S03E113 How Young is Too Young For CrossFit? Challenges, Victories, and Guidelines

Coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic dive straight into the world of CrossFit for younger athletes as we unravel the complexities of coaching and safety guidelines. We talk about our rule of 14 and older, with a parent present for those under 16. The importance of understanding one's body before attempting challenging lifts is also discussed. We also discuss the unique circumstances of teenagers in fitness training, touching on potential risks associated with teenage athletes' lack of awareness, focus, and emotional readiness.

In addition to tips on how to foster intrinsic motivation for fitness in your children, starting with creating positive experiences, we move on to discuss the safety considerations for all CrossFit participants, specifically those who may be considered at risk due to age or physical limitations. Finally, we deliberate on the tricky balance between introducing kids to CrossFit too early and holding them back from reaping its benefits. So, tune in and let's navigate the world of CrossFit for young athletes together!

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00:00:00 Starting CrossFit With Kids

00:12:21 CrossFit Kids Safety and Coaching Guidelines

00:18:48 Considerations for Teenagers in Fitness Training

00:25:40 Personal Attention in CrossFit for Kids

00:36:08 Safe Group Exercise Classes for Beginners

S03E113 HOW YOUNG IS TOO YOUNG FOR CROSSFIT

David Syvertsen: [00:00:00] All right. Welcome back to the Herd Fit Podcast. I'm Coach David Sobson. I'm here with my co-host, Dr. And coach Sam Re right now in the middle of dog days of summer. Um, I want tell you guys this, I would say four out of every five episodes that we record are stemming from situations at this gym are experiences, right?

Some of them are conversations that we have with you, like, oh, you guys should talk about X, Y, Z. Some of them are things that Sam has dealt with. Some of them are what I've dealt with from both a CrossFitter perspective, a coach perspective, owner perspective, and we wanna make all these topics something that you guys can relate to, reflect on, right?

It's not just like what Sam and I be like, Hey, you wanna talk about this tomorrow? No, something happened at the gym a month ago, three weeks ago, or something keeps happening at the gym, let's. Freaking talk about it, right. I think I reflect back on why did we start this podcast? You know, sometimes when it's like hard to schedule and like you're trying to put together an outline [00:01:00] on a Saturday night for the Sunday morning recording, you know, you're trying to jam things in.

And I love talking about it. I know Sam does too, but I, like Sam does a lot of the background work. It's not a a little amount of work. It takes time and. It's something I remember the reason we started it was that there are so many things that we want to talk about and teach people and reflect on with you guys that you just don't have time to talk about at the whiteboard, right?

Like, we can't talk about this on a whiteboard. If we make, if we send an email out, happy people aren't gonna read it anyway. So about this subject, and this is something that has come to my quote table or discussion. So many times over the past few months and I was like, you know what? We gotta do an episode on this because I know if these 10 people are asking about it, talking about it, I bet there are others as well.

Or, and or there will be future people that someday have to make a decision on what we're gonna talk about. Today's [00:02:00] topic is how young is too young to start CrossFit and. I have a three year old, no, I'm gonna give him a few years before I make him start coming. What? He's not

Sam Rhee: snatching tomorrow? Yeah,

David Syvertsen: he probably is.

Sam has Sasha's 18. Yeah, Nick. 16. 16. So an 18, 16 year old. And you learn a lot, right Sam? Sam has a lot more life experience than I do and no, not a knock on his age. If anything, it's a compliment to his age. And Sam has a lot of credibility on this subject because he's had kids go through this where. Hey, I don't know when they should start, but they did, and they have both, and they've both grown into quality athletes, quality movers.

And I wanna know, when should I start pushing fitness on Brock? Right? I, I'm trying to get him to stop eating 12 muffins a day. I, I think that's step one. Good, good first step be before I start working. Worried about his wall walks and muscle ups. Um, but. The amount of times that I've had [00:03:00] someone come up to me, a parent, and I love that they're doing this because they're looking out for their kid, their future, their fitness, their health.

In a world where most people don't do that, Hey, can my kid start CrossFit? Can you start training my kid? Um, can my kid come with me to class today? I've had that question come to me probably a dozen times in the past couple months, and in the years prior, even more than that. So this is something that's obviously a real strong sticking point to a lot of parents that they want their kids to love fitness.

They want their kids to exercise, they want their kids to eat well. And I think a lot of the parents want their kids to be around the people here. It is a really good group of people. I think about that all the time. It's a very unique, I think we're unbelievably lucky, lucky and blessed. What sets bison apart?

I tell you right now, it's the people that come here and that, that, that's really what I would want my kid to be around. [00:04:00] Right. I, I'm gonna be a little strict with that as he gets older, who he hangs out with and what he does on weekends and what he's doing. And I want, I, I will want him to be in an environment like this.

Sam, your kids started CrossFit, I wanna say either pre-teen, both of them. Pre-teens. Yeah. I had

Sam Rhee: to look and I, I found pictures of them. Nice. Uh, working out, uh, with Terry, uh, doing CrossFit kids back in, uh, they were, it was like 2015, so Nick was nine and Sasha was

David Syvertsen: 11. Wow. Yeah. So that was the start. So there, there was Sam's answer.

