:57:13 - 00:18:59:03
David Syvertsen
It's forever.
00:18:59:05 - 00:19:11:34
Sam Rhee
For the next ten years. So so I think I want them to push more education for us on a yearly basis because honestly, how many CrossFit courses have you taken in the past couple of years since you cert you, you took your L two?
00:19:12:01 - 00:19:13:05
David Syvertsen
I mean, since L two.
00:19:13:05 - 00:19:15:05
Sam Rhee
Other than the judges course or something like that, just.
00:19:15:05 - 00:19:31:12
David Syvertsen
The master's course, the OpEx, I mean from CrossFit only, CrossFit just from CrossFit only, just the master's course. But that was before my research of my L2. Yeah. So since then, I mean I restarted my L two last year about 12 months ago. Yeah, actually nine months ago. And I've done anything since.
00:19:31:12 - 00:19:37:10
Sam Rhee
Yeah. So I feel like people should kind of get encouraged. Yeah, whatever. That's, that's just me. And, but.
00:19:37:11 - 00:20:01:25
David Syvertsen
So. And why are we talking about this. Right. This is, we go down the path of the programmer when in most cases the owner of the gym or the head coach, they're programing for your gym. If you're not pursuing these next level education experiences, you might start missing the boat on what you actually should be doing. Like I've learned so much more about programing and athletes managing classes, logistics.
00:20:01:28 - 00:20:12:28
David Syvertsen
That's a part of programing too. Over the past nine years that I would probably can go break down some programing from 2014 2015 and be like, That's not right.
00:20:12:31 - 00:20:21:06
Sam Rhee
Honestly, though, a lot of new gym owners are just outsourcing their programing to another place. Yeah. So how does that work in terms of fitting that into your gym?
00:20:21:08 - 00:20:41:27
David Syvertsen
I don't I don't love it, but I do think it can work as long as there's a lot of communication. Now, if you just open up again, like and again, it's not hard to do right now. You can go get an hour one and open up a gym. All right. You might have no business programing workouts for people that might or honestly, you might not want to either.
00:20:41:30 - 00:20:53:23
David Syvertsen
So what do you do? You go to see fit. You go to mayhem. You go to I mean, there's a lot now, those are the two ones that really stick out my head. And they have lesson plans written out for you.
00:20:53:24 - 00:20:54:09
Sam Rhee
Cap.
00:20:54:12 - 00:21:12:27
David Syvertsen
Cap, sorry, Which is free now. They have lesson plans. They have logistic plans, They have scaling options. And it's a good template system. And I've been to gyms where they do those one of those programs and the coach literally will go up, read off a sheet of paper what the workout is.
00:21:12:27 - 00:21:13:31
Sam Rhee
I've been to gyms like that.
00:21:13:31 - 00:21:41:02
David Syvertsen
And there is not a lot of emotion behind that. And again, we're going to get into the coaches impact on the programing, not the guy that's programing the guy or girl that's coaching the class. Their impact on the programing in relation to the athletes will get there. But sometimes when I see a gym that does this there, it lacks personality, it lacks innovation, it lacks the awareness of the people that are in that room.
00:21:41:04 - 00:21:56:11
David Syvertsen
And it takes a special coach to be able to take a workout, look at the who they're coaching and be like, I'm going to switch this up and I seen that until before, you know, not completely wipe the workout clean, but like, hey, they can look around like there isn't a single person in this class that can do this workout, not one.
00:21:56:18 - 00:22:02:09
David Syvertsen
So I'm going to have to change a few things up. That takes a very well trained, experienced coach to do that.
00:22:02:09 - 00:22:12:31
Sam Rhee
I've seen that. I've seen them do programing where literally no one at the gym could exit. Yeah. And they every like every body scaled and I'm like that probably didn't really work out so well.
00:22:12:31 - 00:22:34:25
David Syvertsen
So the variance in ability levels and goals, this is probably the biggest challenge to program for a gym or if you're outsourcing your programing, right, like let's say you're a new gym, you have 30 members, you have a couple of good athletes, a couple beginners, and then everyone else is just kind of falls in like that. Hey, like I can, you know, hold myself together.
00:22:34:25 - 00:22:50:12
David Syvertsen
I'm an average CrossFit or below average, whatever you want to call yourself. Right? How do you program for people that have such different goals? You know, we have people in this gym, literally that say their goal is they want to compete at the CrossFit Games. Yes, we have some people here that don't know what the CrossFit games are.
00:22:50:12 - 00:23:00:05
David Syvertsen
They're being they've been CrossFit for five years. Kayla Since that I'm looking at you, by the way. You know, I talked about the games as she goes. What games? I'm like, Oh gosh, here we go.
00:23:00:05 - 00:23:03:09
Sam Rhee
She meets Dawn Falls. Like, Who are you?
00:23:03:12 - 00:23:21:21
David Syvertsen
That's one of the best stories ever. But how do you do that? And then how can you relate someone else's programing that doesn't know your gym four and then how do you have them all workout together? I don't like the concept of saying, Hey, all my best athletes, you're going to go in the corner and do your own workout over there.
00:23:21:21 - 00:23:46:26
David Syvertsen
Everyone else, you're over here in the front doing, you know, 2159 of Ringrose and sit ups. There's your work out for today. We want to keep everyone together because we think that the value there at far outweighs some getting into individualized programing. So how do you how do you do that? What are your thoughts on that? Same is you've been here long enough, you're seasoned enough, you've been on both sides, you've wanted to compete and you really go after it.
00:23:46:29 - 00:24:00:31
David Syvertsen
And now I feel like you're still in probably some of the best shape you've been in. Maybe you've lost a little bit of like top top end strength skill, but you are 90% of the workouts. So I would say you're one of the you're one of the better athletes in the gym.
00:24:00:31 - 00:24:22:14
Sam Rhee
Thank you. I would say I don't I you're too generous. I would say I probably do maybe three quarters to 80%. But I would say every day I look at it and I'm always your programing is such that you're programing for the top end. But but that top end is close enough for for a lot of pretty decent athletes that they're like, should I chase it today or not?
