S03E128 - The Ripples of Change in CrossFit Games Season 2024
Get ready to hold onto your kettlebells as the landscape of CrossFit Games shifts dramatically in its 2024 season. This episode of the HerdFit podcast throws you into the heart of the changes as coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic scrutinize the logistics, implications, and the ripple effect they have on the CrossFit community. With CrossFit Open season broadening from 10% to 25% for the Quarterfinals and more athletes involved at nearly ever competition point, we navigate the new lay of the land that will undoubtedly turn up the heat on the athletes.
Can you imagine planning how to juggle 50 athletes, and mapping out complex workouts over four days? That's the new reality for affiliate owners. We unravel practical ideas to affiliates on how to help handle to the larger Quarterfinals groups. Also, let's not skirt around CrossFit's ambitious plan to review the videos of 200 athletes in Masters divisions for the Semifinals. There's a banquet of potential challenges on that plate and we're dishing it all out.
The changes aren't all sweat and stress though. We shine a light on the exciting opportunities these adjustments bring. Picture an expanded Quarterfinals AND Semifinals field, giving more athletes a chance at glory and perhaps drawing more people into the world of CrossFit. We dissect why it's crucial to rally behind these changes and the potential silver lining they bring to the CrossFit community. Strap on your lifting belts and tune in as we dissect these exhilarating changes and their potential to shape the future of CrossFit.
@crossfitbison @crossfittraining @crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates #supportyourlocalbox #crossfitaffiliate #personalizedfitness
00:00:05 Changes to CrossFit Games 2024 Season
00:09:02 CrossFit Changes Qualification Process
00:19:04 Payments and CrossFit Competition
00:26:09 Planning and Logistics for CrossFit Quarterfinals
00:37:10 CrossFit's Video Review Process Concerns
00:43:19 Expanding Opportunities in CrossFit Semis
00:47:43 Supporting the New Changes in Crossfit
S03E128 - The Ripples of Change in CrossFit Games Season 2024
David Syvertsen
Host
00:05
Hey everybody, welcome to the Herd Fit Podcast with Dr Sam Rhee and myself, Coach David Silverson. His podcast is aimed at helping anyone and everyone looking to enhance their healthy lifestyle through fitness, nutrition and, most importantly, mindset. Alright, welcome back to the Herd Fit Podcast. I'm Coach David Silverson. I'm here with my co-host, dr and Coach Sam Rhee.
00:28
We had a big news drop from CrossFit HQ this past week in relation to the 2024 CrossFit game season and it's been a major talking point at this gym. It's been a major talking point in the community, in the CrossFit media and A. It's kind of like a dry time of year with CrossFit. We haven't had the CrossFit news in a while or something to really chew on and engage with, other than Legends, which we did a couple episodes on getting the Masters games. But the changes that were just recently released by the CrossFit Games team in terms of what to expect this year. There are still some details that need to be ironed out locations and dates and whatnot but we have a pretty clear path. I would say we have about 90% of the necessary information to take on the 2024 season and the format of this.
01:21
I want to make sure we get the objective information out first, like what's going on, what are the dates, what are the changes from last year? You know, because I know some of you guys aren't as like glued into this stuff, you might not understand what the changes are and some of them are very significant. And we'll try to be quick with that because I think really the most interesting part of today's episode is just going to be some of the feedback that we have, some of the feedback that I have from other people I had I don't know how many conversations you had. I had a good probably dozen conversations with different people, different walks of CrossFit, different competitive levels, and you know the opinions are all over the place, which is honestly kind of cool, which could make this conversation that we're going to have a little bit more interesting.
02:14
So, before we get into the actual changes, sam, where, where did your head immediately go? Right, and we'll get into like, what we actually think about this. But where did your head immediately go when you heard that CrossFit was making some significant changes to some of the numbers and dates and whatnot?
Sam Rhee
Host
02:30
You could take a pretty cynical approach and say, here we go again. More changes. Every year it's always something different. If you look at the social media space or the talking heads which we'll get into, you could see how more vitriol and anger can be directed towards CrossFit. I wanted to look at these changes and say, if we think CrossFit is good and we think they're not stupid, then why? I would look at it with that approach Like are these things they're trying to help make things better? Are these things going to make things better?
David Syvertsen
Host
03:08
There are really three perspectives that matter the affiliate owners yes, for sure the most.
Sam Rhee
Host
03:16
that might be the most important actually.