Now. That Terry ran a really good CrossFit kids program. It was awesome. For a couple of years. Yeah. She put a lot into it. Had a lot of kids. Yeah. And just operated, executed the classes very well. And I, if I remember correctly, she had two different age groups, age group classes. I think there was like some younger kids and then kids like that where they could probably do a little more.

Mm-hmm. And that's a great way to start. And here we are, seven, eight years later. If either one of them [00:05:00] showed up to one of our classes, it's like any other member to me. You know? Like they know what they're doing. They move well, they're respectful, they're nice, they're fit, they're good athletes too. That helps that, if I see them on a roster, I don't think twice about it.

You know? Talk about a little bit why you had them start that class and then once that class was over, because it was only a summer operation, the cross the kids class at bison. Mm-hmm. Where did, where did you want to go from there?

Sam Rhee: I think for most people they should be thinking about fitness in an overall standpoint.

Like I see you with Brock, like he's pretty active for his age nonstop. You, and, and that's because you incorporate that into your life. Like you, you play ball with him. He's running around, he's, he's doing, going on that scooter thing. Like part of this as a parent I think is you're thinking about how am I incorporating fitness in my life where it's not, I'm training

David Syvertsen: fitness.

Right. It's life. I have to go to the gym. Right. It's life.

Sam Rhee: And so [00:06:00] when we first started with our kids young, that's how we felt. We're like, we have to train fitness. So we took them to like Gymboree, which a lot of people do for their little kids. Like you're like holding them on a balance being and running up little ramps and all that.

Yeah. Right. And that's all totally fine. And if you look at CrossFit kids and I, I just took a quick peek at it lately to see what it, it talked about and it said, yeah, like if you're in preschool, like. You should, you know, play with cones and ropes and balls and mats and you know, all those kind of things.

'cause that's what, you know, preschoolers will do. And then I think when our kids, you know, just like most North Jersey parents, we ended up. Um, putting our kids into a ton of sports. Like they all started lacrosse at like age five and, and soccer. Like kid, you know, kinder kickers and, and all those things.

And we weren't really thinking about fitness per se. We were just thinking about sports and Right. And things that they would have fun doing. And they played a lot of sports. At that age in grade school. So they tried pretty much every [00:07:00] single That's awesome. Kid sport that's like, and I'm sure Brock is gonna do, you're gonna try him out on a lot of stuff like, you know, whatever it is.

And, and I think that that was helpful in terms of having them sort of see like just skills, skill building. Right. Sasha gravitated towards soccer. Yep. And so she played soccer from a very early age. Um, Nick. Couldn't really find what he really wanted to do. And for a while, actually in middle school, we just kind of like, were like, okay, we tried every sport under the sun.

Yeah. And it didn't really work out right. Um, I think, uh, he picked up basketball, but that was late, like late middle school or early middle school maybe. Um, and that was on his own. And I think that was honestly because he was playing so much N B A two K and he was like, I believe it. And so he is like, oh, this is something I wanna start doing more like in real life.

And so now he's, he's been playing and, and. This is not like every kid is different, right? So we have so many kids, um, families at Cross, uh, at our, at Bison, and we have some [00:08:00] like, levels of kids, athletes, like where you go from like, um, Kathleen's kid, uh, all, you know, all the, you know, and Fisher, yeah. Flu Fisher, Deb, Deb, Rourke's kid, like these are, most kid I think is rowing at Columbia.

Like very high level athletes. Yep. Um, All the way down to just like very ordinary, non-athletic kids. Yeah. And I've seen you bring a lot of different kids in and they've all worked out really well. Like, um, Steve Rice has brought his son. I love him. Um, Mike Gerald's kids Carlton's. She's Carlton's entire

David Syvertsen: family.

Yeah.

Sam Rhee: I mean, um, Rob, Rob's kids like, uh, have come in. Yeah. Especially, um, his oldest daughter, she was an awesome athlete. She was awesome. Yeah. Yes. Uh, Mandy Hog's kids now, like MO'S kids. So, so I'm, I can't speak for so many other families out there. Right. Um, and I just want to acknowledge that you've done really well integrating so many [00:09:00] families into, um, bison.

Yep. But I will say that once, uh, once Terry started that class and it was, they were really good classes. Mm-hmm. It, it did build some fundamental. Things that, um, are, are good for athletic development. Mm-hmm. Um, you don't have to do them through CrossFit kids, uh, you know, you probably could just get some of the equipment and do it right.

But it was just nice to be in that kind of environment. Yep. Um, let me just start by saying one, every kid is different and my kids are too. Yep. Too. I had a, a lot of bumps and we can talk about like, some of the issues and, and a lot of it was me as a parent. Mm-hmm.

And then third, like, um, they are their own people. And it's been so interesting to watch them develop as athletes and as fitness people.