00:24:22:14 - 00:24:37:29
Sam Rhee
Right. And that's why it's always so sneaky. Crazy because you're always looking to to push us if if every day the programing that was handed down for Mayhem was like £185 overhead squat. Yeah. Like what is even the incentive.
00:24:37:29 - 00:24:38:17
David Syvertsen
From the floor.
00:24:38:17 - 00:24:58:18
Sam Rhee
To go right to go heavy when you're like, you know what screw I'm not even I try 135 I'll go 105 or 95 or and or less and just you know because every day you don't have something to chase, right. That is the power of the X, right. And so every day I think about what it is that I can do, where my capacity is in the cracks.
00:24:58:19 - 00:25:19:33
Sam Rhee
And so when I first started, I was just scaling everything and I just wanted to move better and learn how to do everything. Well then. And I still want to. But now it's also about like, what is my capacity On any given day, I have lost some capacity. There's no doubt like I'm like 50, I'll be 50 for this year.
00:25:19:33 - 00:25:44:17
Sam Rhee
So but I feel like I'm pushing myself because of the programing, not despite it. The programing, Whatever it is that you're doing every day, I'm doing it because of the programing. Even if I look at the work at it, I'm like, I don't want to do this. I have no desire to do this. I yeah, I know I'm going to do it because it's designed in a way to help me and not break me down.
00:25:44:17 - 00:25:53:17
Sam Rhee
That's the other thing. Like I look at some workouts that I've dropped in at other gyms, I'm like, You're going to hurt me. You're deliberately trying to hurt me, and I have no intention of it because.
00:25:53:17 - 00:26:14:12
David Syvertsen
And you know why that is, you know, considers they like pain and they're in a certain way, not injury. They like to feel like they're working out. They like that muscle burn. They like the the high heart rate working out. They do some say they don't. If you do CrossFit, there is some small part of you that likes that high intensity approach, right?
00:26:14:12 - 00:26:34:29
David Syvertsen
Yes. You might change things might change in your life. That makes a little bit harder. You still kind of like it. All right. And if you hate intensity, you're not going to do CrossFit. So that's why the programmer has such a fine line of saying of making sure you don't fall victim, fall into that trap of saying, you know what?
00:26:34:31 - 00:26:52:07
David Syvertsen
No matter what, if I just make it ten rounds instead of five, everyone's going to get mangled. So I'm everyone's going to say, Yeah, that was a good workout. Might not have been good for me in the gym and what we're doing tomorrow and the day before. And that's why you, like anyone, can create a hard workout. Like I could probably create a really hard workout.
00:26:52:07 - 00:27:06:27
David Syvertsen
My three year old son. Like it's not hard to create a cross at workout. Every all of you can do it. The challenge is that if you are going to make them go really, really hard on one or two days, what are you doing after? What are you doing before? What did you do the weeks leading up to?
00:27:06:30 - 00:27:22:04
David Syvertsen
All right, hint, hint. We have Diane coming up in a few weeks. This is why we have some deadlifts around 205 to 20 5 to 55 coming up in workouts. That's why we're going upside down a few weeks. I'm not going to just throw it at you. Right. There's always going to be some sort of like, Hey, guys, we're really going to go after Diane.
00:27:22:07 - 00:27:38:04
David Syvertsen
We had three weeks of some upside down work for those that want to do that. Now we're going to go now. We're really going to truly go after Diane, right? Isabel Coming up on Friday, 30 snatches for time one rep Max Nash before right. Been doing this for eight nine weeks. So there's nothing wrong with these workouts individually.
00:27:38:04 - 00:27:56:33
David Syvertsen
But if it's just like, hey, I'm just going to tell them to do as many of us as they can for 20 minutes. And yes, they're going to feel like on the ground, I did my job. Cross It's really hard and intense. But Sam, who's a seasoned cross hitter who does pay attention to programing, does a lot of his own research, talks about it a lot, thinks about a lot.
00:27:57:00 - 00:28:07:25
David Syvertsen
He can get he can get a good vibe if he drops in at the gym and says, you know what, You're just trying to inflict pain on everyone in this workout. And maybe you don't care about me that much. And this is where the coach comes into play.
00:28:07:28 - 00:28:24:31
Sam Rhee
You know, most wired at a gym is they're usually a 20 to 25 minute strength session, and then they'll throw in a 15 minute med con at the end, like I've seen that at so many place very common. And it just is unhelpful over time to do that. Like any given day, like you said, is fine every day.
00:28:24:32 - 00:28:41:01
Sam Rhee
Yeah. That beats you down. Yeah. And, and you have to choose like as an athlete, for example, the snatch cycle that you've been doing, like my shoulder hasn't been awesome, so I haven't been going heavy. I did see as like, so you do release the programing a week before which you didn't before for a long time. A long time.
00:28:41:01 - 00:28:58:31
Sam Rhee
And then. And now you do. And so that I think is a way that you're changing and adapting because people can sort of help themselves with it if they use it right and not like cherry pick. Right. But I looked at that. I was like, ooh, like, I would love to do that. I'd love to do that. But I'm like, I haven't really been snatching.
00:28:58:31 - 00:29:15:32
Sam Rhee
Well, my shoulder is not there. We've been working up to it. I don't think I'm going to do it. And I'm like dying inside because I'm like, I really would love to try to do 30 snatches in 135. And I'm like, You know what? I'll get into six and my form will go to crap, right? And I'm like, I know as much as prep as you've done.
00:29:15:32 - 00:29:26:18
Sam Rhee
And I've seen also the experienced and beginner cross voters here talk about the Snatch cycle and some of them have bought into it, some haven't. I just talked to that.
00:29:26:18 - 00:29:27:09
David Syvertsen
She's always tricky.
