S03E118 Optimizing Your Workout: Pacing, Strategy, and the Art of Repetition
What is a powerful method to level up your workout performance? Join coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic as they discuss strategies that can transform an ordinary workout into an extraordinary one. It's all about pacing and analyzing your workout, something that we all do, consciously or unconsciously.
We illustrate with real WOD examples how strategizing your performance can allow you to extract the maximum from each session.
One spotlight is the significance of maintaining a steady pace throughout your workout, focusing on the initial rounds and making a mental commitment to sustain the pace.
You'll learn how to tweak your pacing and reps per minute to steer clear of redline and guarantee a maximum performance. We underscore the need to know your body and the power of data in amplifying your performance. Take a listen and get ready to take your workouts up a notch!
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00:00:05 Strategizing Workouts
00:08:57 Reps Per Minute Strategy and Analysis
00:19:11 Reps Per Minute in Workouts Strategies
00:30:28 Repeat Workouts, Measure Progress, Improve Recovery
S03E118 Optimizing Your Workout: Pacing, Strategy, and the Art of Repetition
David Syvertsen: [00:00:00] All right. Welcome back to the Her Fit podcast. I'm coach David Syvertsen. I'm here with my co-host, Dr. And coach Sam Rhee back to just the two of us after a great episode with Dave and Christine talking about the Asbury Park Summer games last week. Hope you guys enjoyed that. Uh, today we're gonna kind of go into.
This kind of was inspired by Asbury, but also the legends qualifiers. We're not gonna spend an entire hour talking about the legends workouts 'cause I know a lot of you aren't doing them. But we are gonna touch on them a little bit in relation to the macro level topic of today. And that is, how do I strategize for a workout?
And the the, the second we bring up strategy for a workout, some will kind of like dig their heels in and wanna listen. Others are, dude, that's not me. And I, I do think at and at some point in your CrossFit life, your CrossFit journey, you're gonna have to go down this path just a little bit. And strategizing can be an intimidating way of saying pacing, you know, like that.
That really can just be, mm-hmm. What we talk about, we talk about as coaches all the time, and it's [00:01:00] not for you to only feel more comfortable in a workout or because a coach doesn't know what to do and so they're just gonna talk about pacing. It's for you to get more output outta your workout. You know, everything you cross it is measurable.
You are doing things for time. You are doing things for reps, you are doing things for load. You know, whether you will take it serious or not, whether you're competitive or not, you still are getting measured by numbers, you know, and when you have numbers and you have performance put together, there's some analysis there.
And when there's analysis there, that means there's strategy to get to that result. So maybe not the most exciting topic in the world, and some of you might not relate to it that much, but I promise. The more we get into it, you're gonna start to nod your head a little bit and you're gonna find some parallels between strategy and your workout.
Sam Rhee: I, I would say everyone strategizes to a certain degree, even if you're one of those people who's like, you know what, I just come in, I do the workout. I don't wanna think, I don't want to do anything, I just wanna move. [00:02:00] Well, I'll tell you if, if you are someone who actually looks at the workout and says, Uh, okay.
If you're someone who says, you know what, I'm just gonna go as hard as I possibly can for the entire workout and just go ham, fine. You are one of those rare people who actually isn't strategizing. But if you actually look out, like at a workout and say, that looks really hard. Uh, maybe I'm not gonna go quite as fast at the beginning as I thought, or I think I'm gonna try to go fast and then hang on at the end.
If you're thinking that, guess what? You just strategize the workout. Exactly. So you're, you're always, I can't think of a single person unless they just started and even then they're still looking at it going. 50 burpees. Wait, uh, like how fast? I'm not gonna go too fast on that, or, you know. Oh, 20 cal row.
Okay. Well, I can't go too fast on that. If you start thinking that you've already started strategizing,
David Syvertsen: it's like a high volume workout, uh, high volume wall ball workout. Now this Friday we have a [00:03:00] workout. I guess by the time this comes out, it'll be this past Friday's workout that has five different rounds of.
30 wall balls at a time, you're gonna go to that wall ball at some point and and say, all right, I'm gonna do X amount. It might be two, it might be five, it might be 30. That's strategy right there.
Sam Rhee: That's strategy. And yeah, I mean, I think, and if you're a coach, it's even more important to be able to imagine a workout and, and strategize how people are going to do it.
And it's not about. Necessarily about putting up the best number. It's about not feeling like ass at the end of the workout. That's all I wanna do. I don't wanna feel like someone hit me with a Mack truck by the end of the workout. It's not
David Syvertsen: fun if you Ms. Pace of workout and you just feel like you like ass, the whole not workout,
Sam Rhee: right?
So if you don't want to feel like awful at the end of the workout, listen to this because it actually does help. And
David Syvertsen: for the performance, favored athletes, for those that are pursuing competitive goals, or you really are trying to get the most out of every workout and you do care about your scores. If you feel like you're kind of in a rutt, can't get over the [00:04:00] hump, you feel like there's something else you can physically give, but you just can't get there.