David Syvertsen
Host
03:19
CrossFit athletes including us I'm not talking games athletes including every single person that comes to the show, and that's kind of the open and CrossFit HQ. Those are the three perspectives and if you're capable of looking at this from all three of those perspectives, then I'm going to respect your opinion. But if you can't, or if you neglect to not going to respect your opinion on the subject. So let's get into the actual objective changes. Again, I'm going to try to be quick with this. So the open is in March. I know it starts February 29th, but it's a leap year. Basically, just for your mental sake. The open is the first three weeks of March, not that far away I like 100 some days maybe. So it's going to be three workouts three weeks long Team quarterfinals that is, two men and two women from your gym. They are going to be April 3rd and April 8th. So that will be the first quarterfinal stage, which is going to be about two weeks after the open is complete and we'll go over. I can tell you right now, if you're unsure what that even means. Your gym has to sign your gym up as a team. We're already signed up as an affiliate. We have to pay an extra 25 bucks to have a registered team and anyone in the gym can contribute to those scores. So even if you're not a great CrossFit athlete but there's a 100 max deadlift, you can contribute to your gym score. But to move on to quarterfinals, your gym has to decide who it is. The top two men and the top two women take on a series of workouts which is April 3rd to April 8th. The next quarterfinals are individual, and when I say individual I mean everybody that's competing as an individual masters, teens and open division. Same time, same workouts, april 17th to April 22nd. Then we have semifinals. The location and actual dates are to be determined, but they're going to be in May and this will include the top 40 men and women from each region. For those that don't know the regions, I don't want to go through them all right now, but if you're listening to this and you're from across the Bison or you're in the Northeast, there's North America East, which includes Canada, right, and I believe I'm not sure where Mexico falls in there. They might be West, but basically the eastern half of United States and Canada. You have to be one of the top 40 men and women from that entire region to move on to the semifinals For the age group. Yeah, that was 18 to 34. Sorry, that was open division For the age group. If you're top 200 in the world, you move on to semifinals, which will be virtual. That also will be in May and there are no regions with masters. It's just where do you rank in the world within your age group. If you're top 200 after the quarterfinals, you move on to the semifinals. So same with teens, right, yep, same with teens. So what are the differences? The elephant in the room here is to make quarterfinals, you need to rank top 10% For masters, top 10% in the world For open division 18 to 34,. You have to be top 10% in your region to move on to the quarterfinals. Now it is top 25%, so a lot more people are going to be moving on to the quarterfinals. Over twice as many will have the opportunity to move on to this quarterfinal stage.
06:53
The individual semifinals spots. They go down over 60 last year from North America East it goes down to 40. And that is a big deal. I actually think that's the one big negative that I don't necessarily agree with. We'll get into it, but just keep in mind that is a huge deal. A third of the semifinal athletes will not be moving on and there were games, athletes that technically would have not made semifinals last year.
07:19
Masters semifinal spots they go up big time. So I made it a couple years ago and there was 30 of us that made it. There's now 200. So I mean that percentage increase is enormous. It's at 500% 600%. So it's a huge, huge jump. And who gets to move on to the semifinal stage? And I think one of the biggest deals here is it's dual registration. So if you're a masters athlete and you make individual, you can do both. You were always allowed to do both, but there were different workouts, different weekends and you had to pay 50 bucks two different times for the quarters, for the quarterfinals. If I want to compete in quarterfinals this year, I pay 50 bucks and I am now going to be in the leaderboard of both individual and masters. We have a couple people.
08:06
Yeah we have a handful, I would say that, and now probably even more with the top 25%. Yeah, that's right and we'll get into why that's significant. And the master spots and we already knew this because we had Joe Linton here from the Legends Championship a few weeks ago. He said there are going to be more athletes that qualify for the games than previous years. Previous years it's only been 10. All right, so now it's going to be 40 for the first two age groups and it goes down to 30 for the next two age groups and down to 20 and, I think, down to 10 for the final. Simply put, a lot more masters athletes are going to be qualifying for the games. All right, so, and that will be that time, date, location everything has not been established yet, but according to Joe, it sounds like they're going to do it after the game season, which is August 8th to 11th. So I guess you have to kind of look at that mid to late August timeline. All right, so those are the changes. That's what you should be expecting.
09:02
When it comes to dates, boz said on the CrossFit Games podcast it's kind of simple. Now it's hey, opens March, quarter finals is April, semifinals is May, games are in August and no matter what stage you're in, that's the truth. So how we get there and what we do once we get to these certain stages will be different. But I think the first thing that needs to be talked about is the fact that CrossFit is moving the top 10% to top 25%. We did a podcast on this. I want to say two years ago, when CrossFit first came out with this hey, if you're in the top 10%, you get to move on to the next stage, and we praised it. We thought it was awesome, we thought it was very attainable for a lot of people If you really put the work in.
09:46
After seeing it for a couple of years, you know I didn't feel as strongly about that. I didn't feel it was as attainable. If I come in and wad hard and work really hard, there's still some you can call it natural gifts experience levels, lifestyle situations that really can prevent you from getting over that hump, and you and I both have said the people that have made quarterfinals in the past versus the people that were on the bubble that did not make it. There were still several capable athletes that just missed quarters that you could make a case should have been there Absolutely. And so this is where that top 10% number it kind of came a little.
10:30
It was a little aggressive in my opinion. It could be more aggressive. It could be top 5%, move on. I would be fine with that as well and I'll get into that later. But why do you think? Sam CrossFit said you know what top 10% is a little too exclusive. It's too unrealistic for a lot of our CrossFitters out there that are giving us money to sign up for the open. We're going to make this a quarter. The top quarter of CrossFit athletes that sign up for the open are moving on. Why do you think they did that?
