S05E146 Using the CrossFit Open to Elevate Your Performance
Ever wondered how the CrossFit Open can serve as your ultimate fitness barometer? Coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic do a thorough debrief of this year's global competition. From dissecting the inclusivity of the workouts to debating their fairness, we've left no stone unturned. We're not just talking about how to interpret your results but also about using them to tailor your training plans for the year ahead.
We share stories of individual athletes who exemplify the transformative power of dedication and focused training. We'll explore the importance of quality movement, pacing, while maintaining and increasing your current strength levels. It's all about continuous improvement, and we're here to guide you through making the most of your Open experience.
If you think you've hit a plateau, think again. We'll discuss the camaraderie and motivation that will help you break through to the next level. Lace up your shoes and tune in for a dose of motivation and actionable advice to help you crush your CrossFit ambitions.
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S05E146 Using the CrossFit Open to Elevate Your Performance
TRANSCRIPT
David Syvertsen
Host
00:05
Hey everybody, welcome to the Herd Fit Podcast with Dr Sam Rhee and myself, coach David Syvertsen. This podcast is aimed at helping anyone and everyone looking to enhance their healthy lifestyle through fitness, nutrition and, most importantly, mindset. All right, welcome back to the Herd Fit Podcast. I'm Coach David Syvertsen. I'm here with my co-host, dr and Coach Sam Rhee, and we are going to break down the 2024 CrossFit Open just kind of like a macro-micro, kind of like look at it from a bird's eye perspective and then maybe dive into some of the details workouts, but also, just as important, one of my favorite things to do throughout the year is just kind of take those results from the open and kind of help guide and teach others what to take from these workouts right, and what you can apply to your next year training.
00:53
You don't have to take the CrossFit Open seriously to get the most out of CrossFit. I do think we all need accountability, whether it's friends, coaches or yourself, and you can come up with a lot of different goals. But I think the CrossFit Open if you're really kind of drinking this Kool-Aid and this is like your workout program it's a yearly test that you can prepare for, even though it's unknown, right? We don't know the workouts that are coming out next year, but there's things that you could take from this Open and apply it to your training, your mindset, that can help you out in next year's open so that you can kind of defeat where you were ranked percentile wise this year. So Sam 2024, open like it, love it the same. You've done so many of them now. Did this stand out in any way?
Sam Rhee
Co-host
01:40
It stood out in terms of its accessibility, like how accessible it was. I could have had friends who don't do CrossFit but are really fit. People come in and probably smoke me actually in some of these workouts. So I think there was a lot of hate for some of these and I would say this on both ways for some of these, and I would say this on both ways If you are a hater and you're like, these workouts suck, they were not really good tests for me as a CrossFit athlete. One maybe you're not as good of an athlete as you think you are, or as well balanced or as fit as you are Not necessarily CrossFit fit, but fit. And then number two you are right, this was something that anyone who is relatively fit could come in and, for the most part, do pretty well. And you're right, it's not an accurate judge of of ability. As a CrossFit athlete, I think that there's a hole. There's a hole in your game if you didn't feel like you were good at it.
David Syvertsen
Host
02:56
Right, yeah. And now that the Open's three weeks, it used to be five, right, and we've had six workouts before, meaning there was a few workouts where you had a workout then a lift after, so there's two scores I'll say this about how do you feel about your performance? How do you feel about yourself? There's some luck involved across the board, right? If you basically took the deadlifts out of 24.2 and you made it a front squat, the results of that workout are different. Took the deadlifts out of 24.2 and you made it a front squat, the results of that workout are different Yep. If you took the burpees out of 24.1 over the dumbbell and you made it crossovers totally different result. Or wall walks totally different result. Yep. If you made it ring muscle-ups in 24.3, totally different results, yep.
