S05E138 Embracing the Unexpected: The Psychological Power of 'Dark Week' in CrossFit Training
Ever wondered about the psychological edge you could gain by embracing the unexpected in your fitness routine? That's exactly what we unpack in our latest HerdFit Podcast episode, where coach "The Professor" Adam Ramsden, takes hosts David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic into dissecting the electrifying 'Dark Week' at CrossFit Bison. We reveal our experiences with workouts that are kept under wraps until the last moment, discussing the mental agility required to tackle the unforeseen. We might not be dressing for a sprint and ending up in a swimming pool - but that's the spirit of adaptability we're talking about.
We shed light on the protective benefits of varied routines and the embrace of the unknown for injury prevention. We champion the concept of trust—an essential ingredient in the coach-athlete dynamic—especially when personalized workouts come into play. Learn from fellow inspiring gym warriors who embody steadfastness in the face of adversity. We also discuss the delicate balance coaches maintain between keeping athletes on their toes with 'Dark Week' and providing enough stability to foster growth and consistency. Tune in to gain invaluable insights on how surprise elements in training can do more than just build muscle—they build character.
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S05E138 Embracing the Unexpected: The Psychological Power of 'Dark Week' in CrossFit Training
TRANSCRIPT
David Syvertsen
Host
00:05
Hey everybody, welcome to the HerdFit Podcast with Dr. Sam Rhee and myself, coach David Syvertsen. 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 Herdfit Podcast. I am Coach David Syvertsen, I'm here with my co-host, Dr and Coach Sam Rhee, and we have Coach Adam Ramsden back for week two of this time around the sun with him and today.
00:34
The word dark guys in relation to CrossFit could have a couple of different meanings. I think we've used them in different contexts, both right now and in the past. We're going to talk about the dark week here at CrossFit Bison. We did it for the first time and what it was is that we did not release any workouts ahead of time. It was you show to the gym and you should find out the workout at that very moment, at the whiteboard, three minutes before the talk, 15 minutes before the actual workout starts, and I want to get your feedback on that initially, both as athletes and coaches. What that was like because old school CrossFit are in me and even, in some regard, old school Bison in me is this is what it was right CrossFitcom, when they started releasing these workouts.
01:27
You would not see it until the night before, and that's what CrossFit Bison did for a very long time, very like years. I didn't post the workout until I got home or until I was ready. Sometimes it was eight o'clock, sometimes it was 1030 pm. So you essentially went to bed not knowing what the workout was. If you did workout at night, you could wake up and always see it, but for the morning, people they, a lot of them just didn't know until they woke up in the morning, and we made that transition for a lot of different reasons years later, and I kind of missed the old ways. So we experimented with, instead of sending out weekly programming, you just found out the workout either from someone else or when you show up to the gym. Ramzan, you like this kind of stuff, playing games mentally with people Once in a while.
Adam Ramsden
Guest
02:06
Yeah Well, playing games with people all the time, but Dark Week specifically, once in a while.
David Syvertsen
Host
02:12
Do you think this is something that is a give me a pro and con to as an athlete? Dark Week.
Adam Ramsden
Guest
02:21
Um, pro is uh. I'll tell a story from the Asbury Park Summer Games, where they had a workout that was a lifting workout and uh was something that we saw. We had a lot of teams compete. We saw a lot of people preparing for this. You know, we we had programming that was specifically designed for the lifting that they were going to be able to do, to make sure they got their maximum lifts. You get there the first day, first couple of heats go, lifting platforms break. So all of a sudden, asbury Park has to say listen, we got to switch this up. And now I saw the gamut of people saying, well, I, I, I can't do this workout anymore. Now I have to squat and I plan to do 60 wall balls later, and all these things and other people that were, like it happens, go, you know, um, let's come with a plan and let's see what we can do. Um, and so I think the more prepared you are for that, or the more times you've experienced not knowing what you're getting walking through the door of the gym, the better you'll be to handle a situation like that.
