S03E95 LOOKING FORWARD AND BACK AFTER CROSSFIT OPEN 2023

The 2023 CrossFit Open a special one with @crossfitbison hosting the 23.2 CrossFit Open Announcement. Now that the Open is done - what can we take away and where do we go from here? We discuss programming analyses of the Open Tests, the lessons learned and how the Open can guide our thinking regarding fitness and training starting today. We continue to talk about skill development and planning your fitness year to make the most of the 2023 Open experience.

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S03E95 LOOKING FORWARD AND BACK AFTER CROSSFIT OPEN 2023

[00:00:00] David Syvertsen: Welcome back to the Herd Fit Podcast. I am coach David Syvertsen. I'm here with my co-host, Dr. And coach Sam Rhee, and we are back for another episode. Today we are going to kind of recap the 2023 Open. Um, next week's episode is going to be more about how you. Can improve yourself or what you can personally take from the open, both mentally, physically, emotionally, all that.

Um, and kind of maybe just give you a little kind of kickstart to how you can start your training for the next 11 months, because that will be back again, that feeling of the open, it will be back. But today I wanna spend a little bit more time on just recapping what just happened because. as much as we anticipate the open, especially this year, uh, it goes by so fast.

You feel like you snap your fingers twice and it's just gone in the rear view mirror. Uh, the workouts feel long. You know you're doing perfect polls for 15 minutes and you're like, oh my God, when's this gonna end? But I always had this feeling once the open's over, it's a relief personally. Sometimes that, you know, it, we can get back to normal at the gym.

Um, there's a little bit less. Rollercoaster for emotions with our athletes, um, and just get back to doing what we do all year. But I'm also, I, I have kind of like a dopamine crash at the end of the open every year that like, you know, especially that first Friday back where we're like, man, I kind of miss having, you know, the heats, the judges, the standards, talking about that kind of stuff.

So it, it's a time that I just like, Me just reflect on what happened in this year's open workouts. The announcement, I think we have a little extra to talk about there. And then what we think CrossFit could do better with the open cause. I think they say it all the time. They're trying to improve the system.

And I have a few suggestions and I'm sure Sand Sam does too. So let's dive into it. Sam, opening thoughts on the recap of the 23 20 23 Open, both from. CrossFit perspective and a bison perspective.

[00:01:45] Sam Rhee: The first thing I wanna say is to thank everyone at bison who participated. Mm-hmm. like we had. How many people this

[00:01:52] David Syvertsen: year?

2 75. Yeah. 2 75. 2 77. Right.

[00:01:56] Sam Rhee: And you know, for us to get there, we not only need everyone who shows up like every day or every other day, but we need all the people that we've known over the years who support bison who are still incredibly high on their fitness level. Maybe not coming in every day, but it was such a pleasure to see so many people that hadn't, I hadn't seen in a while, show up, do the workouts, you know, enjoy.

The community mm-hmm. , because it's not just about fitnessing, it's about our community for sure. And, and so for everyone to come and support to, to suffer a little bit together, to, uh, work out. I mean, like you said, this year was a particularly special year for us. Yeah. But, um, . I was incredibly grateful

[00:02:38] David Syvertsen: to see as many people as we did.

Yeah. I mean we have, uh, that is why we had the announcement. We'll talk about it a bit later, but you know, you could say it's the great gym. You have the great athletes. It's really because we had a lot of people sign up, , and I have, I had, I have people telling me this every year that. They will say, I don't want to do the open.

I'm not really signing up for CrossFit or for myself. I'm signing up for you, Dave, are you the gym? You know, and that's something that we don't take lightly. We appreciate it very much. Very thankful to echo Sam on that. Um, the open is special because of the people. It's not the workouts, it's not even the environment, it's the people that are doing it.

Right. I always create these scenarios in my head that imagine half the gym did it, half the gym. , it wouldn't be a special time. If anything, it'd be more of a fight. It'd be more of a struggle. So we know that only happens because you guys put yourselves out there and it's scary. I, I, I agree that it could still be a little nerve wracking, especially when certain movements come up that you're not comfortable with or loads that you can't do.

And having a judge and having your score put out there for everyone to see, um, I give a lot of people credit for, for putting themselves. , so, mm-hmm. . Yeah, go ahead. Anything else? Cool. No. So the, the workouts, right, we broke down two of them. We didn't have a, uh, a 23.2 breakdown because of that was the day of the announcement and just, you know, there was no time back then.

But I do kind of want to recap the workouts, not individually piece by piece, but. What actually was tested in the open? Um, the open used to be five, sometimes six scores. It's now three, sometimes four. So there are a lot of things that do not get tested in the open. And as much as I like to call this a fitness test, um, it's not deep enough to be, to really bring the true, you know, cream, cream of the crops at the top, right?

Like the, we just got done talking about it a little. where if you advance to the next stage, there's always some luck involved, right? I mean, I could program three workouts right now that could be open workouts that I would not qualify for the top 10%. So there's luck that those were not programmed. And then so you could be on either side of that.

And I kind of want people to have some awareness. That if you were happy or not happy about your open result from a performance perspective, what was truly tested in this, open, what was not? And was that part of the reason why you kind of ended where you did? And, you know, we're gonna get into that. Um, but, uh, we're not going to like break down each workout.

Just keep that in mind. Okay. So let's talk about. A big pers big picture perspective. What were the things that were tested in this year's open, or what were some of the surprises of this year open that we have not seen in a couple of years?

[00:05:14] Sam Rhee: The first thing is, is, um, did you listen to BO'S podcast? I did.

Yeah. So, you know, he as architecting this, you can see he has general themes, right? And then he sort of hones down specifically. So if you listen to him, Wanted to do a repeat cuz there wasn't one last year. Mm-hmm. . And if you saw the way he kind of went about thinking about those repeats, the one he chose, 14.4, um, sort of filled a, um, a lot of his, it's, it's like interlocking puzzle.

Like you have one and then you have to fit everything else around. Right. Everything. Mm-hmm. . Um, and that was the one that actually is very popular if you look at programming over the years. , um, people have actually programmed that one. Yeah. The, uh, 60 cal row, 50 toast of our 40 wall balls. 30 cleans, 20 muscle ups.

Mm-hmm. , he wanted something heavy. Yep. And he didn't want the standard snatch or clean and jerk. So he did a one rit mix. Th thruster. Um, and he also wanted something new, so he threw shuttle runs in which he had already sort of tested the year before. Mm-hmm. at the, what

[00:06:16] David Syvertsen: was the quarter finals then? At the quarter finals.

Yeah. Quarter finals. Yep. That's right. That way.