Sam Rhee
Host
11:03
Well, if you listen to the talking heads, it was a cash grab, cash grab, and that I don't know if that's true or not.
11:12
What I can say is, having gone through and seen the quarters and you know, competing as an age group athlete, that top 10% depends on a lot of things. First of all, there's only three weeks, so there was a lot of debate. Does those three weeks actually test a broad range of fitness for everybody? And any variation that particular year could ease in or ease out a fair number of people, depending on what your strengths are, because if they can't as comprehensive as CrossFit tries to make those three workouts, they're not fully comprehensive, and we've had a couple people who they lined up with their strengths and they made it, and then there are a couple where those three didn't really line up and they didn't make it, and so I feel like it's fairer. The other thing is is I myself barely squeaked in last year and the reason I did was literally one or two movements that I barely made. Like had I not made one or two ring muscle ups would have been out had I not gotten on. I forget which ladder it was where you had to go.
David Syvertsen
Host
12:27
You got to the tritium stand push-ups. Yes, that was a big separate Right.
Sam Rhee
Host
12:30
Yeah, like there were just a couple things that really eased someone in or out and I could have easily have been out, just depending on the day. You know, it was so balanced on a knife edge for a lot of people and I feel like that made it really hard. Now, does that make it less of an accomplishment to make quarterfinals?
David Syvertsen
Host
12:54
Yes.
Sam Rhee
Host
12:54
There's no doubt. If you take 25 versus 10, and I have heard of people who just missed say, well now, well now, what does it mean? It means nothing. I don't believe that and maybe we can talk about that why. But for me, I am very positive about the fact that it that more people and Boss said this more people can play. Yep, I think that more people should play and I think that the top 25 are very capable of taking those quarterfinal workouts and doing better than what you might expect. I don't think that the top 10% are going to necessarily be the top. You could take a top 15 athlete or 20 athlete and they could really complete and they could really crush the quarters and you could see them doing better than, just, say, someone that was in the top 10%.
David Syvertsen
Host
13:44
Yeah, I mean I will put money on this right now. Someone that will not finish top 10% in the open will make semi-finals, okay. So what do I mean by that? Someone that and this isn't a three week open. It's a good point that you brought up the three week open and I always trust CrossFit with open programming. Yes, some years it's heavier, some years it's more gymnastics, but they are balanced tests.
14:07
Three workouts you can get really unlucky with three workouts and if you had five to make up for some of those unlucky ones, you'll probably still end up where you should be. But if you only have like one more or two more, that really that weakness workout can really kind of keep you out, can keep you on the outside looking in, and that I can think of a couple of people I don't want to get specifics right now, but I can think of a couple people right now that have not made quarter-finals or did not make quarter-finals last year, two years ago, that if they did make it they would have beat several athletes that beat them in the open. It's their harder tests, they're heavier, they're more skill, there's more capacity required. You got to do a lot of work in just a few days rather than spread it out over three weeks Now, because you have. Now you're going from the open into the semi-finals. There's usually five tests. I've seen six before, so now in the quarter-finals. So now you really see like, all right, the more tests there are, the more truth there are in the results, right? That's why I love a complex legends. There's 10 or 11 events, so even if you have a bad one, hey, that's okay. You have nine or 10 other ones to really show what you are, and that's where the truth is exposed.
15:15
So you're going to have athletes that probably deserve to a shot at semi-finals more than the people that finished top 10%. So you have some of these guys that don't finish in the top 10, they deserve that shot to the semi-finals more than the others, and that's why I my first stance on this is I'm totally cool with this in terms of them putting them, letting them play as well, and, based on numbers, only about half of the people that qualified for quarter-finals last year did it. Interesting, so this I mean. So you really think about 5% of the people that signed up for the opener actually doing quarters like, let's get that number up, dude, all right, this is coming from someone that I usually have a harder time advancing when I'm against more people, because my personal weaknesses are really bad One right, max snatch, high volume pistols, right. So if I have more people to compete against, I'm going to have a harder time moving on. So I'm coming from like that perspective that I, as a competitor, don't want more people. But as a gym owner, as a coach, and looking at the amount of people that bust their ass, I definitely can see the advantage and the reason why behind this.
16:27
Now, who does this actually hurt and who does this help? Okay, I'm going to get into the affiliate owner last I want to talk about. I came up with this example driving here this morning and I don't know if it's good, but I'm going to run with it. All right, all right. We have a lot of athletes in our gym that have been, you know, seeing red going after that top 10%. They haven't gotten there yet, or they were there. Now they're not. That's the goal. That's the goal. Now, all of a sudden, they're like oh, by the way, it's top 25% now. Does this make making quarterfinals less prestigious?
Sam Rhee
Host
17:05
Yes, it does, for sure. I know people who have been training for the open, but the thing is is that it makes the overall rankings better. So if you made quarters like I made quarters last year I was just like, ooh, I made quarters, I'm good. Now, since more people are gonna make it, there's more pressure on me to do better in quarters.