This is the answer. It's not just clean eating, good sleep, train hard, be consistent. The answer is you gotta break stuff down and this can take a lifetime. I really started getting into some pay, uh, reps permanent things with all these different movements that we do in CrossFit a few years ago. You know, I'm, I'm 11, 12 years into CrossFit now, so take it from someone that I really do wish I knew a lot more about this in my first five, six years because I actually feel like I'd be a better athlete now.
I think I'd be safer. Um, and I think I'd be a lot more, a lot happier in workouts. And, um, I applied the principles to a workout that I just did this morning, and it does help a lot. Um, so again, we've just, we've discussed pacing, quality of movement, basic principles, CrossFit, but I, I, I really do think that the first thing I would do if you wanna learn how to strategize a workout is break down [00:05:00] how many reps per minute you can do, how many reps per minute people fitter than you can do.
And yeah, how many reps per minute? Some people that you think are not as fit as you. Are doing, um, 10 round workout with 200 reps, alright? Uh, or a 10 minute workout with 200 reps. Okay? For you to finish that workout, you have to be 20 reps per minute. And I'll just give you some input, opinions, analysis that I have over the years with myself and other athletes.
If you are ever reps per minute is like the, the step one, and it is hard to break them down because different movements take a different amount of time. And then you start adding different loads and you have to bring those numbers down. So it's not a perfect way. But for basic mixed modal conditioning style workouts, if you are 25 reps per minute, 25 to 30 reps per minute, for anything less than 10 minutes, you are elite.[00:06:00]
And if you wanna start taking some of the workouts that we have here and just start looking at that. Keep that number in your head. 25 to 30 reps per minute is elite. As the longer workouts go, that can change. If it's all body weight, like pushups, air squat, sit-ups, that number can go up. But just think about your traditional 95 pound thruster.
20 pound 14, sorry. 95. 65 pound thrust thruster, 20 pound, 14 pound wall balls, kettlebell swings, pull-ups, toes of bar burpees, box jumps. Um, meet light to medium weight barbell movements. If you're in that range, you're elite. And I could say right now, like I've never been there. Um, we don't have anyone in this gym that's there right now.
Okay. We do have some athletes that have been approaching 20 to 21 reps per minute. So just think, all right, where do you think you stand in relation to this gym? Your gym? Am I elite? Am I good? Am I great? Whatever. If you're 20 reps per minute in most of these workouts, You are probably going to finish top 2% in the world in most CrossFit [00:07:00] workouts.
How many reps
Sam Rhee: total can
David Syvertsen: people sustain that for? So your average workout is between 200 2200 and 250 reps. Okay. So that would be 10 to 12 minutes. Got it. That's your average CrossFit workout. I've broken down every single open workout ever and that they've averaged out to 12 and a half minutes, um, and some workouts for time.
So that can vary. But there's enough data in there that that is the average workout and the average volume load is 200 reps. Now, when you start throwing in 315 pound deadlifts with strict handstand pushups, then you have to have a little bit more experience and maybe a little bit more information from yourself or from your coach that can knock that number down to, okay, if you're a 20 rep per minute athlete, once you start going to heavy loads and strict movements, or, I'm gonna talk about interference in a little bit.
Um, You're gonna go down the path of having to deduct that by 10 to 20%. So now 15 rests per minute is the line. And again, this is this, this can really [00:08:00] get too deep. I don't wanna go that deep yet. I wanna think about your traditional CrossFit workouts, and I'm gonna use a couple of examples from legends qualifiers to kind of give you some input and maybe some examples that you can apply to workouts that you've already done or you're about to do.
And you can look at a result after you do it and be like, all right, where do I stand? And you might be a great rower, you might be a great wall ball bars person, but you might not be a good handstand pushup. And you can see your reps per minute in these workouts. That's where you got, you can really get an objective result of, Hey, I'm good at this.
I am not good at that. I really need to work on my weaknesses.
Sam Rhee: What do you classify yourself as as a rep per minute person?
David Syvertsen: Um, between 18 and 21. Yeah. So, and again, you can have a range. It doesn't need to be like 20. Okay. Like if you can be between, like if you give like a three to four rep range. Right. Um, and.
That's where I've been breaking down workouts. So I just had a five minute workout last week for Legends qualifier. You do a one art max snatch and then a five minute ladder of double dumbbell squats and chest bar pull-ups. And my reps per [00:09:00] minute in the five minute workout was about 25. So without knowing anyone else's score, it's a blind leaderboard.
Right. I know that's gonna be a solid score. It's not gonna be the best. There'll be people that can push that. But I know that it's gonna be above the line of where I need to be. Where do you think I am? 10. Um, 10 rest for a minute. In that workout? No. Any workout in a on average? No. Oh, I would say you're between, um, 13 and 16.
Oh, okay. Yeah. So let's break it down. Our workout, a legends workout that Sam just did, and I just wanna make sure my math is correct on this because. The result came in real time. It just happened about an hour ago. Sam did in, in my opinion, one of the hardest workouts, um, mentally to take on in legends. It was 9 15 21 27.
That's the rep scheme. Cow row burpees over rower. Okay. That is a 144 rep workout. Alright. Sam's time was [00:10:00] 7 45. So just under eight minutes? Yeah. Okay. That's 18 reps per minute. Okay. Right. Like right around 18 reps per minute. Okay. That's a really, and that's why Sam got done with that workout. And I said, Sam, just so you know, that's a really good score and I didn't even know the results.