[00:06:19] Sam Rhee: So, So when you think of, when you look at BO'S logic for all of these things, it's a, first of all, it's amazing. I, I overall, after listening to 'em and doing these workouts, um, in order to be able to provide, um, something that everyone can do, at least some of mm-hmm.

but then also. , uh, differentiate the elite athlete so that you can actually sort of see who can, um, perform at the highest level. Yep. It, it's an amazingly complicated endeavor and I think they pulled it off again this year really well. There are things we're gonna talk about, I'm sure that we can sort of nitpick about.

Mm-hmm. , um, And I would also say that I saw a lot of, um, athletes at our gym work on the foundations level, on the scaled level who did incredibly well. And I feel like honestly every year I'm getting, these are fitness tests for me, but if I wanted to really work on my fitness, I would do the scaled version of every workout And do and, and do increase your work capacity and in Yes.

And increase my fitness level. Yeah. And, and I saw that. With a lot

[00:07:23] David Syvertsen: of athletes. Yeah. The progression of these workouts has not just, you know, does not just pertain to the rx. These scaled versions of these workouts got harder. The foundations, even in my opinion, they've gotten harder and foundations has only been a thing for a few years now.

But I, I think that the needle and the threshold is continuing to be pushed on every. It kind of coincides with bison, right? We talked about how much harder bison programming is as opposed to six, seven years ago, or even three years ago. And I think that's kind of the point. And I love that CrossFit is the catalyst.

The CrossFit game season is the catalyst for it. Um, But one thing I noticed about this year's open was it was hard. The, the movements, the loads, the lifting, and for a couple of years dating back to when we were the pandemic, you know, really shut down a lot of gyms and people had to do at home. They wanted to make it.

Make it as accessible as possible. We thought we saw a two year theme that where it was like, all right, I don't want, I would never call the open workouts easy because it's all about, it's always about what you put into it intensity wise. But we didn't see, last year, for example, there was no Olympic lifting.

We haven't seen the rings in a few years. Um, we haven't seen these knockout workouts, meaning you have to get X amount of work done before you qualify for the next stage of the workout. And that's back when Dave Castro was programming them. And now that Boz took over and it seems like. From a PR perspective, more initiative to get more people involved in the open.

I was surprised, essentially every week, and I take pride in not being too surprised, even though you can't predict the workouts, you know, you should always, you know, training for the unknowable, meaning you don't know what the tests are gonna be. I was surprised to see ring muscle ups in week one. I was surprised to see a one rep max thruster in week two.

I was surprised to see strict handstand pushups and heavy snatch. Um, in week three and it would, you know, maybe if one of them was really complicated or high school, high load, I'd be like, okay, that's fine, but all three, you can make a case all three weeks. That's, that was a, a, a kind of a classic example of Boz.

Zigging when we're zing. Right? And that's kind of, in my opinion, I'm actually happy it happened because I don't want the open to ever get to a point where it's predictable. You, you lose out on so much value and, and what the open truly is, and then what CrossFit truly is. So, uh, I, I really love this year's programming from that macro perspective.

When you saw that opening. The ring muscle up one. You know, you can go back and listen to some of Sam's thoughts, uh, from the 23.1 recap that we did that night. But when you saw that and then you saw one rep max thrust and then you see strike handstand pushups and snatching, did you get that feel as well?

[00:10:06] Sam Rhee: Yeah, this, this was probably one of the most challenging opens overall, uh, from a skill perspective and also from. Make or break perspective. So if you look at the analysis of all three workouts, there was almost a very clear dividing line between. testing your fitness and then testing the competitive or the sport aspect.

Mm-hmm. for athletes. So for most athletes, if you did scaled for the first one, you did great. Like it was a very good fitness challenge. Mm-hmm. , it was the 60 cal row, the 50 toaster bar, 40 wall balls, and, and just getting through all that, if you could get through any of it as a scaled athlete is fantastic.

And then, then if you get through a bunch of cleans, that's great. Right? If you're an RX athlete, really dividing line is getting through those 30 cleans and then, Muscle up. Muscle up. Yeah. And you could see that was the clear break for that one. Yep. And, um, many people at the gym hit the 30 cleans and just couldn't get to the 180 1 rep count.

Yeah.

[00:11:04] David Syvertsen: A lot

of

[00:11:05] Sam Rhee: 180 s. Right. And, and you saw that. Nationwide too. It was like something like 20% of the 16 to 54 hit 180 plus, but 53% of the people who did it in the US um, got up to 180 and that was it. Wow. So huge gap. Yeah. And also a lot of scale. 27% of the people did scale their foundations, which is a huge amount.

So, so people were smart about their fitness. A lot of people fitness up to the ring, muscle ups. Mm. , but you know, if you're gonna compete on the higher level of this thing, like you need to, you need that. Right? And Boz is like, if you really wanna get there and call yourself like a competitive athlete mm-hmm.

you

[00:11:44] David Syvertsen: gotta get there. Right. And so now the, the, what's the cutoff for week two? I mean, week two is just more about a pure engine test. And Boz even said like, that originally was gonna be a 10 minute workout. They had to separate it more. I'll get into some of my feedback on that, about that workout, especially from a, just a gym owner perspective.

But, What was the cutoff on that one? Was it your engine or was it the strength? Or was did they kind of have their own individual cutoffs? What is your initial answer on it? And I'll say from while you think about that from a programming perspective, I think what it did and the open does this. To me a lot, and I hope all that program, this can be humble enough to, Hey, I'm not doing enough of this for my gym, is, I don't think we've done a heavy one at max thrust in our gym since 2014.

I, I remember doing it our first year and, you know, almost 10 years later we haven't tested that. And, you know, it's okay. You know, you, you can make your thrust or a lot stronger by front squatting, which we do push pressing like we do, right. That separation of just raw strength, but you needed two things, right?

You're, if you are a strong squatter, that doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna crush the thruster. If you're a strong push pressure presser, that does not necessarily mean you're gonna c crush the thruster. No, there are, and I bring this up because there are some respectable voices in the space that say a one rep max thruster should never be an open event or a one rep.

Max lift should never be an event in the CrossFit open. It should be, it could be a part of a workout or what they did in 0.3 with the escalating weights where a lot of people did hit a snatch PR or failed because they couldn't hit that snatch weight. What's the separating factor there? Did? notice that there should be, if you were stronger, it helped you out and couldn't, you know, get the engine work done or vice versa.

[00:13:28] Sam Rhee: There were both, we saw athletes on both side of this one. Right. Yeah. Who, uh, went heavy on the thruster cuz they're really strong mm-hmm. and really struggled on the shuttle runs for the first part. Mm-hmm. . And I think that was very intentional on Bo's part. Yeah. I, and, and you, you can't. You can't, it doesn't matter what your strength is.