And they've done their own thing. I'm very proud of them, but I, it's not necessarily what I've done for them. Right. Um, The biggest [00:10:00] thing I think I've done as a parent, and I think all of us do as parents, is we set examples. Yeah. And I cannot tell you how many people I see on both sides where they don't walk the talk, don't talk the talk, and then they're like, why is my kid not doing what I want them to do?

And then the O opposite where they're just living their life the way they're living and their kid just sort of naturally. Kind of imbibes that. Yep. And, and maybe it doesn't come out exactly the, the right, um, or the way you would expect, but, um, but that is so important that every aspect of your life that you can.

Work on and show in, you know, realistically and honestly. Does, does come back to your

David Syvertsen: kid. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The kids are really CrossFit Yeah. The kids are gonna follow you. What, what, what your parents do always to a point, right? They eventually, they become their own person. I promise. I don't eat 12 muffins a day.

He does not get that from me. Um, but you know when, when you have this question right, of someone [00:11:00] saying, can my kid join classes? Right? Your initial impression is like, that's awesome. Like I do, like I love seeing the parents there with their kids. I, I'm envious of it and I, I can't wait to do that myself.

That's gotta be just like a different level of connection. And some parents are honest about it. They're like, yeah, I want them to work out, but like, I want something to do with them. Like, I want us to do this together. I want us to have like this experience together of going to this gym and working out and we go home and we talk about the workouts.

Right. You know, that's a big part of it too. And when I think about whether or not a kid should join the gym, It has nothing to do with business, which is another probably shortcoming, uh, as a business owner. Because if I just said yes to everyone that wanted to be a member at this gym, I bet we could have 40 more members tomorrow and do some math on there.

That that would be some money that would, that, that would help change things a little bit. Right? But I go down the, are they physically ready as much as, are they mentally ready? This is [00:12:00] where I think there is a disconnect between some parents and some, uh, and some gym owners with, Hey, I would love to help them out physically.

You know, let's get them training for their next football season, their next lacrosse season. Um, but are they mentally ready to come in? It's essentially like a school class, maybe like a gym class on steroids, right? Where you have an instructor, you have to listen. You can't joke around to a point, right?

You have to be respectful. You have to do what you're told, right? I mean, yeah, CrossFit classes are fun and we're all adults here. We're not too controlling with a lot of that stuff. But with kids, you kind of have to be, because my biggest fear, and I would say a number I'd put on anyone other than 16 years old.

When they train here, I'm really always fearful they're gonna get hurt. I, I don't, and trust me parents, I don't wanna see you get hurt either. But there's a lot of like just mature decision making that you'll make as an adult that kids just don't have yet. [00:13:00] They're not fully developed yet. Are there kids, Sasha being one of them, more mature?

More mature than others? Yeah, but she's not fully developed adult yet. She still has to go through a lot of life experiences to get to that point where you can be like, you know what? Go make your own decision. But once she comes, I still kind of like, Hey, do this weight. Like, don't worry about going this way, don't worry about the rx.

Right. But when I see like a new, fresh 13, 14, 15 year old, I, I can almo, I, I almost have anxiety when I'm coaching them in a big class, especially that I don't want them to not play in their socra seasons and 'cause they have a, you know, a stress fracture in their foot from, from working out or they hurt their back doing a deadlift.

And this is, this is one of my biggest struggles is that I can't talk to a parent without knowing who their kid is and say yes or no, you, you can't. You know, I know some 12 year olds that are be better developed and ready for this than a 6 16, 17 year olds. So we, we have come up with a rule here at Bison and even that, like it's a little flexible that we [00:14:00] say if you're 14, you're allowed to come work out, but one of your parents has to be there with you in class, and once you're 16, you can start coming in on your own slash the parent doesn't need to stay or work out.

And I'm gonna tell you why we're doing this. And it has more to do with the mental and emotional than the physical, the mental and emotional stuff here. Um, you know, songs with bad words in it. People cursing, people screaming, a lot of intensity in the gym based on the day. And who's there. Are they gonna be intimidated by that?

Are they gonna be so insecure? I can't tell you how many times I see a kid going for a heavy, clean, heavy. We don't let them max out, and they're looking at me as they're doing the lift to see if they're doing it right. If they're not concentrating on the lift, they're not concentrating on their knuckles and their shrug and their stable core, you know, um, I had someone recently we're going overhead, push, pressing overhead.

The back is way overextended because they're looking at me, watch them lift. They're not confident enough to like, hey, are focused enough to just like, [00:15:00] Hey, I gotta do this moving correctly. And those are the positions that people get into that can cause an injury at some point. I have another kid who. We have had kids over the past.

They can't pick the bar up off the ground without around the back. They cannot do it. They're strong enough to move the weight, but there's this like, they're not focusing on it. They're just trying to get the bar to the shoulder. And when I'm looking at it from the side, I'm like, that is bad. And I know that kid won't get hurt today, tomorrow, next week, for the next month.