03:41
And you have to kind of get away from the victim mentality of, hey, my strengths never showed up, or my weakness has popped up and my strengths didn't. Um, that that's the wrong way to approach how you feel about the open and you really do have to wait, wait, wait. The you know boz said boz is the one that programmed these workouts. The quarterfinals are an extension of the Open. So if you are into this like everyone's got opinions about programming now, even people that just don't know shit about it. It's just like, do you guys like the workout? And then they have to go on their platform and talk about if it's a good workout or not. You can't talk about the programming yet. You have to wait until all the workouts are out and then you could evaluate programming and if you have a fair gripe then you do.
04:26
Um example right, I had someone say there's no olympic lifting. Uh, there was no olympic lifting. Like I work on my oldie all the year, like, and I didn't get to just splite in the open. Well, I'm like, yeah, that only olympic lifting is about 15 percent of cross-up programming. You know it's your favorite, but it's not a big deal, it's just not. But I understand it's got to show up at some point. What if in quarterfinals there's snatches and clean and jerks at some point, which there very well could be, probably? So now your your whole like the bitching about the olympic list, just like it just made you look bad. It wasn't even like a good opinion, it just made you look bad, just made you look bitter. So if you do want look bitter, so if you do want to evaluate the programming, you really do have to wait until after quarterfinals. But in terms of you and reflecting on yourself, right, if you put some self-worth into what you rank, how you score, what you do in the open and you're not happy with these results, right, you look at it like, oh man, like I'm usually with these people and their quarterfinals, and I'm not or I usually, beat that person. They'd be. You know there's some luck involved, so don't get too down on yourself. But once we're, once we're done, you know, patting your back and rubbing you and make sure you feel right, let's figure out what, what, what are what's selling you short? And here's my. This is the fifth year in a row I'm saying this.
05:47
I broke down every single workout from the CrossFit Open since inception, and this always gets people kind of raise their eyebrows. The majority of the movements in the CrossFit Open have no exterior loads, meaning you're just moving your body weight. That is one thing I think every CrossFitter out there overlooks. How good are you at moving your body? No loads, no barbells, no dumbbells, just you and your body. Right? And I'm not just talking to the big weightlifters, right, I'm talking to the people that are doing Cindy and Murph. We have a lot of Murph prep coming up.
06:21
Do you take those days serious? Do you take your air squat serious? Do you take your push days serious? Do you take your air squat serious? Do you take your push-up serious? Do you take your strict pull-up serious? Do you take your ring row serious, do you or do you not? Because if you don't get better at that stuff, you're probably your gains in the open will be significantly less than you think. I like lifting. I get probably more excited now on bur, burpee, toes of our days and running than dumbbell snatch and deadlifts and clean and jerks, because I know those movements, in terms of performance, are going to help me out so much more than others think. And when I put thought, effort and intensity into those movements I know it's going to help me better than my competition. Because it's not cool. What do you think about that? It's not cool.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
07:04
What do you think about that? You're right. The fitness about body weight movement is different than moving a barbell or anything else, and the people who are most fit at our gym can do both. But if you can't do box jumps well, if you can't do toes to bar well, if you can't run well, then these are huge deficiencies that you are overlooking, that you have to work on. Forget about being able to snatch X amount or, like you said, clean and jerk X amount. If you can't do those things, then you have ginormous holes in your game.
07:40
That, as a CrossFit athlete or as a functional fitness person, I mean how many, yes, do you have to lift luggage? Sometimes, yes, do you have to do this? But most of the time, everyday stuff is about you moving your body in some way. I just saw who was it who works at Abma's Farm Anna Anna.
08:01
Yeah, she was just talking about how she had to run away from a frigging animal by jumping over a pole and like doing kind of a pull up bar, muscle up thing to get away from something that was about to impale her, and I was like that is what she said is like this is farm functional fitness. Yeah, like you got to do these things in order to demonstrate that you are a fit person. If you, if you know there's not going to be a barbell out there somewhere where you have to put, you know, bench, press it like for you know, to save your life, but you probably will have to, like, climb something or move you know, move yourself somewhere. So let's get realistic about this. This is functional fitness and that's what functional fitness is all about.