00:29:27:10 - 00:29:46:11
Sam Rhee
Yeah. And, and, and that is OC like listen, as a programmer you're trying to program for the majority of the gym, right? There's going to be a big minority that's not going to necessarily buy in for whatever reason. And that's okay. And if you're one of those guys who but as long as you understand that your programmer is trying to help you with this, right.
00:29:46:14 - 00:30:01:00
Sam Rhee
Like I understand you've been working on my since I've been working on my snatches. I'm just like, I'm working, I'm working and it's not there. It's not there. So I'm not I'm going to pass on Isabelle this year. Right. But I understand what's been going on, Right? And you're not hurting me, right? You've been helping me with it, right?
00:30:01:00 - 00:30:02:15
Sam Rhee
So that that's okay.
00:30:02:16 - 00:30:27:29
David Syvertsen
Right? And this is where also the hurting and helping in the guidance, right? The coach. This is where there's another issue of of outsourcing the programing. And again, it's not for everyone. Our solutions to this, I'll go over them, but the delivery of the what at the white board has an enormous impact on how effective programing is for each individual.
00:30:27:32 - 00:30:49:35
David Syvertsen
So if you're a coach and we've talked about this like so many times on this podcast, if you don't have a coach up there that can look at the work out, get a little description from someone, whoever programed it, and then be able to coach it to a wide variety of athletes. Like think about the 6 a.m. class, because as a class you're usually at really a lot of variety in that class.
00:30:50:02 - 00:31:13:35
David Syvertsen
Right now I'm thinking about a 930 class, huge amount of variety in that class, right? Ages, backgrounds, goals. All right. You need to be able to have a talk at that white board and get everyone on the same page. We're saying, hey, you guys don't need to be doing what's written behind me when it comes to weights, volume, intensity, you are going to do this workout and you are going to try to get this stimulus out of the workout.
00:31:14:02 - 00:31:33:15
David Syvertsen
Here are, you know, reasons 1 to 3 and here's the route to get there for each one of those. One, two, three. And yes, sometimes those talks at the white board can drag on a little bit. I still think it's the most important part of class. I just said beginners. What? I literally tell people that during my beginner sessions, don't be late A because it's a bad luck.
00:31:33:21 - 00:31:53:16
David Syvertsen
A B you're going to miss out on some of the most important guidance you're going to get, you know, especially if you're at a big class, you know, like if you go to class 26 and you're new, going to be honest with you. You're not going to get a lot of attention and so if you don't listen to that white board, if you're not there or the coach doesn't do a good job of talking about the workout.
00:31:53:19 - 00:32:11:31
David Syvertsen
So this is where, you know, this is kind of a dual effort here. Coach, You need to understand the workout. If you don't understand, need to ask questions, programmer, you probably need to do a little extra guidance on not just maybe in some cases more than a few sentences you might need to like text the coach. We do this a lot.
00:32:12:03 - 00:32:28:25
David Syvertsen
Like I'm going to be texting the coaches about tomorrow's workout one hour max, back squat, You know, for safety reasons. But really, I want them to be on the same page with something and I'll do that. We did that with the Thursday workout you and I talked about the one this pass one push pressing row burpees like the bloodbath workout of the week, right.
00:32:28:25 - 00:32:49:25
David Syvertsen
The hardest workout week. Last week there was a there was a lot of talk that went to that. Okay, if they can't do X-Y-Z, they need to change it. Hey, if they can't do this in five at a time, they had to change. If they can't do the row in this, they had to change it. And that's where if a coach ignores that at the white board, that's where I think a program can lose a lot of effectiveness.
00:32:49:27 - 00:33:03:05
Sam Rhee
I think one of the things that is your ability to program well is one, you take that feedback and you you work with the coaches very carefully. I, you know, I bug you all the time before.
00:33:03:06 - 00:33:03:21
David Syvertsen
But I love.
00:33:03:21 - 00:33:10:21
Sam Rhee
It before coaching. I love it. I give you a lot of feedback. That's that's why I do the work. I don't do them because I.
00:33:10:24 - 00:33:12:01
David Syvertsen
Want to watch myself.
00:33:12:01 - 00:33:31:11
Sam Rhee
You know, on third Sundays. But I know as a coach I'm better for it if I have gone through it and I can. And that's why it is really important. I want my athletes to listen to what I say on Thursdays when I give that workout. I was like, Dude, get through the 15 push presses as fast as you can on broken as much as you can, because that's not where the interference is.
00:33:31:18 - 00:33:51:00
Sam Rhee
The interference is all in the Sumo's because of the row upon row, because of a hard row, and the people who listened or heard that like Aaron was like, dude, it was all it was all about the push presses. Like, you know, if you can give your athlete some guidance into it, that is invaluable in terms of increasing their level of performance.
00:33:51:03 - 00:34:07:11
Sam Rhee
The other thing is, is you eat your own dogfood. You actually do like if you're a programmer and you don't do your own programing, you will lose out tremendously. On being a better programmer. I agree. I see you do these your quads all the time. You did that awful.
00:34:07:11 - 00:34:24:22
David Syvertsen
One by myself after a back squat day at two at 215 on a hot day like that workout and like guys, that was a bloodbath workout. And for those that don't know the bison program, I'm going to tell you the workout real quick because I want to relate this to hard programing. Not hard programing. The workout was four sets.
00:34:24:25 - 00:34:45:02
David Syvertsen
You work out for 3 minutes, you rest for 3 minutes. All right. Here's the work. 20 Castro for guys, 16 for ladies, 15 Push press 15 Sumo deadlifts, 95 for guys, 65 for girls. And then whatever time you have left over in those 3 minutes, you do as many burpees to target as possible and your score is how many burpees you get.
00:34:45:05 - 00:35:05:14
David Syvertsen
Now there's other elements to that workout and programing that I love to do that I don't want to talk about. But that workout is not hard. All right? Rowing is not hard. Push press set light to medium weight is not hard. Sumo. The high poles are not hard. When I was talking about high skill, there's no high weight.