In a few years. John Hartman, when did he get hurt? As a freshman in high school. Yeah. Doing 95, 95 pound power clip. That's exactly right. Like so don't tell me this. Oh, they're so limber and they're bulletproof. They're not. And now John Hartman probably still has had, has had years of issues from that back injury as a ninth grader.

I don't want to touch that. So that's why sometimes I have had thoughts saying, 18 and older only, I'm not gonna do it. But I have gone down that path for that reason.

Sam Rhee: It really, some of it is coachability. So [00:16:00] I, I think about my kids and how they've progressed so, Didn't really pick up a barbell until they, I mean, they don't, you don't start CrossFit kids that just pick up barbell and start doing stuff.

Right. Like, it's usually kettlebells, med balls, all that sort of stuff. Um, they started picking up barbells, I wanna say when Sasha was, she did the bison bowl at like age 13. Wow. So like, that was 2017. Okay. And it was both her and Stone's kid. And I remember their, I remember that their form wasn't like, Awesome.

Actually. Yeah. Not great. Yeah. But, but, um, but they're coach, if they're coachable, you can get them through that, around that age. Right. It just takes time. Like I remember even like two or three years ago with Nick, like on back squats and stuff, like it's, it's, some of it is how well are they coachable and how well do they know their body?

Mm-hmm. So when I was teaching in like, we have a garage gym, and so that's also another thing, like as a family, like. They use it all the time now, actually, um, on their own. Because one of the things is, is that when they, like, Sasha doesn't mind coming to [00:17:00] class right now on her own because she is like now an adult and so in her mind and so and so, she can drive herself and come here.

Yeah. But for a lot of kids, like working out with your parents is like, oh my God, I gotta work out with my. Old ass parents and they're old ass people. Like in the class, like if, if it was a bunch of young people, it would be different. Yep. But, um, but when I was sort of coaching him through back squats and stuff, he would, he would round his back and not 'cause he couldn't do it.

Right. Right. He just didn't know. Right. So a lot. Right. So a lot of this is at that age, repetition and understanding it. And I don't think you should necessarily be throwing barbells on, um, kids pre-adolescence. Like they don't have enough. Ability to develop strength before puberty, right? So you could go through the motions if you wanted to, but you're not like going through any meaningful amount of weight, right?

Once they start hitting adolescents and getting in that. You need to, you can, you should be coaching barbell for them. Mm-hmm. Strength training for [00:18:00] sure. And I'm sure a lot of these kids in sports are doing that. Yep. But it's really about form, technique and, and making sure it's good. Because like you said, at that age, it doesn't matter how lumber you are, you are going to get hurt.

So I think, uh, that is so, so, so, so critical, especially young boys. Mm-hmm. Like they. Just want to lift as heavy as you

David Syvertsen: possibly can. Yeah. It's, it's in their blood. They just want to go fast and hard and heavy and you,

Sam Rhee: you really have to moderate that. And,

David Syvertsen: um, so here's another thing that makes me feel responsibility.

'cause we do, in my opinion, we do a pretty good job here. The coaches. Really knowing what quality movement is. Yeah. Not demanding it. Yeah. Doesn't need to be perfect, but we know like, hey, that's, that's not gonna work. And I'll have parents send me videos of kids at Fitness 19. No, no personal trainers. Yeah.

Just a bunch of boys gonna fitness 19 and doing deadlifts. It's bad. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm almost like, you know what they need, they need me or they need the gym. Right. They need me. They need [00:19:00] someone to really watch them and correct them. And if you don't. If those kids will get hurt sometime at some point or hurt

Sam Rhee: others.

I remember there was a high school kid that came and was lifting on the rack and didn't realize really nice kid, and I'm sure you'll remember this. Um, had two 40 fives on one side of the barbell. Oh. Took 'em off and that that barbell flipped, nearly took out, I think it was Kristen Blake. Yeah. Like, almost killed her.

Like literally could've done damage, like would've hit her head as hard as you could. Yeah. And, and, and it was one of those like not intentional, no. Just. He didn't know that taking off two, like leaving two 40

David Syvertsen: fives on one side, gonna closet. Right. Never been to the gym before. Never done it

Sam Rhee: before. Right.

And so, so it's not only so when parents are like, well my kid's, okay, listen, it's not only for your kid's safety, it's for everybody else's safety too.

David Syvertsen: Right. And you know, the whole, like, my kid's ready, my kid's different, my kid's gifted. I mean, we, we, I'll probably be the same way. Same way with Brock.

Everyone thinks their kid's like a superstar. I could say this, I, I've been at Bison for 10 years. [00:20:00] I've had, you know, that probably said to me, I wanna say 50 times. Like, oh, my kid's a little different. Like, they're a little bit more developed. I think I've had one kid where that was actually the truth. So I would just assume that your kid's not different.

I, I think that's something important. Um, hey, your kid's good at a sport that's different than being able to come here and, and stabilize barbells. So I, I think you should remove yourself from that line of saying, my kid's different. It just, it's kind of irrelevant and it's probably not true. And. I, I think that should stay away from the decision making process of should your kid be involved in a class or not.