[00:13:48] 2023_0312_0954: Right.

[00:13:48] David Syvertsen: You can't have a weakness. Right. And that's what this one, A significant weakness. Yeah. That this, that's what this one

[00:13:53] Sam Rhee: showed. And I saw some people who crushed, crushed the shuttle runs and their lift numbers. Yeah. Were just not up to par. Right. And that killed them in. if you're a competitive athlete Right.

In terms of your rank. Yeah. Um, vice versa. There were at least one or two athletes that I know who would've made quarter finals this year, if you want to go by that standard. Yeah. Who did not do well on the shuttle runs. Yeah. But absolutely destroyed the thrusters. Yeah. Um, I would say the, the one thing about this workout that actually stood out to me also was it's, it's a lot tougher for the women to do that first part rx Right.

Even jumping pull-ups, even though they're still. Um, easier than a regular pullup. Mm-hmm. , like just upper body, the men, it's just that upper body. So if you look at the breakdown, um, 37%, or sorry, 27% did the scaled version of the shuttle runs versus only, uh, of women versus 5% of Okay. Of men.

[00:14:46] David Syvertsen: Wow. So that's a huge gap.

[00:14:48] Sam Rhee: Huge. So, and. the breakdown in terms of where it was for people to get into the competitive side of things. Mm-hmm. was, AFT was after the fifth round, so you had to do, you had to get through 25 burpee, pullups, and 10 shuttle runs. Mm-hmm. , that was sort of the dividing line if you could get into the round of 30.

Yeah. Burpee, pullups. You were. In the upper echelon. Right. Of performance. Yep. And we had a lot of people that got there. We did. And actually, surprisingly, a lot of our women, I think outperformed the average in terms of the, the, the nation. Yep. In terms of their performances. I saw a lot of people in the 1 25 pluses.

Good point, good point. Um, the thruster, I, you're right. And that's interesting to me when I listen to you talk about it because you are programming for bison and this kind of helps you. Recalibrate and say, all right, what is it that I need to do for our gym to make sure that we're prepared? Mm-hmm. . And now you're thinking, all right, so now are we gonna be lifting more, do you think,

[00:15:46] David Syvertsen: in the future?

I think so. I wouldn't say we're gonna do more strength work, but I think we could maybe switch up the strength work a little bit and like instead of doing, you know, Three squat cycles throughout the year. Maybe we do two, but then we, we do a thruster cycle at some point, right? Where, you know, sets of five, sets of three sets of one, um, for those that make quarter finals and those that wanna make semis.

I don't think that's the last you saw of the heavy thruster, by the way. I think that's gonna come back in like a set of three or set of five at some point. But, um, you know, it, it definitely does. Kind of bring you back down to Earth. And, and this is, I'm gonna get into this later, but why I think CrossFit Gym should be doing the open, why you should be pushing it onto your members, why owners and coaches should be keeping themselves accountable.

Um, but that, that's, you know, I, I felt this way about snatches in the past. Should we be snatching more? Um, and that can go back and forth because of the mobility and stability and flexibility demands and how we are here. Fitness first, sports second. Even though we do a good job of blending the two, we are here for the fitness first, sports second.

And the more I think about that, the more I believe we snatched the right amount. It's a couple times throughout the year.

[00:16:53] Sam Rhee: The the other thing is, is if you look at our quarter finalist breakdown, it was like 14 women and six guys. 15 and five I think. Yeah. So if you look at. . I think this workout, especially the second part, well, the first part I just talked about, but the second one with the one rep Max thru thruster, the 50th percentile for women, uh, was 121 pounds.

Mm-hmm. for men, it was 180 5 to score into the 99th percentile. A woman needed to hit 180 5 and a. A man needed to hit 2 77. Mm-hmm. , I think our women did amazingly well on the thruster. Yeah. Like, I saw a lot of really, really, really good thruster waves. Yeah. And so I think, why do you think that

[00:17:30] David Syvertsen: is? I have an idea,

[00:17:31] Sam Rhee: but, uh, I, I, we just have incredibly

[00:17:34] David Syvertsen: strong women.

Yeah. Yeah. What do you think? I, I think generally speaking, women have so much more mobility and flexibility, and the thruster is very much about your position. You know, it's not just a squat and a press, it's being able to squat, even if you're squat cleaning, especially in a really good upright position with a good front rack, so that when you get to that triple extension at the top, the bar's in the most ideal spot for you to finish off the lift.

Where you see a lot of guys when they catch that heavy thrust or you see the, uh, the shoulder slouch. The elbows crashed down a little bit and now they start that press position from an inch or two lower. And you know when you're at near failure, that is often the difference is one or two inches. You would've gotten it right.

And I just remember watching a lot of women and a lot of men do that thruster, and that was. The biggest difference I saw is guys just literally were trying to muscle it up, where the women, I think were a little bit more cleaner. Well, they were a little bit cleaner with the technique, and that started with the mobility, and that starts with the positioning.

[00:18:37] Sam Rhee: I agree. Uh, there the technique has a lot to do with it. Um, the one thing I would say that I'm not loving was judging this was. Tough, especially that redip. Yeah. I mean, I, it's like, it's hard as a judge. It is. And then you go back and you look at the lifts and you're like, oh, their knees definitely bent.

The whole walking thing was a whole thing. Right. I mean,

[00:18:56] David Syvertsen: walking knees, your knees are gonna bend a little bit for sure. Right. So I took a step on mine, you know?

[00:19:00] Sam Rhee: Yeah. So I think, um, but these are sort of nitpicky details.

[00:19:04] David Syvertsen: Yeah. And well, and I do, I do wanna nitpick, um, I wanna save the nitpicking for nitpicking for the end.

Okay. But macro level, what this tested guys, if you got crushed or did well or didn't do well, almost always, when you have to lift heavy in the open, you are going to do it when you're tired. So don't ever ignore that concept. If you're training by yourself or if you're training at the gym, you know, um, in a class, you have to be strong when you're tired.

And I, I know guys and girls that probably could have hit another 15 to 20% of their lift if they were fresh. And I think the best athletes in CrossFit can. No matter if it's a one rep max three at max five max at the end of the workout, they could still touch 90 to 95% of the one rep max. That's a number I want you to kind of keep in your head with all of your lifts is after a hard workout and you, you're smoked.

If you can hit 90 to 95% of your one rep max, routinely, not every now and then, not just in the open, you're gonna be set up for the strength test in the open because I don't think we're ever gonna see in the open, hey, uh, five minutes to find a one at max. Like, I think it's always going to be after a workout, you know, like, like this one.