00:35:05:17 - 00:35:27:35
David Syvertsen
It was all about your intensity. If you went as balls out and I told Sam I was the hardest. I've gone on a workout probably in months, I would say, All right. And I didn't recover for two, 3 hours after I was smoked and a lot of other people were. Why? You went hard. You went fast. You rode really hard.
00:35:27:35 - 00:35:32:21
David Syvertsen
You got to the barbell. You went to Unbroken, you went to the you first set, you crashed, right? You got 22 burpees on the first.
00:35:32:21 - 00:35:32:33
Sam Rhee
20.
00:35:33:01 - 00:35:36:09
David Syvertsen
20 burpees on your first set, and then I'll talk about that.
00:35:36:09 - 00:35:52:21
Sam Rhee
No, I will. No. So this is one where you look at it on paper and you're like, okay, I can do 20 Cal Ro 15 push press at 95 and 15, Sumo is at 15 and then I should have time to do burpees. Yep. In the remaining 3 minutes. So I went ham, I had like a minute plus for the burpees.
00:35:52:21 - 00:36:09:09
Sam Rhee
I got 20 and then I fell apart. I got to on the second round, zero on the third, two on the fourth and I was dead and I was like 3 minutes should be enough time to recover. This is where you, you, you feel the workout, you're doing it and it's complete. Like you can't tell exactly what it's going to look like on paper.
00:36:09:09 - 00:36:23:12
David Syvertsen
Like if that workout was 155 push press and 155 Somos and you know, I would understand that's probably a little too hard to have you can't do it. But that workout it really it goes to show that was the hardest workout of the week last week in.
00:36:23:12 - 00:36:39:30
Sam Rhee
Lightest weight, like £95, £65, like almost everyone could do a couple right of the push press and at that but can you do 15 right fast with intensity four times after a row and then try to hit burpees to target like now you're talking about something different.
00:36:39:30 - 00:36:56:03
David Syvertsen
And you know, what makes it hard is that everyone in the room is going hard. So it's, it, it just it and you love it, right? The music's loud. The the energy is great and everyone's going balls out, which is fun. It's so much fun to be in that farm. That's what I mean by cross hairs. Love pain in a way like it was.
00:36:56:08 - 00:37:13:02
David Syvertsen
It hurts to do that with a lot of people. But you know, you don't want to be the one person that's it. And you just go, Fuck it. I'm going to go for it. That workout is not hard, though. Like if you were like, Hey man, I don't feel going hard today, but I take 2 minutes on the rower and then, you know, do ten push, press ten Somos and don't do any burpees.
00:37:13:05 - 00:37:15:06
David Syvertsen
You don't tell me that's a hard workout. It's not.
00:37:15:06 - 00:37:22:34
Sam Rhee
And a lot of I should have scaled it honestly because I 95 was a little more I shouldn't have gotten zero on that. Like if you.
00:37:22:34 - 00:37:24:04
David Syvertsen
Weren't by yourself, you wouldn't.
00:37:24:05 - 00:37:40:33
Sam Rhee
Have. Maybe. But if I had scaled to 75, it still would have been a kick ass workout for me and I would have done just fine. And I a lot of people scaled and killed themselves and did awesome on it. So that's one where it the programmer had a lot to do with it. The coaching had some to do with it and the and the athlete had some to do with it.
00:37:40:33 - 00:38:05:12
David Syvertsen
So let's get into the athlete side of this. Yeah, right. I want to talk about this from the athlete perspective because I did. I just talked about the programmer they got. They have to challenge themselves, educate themselves, be aware of the gym, you know, eat your own food, do your own, like do the workouts. Coaches huge responsibility. You should feel pressure every time you explain a workout, every single time.
00:38:05:15 - 00:38:31:09
David Syvertsen
Okay. Athletes, though, you are a huge part of this, too. And there's a lot of like looking in the mirror that you're going to have to do. And I'm going to talk about that. But I want you to understand that your bias cannot control your view of someone else's programing. Here's an example. If you've lost touch with how often you work out, how often you how hard you want to go, you know, you don't cross it that much anymore.
00:38:31:12 - 00:38:51:11
David Syvertsen
Life's gone away and it's not even like a bad thing. Work gets in the way, family gets in the way. If that is you, it's okay. But you also need to understand that if you do lose some fitness. Yeah, the workouts are going to feel harder, especially in the gym. That is kind of pushing the needle as the community gets fitter and fitter.
00:38:51:14 - 00:39:16:02
David Syvertsen
So you're talking about two subjects that are going in opposite directions, programing slowly getting a little tougher, you slowly losing some fitness. Now you put those two together and the gap is huge because they're moving in opposite directions at the same time. And I think before you have an opinion and want to share it, you need to look in the mirror first and be like, Yeah, I used to go five, six days a week on there, one or two days a week.
00:39:16:09 - 00:39:40:30
David Syvertsen
Well, no shit. It's harder, right. And, and like, and that, that's, that's, that should be obvious. I think one thing as an athlete you can do other than realizing that bias is understand that there's plans throughout the year you know and right now we are in the middle of a back squats now cycle. Then we have a front squat push press cycle.
00:39:40:33 - 00:39:55:35
David Syvertsen
We have some more skills coming our way, August into September. All right. And it is it's like a lot of like kind of stuff that's hard in the fall, though. And we've done this for a lot of falls in a row now. I think three in a row, we slow it down a notch and do a lot of strength work.
00:39:56:01 - 00:40:22:28
David Syvertsen
Workouts are shorter, volume is lower, but the loads are heavier and we do always do that throughout the fall, November, December. All right. Once January hits, we see the open at the end of the tunnel. Everyone's on the healthy train. We start pushing the high intensity again. If you know that, you should almost accept that June, July, August and part of September, they're going to be tough.
00:40:22:31 - 00:40:28:22
David Syvertsen
And it's okay to go through these tough cycles throughout the year. Knowing what's coming up next. What are your thoughts on that?