03:29
Cons, all right, I got yelled at this um, all throughout the week. So I, it's not an issue for us, but, um, fashion or what you're wearing to the gym, is a big thing for um women. You know the movements that are in the workout and that just didn't cross my mind until I got yelled at multiple times for it, um, every morning, when I would get woken up at 545 and my wife didn't know what to wear to the gym because she didn't know what the workout was. So it's definitely a con of, you know, preparation and especially those morning athletes who you know want to be prepared. In the next morning they got to get out of the door really quickly. Just, you know, get ready and go, uh, to the gym. So I guess I do see the con there.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
04:17
Yeah, I think that equipment toys, that that is one thing for sure. Uh, if you're wearing a chesty, because you know you, you cut up your clavicle all the time. What's a chesty? Uh, it's for women. They wear a lot. Some of them will wear a padded top.
04:34
Yeah, so you know, and maybe you want to bring your lifters or this or that you know for a particular workout. So knowing those things can be helpful. It can also be helpful to, when you know a workout, to sort of plan it a little bit. I think that planning for the week, I oftentimes will think about these workouts off and on during the week and I'm like okay, how am I going to break this one up and this one up? And we all know, especially we just talked about the open but if you can go in with a good plan, that makes such a difference so you're not going hot every time. You're like okay, like if you have, say, two days to think about a workout, I bet you most of the times you'll do better than if you were presented that workout three minutes prior to doing it. Okay, so if you want to optimize your performance, sometimes just thinking about a workout can be helpful.
05:29
The problem is is that you can obsess over these workouts, which can be very unproductive for many people. I want to give a shout out to Ella Kinney because last week she decided on her own to go dark again and not know what the workouts were because she felt like she thought about them all the time, and I see that with a lot of athletes they worry so much about a particular workout. Oh my God, there are 80 wall balls on Thursday. How the heck am I going to get? I hate wall balls, I don't want to do this and that can really just take up way too much energy and mental time that you don't need to do.
06:10
So if you suddenly have a week where you don't get to think, you don't think about it like Ella did. She's like, wow, this is freeing, like I don't have to worry. It doesn't really matter if I hate wall balls and I obsess over it. I'm still going to do the workout and I'm going to do the wall balls to the best of my ability. So what's the point of freaking out about it? I mean, there are some people like CJ who'd never look at the workout every day. I respect that and they have a very free, clear mindset. I am not that way. I really do think about these workouts. When we did dark week, I only knew the day that I coached. I did not know the others.
David Syvertsen
Host
06:49
Yeah, so even our coaches did not know the workouts unless because a lot of them planned days ahead of time for like, warmups and logistics and all this their whiteboard talk. So when we released the programming we sent them that their days workout. So if you coach multiple days, you got multiple workouts. You could probably get a feel for what's coming and whatnot. But just so people know that, that the only workouts people knew on the coaching staff were the days they were actually coaching.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
07:15
I will say the biggest con with knowing is the cherry picking, and it was right. It gets pretty rife sometimes Like people will just not show up for certain movements. And does that bother me? It bothers me a lot as a coach. Yes, I think you should show up.
David Syvertsen
Host
07:30
That being said, you programmed a crap load of burpees that we did, and my favorite line with Luke was like oh, no more burpees. That's two days already. I'm like ha, ha, ha ha.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
07:42
So I think if you program right, if you program three days of burpees, I don't know, the class participation might have gotten gone down. So I hate cherry picking. So for me, I will set my workout week, regardless of what the workouts are. I will show up for the days that I have planned. It doesn't matter what the workouts are, and I think that as long as athletes do that and they don't cherry pick unfortunately a bunch do then knowing what the workouts may not be the worst thing.