Um, here's another thought. Your, your kid's gonna be sharing a bathroom with grown men. You know, your, your kid's gonna be in a, in a room where people take their clothes off pretty much every day here at the gym in the summer. And are they emotionally ready? Is is a teenage boy, hormones raging, starting to find some things about themselves?

Are they cool with like six girls taking their shirts off and workout? Can they still stay focused? On their actual workout. I'll tell you what, as a 14 year old boy, I don't think I would've been able [00:21:00] to, you know, I'm so old I did

Sam Rhee: not even think about

David Syvertsen: this. That, and, and like that, that, that stuff, like I've seen that I observe everything when I coach.

I've seen teenage boys staring at a girl. Doing a deadlift right in front of him. I'm like, God, come on God. Like

Sam Rhee: honestly, I've seen 60 year old dudes do that.

David Syvertsen: That's true. Just God, that's a dude thing. But you know, they, they don't have that awareness sometimes that if you're not fully focused on what you're doing, do they even know what full focus is at the, you know, the, these days with, with the amount of like tablets and iPads and, you know, growing trends of A D H D.

It's like, Can they really truly focus on what they're doing? And if not, like, can they focus on a coach talking about midline stability on to bar to protect your shoulder for three minutes? I bet they can't. I bet a lot of kids can't. I bet they zone out at some point, some adults to do it. But again, we're, we're not talking about the adults here.

You know, [00:22:00] you, you're an adult, you make your decision. You wanna zone out, get hurt, go for it. I care about the kid not getting hurt more than you do. I don't wanna set up the rest of their life with a bad shoulder because they just didn't have the mental capacity and awareness that they need to focus and work on techniques.

Um, so this is where it comes back to what age is it appropriate? And there isn't an age because there are 12 year olds that can do it. There are 16 year olds that can't do it. So what is the solution here? My best solution is a lot of communication with parents. That's part one. And then part two, probably smaller group training that is geared towards those people.

So this summer I'm only doing for the summer is I'm running a teen class. I've had a class of 11 people. I've had a class of one. The, the average class is about five to seven kids. And we do kinda like an extended warmup. Like a hard warmup. Get 'em outta breath. Body weight ball. We're teaching movement.

We do a strength session. We've done strict press, push, rest, back, squat, deadlift. [00:23:00] Um, and then we do like a mixed modal workout at the end. Okay. Pr, pretty standard CrossFit type programming. Nothing heavy, nothing that hard, but I push them a little bit, especially the kids. There's a 14 year old in there, that's pretty good.

And in that environment with five kids, it's really easy to like make sure, like when we do our strength sessions, we go around the rack. I have one kid lift, lift at a time. It's not like, Hey guys, five by five like we do for bison. It's like you go, okay, you go okay, you go. You can't do that in a class of 26 people.

I had a a 14 year old girl at a class last week with 26 people in class snatch and like, you have to stand there the whole time, basically. So I didn't coach anyone in that class and it kind of sucks. And that's another thing I want parents to think about is it's not just about your kid coming to the class.

Is it safe? It's if they come to class, I bet that 25 other people in that class are not gonna get the attention they deserve.

Sam Rhee: There are a lot of kids. The exception proves the role, and I'm thinking about these kids in class and I would say the two best that I've ever seen were Luke Fisher. Yep. And Sydney [00:24:00] Scher.

Yeah. Like those two both from Glen Rock. Yeah. Great athletes, both varsity, whatever, like in their sports. Um, they would come, they would wad like it was. I, I just remember running Nice to Sydney while getting smoked by Sydnee. Yeah. On the runs and then getting smoked by Luke on the lifts. And, and those two were such mature, wonderful athletes to work out with.

And I keep forgetting that they were in high school at the time. Yeah. And so if you have a kid like that, it's an awesome experience. But like you said, not every kid is going to be that way. Right. Um,

David Syvertsen: they, they kind of set the tone slash open the door for us. They did. I was like, you know what? Yeah, we, we could do this with teens.

We had Kirsten skied back then, if you remember, hear her. She was even younger. Yeah. Um,

Sam Rhee: I mean, honestly, I don't think Kayla was actually that much older. Yeah. Yeah. Ca I think that's a good point. So it, it, it does depend on the individual. I think as a parent. Um, does your kid [00:25:00] gravitate towards it? Lean towards it like Sasha does?

Right. Um, and I'll, and I'll tell you a little bit about Nick and Sasha's experiences. Um, but if you, if you, they don't really love it, boy, don't make it one of those things that they're, they're gonna hate you for it. Yeah. And that's really one of those things, as a parent, I've learned sometimes the hard way to like, not, not like I've, I've made that mistake a little bit.

Yeah. Um, We all know the pushy parent, the parent who make like, just because it's good for them doesn't mean that they wanna do it. Right. Um, and it is a little bit of a give and take with some of this stuff, right? Uh, it's great if your kid loves it, wants to do it, enjoys it. If they don't, like with the, with my kids, I never made them go to class all the time, but it, fitness was part of our life.