00:40:28:23 - 00:40:40:15
Sam Rhee
That is exactly what every gym should be doing, because if you are a CrossFit gym, you should be gearing towards touch points of the year and and every gyms touch point honestly should be the open one.
00:40:40:15 - 00:40:41:15
David Syvertsen
Hundred percent.
00:40:41:15 - 00:41:01:11
Sam Rhee
And and so you see what athletes competitive athletes so this is sort of mirroring what most competitive athletes do during their season. Okay so why wouldn't you want your gym to program just like they would for a competitive athlete, even if you're just doing it for fitness, like just for fun, for health, like they should be doing this right?
00:41:01:14 - 00:41:26:05
Sam Rhee
And you why wouldn't you mimic that? And so everything that you've done every year that that sort of thematic sort of flow and and progression like it makes complete and total sense, right? Like why wouldn't you do that? And I think if you're a programmer out there, you need to be able to, to, to position your pieces for what you want to do in exactly that way.
00:41:26:05 - 00:41:26:26
David Syvertsen
Yeah.
00:41:26:29 - 00:41:30:29
Sam Rhee
Maybe it's a little different in terms of execution, your gym, right? But you should be thinking that way.
00:41:30:29 - 00:41:46:31
David Syvertsen
And again, not everyone is on this like training lifestyle, this training cycle. But and we will like when I say doing more strength work in the fall, a little less volume like yes, that's always the case. Yeah. Every now and then we're going to throw in a, you know, a ten round workout with 350 reps and it's going to beat you up.
00:41:46:31 - 00:42:04:18
David Syvertsen
But like we do a lot, we do that a lot more right now than we do. And it's also a lot of running and pounding on the joints, all that good stuff. But here's another thing that I think you guys can look at. If you think your gym's programing is too hard. And we just said you need to remove your bias.
00:42:04:21 - 00:42:22:25
David Syvertsen
I have a rule for myself. On average, it's like a 3070 rule that if under 30% of your gym is are actually in the workouts on an average basis, general day to day, then you could start making the argument that it need to tone it back a little bit. So interesting, I come in on the white board and I'm looking at everyone's like, Oh, who's scored?
00:42:22:25 - 00:42:42:27
David Syvertsen
Look? And I'm like, nobody's. I'm looking at how many are exercising up there under the cap. All right, hit that stimulus. How many people could do this weight? I was almost half the gym. Did it. All right. I should probably make it a little heavier because that my philosophy on programing is that you take an individual workout, not your overall best athletes.
00:42:42:30 - 00:43:06:15
David Syvertsen
That particular workout, you know, can you get your best athletes at that movement, at that kind of workout to our axis and hit the stimulus. So if we wanted to go on a heavy, let's say heavy, everyone knows that it is right. Five rounds, 12, that's nine hand cleans, six overheads, 155 one, two, five. Let's say we want to do a heavy duty and we put a 15 minute cap on it.
00:43:06:18 - 00:43:28:31
David Syvertsen
All right. And I would probably for this gym off the top of my head without thinking too much about it, I think I could do that at 185 125 and our lifters, all of them, over 30% of them would get that done in well under 15 minutes. So I could probably go sub10 on that. Yep. And scary. But what would arts Froning do with CrossFit Mayhem?
00:43:28:34 - 00:43:49:11
David Syvertsen
Just getting out there. Probably two, two or five or two. 25 Yeah, I don't think five people in this gym could this on their 15 minutes at 225, Alex is pissed. Like, let me show you one of them. Okay. I don't think I can. Maybe both. I couldn't. I don't think I could do that. Another 15 minutes are 225 and it would hurt so bad.
00:43:49:18 - 00:43:51:03
David Syvertsen
But this is what I'm talking about.
00:43:51:03 - 00:43:51:18
Sam Rhee
Sabrina.
00:43:51:27 - 00:43:55:30
David Syvertsen
Sabrina, For sure. The score five through to 25, right?
00:43:55:30 - 00:43:56:31
Sam Rhee
Not the skill, not the.
00:43:56:32 - 00:44:19:05
David Syvertsen
Women, the women's weight. Yeah, but if you look at the white board and again, this takes the responsibility of the athlete for move your score out. Take it out. Look at the white board and see, okay, there was 47 people that are access work and the 170 came to the gym. All right. You're kind of like right on that line.
00:44:19:05 - 00:44:37:02
David Syvertsen
It's like, all right, we're in a good spot. If you have 150, let's keep the math easy. Let's say you have 100 people come to your gym and nine of them are exit workouts. Right. A little too tough. But every now and then, that's still okay to throw one of those out there. Let's talk about Mary. Let's take the weights out of it for you.
00:44:37:02 - 00:44:55:05
David Syvertsen
Jean, This all right? Mary's I am have 25 hands in pushups, ten parcels, 15 pull ups, awful workout. All right. How many athletes in this gym could our acts that it comes down to? Mostly the pistols. Yeah. Can they do pencils and then Yes. Can they go upside down and do some handstand push ups. Right. I think well over 30%.
00:44:55:08 - 00:45:09:29
David Syvertsen
Yeah, I do. Yeah. So that workout should be programed, you know, And like, I hate it. I personally hate it if I came to cross it or whatever down the road and I'm dropping in, I can make the case, oh I can't believe they're making people do. This is way too hard. Yeah. Why do I think it's too hard?
00:45:09:29 - 00:45:17:09
David Syvertsen
Because I suck at pencils, that's why. So I don't really have a valid opinion, so I should never express that opinion to anybody.
00:45:17:12 - 00:45:21:18
Sam Rhee
That's the Bergeron would say never program pistols or handstand push ups for your general gym.
00:45:21:18 - 00:45:36:18
David Syvertsen
Yeah and that's another discussion Is is it is the movement unsafe for people and trust me I don't know if you've noticed this we've gone upside down less, but we're never going to stop going upside down. We don't do a lot of pistols, but I don't think we're ever going get to a point where we don't do pistols.