David Syvertsen
Host
08:16
I think what dark we can teach us to as athletes is. If your goal truly is to come here and become fitter that's a goal for a lot of people. I want to become fitter than I am right now. 1% better, all that. The quickest route to that, the path of least resistance, is improving your weaknesses. It's just not fun. It's not a satisfy the moment type feel.
08:44
I can come up with movements like Adam with strict muscle ups, sam with burpees, me with rowing. If I see workouts with rowing and I'm like, yes, I'm going to come in and attack this with fire, it's like, well, you're already good at it, so you're really not working that much harder than you already have. You put it up pistol crossover workout in and I don't know it, I'm going to come in, I'm going to see it, I'm going to have that short term like crap. You know like this is going to be a terrible workout for me, which, one of those injuries aside, is going to get you your fitness level to a higher level, because we often associate higher fitness with just sheer effort and it's just not the case. Right Skills, movement patterns, developing things that you're not good at to make you more balanced can actually probably improve your likelihood of injury.
09:33
A lot of times when I see people get hurt with a certain movement or a certain body part, it was because it got overworked. And a lot of times we overwork the things that are causing that pain, because that joint, that part of our body, really needs to work over and over. Because I'm always coming in on the overhead day, I'm always coming in on the squat day, I'm always coming in but I'm ignoring the other ones that are going to help me be more balanced. So I think, in terms of the pro of a dark week or not knowing the workouts, whether it's every other week, every other day, blah, blah, blah would be that you, your fitness level will get, will become higher, will get to a higher point, if you don't always know those workouts.
10:15
Or, again, don't cherry pick, which I think we all do a little bit, even days where, if I'm not cherry picking what days I go in, there are certain days I'm much more excited to come in and I have a much better mindset and I need to be better with that. I'm really excited to come on days and other days I'm like just hope I don't get hurt. Tell me this I had a good discussion with Ashley about this. In a regard to dark week, if you're struggling with an injury, does dark week help you or hurt you?
Adam Ramsden
Guest
10:43
I think dark week can. If you are somebody that works out, maybe at 6am, 415 are really pack classes and you do want to get good scales for the movements that you're not feeling you know like you can do. That can be difficult because you got 24 people in a class. You know. All of a sudden you have to say, oh Sam, can you come over and just give me a scale for this, this and that? And Sam's got a million things he's doing. He's worried about logistics and everybody and getting people in zones and stuff like that. So it can be tough, you know, and it can be if you don't know the workout going in. All of a sudden now you see these movements and you're like, oh, I can't do half of those. Uh oh, like my shoulders been bothering me, I don't want to bother Sam, like it's. It can be an extra form of stress that you don't really need as an athlete.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
11:33
It's dark week if you're injured. It can be difficult in terms of figuring out your scales. But if you have, let's say, a shoulder issue and then you're like, oh my God, this is all shoulder stuff, I'm not coming in today, then that's worse. So it's okay to have an injury and have to change all the movements. I've done that and it sucked. Okay, I ended up doing it and just coming in because I knew coming in and doing something that was really, really different, but trying to keep to stimulus, even if it seemed really different, was better than just staying at home and not working out. And that's the problem is, I see a lot of people who have injuries are like okay, this is this date kind of day and so I'm not going to come in because all the movements include my shoulder. So, figuring that out, don't use as an excuse not to come in, absolutely.
David Syvertsen
Host
12:28
I want to give a shout out to Deb T and Vivian, who Vivian's coming back, I think might be this week coming up. Actually, when does this for being released? She's already come back at this point and she sends me a text every week saying you better have that spot at 6 AM open for me. But those two have their own respective injuries and personal situations going on that they're really trying to get the bottom of and they're trying really hard and doing things and surgeries to try to fix whatever is going on. And they both say this I feel bad at once.
13:00
You guys always have to change the workouts for me, and two things. That's a coach's job. So if a coach ever doesn't want to do it for you, just let us know. That won't work here anymore. If you have a coach out there that acts like that, they're not really a coach, they're just more of a cheerleader type, and you need to know that ahead of time. But so let's take that thought out.