A previous, they did this qualifier last year, but they didn't reverse order. But at the end of the day, the volume was the same. The movements were the same. 27, 21, 15 9. Correct. Yeah. And I looked at his age group after I told Sam, because I almost like was wide-eyed when you got done. I was like, I think Sam just annihilated that workout.
And I could tell he wasn't all juiced up and like trying to motivate himself and trying to qualify. And we talked a little bit of strategy before the workout. And again, I promise we'll get to that based on this whole rep's permanent thing. I just immediately looked at that score and I knew how many reps were in that workout.
Did some quick math of reps per minute, and I knew it was more than 15, not quite 20, but that's a good score. Then I go to the leaderboard from last [00:11:00] year in his age group, and I think it was, it would've been a fourth place score in the world. And Sam's not Sam's a good rower. Not a great rower. He is very well conditioned and I do think burpees are a huge strength for him.
Yeah, they always have been. Yeah, always. You're just good at burpees. Yeah. So. Let's break this down a little bit, Sam. Okay. Shout out to Ella though
Sam Rhee: for doing it with me. That helps a lot to have someone
David Syvertsen: also working out next to you. Yeah, you probably, that, that probably did help you out time-wise. Yeah. A little bit.
Just to have some energy next to you for sure. Um, but you know, when, when you have a workout like that, Sam, what was your initial approach on how to strategize the workout?
Sam Rhee: So we talked a little strategy about how to do the lateral burpees over row. And unfortunately I think this is gonna post after the work
David Syvertsen: we do the workout.
Yep. But I bet there's gonna be a lot of people that have signed up for the qualifiers that will be doing it after. Oh, okay. Or repeating it. Um,
Sam Rhee: and so you gave me some tips about the stepping over and how to technique that, which helps tremendously. It does. Uh, you told me to stay low during the workout, which also helps a lot.
Mm-hmm. Um, It's really [00:12:00] about figuring out your row pace and then going like, fine, it's about pacing. Mm-hmm. It, it's like, so I, I went out, I didn't have a number in mind when I first started the row, but I, I started the first nine cows and I was around 13 to 1400 mm-hmm. On the split. And I said a little hot.
I knew I was hot and so, um, and then I just did the nine and I was like, okay, this is fine. And then I did the 15 and I said, let me just stay over 1200. 'cause you know, you know the trap with row, right? You try to go 15% harder and you're about 50% more depleted. Mm-hmm. So, you know, you're only saving a couple seconds.
Right. Just make sure you're, you're not going, you're at a pace you can maintain. So I, I went. Slow on my stroke rate, like 25 per second. Yep. Or something big polls, not fast polls. Uh, I always think that. And then, uh, and then I just kept focusing on the burpees about being efficient, flopping coming back up.
Yep. It gets hard in the mid, [00:13:00] in the third round. Like, you know, you, you told me like 50% of the
workout
David Syvertsen: is so. Nine 15, the two, the first two rounds of the workout are one third Yeah. Of the workout. Me. So a lot of people look at this as a full round workout. Yeah. You're done with two rounds. Yeah. You're, you're one third of the way through.
Yeah. And you feel awesome. Yeah. For
Sam Rhee: the first, first two round. Right. Then you get into that, uh, round of 21, and then you start the bures and you're about maybe 10 into the burpees and you're like, This doesn't feel good and you don't, you wanna slow down. Yep. But at that point you have to mentally commit, like, I'm not gonna slow down, I'm gonna go quick.
And then the 27, the hard part is figuring out your pace on the 27 Cals. 'cause when you hit the burpees, you're just gonna like, right, you're, you're done. You just gotta get through 27. Yep. Up and down, up and down, up and down. Um, so I just maintained the 1200 plus on the, on the 27 cows and. Just finished out the
David Syvertsen: burpees.
So ironically, not everyone knows this, right? You could put this in your memory bank when you row between 12 and 1300 cow per hour. It's about 18 cows a minute. [00:14:00] Oh, okay. And that, and that's what your score was. Yeah. 18. There you go. Your burpees, your set of 21 I think was just right around a minute. So again, that averages, um, you were like 1 0 5, so again, you were probably 18, 19 arrests per minute.
You have to factor some transition time, but that's where this comes from. It's like you, without even knowing what your arrest per minute was and average and what needed to be good score. That's just where you live and you live there for the entire workout. The mistake that athletes will make on Thursday when you coach right, is you'll have people that cannot maintain your level of conditioning on this workout.
They will do, they'll start off doing, I betts 24 reps in a minute. So they're overshooting their, their load. Then it goes the next minute it goes to 20 because you feel like shit, you're slowing down because you don't feel good anymore. Yep. Then it goes down to 16, then it goes down to a 13, and then maybe you can amp it up at the end, as you know, you see the, the, the light at the end of the tunnel.
Whereas if you just did what Sam did in this workout, he never [00:15:00] went as fast as he could. You're going fast, but never as fast as you could. No. Yeah, and again, you know yourself, experienced athlete, you being a coach definitely helped. But having this rep's permanent idea in your head, like I could tell you who the guys right now, Sam score's pretty good.