00:45:36:18 - 00:45:49:27
David Syvertsen
Yeah, because I would hate for them to be in the open and I never program. Yeah, I feel like that would be a bad job by me. But yeah, there are some people I don't know if I'm ever going to go back into the pistol train. I really don't. You know, with my left, my right knee, I'm fine on them.
00:45:49:29 - 00:46:06:11
David Syvertsen
And but that's a personal decision. But I can't make decisions based on myself like that. Do you guys not see, like, that's just selfish for you to be like, Hey, this is too obvious. I can't do it. Like, you can just be humble enough to be like, Hey, man, like, I anchor that soft, so I'm just going to kind of remove myself from that opinion.
00:46:06:13 - 00:46:14:08
Sam Rhee
You have to take yourself out of it, because especially the old, like the athletes have been around, they're like, You know what? Why is it so much harder than it was in 2018? Yeah, well, you know why.
00:46:14:08 - 00:46:18:04
David Syvertsen
I'll give you I'll give you three reasons. You're not going to like.
00:46:18:07 - 00:46:33:07
Sam Rhee
I mean, if you look at the average fan time for everybody, it's gone down tremendously. Like you can't program for 2018. Like, right. This is not the 2018 world anymore. Right. You know, and I'm not maybe as fit as I was in 2018. So I'm just going to have to accept that.
00:46:33:07 - 00:46:45:21
David Syvertsen
Right. And it's okay. And this is where. Right. I think we're having a future podcast coming up. I might ask one of our coaches, come on that we've talked about with all like our X scale, our X plus, all this stuff like different levels of every workout because I understand.
00:46:45:24 - 00:47:05:33
Sam Rhee
Does it suck if you're a beginner too, and starting now as opposed to 2018 and learning like it does kind of suck because the workouts look so much more daunting. But you know what? That's that's okay. Like you're just on your own path doing your own thing. Yep. It wouldn't matter. Back then when I started, if our X was whatever, because I was never our saying it anyway, it could have been £300.
00:47:05:33 - 00:47:07:12
Sam Rhee
I was still would a scaled anyway.
00:47:07:12 - 00:47:26:13
David Syvertsen
And I empathize. I do, I promise I do with the athletes, especially here at Bison that you know I'm looking back at that old bison will picture from 2015 and then I went down memory lane a few times last week, 2016, 17, 18, 19. How much our lives have changed. So many people in those pictures kids, jobs, fitness levels, volleyball.
00:47:26:15 - 00:47:34:02
David Syvertsen
Right. It it does hit the ego a little bit that you used to be. I hate saying this. One of the best for you.
00:47:34:03 - 00:47:35:03
Sam Rhee
Fire breathing monster.
00:47:35:03 - 00:47:56:06
David Syvertsen
Yeah, You can record everything. Yeah, Stuff happens. Things have changed. It's a slow death, you know? It happens. It doesn't happen like that. Just really slowly happens. All of a sudden, we're looking at 2023 and you can't do it anymore. And I unders I do empathize that it can hurt the feelings a little. And this is not a place where we want people to have their feelings hurt.
00:47:56:09 - 00:48:15:32
David Syvertsen
This place should build you up. But there's also this mindset that I have like participation trophies suck. Like that whole, like side of me where I'm like, You got to suck it up and be an adult about this and understand and be an example for the new people in this gym. So scaling workouts is not bad. You need to understand that.
00:48:15:32 - 00:48:39:16
David Syvertsen
And this is not a catchy phrase that a coach likes to say. It is legitimately, credibly, not a bad thing. Scale to work workout. What is a bad thing is that you pursuing something that you shouldn't be pursuing and getting hurt, that that that's bad. That would be a bad decision. So if you ever kind of like looking at a white board and like, is this too hard, is this too easy, take yourself out a B, count how many people are actually workout.
00:48:39:19 - 00:49:09:14
David Syvertsen
And if you find that that window, 30% or above, it's fine. If you see like 20%, 15%, let let me know because if that happens a lot, then it's a problem. If it happens every now and then, because the coach is trying to put out like a games workout, a quarterfinal workout, prepping the gym for a qualifier, then it's okay for it to occasionally happen just like it's occasionally okay for it to happen that 85% of your gym will are exit that happens to you know, to me, if that happens, that's a little too easy.
00:49:09:14 - 00:49:15:10
David Syvertsen
Like if you're above 70% of your gym are exiting every workout, I think that's too easy and I'm going to get into something else. What do you think about that?
00:49:15:10 - 00:49:39:06
Sam Rhee
I agree 1,000%. I mean, there are differences. I would listen when people say programing is too hard, I listen to what it is about the hardness. If it's because you're not addressing enough of these workouts, then I will turn my brain off and not listen to you because that is irrelevant. Right? But if you're complaining because you did front squats one day and then you're doing overhead squats another day, and then the third day you're doing heavy thrusters.
00:49:39:06 - 00:49:40:06
David Syvertsen
That's a huge thing. That's a.
00:49:40:06 - 00:49:45:22
Sam Rhee
Problem. Now, the programing is too hard. That's that is the issue you need to focus on as an athlete.
00:49:45:22 - 00:49:52:12
David Syvertsen
I would even say to repetitive like not a good program like it might not be too hard. It may just I would even say that's an irresponsible program.
00:49:52:12 - 00:49:55:05
Sam Rhee
So that's where I listen to people carefully.
00:49:55:05 - 00:49:55:22
David Syvertsen
That's true.
00:49:55:22 - 00:50:00:21
Sam Rhee
But not because you know what I like. I can't fix any of these things anymore.
00:50:00:29 - 00:50:17:17
David Syvertsen
I had someone to say like, Man, like, you're killing our shoulders. And I was like, Fuck it. So I was like, Am I? And one day we had push ups. Two days later we had push press and I think we had a front squat that is, Yeah, hold on front. Squat hurts my shoulder. I'm like, All right, well, no offense.