So that, that was, uh, the biggest takeaway that I think everyone needs to kind of just keep away from the, uh, keeping the front of their mind on that workout. Um, the final workout, 0.3, really, really high skill high. Heavy weight. I mean, you couldn't hide in that workout. At some point you got held up. Um, a lot of us it was the handstand, pushup wall.

Wall combina, just like that shoulder fatigue, and everyone's been there before. When your shoulders get to failure, you are basically screwed for the rest of the workout. You know, it, you really wanna avoid that red line stage and that takes a lot of training, but it also takes a lot of awareness and a lot of just mental.

Kind of recapping after workouts. Where did, what point did you get to Right? If I, if I told Sam to go do 50 shark, 10 sand pushups for time, you know, and he just goes into it blind and just says 10 in a row, 15 in a row, and then all of a sudden you get to 20 and you're just doing singles. You start failing reps like you are screwed.

And you have to really have a good idea how long in between your reps do you need before you try up again? Why do you make me a Guinea pig for these things? That's so awful. Sam, what are you doing later after the show, by the way? God, I'm just like cringing. Um, but the snatching too, I mean, everyone could snatch that first barbell RX scale foundations, right?

The second barbell. It changes. Right? And I don't think it's always a strength issue. Um, that's what I kind of like about this workout. There is so much technique to the lift and. I think 90% of CrossFitters, myself included, we do not snatch what we are capable of snatching according to our strength because we have something off with either our first pole, second pole, third pole mobility.

All right. That's gonna come up again in our next episode when I talk about how you can get better at CrossFit between now and next year's open. Um, but that, those are, that workout was so interesting to me and I loved watching it, even though it was only a six minute workout for many people. And I know that sucks.

Um, I'm gonna touch on that in a sec, but, Sam, what were your thoughts on that workout? From what tested the most? Or is that not really a fair question because it's different for everyone? Well, this

[00:22:10] Sam Rhee: was clearly the separator one, right? So you had to keep progressing in order to get to the end. And, uh, from an ego perspective, there are some people who really sort of hate that.

Mm-hmm. , um, from a fitness perspective. , I don't understand why people would ever complain about something like this. Right. Um, it was very technical. I know, uh, at least a couple people who got, uh, dinged from making quarter finals cuz they couldn't do double unders for God's sakes. Mm-hmm. , it's like at this point in your CrossFit career, if you don't know how to do double unders and you, and you have competitive aspirations, right?

It's like, yeah, that's a no-brainer. Right? Um, the snatches. So when talking to people, the issue is this, it, it is a very technically difficult lift. Mm-hmm. , there is the psychologic problem that a lot of people have when the weight gets heavy, going overhead with it. Mm-hmm. , they're like, I don't. . I'm physically or psychologically afraid of it crashing down on my head.

Right. And this is something that, which is fair, this is something where fitness and sports sort of, kind of like, I'm never gonna push anyone to snatch heavy. Yeah. Um, it gets muddy here. Yeah. And it, and that's why I know you don't always like program all these heavy snatches or overhead squats. . Um, but if you do have competitive aspirations, again, it, it, it's something that you have to work on.

Mm-hmm. , like, if you're not doing it, you are going to suffer mightily. Um, I haven't snatched a ton, but I have worked on my snatch to form quite a bit in the past. Mm-hmm. and, uh, It. You know, this was one where I probably, honestly, if I had scaled it would've been much better. I know a lot of the athletes scaled it, you know, because the RX for women 65, then 95, it's just so hard.

Yeah, so hard. Yeah. And then for men, the 95 to 1 35. Mm-hmm. also like who can rip out 12, you know, most of our people in our gym. That's really a challenge. Yeah. And for me, I, I, I'm like, I'm skating that, that ragged edge even now. Yeah. Like, I feel like next year I'm gonna be scaling a lot of these . Yeah. Or just waiting till I get to 55.

Because, because these are, are so challenging. Mm-hmm. and, and this was one where you just have to deal with your ego. Listen, if you can't do it, just scale it. Yeah. You deal, you know, work on your fitness. Right. Um, if you have competitive aspirations, You, you better, you better work on your snatch form.

[00:24:36] David Syvertsen: Right? And that's the weight. That 1 35 95 is something you have to be able to move in a workout and not just once every minute, right? Um, if you have competitive aspirations, if you're not there, then block that out. It, it's not no. Snatching 1 35 95 is not important. It's just not. Um, there's a lot of other things you can do to improve your fitness, but I will say this about the snatch because we don't snatch a lot.

I was all right, so, The people that made quarters, let's just use them for an example. I don't wanna keep bringing them up, but this was, they did wellness workout and that's what Sam means by, it's a separator and. The one takeaway I think everyone can take from that, whether you have those aspirations or not, is you.

You can't just be biased towards what you like to do. Gymnastics, jump rope, running, no weight, but you can't just be biased towards lifting. Everyone that did wellness workout, basically they got to that third section and were in the handstand pushups, strict handstand pushups or even finished them, right?

I, I look at all the names that got there because we, we were taking kind of bets or like making spreads. I'm like, all right, how many people are gonna get to this point? Right? It's just something fun we do, right? Yeah. For coaches. Um, and I looked at those names and I said, all those guys are pretty responsible with how they approach CrossFit.

That some of them really like to lift, don't love gymnastics, but they still do the gymnastics. Some of those people really love gymnastics, but they don't ignore the lifting days. And I think that's a takeaway. We should all take, again, take away the competitive aspirations. That's that's cross. And that's the open is try as hard as you can to be accountable to yourself, that when you do look at the programming a week ahead of time, you're not saying no to a certain day because you don't like those movements because that you will end up on the outside looking in, whether it's just your goals, a competitive aspiration again, um, that you, if you're really gonna fully buy into the CrossFit methodology and let this transform.

Mentally and physically, you have to find those days that you don't like to do and you have to make sure you get there as often as you can.

[00:26:32] Sam Rhee: Um, I like the fact they did strict hands in pushups instead of Kip. Yeah. Um, and Bo said it was rarely for safety and I'm a big, I didn't miss, I didn't catch that.

Oh, yeah. Okay. I like. Knowing that. Okay. Yeah. He said like, under fatigue, people trying to rip out 20 kip or whatever number Yeah. Would be really hard on their necks. Good for him. And so that was

[00:26:50] David Syvertsen: a safety issue. When I saw 20 strict after all that stuff, I was like, whoa. That's when I was like that. This workout's gonna be brutal.

I know, but Right. That's what we want.

[00:26:59] Sam Rhee: Yes. Yeah. Um, how many people in our gym actually. , um, got to the nine snatches at either 1

[00:27:05] David Syvertsen: 25 or 180 5 already to it, or got one, got at least one, I think seven. Yeah. So

[00:27:10] Sam Rhee: that's insane to me. Yeah. That we got seven that could snatch 1 25 or 180 5. Mm-hmm. Like that. To me, after all, that is like very, very, very impressive.