So if, if you wanna aim for that good score, right? Men, 18 cows, and then ladies, just because the body mass, it's gonna be a little bit slower on the row. So you're gonna have to aim for about 15 cows per minute on there. That would probably be the equivalent of what you did. You know, that's something you can practice from the beginning.
You can practice in your warmup row for a minute. Guys, go row for a minute. Try to get your rest per a minute and just understand you're gonna, you're gonna notice like, wow, that wasn't that bad. To get to that 18 reps in it. But if you start off doing 25 reps in that first minute, your strategy has now gone out the window and you're just gonna try to hot hold on for dear life.
As the workout progresses, when you plan it
Sam Rhee: out for yourself and you're strategizing, you're gonna shoot for, what do you know you can maintain on
David Syvertsen: the row? Um, I mean, my, my goal time, it's funny I haven't broken this [00:16:00] one down. I could try to do it on the fly, but I'm gonna try to get low six on that workout.
Yeah. So that's probably, um, I mean, six minutes in that workout Okay. Would be 24 reps a minute. Okay. Very confident I could do that in the rower, which is, what is that pace? That would be 24 cal per hour would be about, um, About 1,616 to 1700 and you can maintain that. Yeah. Okay. I, I think so, but my mistake, I, it's gonna be hard for me not to grow a 2000 on, on the first years.
I know. Like I can just go get the nine cals done and I can do nine cals in about 18 seconds. Yeah. So I should not do that because it's not gonna help my long term. Right now I've had other athletes tell me, well, is it really gonna be the same result though if I do start off at 32 reps per minute? Right.
But I end at 20 reps per minute and averages out to about what you want. Yes. That's fine. I'm not saying that's a wrong idea. That is not gonna help you progress in the long term because, but you said Henshaw
Sam Rhee: said the first 10 seconds, you should
David Syvertsen: kind of, yeah, you can go after [00:17:00] different energy systems. So you could always go hard your first 10 seconds.
Okay. And I do plan to do that. Okay. All right. But it's not necessarily just the result we're going for. It's how you feel. This is why it's not just a sport thing. Mm-hmm. I don't want my athletes here feeling like ass. Right. Because they rode, you know, 2100 cal per minute pace just because they can, early on your score might be the same, but you didn't feel good to, and when we don't feel good, we start moving a little different.
Mm-hmm. So if you start throwing a barbell into a workout like that, bad things can happen. Got it. So that it, this goes a little bit far, just, it doesn't only go into what is your time? It's going to be, how safe is this for you? Especially if you start throwing in some movements that you're prone to getting injured on.
Yes. Right. So you want to feel good in these workouts. Got it. What do you do? When there are movements that are Sam causes interference, I call them non complimentary movements. Example, um, I just did, um, handstand pushups and heavy dumbbell snatch complimentary. Yes. [00:18:00] But I do think the dumbbell snatch locking out the heavy dumbbell does affect the shoulder fatigue.
Um, you can throw in movements like, uh, GH h d and Toast Bar to the same workout or toast bar and ring muscle ups. Yeah. You know, this is where you have to start again. Experience of a coach can help or you can start writing things down. When you have interference movements, you are likely gonna have to cut down your reps per minute by about 50%.
Mm. You know, so if I can maintain, you know, 20 reps per minute of TOA bar, but you're gonna throw GHGs in there as well, I'm gonna have to take them, combine down to about 15 reps. Mm-hmm. Right. Um, so not quite 50%. So that's where this is where a lot of data can come into play. Where Yes, you can go do 20 toes of bar straight.
That's awesome. You can go do 15 GHGs, but guess what's gonna happen when you get back to your toes of bar. So why would you, like today, I purposely broke up my first set of handstand pushups. I didn't need to, but I knew that if I was gonna do 30 handstand pushups in 45 seconds mm-hmm. Which I can do.
Mm-hmm. [00:19:00] Right. It put me way ahead of the pace that I'm shooting for, for my goal. Way ahead. So I wanted to maybe take a step back and I purposely broke them up so that I didn't get to that failure point, especially on movement, like handstand pushups. So that, that's where I think that when you have non complimentary movements, interference type movements and, and, or you have a weakness there, um, lack of capacity.
You know, think about wall balls and thrusters. You know, they, there are workouts with both of those existing. Um, deadlifts and box jumps. No, there are workouts with those existing. You're gonna have to bump that number down. It's different. I don't want to give everyone their percentage that they have to go down, 'cause that's just where fitness comes into play.
But you need to know that if you're comfortable with 20 reps per minute and not many people are with deadlifts that you're, you know, 2 0 5, 2 25 type weight, that number's gonna have to come down. If it's paired with a movement that is non complimentary. Now, when you are calculating
Sam Rhee: this out, do you in, depending on the workout, say, listen, I know I [00:20:00] can start at a fairly high rate.
Mm-hmm. And then I know as long as I bleed down to a certain. Right by
David Syvertsen: the end, I'm okay with that. Yeah, I, I think that's okay. Um, like starting a little past your threshold Right. But never getting below a certain point of your threshold. Right, right. Like my rep, my goal in this past workout, the 30 handstand pushups, 30 dumbbell snatch, 15 cal row, was I wanted to average about 20 reps per net.