17:30
I caved no two Fs about how I did in quarters. I was just like I just admit, you're right, I didn't. I made it, I don't care, I'll just run through the workouts just for fun. Now it's like, boy, there's gonna be a lot of people I'm competing against. It doesn't matter that I made the quarters as much. Now I gotta see how I do in quarters and those are more challenging workouts. So, and the people who had to train to get into the top 10%, they had to train specific to the open, which is kinda sucky, cause you're training a lot of dumbbell stuff, a lot of accessible box work and capacity over maybe a 15 minute period and body weight stuff. Now that's out, and those are things that I wasn't so bad at. I'm not so big, I'm not so strong, but I can handle a dumbbell and do some box stuff for burpees or whatever.
David Syvertsen
Host
18:22
Now it's like F that Cause you know you're gonna make it now You're gonna make it. So now you gotta start prepping. For what did we do in the quarterfounds last year? Double dumbbell, overhead lunges, rope climbs, bench press 185, 125 for reps.
Sam Rhee
Host
18:34
Those were real like workouts and now I have to care about those workouts and I see the people who just missed by a sliver because their strengths didn't line up with that kind of open workout now chomping at the bit to really sort of chase after it in the quarters and they're gonna kick some ass.
David Syvertsen
Host
18:55
So here's my example, because I always try to do this when I'm like not always seeing eye to eye with someone or a situation I don't know much about. If you are, you and your girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, whatever you guys are saving up to buy a house, you don't have a lot of money and you're like you know what? We really wanna own our own home For five years straight. We're not gonna go on big vacations, we're gonna get lesser cars than we want, we're not gonna go out with our friends and out to dinner a lot. We're just gonna save every dime we can. We're gonna work two jobs. And then you get to that five year mark and the day before you put that down payment on that house, the government comes out and says hey, everyone, we're gonna cut down your down payments for your house by 80%. It's on us. And now you're left with all this money that you saved up.
19:47
But now you have a bunch of people that weren't responsible with their money for the past five years. They went on all those vacations. They had the nice cars, they had the nice clothes, they went, they were out to dinner every other night. They, those people, are getting almost like the best of both worlds, because now they're getting the same result you're getting. You're getting this house that you worked your ass out for. Now they're getting it too, even though they didn't put the work in. And this is where I feel like, hey, you know what? You still get your house. You still earned it. But, yes, there are now a group of people that are getting the same result as you and they didn't put that work in. And that's why I do empathize for the athletes that and I don't think anyone has, like any ill intentions or judgmental. It's more like, hey, I've been sacrificing a lot to make this top 10%, to make quarter finals really not even top 10%, but you could still aim for top 10%, obviously, but I was aiming for quarters. And now I have people that have been, you know, eating pizza and drinking beers three night a week and because they have a couple of muscle ups they can lift, they're gonna make in quarter finals with me, should I like? And I can see like, yeah, I would be a little upset in that situation Now.
21:04
But look at it from the other way too. If I ever let's say, let's make a pretend, if I ever make the games and I come in 40th place in the semifinals in my? Are the top 10 athletes in these in the games allowed to look at me and be like, yeah, I guess they're letting anyone in now Because that is, it is the same. I'd be pretty offended if someone said that and then I would go kick their ass at the competition. All right, but that is where the perspectives like your ability to look at it from different perspectives you need to see it.
21:36
So if you're someone that's now has a shot at quarter finals because now they're letting 25% in, you should be a little empathetic towards the people that have been working their ass off to get the top 10%. But you shouldn't feel bad about it. I don't feel bad, you shouldn't the top 10% people you're allowed to be like, wow, I guess I put all that work in and I kind of didn't need to because I could have made it without all that extra work, without all that sacrifice. But at the end of the day it doesn't affect you that much. If you really think about, like, staying your lane, don't complain. Like it's pretty easy to just look at this like, hey, I put a lot of work in, I'm gonna make quarter finals now a little bit easier. I still deserve this result because I put the work in.
22:23
Here's the question. I said this to a few people that have had this opinion if you don't make top 10%, don't do quarters. Make that your rule. I don't want you to do that because if you come in 11th percentile and you don't do it, you're gonna be upset. But those are the kind of like self-responsibility outlooks you can look at this from, is there's more than just your perspective. Neither one of you are right or wrong. By the way, quoting adorbs in there. There's multiple ways so look at this, and none of them are right or wrong, but you should be capable of looking at them from both perspectives.
Sam Rhee
Host
22:57
If you were someone who ate pizza and beer and still got into quarters, great. More power to you. More power to you. Let's see how you do in quarters. Because there's way more emphasis now on the quarter final rankings because of this. If the open is more, if the quarters are more inclusive just means you have to look more carefully at what those rankings are. And I like this because quarter finals is more classically CrossFit. You have more toys, you have more movement, you have more skill.
23:26
So I never really thought that the open judged how great of a CrossFit athlete you were or how good you were in terms of your CrossFit experience. It was sort of a fitness test, but it was a very general fitness test. Now let's see how good you are in quarters. So and it still makes it harder, like if you didn't make the top 10 and you were like I'm never going to make top 10, so why do I even bother? No, more people have a shot. Well, maybe I can make the top 25.