Yeah. After the 20 HandsOn push. I agree. And the double unders I Did anyone finish the nine? ,

[00:27:23] David Syvertsen: um, in rx? No. We had a bunch of people scale the workout and finish, which is equally impressive. Yes. If you, if you go do some reps per minute math on that. Yeah. Like Will Doherty, I think he absolutely murdered this workout.

Jodi came back a second time, she finished it. You know, those are really admirable efforts because I tell you what, again, scaled, I tell people this every year, if we all did scaled, we would be crushed after the workouts because it's just the rate of movement, the intensity that's put into it, and those guys will 1 35 snatch, 1 35 95 at the end of that workout.

That's hard. That's hard to do really hard. And you know, with all the volume they did prior too, and so that, that's, um, yeah, I think that nobody Rx finished the 180 5 snatch. Kathleen and Tracy, though they did finish the third barbell with the slightly lower loads with the 55 plus one. 55 plus, yeah. 55 plus.

So, all right, so there's two parts thing I, two parts left, um, of this kind of open recap that I wanna get into. One is critic. Uh, constructive criticism. I'm not gonna put my Hiller hat on and, and just criticize the hell out of everyone. But I do know that CrossFit does like feedback and I'm gonna give some from more of a coach owner perspective.

Um, and then I want to cap it off with more of a positive, um, kind of reinforcement why I believe in the open so much. Um, So things that we would critique about the open this year. My number one is the standout is if you are going to do a 20 minute workout, you are, and I'm not against the 20 minute workout in the open, I promise, but if you are going to do that, you have to put extra attention for the sake of the affiliates, which everyone says they care about.

you have to put extra attention on helping them out. With the setup and the setup of burpee pull-ups, uh uh, the run and burpee pull-ups was not hard. But when you also have to have barbells on the floor, weights everywhere, stripping bars in between heats, adding bars between heats, getting people to warm up again, it is, I'm going to tell you this, it is impossible to do in an hour.

It is not possible unless you have 11 coaches that are like setting things up. And even that, it still feels rushed. And I would love to just be a fly on the wall when discussions of workouts are occurring. , does anyone bring that up? Because there are still certain little situations. And again, I love the new leadership CrossFit, and I'm not brown-nosing.

All right. I'm I, in my head, I'm, I'm probably never gonna talk to them again. Right. I just think that's the way it's gonna be. Um, but I am excited about the leadership Don Fall, Austin Boz. I love, but I would love to hear a conversation. Do you bring the affiliates up in these conversations? Because it, not only is it a 20 minute workout, it's probably the hardest workout for a gym to get a lot of people going in one heat because of the space.

We're blessed with a really pretty big gym. And also the layout of our gym helped us out a lot for this workout. Think about old bison. How many, how many people? And we had classes of 25 back then. Yeah. How many people could do that workout at once? I did. I came up with a rough number. I just want you to think about it for 10 seconds.

I would guess maybe six. Yep. Six to eight. Yeah. So if I had 25 people, I, you can do three 20 minute heats in an hour. Yeah. So basically you just can't have classes on this. Yeah. And so my, my question is not the workout is, or even the length, could you make it something where you. The shuttle run is paired with something that doesn't need a lot of equipment, right?

Instead of a barbell with all these weights, like, could you do something else on a strength lift after? Could you put a dumbbell involved? Could you get a, a preloaded barbell? That never changes, right? Like instead of a one at Max thruster, like, why don't we just do you know? Two minutes max thrusters at 1 35 95.

You know, like that. That's like my biggest thing, that workout. And that was ironically the announcement that it took out some of the adjoin enjoyment of the open from me. Because once I heard the workout, I immediately was like, how are we gonna do this tomorrow morning? And you know, to be honest with you, our members are great with being flexible and they kind of get it during the open, but it was not a smooth, open day.

That

[00:31:29] Sam Rhee: was technically the toughest out of the three for sure, because. Some people got burnt on the height of the, of the pullup. Yep. Because they didn't find one that was exactly like, so they had to jump sometimes, maybe even like four to six inches

[00:31:42] David Syvertsen: higher. I'm gonna give you an example. Who? Ashley? Yeah.

And Amy. Oh, right. Used the same polar bar. Ooh. Think about that. Uh, and like Ash Ash's, bar Ash was one of the unlucky people because she's like six inches shorter than ash. Than tall. Yeah. And, but Ash, Ash just could not find a bar like the, the, it was either her hand was barely touching. Right. So that would be cheating.

And Ash would never do that. Right. And the other bars were a good eight to nine inches above her hands. My bar was an inch above my hand, so I had it easy. Right. You know, and I completely agree with you that what, what is your solution? Because again, I'm, I'm big on don't come up with problems unless you have solutions.

What I

[00:32:21] Sam Rhee: saw, other gyms have really big mats, so you could do your. You know, again, it's not awesome because it's soft. Mm-hmm. , so you're kind of jumping on a cushion to get up, but that's how they would elevate people onto the burpee, pull up, uh, to a better height for them. Mm-hmm. , uh, I, I did see a couple people actually unscrew and unscrew.

Yeah. The pull-up rates. I believe it. Um, And then the 25 foot thing, you know, in terms of logistics with the rig. Mm-hmm. so difficult for so many gems. Mm-hmm. .

[00:32:53] David Syvertsen: So, and you have like such a short amount of time to figure it out too. It just, it puts, so really my solution here is that workout could have been 10 minutes.

I understand Bos wanted to. Extend it to separate the crowd a little bit more. Yeah. But if I'm just gonna, I want, I would love there to be more thought that, all right, we're going to make this hard on gyms and know what dude, like I am not a complainer. Like you find a way to get it done. Like the year they put the dumbbells in, we didn't have 'em.

We taped five to 'em with duct tape. Right? Like find a solution. But if there's a way for CrossFit to help out affiliates and say, Hey, we're actually gonna make this really difficult for them by making it 20 minutes, let's not also pair the 20 minute test with something that is logistically a potential nightmare.

[00:33:32] Sam Rhee: The di The problem with this is that when I think when he said he tested it, there were too many of the elite athletes clustered. Mm-hmm. on a shorter. Time scale for the first part. Mm-hmm. . And so he had to stre, like, stretch out the time in or order to not make more separation. More separation and not make things like transition.

Yep. Uh, play a huge role in it. Mm-hmm. , I mean, if you don't wanna do a run, you could do a, like a weighted. Lunge or something. Right? Yeah.