And I averaged, uh, babababa. I think I averaged 18 to 19 reps, which is kinda like right where I stood. I fell apart in the handstand pushups towards the end. I was surprised by how hard they got. But my first two minutes, sorry, my first three minutes I did, um, I did, uh, blah, blah, blah, 75 reps, so that was 25 reps per minute.
So I overshot a little bit, but I never felt like it was reckless and I knew that I was gonna bottom out at some point. If I went back and did it again, I probably would pace it a little more. It's, it's really hard to slow yourself down when you're feeling good. Yeah. You [00:21:00] know, um, especially with some gymnastics movements, right.
Handstand pushups so far. Chest bar pull-ups. Right. If you feel like you're in a good flow, yeah. Just keep going down just because Yeah. Or double unders, right. Hey, I'm, I'm broken, I'm not gonna stop. Right. But you have to know that the muscle interference that's eventually gonna come bite you in the ass at some point.
It, it, it does make sense. And I'll tell you what the best athletes, this is what they do. They, you, you ever watch a games athlete? Like it's, and again, different level. I'm not saying you need to be a games athlete, but I do think there are lessons you can learn from them. They rarely look like they're in shambles, you know, because they're such, they're, they know themselves so well.
They have a lot of data. Yeah. They have people doing this for them. Yeah. Every workout, they probably have spreadsheets on of every single movement of what you can handle, what you can't. But I know for a fact there's, there are games athletes, uh, that this is how they come up with what you should be doing in every workout.
Is reps per minute. Now, do you think coaches
Sam Rhee: will account for other stress factors? Let's suppose you have a heavy lift just before you get into it. Like that's pretty common, right? [00:22:00] Like they'll do something heavy and then they'll have to go into a workout. Right? Or Or vice versa, right? And then you're like, okay, you know what?
In order to do well on that heavy lift post wide, you're gonna have to cut your reps down per minute to X. Mm-hmm. Do you actually calculate that out
David Syvertsen: for yourself? Are you talking. Like, hey, part one of a workout, go lift part two of my no, because I I, I separate the two. So you, no matter what
Sam Rhee: you have to do beforehand, you're like, I, I know I can try to
David Syvertsen: hit this goal.
Yep, yep. And like, I, I actually test myself on this and I, I've gotten much better at, with over, and this has actually helped me as an athlete a lot, you know, train smarter, not harder, that whole approach. Right. Um, which is a little cliche and not always true, but the. I've gotten so much better at coming into a workout and not really competing with anyone in class, but knowing this is what I should be at.
If my reps per minute are there, if I'm not feeling great, if I have a little injury, if I'm just not there, then maybe I'll give myself a handicap, you know, like take it down two, three rows per minute. But I also know that if I have a workout and I feel kind of good [00:23:00] about it, but my reps per minute are not where they should be.
You know, like that's why measuring yourself against others is not a good idea. You know? I get why we do it, and I love the push that I get from other people as well. But the more you get into it and the more serious your goals are, you have to know, because the people you're competing with, especially with, you know, the big picture stuff, they're not here.
You know, it's thousands of people out there and you don't get to train with them. So it really comes down to numbers, right? When I got my butt kicked in semifinals a couple years ago, like I. You can go down like, and just look at, other than this being stronger than me, right? Reps per minute on barn muscle ups on box, jumps on high box, jumps on legless road, climbs on, uh, bench press reps.
You know, like all those things. Like I just was not good enough there to hang with those guys. And it's so now when I'm doing these workouts by myself are with the class. It's no longer beat the person in zone four. Or be the person that came in this morning, it's, I have to hit these reps per minute, and if I don't get there, I know I'm not there yet.
Do you know
Sam Rhee: what your reps per [00:24:00] minute are for each individual movement? Because for me, I could probably go real high on burpees, but for box jumps it would probably be like five per minute or something
David Syvertsen: ridiculous. I'm very accurate. I would say with, I could always give you within three. So you could give for any movement that any movement.
The only time I struggle with. I'm gonna give another legends example right here. Yeah. Is when there's, uh, forced rest, an interval workout. Oh, right. That's where it does. And I haven't figured this out yet. Um, we just did a workout, three minute am wraps with the 10, 10, 10 cleans. 10 toes of bar, right. One minute rest.
Eight cleans, eight toes of bar. One minute rest. Six cleans, six toes of bar. You know, the, the weight the reps are going down. Yeah. But the weights are going up. Yep. And pretty significant, like a 30 pound jump from barbell one to barbell two. Like a lot of, even our lifters in the gym were like, that's when this workout got real.
Right. It was 1
Sam Rhee: 55. 180 5, 2 0 5. Yep. And for the women it was 1,
David Syvertsen: 1 15. 1 45, um, 1
Sam Rhee: 75, 65, I think. Okay. Um, that was effing heavy for
David Syvertsen: [00:25:00] everybody actually at the end. Yeah, it was, it was brutal. Um, I think it was 1 50, 1 15, 1 35, 1 45 for the girls. Oh, yes, you're right. Yeah. All right. But they had that big jump too.