00:50:17:17 - 00:50:31:31
David Syvertsen
That's not a shoulder workout. You know, it's or I think it was a bass while I was holding a back. Squat hurts a shoulder. This is tight. I'm like, I didn't say it to him. He's like, brand new. And I was just like, in my head. I'm like, Those are the opinions. Like, Man, Dave's really hurting our shoulders.
00:50:31:31 - 00:50:46:22
David Syvertsen
I'm like, You did some push ups, You did some like push press and you did some back squats. Like over the course of three days. It's not too intense. But if we did heavy jerks Sherk stance and push ups and Hanson holds three days in a row. I will take all the criticism world. And I've done that before.
00:50:46:22 - 00:51:03:04
David Syvertsen
I will admit that too. I have overloaded certain movement patterns in a week. I will admit that and I'm very cognizant of it, and I'm not going to guarantee that I won't make that mistake. And that's where I want the feedback. Hey, Dave, like I'm really beat up like my killer is man boxing. I'm stubborn. There's and running back to back days is like.
00:51:03:07 - 00:51:26:07
David Syvertsen
Mike. Yeah, like that. Like, you know, can we talk about scaling head? Maybe I should to spread that runway out a little bit. So we're always going to wrap this up, but I want to throw this, this idea at the athletes. I think it's too hard. Let's even talk about bison. Majority of our listeners are from here. I've been considering this for a while, probably in the fall of making things tougher here.
00:51:26:10 - 00:51:33:34
Sam Rhee
And see what you guys, whoever, whatever listener complained about being too hard. Now you've done it, You've used.
00:51:34:01 - 00:51:52:11
David Syvertsen
This came up again last night. Not for me. I was listening about the programing and we've gotten to a point with the Bison Bowl where you had to be. It's really it's no complaints. It's tough. The program is just varying levels in our acts and scaled. You have to make sure it's a good experience for everyone. It's not nice.
00:51:52:11 - 00:52:12:17
David Syvertsen
It's more fun than it is competition. If it was more competition than fun, I wouldn't care about making it too hard. But like, yep, you got screwed. Too bad, you know, try harder next year and. But I don't want to be like that for the Bison Bowl. But for the gym programing, I, I think off the top of my head there are probably 40 people in our gym that could handle more.
00:52:12:20 - 00:52:36:20
David Syvertsen
Sure. When I say more, I mean not extra programing. I mean slightly heavier barbells, slightly more volume, slightly more advanced skills within a workout. Here's an example Ring muscle ups don't program than the often I've been program them more over the past year and a half than I did for about a three year stretch. There's a lot of people in our in our gym that could do them on the top.
00:52:36:20 - 00:52:54:00
David Syvertsen
My head, I want to say there's about 40 people. Yeah, I really almost always keep the volume pretty low in them. Yeah, that's a one, Two or three. Yeah. Rarely do you see me go more than that. We just do that up and down ladder. Workout. One, two, three, three. One, two, three. Back and forth. Right. Yeah. There.
00:52:54:00 - 00:53:27:11
David Syvertsen
I think at least half of those people that have the muscle up can handle workouts with four or five at a time. You know, it depends what you put it with and how long the workout is. That's what I mean by making it harder. I think a lot of our lifting workouts, barbells like, you know, I usually a heavy hang clean workout in our gym is 165 plus I think there's a lot of athletes in our so I should say the girls ways to 165 115 I think there's a lot of athletes in our gym that can turn that 185 125 maybe even 205 135 again, 3 to 4 reps at a time.
00:53:27:14 - 00:53:28:25
Sam Rhee
That's mayhem level.
00:53:28:28 - 00:53:54:19
David Syvertsen
Yeah, right now, should I ignore the fact that there's 40 people that can do that and leave it up to them to go heavier? Should I push the needle for the gym's programing and do what we've done for almost ten years now and just watch the gym get fitter? Because of those things have gotten harder. If I do that, it might turn more people into that mode of Man, this is too hard, just too heavy for me.
00:53:54:22 - 00:54:09:34
David Syvertsen
Hey, I used to do it. I can't do it anymore. I don't train like I used to. You know, I'm actually I'm not going to make the program easier by saying I'm not going to do it, you know, either stay where it's at or it'll probably get about 10% heavier.
00:54:10:01 - 00:54:30:23
Sam Rhee
I am okay with it if I believe that you are scaling to 30% of the gym are accessing it. Right. And if that is the case, you need to do that, then you should do it. Yeah, you should go heavier. You should have more reps in there. I know I'm going to be sliding back because for me, like for example, 165 is sort of where I'm kind of at.
00:54:30:23 - 00:54:37:09
Sam Rhee
Like it depends on how many reps or whatever it is. We just did one hang squad, clean it with five reps at once. I did 160.
00:54:37:09 - 00:54:37:35
David Syvertsen
If you got to pick.
00:54:38:05 - 00:54:39:28
Sam Rhee
I got to pick and I did one six. I like.
00:54:39:28 - 00:54:42:29
David Syvertsen
That. I like doing that too. It's like, Hey guys, you choose.
00:54:42:29 - 00:54:44:31
Sam Rhee
A lot of people and faster and quicker.
00:54:44:31 - 00:54:52:27
David Syvertsen
Yeah. And then 35 is the predominant. Are you? You're not one of the biggest losers in the gym. You actually had one of the heaviest barbells of the day. Well.
00:54:52:30 - 00:55:01:08
Sam Rhee
I you know, it's one of those tricks you do in a in a workout, right? So if you know you can't go fast, you go heavy and it looks better. But it's such a lift trick that, oh.
00:55:01:09 - 00:55:05:05
David Syvertsen
That's all right. So I went hour X plus today, but really I just want an excuse to go slow.
00:55:05:05 - 00:55:08:09
Sam Rhee
I follow some of the big lifters with that one like.
00:55:08:12 - 00:55:10:15
David Syvertsen
So we're on to you guys.