24:02
So it gives a broader population incentive to work to get to quarters and I don't think that that's a bad thing. I think that's all good. I think if you are someone who worked so hard to make quarters and you never got it by the skin of your teeth. Dude, kick ass in the quarters and you will have justified the fact that they broadened it out. It doesn't matter whether you were 11th, 12th, eighth. Now you can prove yourself and no one will say boo to you. Oh, you only were 20th percentile, dude. Did you see what I did in the quarters? That's where it's going to be.
David Syvertsen
Host
24:40
Yeah that's awesome. That's a good point too. And you start saying more movements, more toys, and this is where my skin starts to crawl a little bit. The person that gets screwed the most and I say screwing in quotes, okay is the affiliate owner.
24:57
Yes, we had 24 athletes qualify for master's semifinals last year. One of them was kind of like a 10 packer that comes every now and then, but whatever, 24 was the number For quarters Yep, for quarters, sorry, okay. And we had basically three days to get these workouts in and we had a lot of help from judges. All right, you had 10 to 12 judges and a few rotated in. We had a few athletes that offered to do both workout and judge someone after them. And I also did not compete last year because I was recovering from an e-injury, so I really was able to go all in on the support side and set up and schedule and heats and all that setting up the floor, the idea I did some quick looking at our leaderboard, ash, just like don't do this to yourself. I went and looked at how many people we would have had last year masters and individual, because we're now the same weekend and if I think I'm right, it would have been 47. So let's just say twice as many or close to it. That made me very nervous and this is where I've had people reach out to me.
26:09
Jr from the Savon podcast, who I like a lot in respect he said the same thing. He goes this is gonna be miserable for five days and it's an extra day too. I don't know those dates that we gave you. It's Wednesday to Monday. Now it was basically Thursday to Sunday at noon. So it's gonna be a long few days. But here and I will empathize with any owner that says we're screwed, because if you don't have a lot of ropes, ghds and those things are in there, and Kettabells and all this stuff and floor space 25 feet down, 25 feet back, people videoing it might actually be logistically impossible to do.
Sam Rhee
Host
26:49
This is the one point. So Hiller talked about this In his podcast episode CrossFit. Things Were Stupid, which again, so clickbaity. Everything he says is clickbaity. I disagreed with a lot of what he said in it, which we might talk about point by point. But the one thing he did say is and that's exactly what you said is you're gonna have, as an affiliate owner, 50 athletes over the course of four days doing fairly complicated workouts in my estimation, if the previous quarters had anything to do with the future quarters and you're running classes at the same time Like how is that going to happen Logistically? Super, super complicated.
David Syvertsen
Host
27:30
If we had this jobs on us like a month before, I'd be pretty upset with CrossFit. But it is what's it? November 13th, right now. November 12th, yeah, okay, 12. One, two, three, yeah. You have five months to figure this out. You're not allowed to own a business, especially across the gym, if you're not a problem solver. You're just not gonna do a good job. So you have five months to figure it. I already have multiple ideas. I'm gonna share the examples with you. I almost want a chronicle because I'm telling you this right now, sam, I'm competing in quarters next year and I'm going after it and I'm gonna run it and I'm gonna show you guys, it can be done, but you have to plan it out, you have to be a little selfless, right, and you have to communicate and ask for help. So this is what I'm already. I have two things that I'm considering doing, one of them I've already decided on.
28:21
Any athlete that wants to participate in quarterfinals at CrossFit Bison has to pass the judges course, because you are going to be required to judge. Adam Ranzin brought up a really good point. A lot of some of the athletes that love quarterfinals Dave Lancelotti, for example right, he's probably gonna make it. So we're not gonna have him judging 18 heats in three days. Yeah, cause he's so selfless about helping and judging and I know for a fact he's still gonna offer to judge, because that's who Dave is. But we have other athletes that are gonna compete and we have to allow and permit them to warm up, get their video set up. For those that want a video, get everything set up, train, work out not and this isn't gonna be a class situation where you judge and then work out. Like I'm gonna make the rule that you work out, but then you will judge the heat after you. And if you can't do that, I'm sorry. You can't do the quarterfinals here and you're gonna have to commit. What's one thing I do with the athletes every time quarterfinals comes around, the zoom call right and it is like guys, I'm a nice guy, I've earned that right to say that over the past 10 years.
29:29
The quarterfinals. You are now in the sport. This is how it's gonna be. If you can't play by X, y, z rules, like, hey, I need this schedule because I have kids, well, so does everyone else. So if you can't make the sacrifices in it and find someone to watch your kids, and maybe even I don't know. Some of you guys get at work early, take a day off work. If you can't do that, because there are specific windows in which this needs to get done and you're one of 40 people that I'm not gonna make special accommodations for, you're out, you can't do this.