Yeah. From barbell one to barbell 2, 1 15 to 1 35. And again, strength comes into this, but you know, a lot of our athletes said like, Hey, you're gonna have to bank a lot of reps in that first three minute amrap because you just can't lift that barbell in second two. So yeah, go sell your soul. The shorter the workouts are, the higher your reps per minute should be naturally.
Right. Um,
Sam Rhee: now is that fair for, it seemed like a lift centric workout. Definitely was. Because there weren't enough gymnastics in there to really sort of balance it out. Yep. For the non.
David Syvertsen: You know, for the lifters, definitely a heavy workout and they repeated it from 2021 and the weights were lighter. Oh yeah.
So I have a score in that workout. So this is what helped me strategize the workout a little bit. I have a score from two years ago, same exact workout, but the bar was heavier. So I actually did a little equation yesterday and I looked at power output because obviously my score, I think it was, [00:26:00] um, about 20 reps less total from 2021.
But you do the math on output, how much more you lifted, how much more weight you lifted. Mm-hmm. Even though I was doing less reps. Yeah. I did a lot more work. So my score technically is better from, from that period, uh, a few years ago. Mm-hmm. Um, so I think you have to look into, but here's another thing about that workout.
It was, there was interference. Dave Bogues, like I could lift and I could do the toes bar, but I couldn't hold on my grip because you are like, touch and go cleans. Yes. Then unbroken toes bar. Yes. You, you do that for a minute or two, like you just can't close your hands anymore. Yeah. So that's where you know, you wanna start looking at some other factors and what did I say?
When you have other factors like that, you have to take your projected reps for a minute down a little bit. Now we're adding heavy loads to the barbell. You know, we're ascending weight as we go. You have to deduct your reps per minute, even further, and that's what happens in that workout. Your reps per minute go down no matter what.
So what was your goal and
Sam Rhee: what did you get reps per
David Syvertsen: minute wise on that? So in [00:27:00] that workout, the, uh, the first score was, uh, 20 40 60, uh, 20 40, 60, 72 reps on that first score, I think it was 72. So in three minutes, That's just under 25 reps per minute. Okay. Alright. Which is good for three minutes and good for medium weight.
It was not a heavy barbell from you. It was a medium weight. 1 35. Yep. And then the next, so that's, and that in that time domain, that's where I can get to. Right. I can't give, I can't give you 35 reps per minute at that weight. I just can't. Right. So I didn't try to do that in the first minute. I could have in the first set.
Gone 10, 10, 10 and under a minute. And probably even a little faster than that, but I think it would've, I would've blown up. Mm-hmm. So you take the extra breath before you get on the toes bar. Right. You take the extra second before you get to the barbell. Um, so what was that, three plus rounds? Yeah, that was three plus 12.
Okay. The second one was three rounds. All right. Which was, um, 48 reps and three minutes, and that's where it goes to 16 reps per minute. Why interference? Deduct it because remember, I'm 18 to 21 at most, right? Yeah. [00:28:00] And the heavier barbell. Yeah. 1 55. So you deducted another, you wanna say another 10 to 15%?
Sam Rhee: No, no. You started 1 55 and then you went, want the 180 5? Well,
David Syvertsen: 80. That was at 180 5. Yep. So that rest, rent goes down pretty significant amount. Right? The last one was 2 0 5. 2 0 5. So now you're talking heavy barbell. You're talking singles for most of it. Did you do singles for most of them? Yeah. Like I strung a few together.
And so that was, um, 12, 24, 36, 38 reps in three minutes. So now we're talking 13 reps per minute. So like, again, you could see the deduction. And again, the the numbers are in front of you. Yeah. And it's not a, um, good job, bad job. When you are adding intensity like that to a workout, you're gonna see a, a, a decline.
But if you see, um, you know, a huge decline. Right. Maybe something you could have changed strategy wise in that workout. You know, we, we were talking a little bit, a couple of the athletes that are doing it. Is, Hey, we really kind of went for it in the first one. Uh, that was a strategy of mine because I wanted to bank reps because I knew the weight was [00:29:00] going up and I'm not as strong as a lot of the guys I compete against.
How are they scoring at three separate or one total score of reps. Oh, so like every rep in that first one accounted what? The same as the last Exactly. Oh, I see. So as, yes, as, as heavy as that barbell gets you do, everyone gets a shot at that first three minute workout to get your 20 to 25 reps per minute.
I see. Um, and did you hit goal for your yourself on that workout? I was about eight reps less than I think I should have been. And where did you
Sam Rhee: think you would've, where you lost it? First, second, or third rep? The second, the second
David Syvertsen: workout. I see. The 180 5 1. I just, I feel like I probably could have held onto a couple more touch and goes again.
It's always easy to, when you're watching your video, like Right, are you watching someone else do it? Right? Oh, just hold onto it. Just pick it up. You know, like we all say the same thing. Yeah, we do. Um, but again, and it's, so we could talk about how do I apply some of these principles to a repeat. I'm not repeating any of these unless something goes wrong and nothing went wrong.