13:18
You never feel bad and B you coming to the gym and still trying to piece together a workout, even though it's definitely not nearly as fun as it could be. You're not always doing what you want to do. I got to get on the bike again. I got to do this again. Try as hard as you can to look at the benefit of what you get from.
13:39
Like Debti's doing a lot of core work right now instead of certain movements. It has nothing to do with a squat, clean right, but she's building up her course that when she is back, that is going to be that much stronger. She says, oh my God, I tried to squat there and I felt so slow. Or this movement pattern feels weak. I'm like, well, that's going to happen while you're trying to rehab and try to get to the bottom.
14:00
But let's look at the benefit of how much core work you're doing, how much hinge work you're doing, how much DHD, how much biking. That, if you can I tell this to coaches all the time and athletes if you're hurt, if you're banged up, that does not mean don't come in and just ended a period. There's always going to be something that you can do. It just might not be as fulfilling, but I think the second you take yourself out of the routine of coming to the gym, it's going to multiply and compound how much harder it is to get back into the routine and then you miss out on a lot of the community benefits of being here too.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
14:34
I think one of the things we're doing is trust. When a programmer and a gym gives you the programming ahead of time, they're trusting you. They are saying we trust you to be responsible about not cherry picking so much, about making sure you trust us with how your fitness is going. Because I know, for example, there are a fair number of athletes that are like I want to move, I want to sweat, so they'll come to all the 20-minute plus workouts with a bunch of different movements, but then it's front squat day and they won't show up because they're like I don't want to get bulky, I just want to burn some fat and I don't want big legs. And, honestly, they couldn't be further from the truth. And that's where I think you, as an athlete, have to understand they're trusting you with the programming to do the right thing and show up. You don't trust your programmer, you don't trust your gym. Then why are you there in the first place? Like do the right thing and if you really believe in CrossFit, if you believe this is going to help you, do that.
15:43
You don't necessarily know the best Like. I don't know my like. There's a lot about programming and getting fitter that I don't know. I trust my coaches. I trust the person who's programming at my gym to help me. I'm not an expert by any means about any of this stuff. I'm learning, I'm getting better. But if you tell me doing more wallmalls is gonna make me better, I'm gonna do them and you know what they do. And if lifting is too, so don't look at it like you know. And so Dark Week is sort of an experiment, like now. I do have to trust my programmer. I do have to know that whatever I'm doing is right. So you know, take that for what it is. You know, look at it as an experiment of I'm gonna just show up no matter what, but maybe I should be doing that all the time, regardless of whether I know the workouts or not.
Adam Ramsden
Guest
16:34
And if we take the injuries and cherry picking and put it aside, everybody likes to go on vacation, right? If you go on vacation and you're just not gonna work out for a week, two weeks, you know, are you gonna know exactly what's in the hotel gym. If you drop in somewhere, you're gonna ask them what the workouts are. When you email them. It's like you inviting me over for dinner and being like, well, what are we having first? You know Nothing. Good Right, but you know you're gonna show up and you're gonna have to deal with what you've got in front of you because you wanna get a workout in. You know, because we are trying to get fitter, and not working out at all for a week is not going to get you fitter. That's the bottom line.
David Syvertsen
Host
17:13
How often should we do this? Let's wrap this up with should this be an everyday? Always Once one week a month, one week a quarter, one watt a week? I threw a random Saturday into that mix a couple weeks ago. I just said, hey, here are the movements, you know. Is that what we should do? Because I know some people I do empathize with the equipment and clothing factor, because I am that way too with like shoes and stuff right Matching my outfits and Knee sleep running days. Do you see value in telling people when to expect this that hey, we're gonna do this once a month, once a quarter, or do you just randomly do it?