[00:34:00] David Syvertsen: And that might fulfill it to, or even switch it halfway through, right. Like run for the first three rounds and lunge for, you know. Right. So as ascending,

[00:34:07] Sam Rhee: right. Yeah.

Difficulty on, on the, on the run part. But you know, I mean, I'm sure he's tested it every which way. Yeah. Um, did there. Some affiliates get totally

[00:34:15] David Syvertsen: screwed on this one. And athletes just with the polar bar

[00:34:18] Sam Rhee: and athletes. Yes. Um, so, you know, they're probably just sort of balancing their, um, right, their choices

[00:34:25] David Syvertsen: here.

My, my two solutions here, number one is the, the, there were, they don't want a lot of ties in the open. There were a lot of ties in this workout because, you know, the, I believe I have this right. Okay. If you are, if you tied someone. On the lift, let's say you and I both hit 2 0 5. The tiebreaker was whoever did better on part one.

That makes sense. Right? Oh, so they

[00:34:50] Sam Rhee: used your first part as a tiebreaker for the second, yeah. Oh,

[00:34:53] David Syvertsen: but they didn't do it the other way around. Oh. And that's what I'm a little confused about and I'm, I'm trying to do some of the math in my head if that would contradict the whole thing, but I would, I think it'd be a good idea also, instead of having, you know, 8,000 people with the same score, you're also tiebreaker.

Could be for part one, let's say we both got 130 reps in part one. Mm. , the tiebreaker should be whoever got the heavier thruster. Right? So now you have, you're just gonna have less ties, less ties. But I've always wanted to try this. I wish I had the balls to ask Boz, or even the time to ask Boz when he was here.

When you do these max lifts, I think the best thing to do is to combine your weight from part two. The reps from part one, sum them together, and that is your score. Oh. And so that would prevent, there are people that did, I think like 60 reps in part one. Mm-hmm. . It's basically they just walked. Mm. And then hit a 3 0 5 thruster, right?

That 3 0 5 thruster is going to look a lot worse if you only get 50 reps added to that score because of part one. So like I, I, I started doing some math with our bison leaderboard on. All right. What would everyone's scores be? And would it be comparable? It would be, There, there would be differences. Okay.

There would be. And, and

[00:36:00] Sam Rhee: what does it weight

[00:36:01] David Syvertsen: towards? More the lifting. So the lifting still does get the advantage. Okay. You know, it's like, it, it's not that we're, and I, you know, I think that's fine. You know, especially in the open, like it's usually conditioning base anyway. But I hate the idea of someone dogging part one so they can do well in part two.

I hate it. And then you could bring up the team scoring too, because the team scoring is the top five scores in the gym, or top four scores in the gym. So you could just tell your lifters, yo, don't even do part one. Just get ready for the lift.

[00:36:25] Sam Rhee: There was, was it Hiller who said that if you walked part one, you could actually still do 10%

[00:36:29] David Syvertsen: better?

Yeah. Do you believe that based on your, yeah. I mean, if your score's like in the one. Oh five to 1 25 range, you probably could've walked the whole time and probably gotten a little bit better. Hmm. And you don't want, you don't want to create tests that, where that's an option. So, you know that that's, that's one thing I just wish, and I think it would've been a lot more fun to watch these guys do it.

You know, not that it wasn't fun and exciting. Um, but if food's a little shorter or had more of like a, Hey, do this for time, I think it would have a little bit more juice to it. Mm-hmm. Or Oh man, like Roman beat Patrick in the, uh, in the part one. Let's see if Patrick can get another 20 reps on the, uh, pounds on the thruster.

Oh, right. To make up for it. Catch Roman. Yeah. Might be interesting. I just feel like that would be a, a, a cool approach. Mm-hmm. Um, . Yeah.

[00:37:11] Sam Rhee: Then they would have to go for broke, maybe if they were like five reps short or something, and then they'd be like, all right, I I

[00:37:16] David Syvertsen: have to go for it on the thruster.

Exactly. Interesting. Um, so that, that's, that, um, that kind of just wraps up some of the, some of the things I, I do think I would love, I still think I would love to have a fourth week in the open . Um, no, I don't, I, I, I, no, I don't get a lot of positive feedback when I say that. That's usually what Sam just did.

That's, but that, that, my opinion on it is, Four weeks, it's like kind of fits perfectly in like it's a month, you know, and it's, it's not three weeks and three weeks does go kind of fast. And I do think there should be another test in there. I just think there's another opportunity to kind of shuffle the leaderboard a little bit for the people that are trying to get the top 10%.

There's just too much luck involved, right? Like if your strength was hidden and your weaknesses was exposed in that open, you're kind of screwed, right? Um, but if you have another week to kind of make up kind of average out, I mean, Hell, if there were 10 workouts in the open, you would definitely see the top 10% progress on where right now it's always kind of muddy, especially when I got that turnaround point, like 89 percentile, 91st percentile.

A lot of it is, is based on luck. So, um, but they got no excuses for those that you know. You know, always have to work on your fitness and just be humbled about it. Um, what are any, any thoughts on the announcement? Alright, we don't have to, do you have any personal experiences from the 23.2 announcement that you wanted to share?

Um, any words on that? What do you

[00:38:35] Sam Rhee: think? Well, I was lucky enough to interact a fair amount with. Some of the people from CrossFit, uh, hq mm-hmm. . We did the podcast with Don Fall, which I thought was incredibly insightful. Awesome. In terms of him as a ceo. Um, and I got a fair amount of time to talk to Boz, uh, at the dinner before.

Mm-hmm. , um, as well as Becky Harsh, um, and, uh, one or two other, uh, of the personnel there. And I would say my takeaway really just from Intera and then Wilson, obviously. Mm-hmm. , uh, the setup guy, Superman. Yeah. Um, these guys are working for us, like they're working for the affiliates, right. Like I got that sense that, um, They are incredibly dedicated to making CrossFit better, which makes us better.

Um, I also realize that they've been, all of them have been doing this for a while except for Don Fall. Mm-hmm. and. . Um, they're good people. Yeah. Like I've met a lot of different corporate people in different, um, industries, and they're not always good. Mm-hmm. , I mean, they are dedicated, they're smart. There are a lot of people out there in business that are incredibly good at what they do.

Yep. But these guys truly believe that, um, what they're doing is helping us. Mm-hmm. , I never got a sense of. You know, what is the profit loss on this one? Right. , or what is like, is this gonna maximize our revenue here? Mm-hmm. . Now this was, let's do this right for all the affiliates so we can get our message out to help affiliates.

Mm-hmm. and to me. Um, and, and they had stories going way back. They, they drank this Kool-Aid way before we were drinking the Kool-Aid. Yep. You know, when I heard Boz talk about his first box that he ran in CrossFit, San Francisco, which was a, a shipping container right by the Golden Gate Bridge that he would open up every day.