29:59
And these are things that you can do ahead of time, where you just make it as objective as possible that everyone's on the same page. And if someone shows up and doesn't know the workout, doesn't know what the zone is supposed to look like, doesn't know the equipment, doesn't know the standards, then you know what You're gonna suffer the consequences yourself. Yeah, we've had that, and that's on you and that's not on anyone else. So this is where communication. You have five months to communicate this and I'm gonna write this in an email soon, and the judges course, it's not even available yet. All right that you're gonna have to pass that thing and it's annoying as hell. It's 10 bucks, but you know what you're doing. You're helping the gym out and you're gonna make the situation better for those around you, because you can't come to quarterfinals at CrossFit Bison and be thinking only about yourself. You're not allowed to do that. All right, and if that's not your cup of tea, you just gotta go somewhere else for them, and I'm sure there's a gym out there that'll help you out.
30:52
But here's another angle to it. I'm considering closing the gym two nights a week. For that, so Thursday and Friday night, I'm considering no classes. What? From what time? Probably 5.15 on. So I'll have a 4.15 class and then there's no more classes, because it will take three, four hours to get everyone in. It will take three. And I was thinking that. I was like, are you gonna run heats until like 10 o'clock at night? I mean I will, but I'm not gonna do that with the class. And this is where, hey, you shouldn't be affecting the gym. And that's where I'm still thinking about this.
Sam Rhee
Host
31:24
But it was kind of a mess because we did kind of run classes in some quarters last year. It was this very suboptimal experience for the classes.
David Syvertsen
Host
31:33
Let's just put it that way it is and it happens every year in the open, Just the open.
31:37
Yeah, just the open, just the open Thursday. Hey guys, 7.15,. You're kind of in the corner, can you get out of the way? You're kind of have music and these 11 people with judges, so the 22 people in the gym are gonna take over the gym, and is it the best way to handle something like that? It's not. But if it's communicated correctly and you build a culture here that every now and then you're gonna have to give a little to others. You know. You know and I know we don't put the competitors on a pedestal here. You know I don't give them like whatever they want whenever they want, but there are specific situations where it's kind of needed to have a very small window of time space to get it logistically done.
Sam Rhee
Host
32:20
You don't do this very often. I can't think of Once a year. Yeah, I don't think you've ever done it where you've actually shut down the gym. Even when the open announcement came, you figured out how to get people to still take classes and work out, absolutely.
David Syvertsen
Host
32:32
I mean, I'm always gonna look out for the gym as a whole, and part of this is me looking out for the gym as a whole. You might not be on the beneficiary of that decision, but I can guarantee you you've been on the beneficiary side of other decisions. I do try to be as fair as possible, but I know that if we have windows like you gotta get workouts done by a certain time. It's not gonna be possible for us to start at eight o'clock. You know we're gonna be at one in the morning. I'm not gonna do that, so you know we Okay.
33:06
So that's just like the biggest thing Communicate what your solutions are to these problems. So the last thing I wanna say about why I think they went from top 10 to top 25 is they want their numbers up, right. They want their numbers up in the open registration. They want more people cross-fitting. This does easily make it much more realistic for your average Joe athlete that works out four days a week to eventually get there. Not everyone, again, you're never gonna make everyone happy with it, but it it really does get. It makes it more inclusive and I think that's important. As a gym owner, as a coach, I think that's really important. How much do they charge for the quarters? I forget 50 bucks.
Sam Rhee
Host
33:53
Yeah.
David Syvertsen
Host
33:54
Money grab. Let's get into that. Where is this money going? They are going to make more money and so if they have another, I don't know, 40,000 people do quarter finals. Right, You're looking. I think I saw numbers like they're going to make an extra million or $2 million on this. Okay, Didn't we just deal with people complaining that the Masters are not getting enough attention and media coverage? Did we not just have that? Yes, If Masters athletes want a better games experience, there has to be money coming in from somewhere. It's not going to appear from thin air, so you can't talk out of both sides of your mouth here. If you want coverage, more attention, more love from CrossFit, there's going to be a lot of money that's needed to come in. This is a lot of money, so why wouldn't you be celebrating this? This is probably going to come back to you Like, I think the Masters games athletes, semi-finalists you guys should be the loudest people in the room right now cheering. What do you think about that? Is it because you're bringing up the money grab argument?
Sam Rhee
Host
35:12
Yeah, I think the issue is that some people probably don't know what CrossFit is going to do with the money, and so you're trusting CrossFit that they're using it in some way to make things better. And if you know Dave Castro, if you know Bosman, if you know the guys who run the games, if you've known Nicole Carroll, if you know all of the people who are the stalwarts at CrossFit, do you think this is just going to go to the venture capitalists or do you think this is actually going to be used to help bolster and make CrossFit better? If you do believe this is going to make CrossFit better, that these people care about CrossFit yeah, listen, if you 50 bucks, if you pay for a CrossFit gym membership at your gym, that's a lot of money, now it is. So 50 bucks should not be putting you out for anything Like. It shouldn't be like.
36:04
Oh, this is a hardship for me, dude, if you go to a CrossFit gym, you're paying a lot. Yeah, so shut up. Yeah, you shouldn't be going to CrossFit then, yeah, if you're that poor, a second of all I trust them to make this better. So do they need money? Sure, they need money. Everyone needs money. Are they going to use this money well. That's your choice to believe or not believe, and I choose to believe yes.