So if we were vacationing or something, Um, we'd, we would work out with them, uh, not all the time, but sometimes now more. Mm-hmm. Um, 'cause they're older.

David Syvertsen: When you say workout, are you like hotel, gym? Yeah, [00:26:00] hotel, gym. Like sometimes a CrossFit or No? Uh, the

Sam Rhee: last one when we went to Korea, we did. Um, and then, uh, and then on, on holidays, so this was sort of our holiday thing that we did was. I used to post this stuff, which we'll talk about in social media at some point in the future about bragging and whatever. But, um, we would, uh, work out in the garage and we would do one of those like rotating station type things.

And someone would do kettlebell, someone would do sit up, someone would be doing push breath, and we would do that for our Thanksgiving or Christmas or 4th of July or whatever, especially during Covid, like, um, you know, and then, uh, so we would work out together. So it was a thing. Um, they knew, um, I last couple of years they've done the open.

Um, I think the, the key as a parent and I, and I've had two sort of recent like teaching moments for me was not to be too pushy or, um, yeah, maybe too pushy.

David Syvertsen: What about when you say pushy, do you mean like coachy, like too coach them? Uh,

Sam Rhee: no, like, [00:27:00] Lose my temper. Right? Yeah. Right.

So the, the, the bottom line is if you ever find yourself not making it a positive experience for your kids, They could turn 'em out. Right. And, and fortunately I've had way more positive experiences with them than negative. And they, they have done it enough that they do enjoy it.

At this point, Nick does do it. Like, for example, Sasha will drop in at wads. Nick will often wad in the garage now, but he'll do it like, and I, I actually worked out with him a couple more times after that in the hotel. Nice. Gym. Nice. Yep. And he looks at me as a resource like sure. He, you know, he knows I know how to back squat.

He knows I know how to bench. He knows. Like foreman and technique are important. I, I put together wads for him and now he putters around at the gym. He'll do GHS and he'll do, he'll run a mile or two on the Air runner, he'll do. That's awesome. He'll do bench plyometrics like box jumps on his own.

David Syvertsen: And that's like, you love hearing that, you know, it's a kid kind of taking the initiative to work out on your own.

And like, honestly, I didn't start. Living like that tells 22. Right. The fact that he is doing now is gonna be huge for him.

Sam Rhee: And some of it is [00:28:00] also that he does go to the Y sometimes with his friends. Yeah. And so that drives him too, like as a teenage boy, a lot of it is not so much your parents, it's your peers.

Yes. And, and so, but the fact that he has this, um, foundation of knowledge that I've, that we've given him about how to do these things, I think has helped him a lot. And I think he's actually comparatively speaking to some of these kids, like. Pretty good. Right? I mean, you know, they're not like Matt Frazier or something, but Right.

But so that's what he's doing though. Right. And, and that's what I'm just glad that he has at this point. Right. And I think as a parent, if you can say, listen, my kids, um, learn this from me. They, uh, enjoy it. Um, they, I'm walking the walk and I think that's what a lot of CrossFitters at our gym do is they just want to walk the walk so their kids do.

I was just talking to, um, Kelly Cavin. Yep. Not Kyle.

David Syvertsen: Yes. Kelly Kyle. Who?

Sam Rhee: And how she has young kids around 10, I think now. Yeah. [00:29:00] And you know, there's just, and they see her fitnessing and wanting to get into it. Mm-hmm. That's a, that, listen, is that a great age to start?

David Syvertsen: Yeah. Starting to get the foundation foundational stuff.

Now here's this, here's the question about that situation in relation to, to Kelly's daughter. Yeah. Right. She did like a little personal training session with Mike. Very one-on-one. Yeah. And programmed for her with a coach watching modifications. Good technique. She throws her into a class of 18 people at nine 30 on a Wednesday with pull of dumbbell snatch, burbage, jump rope, and cleans it.

It's not gonna be the same experience. Of course not. And it could actually turn her away from like, oh dude. At that time I went to CrossFit. It sucked. You know, like there was too much going on. The coach didn't pay enough attention to me. I think my solution to this stuff, and it's not something I can always provide because of schedule, right, is I think they need more personal attention.

You know, like I had one group of boys that I worked with when they were like, 13, 14, 15. That was tough for you. It it, well, no, no. Oh, sorry. No, no. [00:30:00] I'm talking about Oh, okay. I'll, I will get into that one though. Oh, okay. So this is exactly what, what I was gonna go to. This one's the positive one. Okay. It's Staton Ross.

Yeah. Phelps. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are those boys. Just like good kids too, but also very talented at, very talented. Um, but working with them, It was nice because it was just the three of us and I could change things on the fly. I didn't have to disappear for five minutes and go take care of these people and then come back to them.

You know, it was very, it was personal intention. Now, the problem is economics coming too, like it costs more than a gym membership. It does, and it, it does, and you try to work with people the best you can, but you do at some point have to draw a line, and I loved working with them over the, over the course of a couple years, we probably worked with each other, I don't know, 40, 50 times.