Yeah. And they would wad outside in a parking lot. Like That's awesome. That's about as legit as you can get. Yeah. With any of this stuff. Mm-hmm. . And so it inspired me to understand, These guys are us. Um, they are helping us and I, it makes me wanna buy

[00:40:49] David Syvertsen: in even more. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I had that same vibe. I, I walked outta there, just spending time with them both at the gym, you know, the dinners and just, you know, the, the dozens and dozens of texts and emails that I had with Wilson.

Um, and we went out to dinner. He came, he flew in the Saturday night before the announcement. We went out to dinner the night before in Glen Rock, Glen Rock in, shout out, awesome restaurant. Um, but. listening to him and how dedicated they are to the craft and how they're trying to use the open to help the brand, which is something I've believed in for so long.

And to hear them speak that language, it reinforced that we're doing it right. Right. Um, and that's not a pat in the back. It just reinforces like, all right, there is a reason why we're doing this. There is a method to the madness and like Sam, , the, the compassion, just the, the genuine kindness that everyone that I walked into, that everyone walked into their gym, the amount of people that were saying, thank you for opening your gym to us.

Like I'm sitting there and being like, dude, thank you, . It's like you're the one, like filling the dream. But they, they were, they were thankful and they know that it. It did turn us upside down. It was very invasive, the entire process. Um, but watching them work their butts off, you know, till 1130 the Thursday night to make sure, I mean, Wilson was vacuuming our gym for an hour and a half that last night, and he did not need to do that.

And he did, he walked around the entire gym with this like little shitty vacuum that we have and did the entire floor, um, constantly reaching out after making sure everything was all right. And it just kind of tied the whole like community aspect to it. Like I don't think I've ever had that feel, that strong community feel.

Within CrossFit, um, in, in our near 10 years of business. And it wasn't just our gym, our members who, they were awesome as well for the entire process. Um, but it was the ecosystem. The, the shot collars of CrossFit were here and you just felt with them, you didn't feel beneath them. You didn't feel like you were like, had to tiptoe around.

Like the, the fact that Don came on after working out with us in our gym with Austen. That spoke volumes to me. It really did. I mean, the podcast itself was great, but the fact that he did it spoke volumes to me and just a general direction of this thing. Um, so let's tr let's use that transition to the last part of this, the open.

Should you k uh, continue to do it? Um, I, I've been, I, I, went down a rabbit hole a couple days ago listening to another Hitler video. , and again, I'll, I mean, if we ever get the opportunity to talk to a guy like him, or even Sivan, like 90% of what they put out there is, is awesome. I agree with it, especially with the standards, the judging, how it needs to be cleaned up.

But the, the idea that we should not be doing the open. Um, to each their own. I respect everyone's decision, but I would love to have a conversation with everyone and anyone that doesn't think they should do the open, if they do CrossFit. Um, we got the number that there's two to 3 million people that do CrossFit right now, and I think there's 350,000 people that signed up, or a 400,000 right around there.

Oh, is that right? It's gone up for the, you know, fourth year in a row. It continues to climb. So in my head I'm saying, so 10% of CrossFitters are doing the open right now. Maybe 15% of. Uh, I would love to have a conversation with someone who generally thinks they shouldn't be doing it, and I think we need to get away from the fact that it's just a fitness test.

Um, when I was on the, on camera during the announcement, I said, it's two things. It's, it's a test. Yeah. Um, and it's testing more than just your ability to do workouts. It's testing coaches and owners and the ecosystem in general, but it's also celebration that, you know, you made it another year. Like here you are, you're still fighting that fight in a world.

Most people don't work out. Most people are not healthy. And here you are still putting yourself out there like that should be celebrated. And tell me this, what one thing in CrossFit brings people together like this? The answer is nothing. There's nothing like it. Nothing brings a quarter of the people.

Even the people that watch the games like this is bigger than that. And I think someone like Hiller, someone like Savan who like, you know, they use every opportunity they can to criticize CrossFit and management and how, you know, wrong. Um, how wrongfully they were treated, right? We should all be thankful to the ecosystem of CrossFit, right?

Like you and I are not sitting here, we're not, probably not feeling the way we do about ourselves right now without CrossFit. We don't have the same friends. And this is like a loyalty thing to me, that if you're doing CrossFit and we believe that it can help. The brand out a little bit, you should be doing it.

And I don't think we really need to go deeper than that conversation. If you're not doing the open simply because you know you don't like strict handstand pushups, or you think the workouts are too hard or you don't like the new c e o, um, then stop benefiting from it. Stop taking from CrossFit. You know, put something back into it and try to get other people to do it as well.

Every gym owner out there, like it's foolish not to do the open. It just is. And I don't talk like this much on a podcast because it's your own business, it's your own thing. But if you own a box and you coach and you program and you test your athletes throughout the year, but you don't do the CrossFit open, it's a foolish.

And you are missing out on so much, and that goes so far beyond the workouts. Sam can agree with me on this. There's nothing like the open during the year. The gym is Yes. The highest strung. It is all year. Absolutely. Maybe people get a little too stressed out. But I still love this when I'm on here on a Sunday morning and I see 14 people changing others', people weights in a workout that they don't even know, and they're cheering them on high fives.

And there are things that blossom from the open that will never blossom unless you do the open. So that's just like my quick little like spiel on the open going much deeper than, you know, your, your scores and what you like to do and what you look like when you work out. It's, it's such a community building.

CrossFit, strengthen. Ecosystem solidifying event that you need to take part of?

[00:46:43] Sam Rhee: You know, I, I look at the people and I understand obviously the people who love the open. Mm-hmm. , they're usually people who do well in it. Mm-hmm. , um, who, uh, Are just extremely fit people. Mm-hmm. , they're also a, a huge subset of people that may, you know, I would wanna ask maybe if you didn't, like, if you didn't come away with good feelings on the open, why do you think you weren't happy with how you did in the open, or what your open experience was and, I could tell for myself like I squeaked into quarterfinals and it could have broke either way for me.

Okay. Like I could have missed one ring muscle up, right? I could have not hit my 12 snatches at 1 35. Like there were a couple things that I could have easily fallen on the other side of things, and if I hadn't, how would I have felt? Mm-hmm. and honestly, I probably would've felt pretty crappy. Yeah. And maybe I would've.

um, looking at myself and, and blaming others, I would've been like, Dave, you, you didn't program any thruster work for us beforehand. Right. You, you didn't have us work on snatches. Yep. You didn't. I would be, I, there's, it's easy, it would be easy for me to look around me mm-hmm. and say, Th this is

[00:47:59] David Syvertsen: why the open sucks.