David Syvertsen
Host
36:26
And I think we put that pressure on CrossFit. Like, crossfit shows what you got. You're about to get a lot more money. Let's see an improvement to some of the processes that you guys have been putting out there. Yeah, because I don't want them to just be like up on the cloud and we're down here and like, hey, tell, like minions, like tell us what to do. You guys need to do a better job now with all this extra money that's coming in.
36:44
Yep. Here's the biggest negative the video process review. Mm Sorry, the video review process is a complete disaster and Hiller has made a name for himself by exposing how many people were getting away with stuff and maybe it has or hasn't, put pressure on CrossFit. I have to imagine it has put some pressure on them to make things better. But I can guarantee you right now and if someone from CrossFit wants to reach out and say, dave, you're wrong, I would love to hear it there is no shot that all 200 athletes in Masters divisions are gonna have their videos reviewed from quarter finals. Yeah, no shot, yep, and maybe they pick one workout to watch, but I still don't think all two there ain't watching 200th place athlete. They're. You know, 24.4 video in quarter finals. There's no way it's happening. Good point.
37:42
So what's the plan here? Because to make, I remember when I made semis, I had all my videos watched to be top 30. That's pretty easy to do, though You're multiplying that number by an immense amount and you have all these divisions. There's just no way you're gonna be able to logistically do that. I just don't even think of the time, let alone the manpower. So what's the plan there? Crossfit, how are you actually going to police the people that say they got what they got? Because, if not, you know human nature. People will lie about their scores If they start to hear and see like, oh dude, look, look, nobody. My YouTube video no views, no one's watching my videos. So fuck, this next year I'm lying about every single one of my scores so that I can make semi-finals.
Sam Rhee
Host
38:29
There is this. This could be a point of weakness for CrossFit, because I could see Hillar going a crap over this. Oh yeah, like posting video after video of, like looking for people's videos that you know have horrible form, cheating or miscounting reps or whatever you know intentional, non-intentional and just hammering them look who made it into semi-finals. So yes, they have to.
David Syvertsen
Host
38:52
This could be a point of issue for them Know what they used to do and I would love to see them bring it back. They used to. When you, they can make you submit videos, no matter what okay, but they used to have this ability for if you pass the online judges course, that you can watch everyone's videos and give it thumbs up or thumbs down, and that isn't gonna prevent someone from moving on, but it can red flag. It's like it's like crowdsourcing, like you can like hey, this guy in Zimbabwe has 87 thumbs downs. We should probably look at his video where, if no one has any thumbs downs or like hey, like just a couple here, probably don't need to spend our time looking at it, because we had a lot of people look at it. Forget about.
Sam Rhee
Host
39:33
Zimbabwe. How about Midland Park, New Jersey? We've got plenty of people here who might not qualify. That's true. That's true. Their movement patterns are so horrible. We got to work on some of these people here.
David Syvertsen
Host
39:43
So let's go into these talking heads because I don't want to get too long here, but I don't know why I feel a need to do this. I always do. I guess it might be loyalty to CrossFit and I don't have like a deep relationship with anyone at the top, so it's not like I'm defending my buddy here, but I'm gonna say this people are gonna complain about top 10%. People are gonna complain about top 5% if they want the other way, people are gonna complain about top 25%. That's human nature. That's the way our world works right now and I hate it.
40:15
But no matter what, I want you to ask yourself this does this have a negative impact on you? All right. The only people that this negatively impacts really is the gym owner, all right. And the coaches, because the coaches do take on some extra work voluntarily. Most of them don't get paid for it. So and this is more people, right. More people, more problems.
40:36
If you're not a gym owner and you're not a coach, or you're not someone that's really gonna be putting a lot of time into helping people out with quarterfinals, you don't need to have an opinion about that, you don't need to share an opinion, you don't need to be complaining about it because it doesn't have an impact on you, and I think that that's really, really important to understand.
40:58
But, coming from gym owner perspective, I sign up for this and if I can't handle, I'm humble enough to say I can't handle this anymore. I gotta hand this thing off to somebody else. And maybe that's the truth for some of you bitter old school CrossFit owners or former CrossFit owners that no longer own a box, that have a YouTube channel, right and think that you're still on the inside of all that what goes on at five am up to nine pm in a gym, right, that maybe you're just not cut out for this, maybe you're not good enough at running something like this and I guarantee there's someone out there that is so maybe you should give up your gym, your business, because you can't handle something that's too hard.
Sam Rhee
Host
41:39
I wanna say Andrew Hiller said a couple things in his video that I wanna refute because because I think they're wrong or they're not wrong, they're just his opinion, which is not necessarily true. The first thing is he said nobody wants to do three weeks, they want five weeks in the open. He's strong, strong disagree there. Yeah, I was like, hey, strong disagree. He was like it's so much. It's fine for affiliate owners. I love doing five weeks. I love doing five weeks. And I'm like dude, you're in the minority. I don't know where you're coming with that perspective. Our gym loves three weeks. Yeah, like, and he had nothing to say other than CrossFit thinks we should be doing three weeks, and that's wrong. Five weeks is fine.