Just, you know, in any of them ones that I've done so far, so I'm not gonna repeat them. And, [00:30:00] you know, how do you, for my, the legends athletes are future open athletes quarterfinals. So if you, if you really feel like you gotta do a workout again mm-hmm. I think there's so much skill in that and it's a great way.
To take some of this information that might seem a little like too much or overwhelming or like, Hey Dave, I'm not really getting a clear picture on this. Because you need like real life data for yourself. And when you repeat a workout, you have real life data. You have your score, you have the time, you have the reps, you have the movements, everything.
Go redo a workout and simply take some of this reps per minute lingo some of this talk and don't even try to beat your score. Like don't go into saying, all right, I have to get two more reps. Just take a rep's permanent approach. Like, if I were to redo my workout, what if I did 23 reps per minute on that first one instead of 25 to 26?
Mm-hmm. Could I have eed out another three to four reps per minute on the second one? Hmm. You know, um, there's one workout I think a lot of people might wanna repeat. It's a painful [00:31:00] one. I just did it this morning. 30 handstand push up, 30 heavy dumbbell snatch, 15 cal row. And when you're fresh, your handstand pushups feel great.
You just stay up on the wall. You do a big set, you go on broken dumbbell snatches, you row hard because you're fresh. You're three, four minutes in and all of a sudden you get to that secondhand stand pushups and you, you feel like there's a weighted vest on you. Mm-hmm. Would you have been better if you didn't do all those reps per minute early on?
And there's really truly only one way to find out. You're not gonna listen to a coach on a podcast saying, this is how I should do it. You're gonna have to put yourself in these situations. And there's a lot more to this. There's a lot more science to this too, just about how you recover. This is another reason why, Sam, what you just did today after your workout, you hopped on the bike.
Right? You know it. It's sometimes people that are really into performance and wanting to recover, I feel bad. Like they get like a bad rap sometimes. Like they take it too serious. I hate when I hear that stuff, like I hate when someone calls someone to try hard. It's like it's when you do that, you're actually getting better at the recovery factor.[00:32:00]
Yeah. Like we learned about this in Hinshaw. Yes. Right? It's not just about, Hey, this is what the good athletes do after the workout. It's No, I'm gonna train my buddy to my body to clear fatigue quicker. That's a hinshaw thing. It's not that they're only games athletes are better than you at everything.
Right? They're better that the basic principle they're very good at is clearing fatigue so they can go do 25 reps per minute, go do some other rowing. Right? Rowing in that workout is more recovery than speed. So that, that's actually aiding their recovery because they train that way so they can go back onto the wall.
Where if you're someone that gets done with a workout and you just crash and burn and sit on the floor, your body will take longer to drain that fatigue. And that's how your body will be in longer workouts. 15 minute workout. I think it's the longest one of the legends. So like, that's like the endurance part of the, uh, of the qualifier.
And that's where you find out if you're good at clearing or not. Like I just, I walk away from that workout saying I need to work on if I qualify, I need to work on. Clearing fatigue in my upper body when he gets tired. [00:33:00] My pushing.
Sam Rhee: I've taken henshaw's course, I've learned so much about it. It's free money on the table.
I'm literally leaving if I don't do it right. Like I don't have any aspirations of being an elite athlete,
David Syvertsen: but you're trying to get the most outta
Sam Rhee: yourself. I'm trying. And if all that means is crawling, you literally saw me
David Syvertsen: crawling over to the bike, literally,
Sam Rhee: and, and, and just starting to pedal like the, it does two things.
First of all, you're right, like I, I am making the most out of the workout. And the second thing is, And I will tell you right now, it makes me feel better afterwards. Yeah. There's no doubt. Yeah. My legs don't feel as much like ass after that. Yep. Or in my body. Mm-hmm. Just because you're, you're training your body, like you say, to clear fatigue.
Yep. More efficiently.
David Syvertsen: So, I don't know, developing slow twitch muscle fibers. Yeah. And one of the purposes to drain fatigue outta your fast switch muscle fibers, which is what you use on a movement like. Handstand pushups, quick burpees. Quick thrusters, wall walls, like you need those fast twitch muscle fibers.
But if they're not drained, they're, they're not recovering because you don't train your slow [00:34:00] twitch. You're gonna have a hard time hanging onto stuff, hanging out the paces and workouts. I know it feels
Sam Rhee: really good for me when I just collapse and
David Syvertsen: I'm just like not moving and that's what everyone else is doing.
And, but
Sam Rhee: I can't do that anymore because I do that. And I feel like, like I said, I'm just leaving that on the table that Shaw's like. And when he says it, he says it in a way that makes it so obvious, like, why wouldn't you do this? I know. So good at that. And I listen to him, I'm like, yeah, I'm a dumb ass for not, so I have to find, even if I was just walking mm-hmm.
Like, like sometimes I'll just walk out the door and like, or whatever row. I don't care. But like, honestly, It's, it's all those little things that help. Right? And this kind of, you know, I'm not a huge reps per minute person, as you know, but I don't
David Syvertsen: want you to do it for every workout, to be honest with you.
But you
Sam Rhee: know what? Every now and then do it though. And, and the. The repetition that I hear you talk about, like after today, I am going to play around with it just because the numbers are simpler. Mm-hmm. And I'm [00:35:00] coaching, right? So I always count now for every workout that I'm coaching, how many reps are there?