Yeah, that's, that's the easiest answer always. Yeah. I am a fit

[00:48:03] Sam Rhee: individual and I am doing really well, and this is not an accurate test, and it makes me not feel good. Right. And I don't like this, and I should just stick to whatever it is that I'm doing and not feel badly about myself. Mm-hmm. . And that's, that's totally fine.

I understand that. Mm-hmm. like, and I could see myself on that side of things, right. But on the other hand, . I feel like that would be a very negative, um, and unhelpful approach for me as an individual. Right. Especially because I do believe in the CrossFit methodology. I do love our community. I think the biggest thing about the open announcement were Joel and Kathleen being highlighted.

Mm-hmm. just two of. , many people we could have highlighted in our gym every day who, who have overcome obstacles, barriers, you know, big and little things. I mean, even this past Saturday, you know, someone came back from what, like two months after having a baby and crushing it on a Saturday workout. Like those are the little things I see every day.

Mm-hmm. . And if I believe in that, then I can't sit there and complain about. how I'm doing in the open. Mm-hmm. , I should look at it and take it for what it's worth, which is an opportunity for me to meet with people. Mm-hmm. to see Mike McKinney and, and Kyle Rotor going, doing, you know, ring muscles. That was fun without like, it felt like 500 people.

Yeah. That was fun. You know, cheering them, I mean, all, you know, drunk as hell. Sierra Nevada. But that was great. Like, that was awesome. Like all of these things is what CrossFit is all about. It's, and it's also about me looking at myself saying, you know, what is it? It's not about others. It's about what I am doing to either help others, help myself.

Yeah. And, and to grow. Yeah. Like, you can use this to grow. And if I don't break into quarter finals next year, which is a very probably good chance, I won't mm-hmm. , I'm gonna have to look at myself and say, is this about. or is this about me like using this Yeah. As a better opportunity. And I feel like that, that's where I, I read a lot about people not doing the open mm-hmm.

and I feel like it's because of, of whatever negative feelings that they're having. Right. And, and I, I would challenge you not to have those negative feelings. Right. Channel it and make this useful. Because, because it. It is on so many levels. My, my daughter, my son. Yeah. Like, so awesome seeing them do it Susan, like they, like regardless of what level you are at, like they took something away from

[00:50:30] David Syvertsen: it.

Right. And the coolest part about that Sam, is like, you know, watching Sasha and Nick like a, a family of four take on the open. Like there is nothing competitive about it and like, this is coming from someone that competes. So it's like, am I allowed to talk like this? Like, you know, I love the open. Yes. Be for competitive reasons.

Not this year though, but. I think that's one of the coolest things. It's like, I can't wait till Barack does the open like Anthony Gerald did with Mike Gerald. He's been doing it for a few years now. Right. Joni Harrington with her daughters. Yeah. How awesome was that? Like this is what I'm saying, you know, coming from the guy that likes to compete, blah, blah, blah.

There are so many things that come out of the open that are just so far beyond and like, yes. The initial reaction, Sam, is if you don't make core finals, if you had a bad open. You immediately go to performance, and we've talked about this. I think it's one of the most fascinating things to talk about in CrossFit on this podcast is how do you blend fitness, happiness with performance?

Because I'm telling you, the more you chase performance, the the unhappier, you're again end up being because. You're never gonna be those guys. That's right. You're never gonna be Vellner and Roman, and that means there's always gonna be a lot of people better than you at this. Right. My best year of CrossFit, there's still hundreds of people that are better than me at it, but I do, I, I think it's because I'm so entrenched in all angles of bison and CrossFit that.

it's easy for me to separate the two, like I have my com competitive aspirations, but I also have the enjoyment of just being in this environment that I'm telling you guys like I think we've now proven this there. You're probably, there might be a handful of gyms in the entire world that have what we have when it comes to the open and like why can't we just appreciate that and have fun with it and contribute to it, right?

Like, let's say you don't make quarters next year, Sam, and like let's say you try to and just something comes up and you, you got hurt or just didn't do well in the workout. For that is a negative for every one of those negatives, there's, if you really want to find the positives in the gym, there's gonna be 20 things that you can walk around for every negative and say like, wow.

Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. And that will be, that's a, that will be a personal responsibility of yours. Absolutely. And I'm not saying it to you, I'm saying it to everyone. At least Team

[00:52:34] Sam Rhee: Black will win again next

[00:52:35] David Syvertsen: year, , and we'll be good. Those results are coming out today. Um, but anyway, so yeah, that, I think that's a good way to end it, guys, because.

You know, I feel strongly about the open, what it can do for you, what it could do for the gym, what it could do for your coaches, your everything, the whole ecosystem in general. Um, but, uh, the answer to it is let's try not to make it only about yourself. You can pursue individual goals all you want, but there is so much more to this than the actual what your scores were and where you ended up.

I wanna

[00:53:03] Sam Rhee: just, Give one last shout out to you, because this has been architected by you every year. This is what, 10th year into it? Yeah. This, this was our 10th open. Yeah. Yeah. And, and for it to come not, I mean, better things are even more to come, I'm sure. Yes, they're absolutely, but, but for it to have had this type of high point, yeah.

This was all. on so many levels. I mean, yes, it's community. There's so many, the coaches like other, you know, everyone else, the other owners, everyone else. But it really was driven it by you. Mm-hmm. on, on every level. I saw how hard you worked over the past three weeks. Mm-hmm. , especially with the open announcement.

Yeah. And I, I would just really like to thank you because. , there's so many little things that you do all the time. Mm-hmm. that really cause these things to pay off. Mm-hmm. things that, and that's just like training or life or anything else. They're, they're just lessons. Like, you know, I always, I always think of you as the hardest working person in the room.

Mm-hmm. , like I, I find very few people that would ever be able to sort of match that. Mm-hmm. and. and the fact that this is your endeavor, how successful you've become at it, like that is something that we've all benefited from and whether. You're part of bison, you're outside of bison, you're, you know, I, anyone would have to look at you and, and say thank you for, for what you've done.

It, it, it really means a lot to me for everyone else. Yeah. I mean, um,

[00:54:30] David Syvertsen: you know, it's, it's been amazing. Cool. I appreciate that. And fine. You'll get a raise now, . No, but thank you for those con words. That means a lot. And it does. It really does culminate a lot of things over the years that, you know, it, it's like exactly like training the parallels, like all the little things that you don't know you need to do.

They're not a big deal, quote, big deal. But it, it all adds up. And that was definitely the climax of bison, the climax of my personal CrossFit journey. Um, but uh, we're not done yet. We're not done yet. All right. See you next year.