Adam Ramsden
Guest
17:55
I think the randomization is great. Yeah, you know, I think we told people the week before that they weren't gonna get the workouts for the following week and I think we would need to give them some notice, because you can't just say, here's the programming, oh, what's Wednesday? Oh, there's nothing there, or maybe you could do that. But yeah, I think, having it, you know you don't wanna do it every week, you don't wanna do it once a month, I think, like once a quarter, you know, maybe for a couple workouts, or sprinkle them in throughout the month or the two months, the two program ahead of time, like I think that would be the sweet spot.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
18:34
I think it's whatever you want as a gym, Like see what would be best to shake up your gym a little bit. You know, I think a lot of people you might get a lot of negative feedback if you did it every week we get negative feedback about everything.
David Syvertsen
Host
18:48
Yeah, that is not true, that is true.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
18:52
So I think you should do it whenever you feel like I would listen if I, as an athlete, I like knowing what the workouts are ahead of time. But if you are like, hey, once a month, for a whole week, we're going to do that, I would adjust, I would just get used to whatever it is that you threw out there. I think you should make it what works for your gym. Like you said, logistically that can be an issue. It's kind of a pain because then you're, as a gym, to sort of do that really often. But yeah, should you throw it in there? Absolutely.
David Syvertsen
Host
19:23
Yeah, I think we're going to.
Adam Ramsden
Guest
19:26
Yeah, when we're relating it back to the open before. I just wanted to mention that we have a lot of first responders. We have a lot of people that work during the weekends and so you're saying, oh, the workout gets Thursday afternoon. We have a lot of people that have to do that workout Thursday night and that's their only chance, it's true. So they have a couple hours. Maybe they don't even know, because they're working during the day. They can't see what the workout is. They come straight to the gym just because they got to get the workout in before they go away for the weekend. So I think being able to train your mind to say look at a workout and be able to say, okay, these are the ways I'm going to break this up or I'm going to try this, try that. I think there's value in that.
David Syvertsen
Host
20:04
Yeah, the whole idea of relinquishing control and knowing that you're not always in control of things. You don't get to control your workouts from time to time and this is not coming from. We're the ones that have the power and you will do what we tell you. There's none of that. But I do think there needs to be an understanding of where you have, what your place is here. You don't get to control.
20:28
I had a coach for multiple years. Same thing. I never got to control anything and I didn't know those workouts ever till three days before. It's always three days at a time. So it's kind of like I've been on that side and I get it and I get the positives and benefits behind sorry, the pros and cons behind it, but again, relating to the open being fit enough to tackle on any task that is thrown your way scale, their scale, their RX doesn't really matter but also the fact that I just lost my train of thought. It doesn't happen in a while.
21:02
The why behind it and how often we want to do this is probably going to be once a quarter right, and the reason is this is what I want to talk about it brought a lot of life to the gym during that week.
21:15
Like I really try as hard as I can as an owner and this gets harder over the years is to like have a pulse on what is the vibe in the gym. Sometimes you maybe will make some things up in your head and get too upset or too happy. Right, just take things from what they are. But there was a lot of discussion and laughing and like joking and like you saw a different side of people. That I really enjoyed that whole week. Like people come in and they're like look at the whiteboard real quick to see what it is and I really try and create exciting moments like that that take us away from like the mundane day to day. Already know my workout, already know my plan, already know my pacing. I just think there's values that are a little beneath the surface that help the community out. So I have settled on that. We're probably going to do this once a quarter.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
22:03
I will say this you did program good workouts that week. It wasn't punitive or horrible. I mean, okay, you did burpees three days that week, but like you didn't program 500 burpees for time or some horrible punitive type work, like you were super responsible with that and that made it fun Good.
David Syvertsen
Host
22:22
All right. Well, thank you guys. That is Dark Week For those that don't come to Bison. I think it's something you guys can consider. You talk to your coaches, owners about it. I think it brings a different level of fun to it and just kind of shakes things up without it being overboard, and for the athletes at Bison it's coming. Thank you guys. 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.