David Syvertsen
Host
42:21
And I'm telling Hiller no, you're wrong dude, and we're coming from the gym that has the most people signed up in United States of America and one of the top five in the world. Yeah, the credibility's there.
Sam Rhee
Host
42:31
So that's his personal opinion. I strongly disagree and I don't think he has any proof to show otherwise. The second thing is and I mean, let's see, what would the reason be to do five? If you think more people are gonna sign up for the open, if it's five, weeks by all means. But if you really think more people are gonna sign up for the open if it's five versus three? If you don't think that, then leave it at three, for God's sakes. The other thing is is yes, it is true that it's gonna be hard on the affiliate owners for quarterfinals, but I think he thinks that CrossFit is ultimately just he looks at it from such a cynical perspective and it really bothers me because I think they're trying to do these four good things. The thing I like about semis, about being 200 now, and we talked about it briefly is that's basically what the old age group age online qualifier was the age group online qualifier.
43:33
So you went from the open. You did if you got in the age group like yeah, that was basically.
43:42
You had to be top 200 in the world to get to the next step and then they went to the games from there and then from there was either 10 or 20 from the AGOQ and to get into the AGOQ was such I mean Tracy McGee, maybe only a couple other people, I think Kathleen like very few, and I did it once and it was the biggest accomplishment I've ever had in my life Yep, yep, and remember that those days so well and that was such a challenge and I think for people to see, to get to semis that they expanded it to 200, it's going to give people some goals and aspirations. You have to be really effing good to make it at this point. It's much harder now than I think it was, but if you got it you might be able to do it Like I'm thinking, maybe if now I'm like, ooh, maybe if I age up, like the following year, do I got a shot at top 200?
David Syvertsen
Host
44:41
You know it's funny. I commented I'd almost never do this. I was like home on a Wednesday night and I was commenting with someone I don't know that was complaining about oh well, they're just letting anyone. And it was one of those lines when do they draw the line 30% and 40%? And I said I was like I guess it's time for you to try to make semi finals. So I said, because like that was his goal, make quarter finals and he probably already know, hey, I'm going to get there. It's very attainable. But now, in typical CrossFit fashion, we're going to push the threshold. So now you don't need to worry about the quarter finals anymore. You're in bro, go for semis. Because if we're not pushing thresholds here, you're kind of not really doing CrossFit anymore and don't you want? So you're saying, you're saying something I completely. I've written down right in front of me I want more people doing CrossFit, okay, I want more people seeing a reason to push themselves and I want more people to feel that feeling, that feeling that you have Huge accomplishment.
45:38
You barely squeaked in. You had those five days. You crushed the workouts too. You had a couple of really good workouts that weekend the ring muscle point, like I'll always remember that right, people screaming at you your daughter is here. You have 30 people here showing up on a Saturday morning Like that. Those are the moments when I look back on CrossFit by a send. There's so many moments, but when it comes to sport, open. This is why I say it's the best time of year for our gym, because it ties us all together.
46:02
Yes, are some people put on a pedestal and others are not? Yes, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about Sam on top of the rings. I'm talking about the fact that his daughter is here watching him go through this. All right, I'm watching that. His wife is here and our friends are here. We're all just showing up literally only to watch you work out. Right, I want more people to feel that and now that they're opening the door to 25%, they're going to feel it. There's going to be so many people making quarterfinals next year that did not have a shot at top 10% and they've never felt this feeling. And guess what? Your time is now here. This adds so much why to what you're doing throughout the year with training. Do I need to go to the gym tonight? Tomorrow's kind of a weird workout. We're just doing deadlifts, like I'm going to stay home, eat and watch TV. No, I have something to train for now.
46:51
And when you get that feeling of accomplishing all after something, all this hard work and sacrifice that you've made, it brings you to another level. Like, why are we not wanting that for more people? Like, why are we only talking about the people in the top 10% and the people that just missed it? Why are you not talking about the people that were 30th percentile last year, or 27th? Are they not good enough for your attention? Like, why are you not talking about that?
47:18
You should be ashamed of yourself, hillard, for not bringing that up. You know, are you really a crossfit? Are you into the cross-examined, or are you just like hey, you know, I used to be a really good athlete and only these people that are on my caliber should feel this feeling. Fuck that. Seriously. You should be ashamed of yourself for saying stuff like that, because there's a lot more to this than the top 10%, and that's why I think this is a good thing.
47:43
All right, do we have anything else left to say about this? No, I couldn't have said it better myself. All right, thank you guys, I can't wait for the open this year. So, after my personal opinion, it is going to be harder for me as a personally, but I think it's going to be better for the crossfit community and that's why I think it's a good thing and we should get behind it, we should support it and we should ask what else we can do to support it. And that's why this stuff will work is, if you have that mindset, what can you do to support this new change? Thank you, thank you, everybody, for taking the time out of your day to listen to the Herdfit podcast. Be on the lookout for next week's episode.