One of 'em is a division one lacrosse player, and the other one, I just found out it's like setting records at Ridgewood High School for like, uh, back squat, deadlift and bench press get at the total. Really? And I was like, and I, out of all those kids I worked with did not [00:31:00] expect that. But again, what advantage does he have?

I mean, I'm sure he got bigger. Again, adolescents and things are changing. He knew how to do it. I bet he knows how to deadlift and squat more than most of the kids that do that. So like that foundation helped him. I'm not saying it was Dave that helped him. I'm just saying that that little background kind of like opened the door that other, a lot of kids don't get to open.

So then you go down this guilt trip train of like, man, gotta do this for every kid now. And you just can't, you can't say yes to everyone. But I think a parent out there where if you're on the fence, I think that's gotta be probably an investment at some point on your end that they're probably going to need more personal attention than what a CrossFit class would provide.

Or you find a gym with class sizes of three to five at a time. Um, and even at this gym, I mean, summer's always weird. We have a random, like 15 person class at 11:00 AM sometimes, but those midday classes, they're quiet. And a lot of times the question I have or the conversation I have with a parent is like, Hey, if you want your kid to come, I think you gotta find [00:32:00] the smallest class possible.

Yeah. 11:00 AM Yeah. 12:00 PM. 7:15 PM that's where they'll really learn and have a watchful eye where I'm, and I'm honest about this, if they're in a class of 24, I can't watch 'em as much as you probably want me to. So, you know that that's where I, I kind of like on the flip side of that, the reason I think that is I did have three teenagers, no parent affiliation with the gym at all.

Like literally got dropped off after school and hopped into the four 15 class, which can get 20 people at the snap of a finger. And they were really, really low level physical and mental concentration ability. And we were at a point where whoever, whoever was coaching the four 15 class, coached the four 15.

And then I would come in for that class and or Liz and my kids on this. They just stayed there with those three kids the entire time. Wow. And like, you know, we didn't put it on the payroll, we just did it. We just volunteered to do it. And we were [00:33:00] thinking in our head, like, if we do this enough times, they'll eventually be ready for class.

And guys, we did this for like two months and they, they weren't ready. That was a point, that's when we changed our, our rule here that if you're not 16, you're not come to the gym unless your parents do. It's not that

Sam Rhee: they're bad kids. Everyone develops at different ages and rates and

David Syvertsen: stages. And I'll say that I probably wouldn't have done this, I probably couldn't have done this when I was 14 without a really watchful eye personal training, my parent being there.

Mm-hmm. And. There weren't behavior issues so much. I mean, kids joke around, but like, so do I. So whatever, you know, like that's like Samuel's at me for joking around sometimes in his classes. Never gonna forget that. Be quiet Dave. I've been very well behaved since that I'm talking, so you know, to wrap this up, I wanna, if you aren't really thinking about this from a kid perspective, we can stay in the same church and go to a different pew here.

How obese is too obese as our CrossFit. How old is too old to start CrossFit? How unfit is too unfit to start CrossFit. It's the same [00:34:00] discussion. If you think about it as the teens, so I know a lot of you guys like, dude, I don't have kids. Or Dude, my kids are 30. Don't care about this topic. You might come across a family member at some point.

I thought about this with my parents. You know, my dad's gonna turn 70 next year. How old is too old? Is story cross? I don't think there is a number, but just like there isn't a number for kids, but you. I wouldn't want him getting thrown into a class at like, you know, CrossFit, Pennsylvania. Right. I, I would want to make sure he has personal attention and he is doing some, uh, personal therapy type, uh, sorry, physical therapy type training coming up for an issue that he has.

But that is so like individual, someone's watching you, someone's modifying, someone's tracking your individual results for you. I wouldn't want him to show up to, to a class at 5:00 AM I would not feel good about that. And. We've had some people drop into the gym, try it out for a first time, and very, very unfit, meaning couldn't run 200 meters.

Um, [00:35:00] can't do an air squat. Um, can't do a burpee, you know, can't do pushups. Are we gonna turn, are we gonna shut the door on that person? No, we, we won't, especially adults, but, I do think people in that tier, and it could be subjective and coaches have credibility on this, are they actually going to be able to safely coach this person in the class of 15 to 20?

I think there are certain groups of people, age too old, fitness levels too unfit that they should probably get more personal attention first before being thrown into a class where they sometimes get attention. That's kind of like my answer. Yeah, I do. I've done crossover with people in wheelchairs before I cross it.

Hoboken, there was a guy in a wheelchair that did cross it. He was actually a badass too. Like there were things he could do that none of us could do with with his upper body. So I don't think you can shut the door on anyone and cross it. HQ has this messaging out there that anybody in the world can walk in and do, cross it, and that's very easy to say from a [00:36:00] big company perspective.

'cause it looks good. It sounds good, and they want to get to 20 to 30 million people. Okay? It says that's right. A little bit of an agenda there. That's what he said. But you wanna throw someone like that into my class at 24 people at 5:00 AM you really think that's a good idea? I don't think you think that's a good idea.