00:55:10:18 - 00:55:28:27
Sam Rhee
Exactly. So, I mean, you know, I think you got to I got to take my ego out of it. Like what I love to Rex as many workouts as I can. Absolutely. It's you know why? Because it's easier for me to compare myself to others on the white board, right? When I put See scaled, it's hard for me to know where I'm sitting compared to other people.
00:55:28:27 - 00:55:30:10
Sam Rhee
Yeah, but you know what? That's okay.
00:55:30:14 - 00:55:39:20
David Syvertsen
And here we can wrap this up with this question. We could probably this could probably be a topic should programing have levels. So level three.
00:55:39:28 - 00:55:48:07
Sam Rhee
Oh you know, a lot of subscribed programing does that for you like cap and Mayhem and all those guys will do that once and.
00:55:48:10 - 00:56:09:25
David Syvertsen
Without planning or thinking about this too much. It's like level three would be your quote, competitor, Elite. Elite. Yeah. I mean, elite elite. Such a subjective word. Like we don't have any elite athletes in this gym. If you're going to talk about games athletes. So nobody in this gym could be on that doing that, right? Maybe. Oh, yeah, Maybe level two would be like what business is now.
00:56:09:28 - 00:56:24:35
David Syvertsen
Level one would be a scaled version of that. And then what you would do is you could record level three hour X level two X, level one hour X. Now the question is obvious, right? What if you have a gymnast that can't lift or lift or that can't do gymnastics and the workout has both? What is it like?
00:56:25:02 - 00:56:42:05
David Syvertsen
They didn't do level three. They that would be to me, that would be level three, skill level three, R X, level two, scale, level three rise level one's our level and you know, it can go down so many different parts of volume. Like I think volume is something that should be scaled more like, Hey guys, like Thursday's workout.
00:56:42:05 - 00:56:43:01
Sam Rhee
We've talked about this.
00:56:43:01 - 00:57:16:09
David Syvertsen
Thursday's workout has 21 wall walls on it. And again, it's hard to scale volume because like there's a sequence to the math and that helps people remember. But Sanjay said a workout on Thursday, it's got 21 wobbles. Let's say that's level two hour, Level three would be 28 wobbles and level one would be 15 levels. And the stem is four going for is one or two sets every time you're there, you know, And like that could you know, that could open up the door to more people feeling that they are pursuing an X, even though level three are X would be out of reach for almost you know, let's say 85% of the Joe Oh,
00:57:16:09 - 00:57:31:21
David Syvertsen
I see. So like there's X on there. All those right. We would like Yeah we would just right on a whiteboard three hour x three scaled so that means like hey I was able to our X level three way but I had to scale something else. You know, it's a really complex that's interesting.
00:57:31:21 - 00:57:35:32
Sam Rhee
Yeah, I feel like there's something to it that might help, but that's very complicated.
00:57:35:32 - 00:57:52:08
David Syvertsen
It is complicated, and I think it would take time to find like a really objective, clear cut system that everyone understands. And again, part of programing that some people say is hard here by design is that the workouts are complicated, Like they just always want to come in and do five rounds of ten reps of three different movements to go home.
00:57:52:08 - 00:58:15:14
David Syvertsen
Right? And sometimes you do workouts like that, but, you know, we don't want to go to specific get to that because that's more about logistics and class sizes. In the morning we had to do things a certain way, but that would cause some confusion. And I don't want people to come here and be like, I had to think so much now, but my cell on it would be, Hey, bison, our exercise level two guys, that's the level two.
00:58:15:17 - 00:58:35:22
David Syvertsen
So if you want to be if that's your goal or you want to step below tracks, Hey, I used to be Rex, but I can't do this anymore. Hey, level one is for, you know, level one, I want to even call it like a scaled version. It's level one. It's just a little lighter, you know, So you can't So you don't go home and get beat up about not practicing.
00:58:35:22 - 00:58:55:27
David Syvertsen
But I still think it would create some issues of, oh, I'm never going to be level three, but it might ease some of the anxiety people have or the self-doubt that they have that stems from I can't fix anything anymore. Well, now you're just not level three. That's for the people that really are pushing here four or five days a week, do an actual work, competing, all that stuff.
00:58:55:29 - 00:59:07:09
Sam Rhee
I mean, there's something to this that merits more discussion, especially because now it's different. It's now 360 people like you have to kind of help fine line it a little bit. It was different when you only had like 50.
00:59:07:10 - 00:59:08:09
David Syvertsen
So it's so easy.
00:59:08:09 - 00:59:11:13
Sam Rhee
And now it's it's something to talk.
00:59:11:13 - 00:59:29:22
David Syvertsen
About. All right, guys. Well, thank you for listening. I hope you guys got something out of it. I just want to wrap up with you know, I ever want to come across as this hard ass programmer that just says, like, get fitter or don't complain? I put as much self-critique into programing for Jim, and I know a lot of others do, too.
00:59:29:29 - 00:59:46:31
David Syvertsen
It's probably the thing I think about the most when it comes to the gym. I'm not going down the path of just trying to crush everyone and make everyone as fit as possible, but I am trying to find that happy medium of I want you to have fun experience. And yeah, I do want to make you uncomfortable at times and make sure that you're pursuing fitness.
00:59:46:31 - 01:00:10:02
David Syvertsen
Because when you stop pursuing fitness, it's a slow death and at some point two or three years down the road, you have a lot of regret. So I think that you have to trust. If you don't trust the programmer, I think there's nothing wrong with asking questions, but if you have an opinion about it, strong or weak, positive or negative, you should understand that your personal bias might have a really significant impact over what you're actually saying and thinking about it.
01:00:10:05 - 01:00:24:04
David Syvertsen
And it takes a really mature individual to be able to remove yourself from that equation. All right. Thanks, guys. See you next week. Thank you, everybody, for taking the time out of your day to listen to the HerdFit podcast. Be on the lookout for next week's episode.