Yep. Like what do I expect my athletes to do? How many reps is, uh, a decent time? Yep. For my beginner athletes, my intermediate athletes, my elite athletes.
David Syvertsen: That's huge dude. I mean, coaches. If you wanna give good guidance to your classes, you have to do this. You have to kind of know where good rep permanent scores are.
Sam Rhee: Right? Yeah. And, and even though I am not to the level where I know, you know what, uh, every movement should be. I, I was telling you the other day, I was looking at a, at a workout and I was like, okay, let me imagine myself doing it. And I turn on the timer and I'm like, okay, one rep. Okay. I'm doing another rep.
Yeah. And then, and then I'm like, okay. So I, it probably would take me, you know, 10 seconds would take me like two reps or three reps. Yeah. And then I'm like, okay, this is how long, uh, you know, and I actually, honestly, I underestimate our
David Syvertsen: athletes a lot. Yeah. Oh yeah. I do too. I, I do that all the time. I've been wrong several times.
I mean, my
Sam Rhee: athletes love making fun of me at 6:00 AM because [00:36:00] they're like, You said no one could get to 10 rest. And I got there and I was like,
David Syvertsen: I remember, I remember Reno calling you out on, uh, one of the recent workouts, the m o 22 with the deadlifts. Right, right, right, right. I remember, I remember. Do you remember that workout?
Yeah, it was, um, was it, it was three deadlifts. No, it was six toes bar. Three deadlifts. 20 dubs, yes.
Sam Rhee: E m o
David Syvertsen: and, and remember for athletes and be again, double unders are hard to do. Rest for minute I count for double unders for one rep. Okay. Okay. Just so you know. That one, if I remember, I don't wanna get this wrong.
I'll be embarrassed. I'm pretty sure it was six Toast Bar Three. Three deadlifts, 20 double unders. I think that's right. Okay. So that to me is 14 reps per minute. Maybe a heavy deadlift for some. So again, yeah, it was like
Sam Rhee: 2 25, 1
David Syvertsen: 55. So I remember when you sang it's like, oh, like no one can get this done or, you know, I was like in my head, 'cause I, I got 14
Sam Rhee: or 13 or 14, I was like, no one's gonna
David Syvertsen: get to like 20.
But I was like, you know what, there's people in the student that can do 14 reps per minute for 20 minutes, you know? And like, [00:37:00] so I knew people and I think we had like 10 finished that day. And Yeah. You know, again, there's other factors that come into play. You know, how recovered somebody is, is 2 25 really heavy for you?
Mm-hmm. Right? That's, that's a part of it. Um, but it, it's, it's just funny that as a coach, if you do spend some time prior to coaching and you do wanna give good guidance on what a good score is or what a competitive score is or what are the best scores, right? Some people do wanna know that even though they can't get there.
Yet they wanna know, um, like I, like how long does it take you to do 10 Toast Bar? I texted Alex a video of, I'm, you know, working with Alex right now and I have a video clip of my workout that I just did Friday. The Toast Bar cleans and I see myself, I send it to him. I look at the clock and there's 16 seconds left.
I have two cleans left and there's 10 Toast Bar. I knew in that moment I was gonna finish the round. Really?
Sam Rhee: You're gonna get two cleans and 10 toast to bar done
David Syvertsen: in, in 16 seconds. I what? 'cause I know I could do 10 toast bar the fast way. 'cause there's two ways to do 'em right
Sam Rhee: in 12 seconds with [00:38:00] the legs coming down like, yep.
With a slow arc or a big arc. Yep.
David Syvertsen: Quick arc. You know, you got that minute rest coming up you into the tank. Like, I always like being able to finish a workout strong. So you keep enough in that. Hey, I gotta go two touch and go cleans two seconds each. Walk to the bar, 10 to bar 12 seconds. And I was like, I looked at the clock for half a second and I knew, I was like, where other, and, and other people, they might not know what their reps per minute are with Toast Bar, with touch and go cleans.
And it's, it's valuable information that I just think it could simply help you guys out. So I just wanna wrap it up with that, with that line that it's, if you spend a little bit more time writing some things down, like there's probably someone out there. Much better than me at creating like a really good looking spreadsheet of all your movements, what you can sustain reps per minute.
I have a couple workouts for you guys, and if you want to test them out, I can give them to you. You can test out your rests per minute, um, over the, over the course of one, three minutes, X amount of rests, all that stuff. And you have, again, you're not gonna have an objective number, like 24.2. It's gonna be like [00:39:00] a range, an 18 to 21, 21 to 24, and that as you're training throughout the year, getting ready for the open next winter.
You can start really breaking down some of these workouts out and be like, all right, I'm right where I want to be, or, I'm not quite there yet, or I hope, um, you're a little bit better than you think, and then you can go down the path of longer workouts and where do you start to fall apart? Like, I already know where someone like Dan Coda, I know where his engine really drops off reps for minute, but we've done programming, we've done some information on it, and that could, that's something that can really help you guys out in the long, in the long run.
All right. Send me that work, those workouts. Will do. All right. Thanks guys. See you later.