No, I

Sam Rhee: don't think so at all. And, and I, I just as a coach, that would be my biggest nightmare. Uh, it's hard enough to have a beginner in a, in a class,

David Syvertsen: especially multiple. Right. Uh, your brain goes

Sam Rhee: haywire as a coach. Yep. Um, but to have someone who, whose capabilities are such that they're so limited that they're actually at risk, like, you know Right.

Physically for like, You, they, like you said, they need personalized attention for a while. The minimum that we do is like that on-ramp. Yep. Uh,

David Syvertsen: I know, right? That's more like

Sam Rhee: teaching how to do movements, right? Yeah. But it's sort of an assessment too. Like Yep. You assess absolutely. Athletes and you send that out and you, you let us know as coaches, like the [00:37:00] capabilities or, or the goals of, of anyone who's sort of starting.

But um, yeah, like. I don't know, like if my father was starting CrossFit tomorrow, uh, boy, that'd be hard. It would be hard. I would say, listen, dad, you have to like work with, if not me, somebody for a while, because I don't think you would do well in a, in a group environment. It's like they're

David Syvertsen: on the other side of the spectrum.

Like I don't want a little kid to get hurt. I don't want a senior citizen to. Die, you know? Do you remember at at 6:00 AM that guy, Tom Glasses? Motorcycle. He had like, oh yeah, he was 71. Yeah, when he was started with us. Wow. And like he was a fit 71. Yeah. Much like very Fit 71. But he was still like in class and that was again, why was it easier back then with Luke Fisher and Sydney classes were six people.

Yeah. It was really small. It just, and like, and I think that's where the disconnect is, is I think some people have been here for a long time. [00:38:00] Hey, now my kids are 12. Like, you let that person's kid. Well, our classes were six people back then. They're 29 now. And it, it, it's a, it's a different vibe. It's a different feel for a coach.

And it's all coming from the safety component. Yeah. It's not, uh, it's gonna make my job harder. Yeah. Like, no, it's a safety thing. If we were just here for the money, we would. Open the door to everyone. I'd be at a senior citizen center tomorrow saying, Hey, come join my 6:00 AM class that only has 29 out of 30 spots filled.

You know, like, come, take that last spot. Gimme your money. Right? But we wanna keep people safe. That's like one of our number one things. We care about that more than your scores. We care about that more than like your aesthetics of your body. Can you do this safely? And it's really hard to do that with a certain age group where you're just, you can come up with 10 different.

Really dangerous points. Everyone. Think about your parents doing this right now. It is the same discussion as, as your kids. I would, as the young kids, if my

Sam Rhee: dad came, I would be like, it would be like taking my. [00:39:00] 12 year old son to class, I would be right next to him. Yeah. Right. Working out with

David Syvertsen: him. It's funny how that works, right?

Yeah. Like that would be what I would be doing. That's what Nick and Sasha gonna be doing for you. In 10 years probably.

Sam Rhee: Alright, dad, dad, take that weight off the bar. That's way too

David Syvertsen: heavy. Dad, stop. It's karma. But tho those are, uh, good food for thought there. Um, I, I do, you know, All of you parents that have talked to me about it, um, whether it's personal training group, the teen class, can they hop into classes I want? I would, I would say most coaches probably think the way I do about this.

Love the idea on paper, on surface level. But I think that the risks and communication that is needed in between the athlete, parent and, and, and coach. Probably are not being fully understood by the parent because especially with a gym like this where it's just big and crowded and intense, um, I don't ever [00:40:00] wanna say no to someone, but I do think at some point, and I have told a couple parents in the past, I don't think your kid's ready for it, that it's gonna be okay.

If we make them wait another year or two,

Sam Rhee: shout out to the Harrington's. Their two daughters are awesome. Yes. Uh, so every time you say that, I say agree, agree, agree, agree. There are the exceptions that are absolutely to the rule. Yeah. And I think if we keep looking for those parents, kids, Coaches, athletes that are like that work well together.

Right. It can be amazing. Yes, absolutely. And uh, I think bison has done it as well as anyone, but I think your experiences and your caution. Is something that's really important to note,

David Syvertsen: right? And I'm never shutting the door if I, if I say, I don't think they're ready. It, it could be next year that they're ready.

And I, I think it's something that, it's okay if we push the, it just kicked the can down a road. Because a lot, you know, you've seen this with your kids, a lot happens in a year, every year, like every time you see someone posts a picture of first day of school last says school pictures, [00:41:00] it's like, it's amazing how much kids change in a nine month period that.

I, I wanna make sure that we do it at the right time and we have the right resources and or situation for that, uh, kid to really truly be ready to get the most outta this. Because all of us have said this in the past. We wish we started this when younger. Oh yeah. So like, if we started this when we were 15, like probably be like games athlete, but, but like the, the, the benefits we know starting early, there's gonna be a benefit, but I do think there's a line of being too early in relation to a CrossFit class.

It's, it's okay to kick the can down the road for a year or two, uh, based on your kid situation. So don't be short term greedy. Think long term. Thank you guys.