David Syvertsen
Host
08:39
Yeah, I mean we really good body weight movement. It translates to lifting. You know, like, if, like a kick I'm on right now with a lot of the athletes that I work with is improve your posture during workouts. And I'm not just saying like because it looks good, like there's like activation that I think a lot of people miss out on in their lats, their traps, their core, by doing things in a really good position, tired, rowing right. How many people go to like that slouch, dog position, air squats. When you get tired, what happens? You start flexing the back. What do you think happens to your thrusters when you start doing that right? There's so many movements that you can get better at that. Don't include an exterior load. You're going to feel safer doing them too. That will help you with those movements once you get to them. So that's just something that I look at it from this Open last year's Open, the year before that, the year before that that those that move their body weight very well, year after year, they continue to see improvement in the Open Gym logistics. Some feedback for CrossFit HQ.
09:41
As a gym owner, I love this Open selfishly because it was really easy to set up and I think that makes a big difference. You know, we open the CrossFit Open up with our anniversary party and the open kickoff party and we're always stressed out about the equipment. Like last year, we needed a barbell, a pull-up bar, a wall, ball space, rings, rowers, right, it was just like really hard to plan. This year it was just burping the ground, then next week it was barbell, the rower, jump rope Don't need a lot of space. Then it was just barbell and a rig, really accessible, but also a really well-balanced group of tests. So you don't have to get too cute in the open and just understand. If you want gyms to push this for their members, you got to make sure that it's not too hard for them to run.
10:25
The one thing I will say is we got to get rid of these 20-minute AMRAPs Because if you're going to tell gyms to have judges all right, to add credibility to someone's score and the typical class is an hour and there is a whiteboard talk and you know these whiteboard talks are in the open a little bit longer you got to go over standards and divisions and questions and all this stuff. You've got to give people time to warm up. You've got to give transition time between heats. It's just too hard for the affiliate. And I'll tell you what about that 24.2 workout and most AMRAPs?
10:59
I feel this way whoever is winning at 15 minutes is probably winning at 20 minutes. We don't need the extra five minutes, right? I know not everyone will agree with that, but I think there should never be open workout that's longer than 15 minutes. Um, maybe once every two or three years to keep us guessing. That's one thing I'm a little worried about with the future of the open is that accessibility. Make sure everyone can do it Like no, every now and then throw a workout in there that's like, okay, this is a huge separator, you know? I know they did that with the muscle-ups this year, a little bit the heavy thrusters, but I don't want to go into the Open every year and be like, yeah, there's never gonna be rings again, or there's never gonna be handstand walks again, or there's never gonna be heavy snatches again again like I want to make sure that they know we still want that.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
11:48
They really made it. They made an effort this year, obviously, to make it more gym accessible and and they they did that. Do you feel like physiologically like, for example, I don't know if we've ever seen a 25 minute amrap in uh in the open, no, but we have seen workouts without a cap. Oh, like no time cap, yeah, I see uh. So I would assume that, from a scientific standpoint, 25 minutes and 20 minutes, like you said, probably not a big difference in terms of separating results. Right, you feel like 20 and 15 there's not enough physiologic difference to see, say, someone who can like save some juice for the last five minutes there and kind of come on strong, versus someone who just kind of empties the tank up to 15? I don't Okay, because I kind of feel like that last five minutes does make a little bit of a difference.
David Syvertsen
Host
12:35
Maybe, maybe it does. I'd like to experiment with that. I wish there was a way we could figure out. I mean, we'd have to really document this with a video. But if we took 24.2 and did like let's check in where everyone is at the 15-minute mark, would the standings be the same at 20? And I do think they would be Okay.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
12:55
If that's the case, then I would agree with you. Yeah, so that's just one thing.
David Syvertsen
Host
12:58
And then you know, I know, like I've talked to affiliate owners it's just too hard for them. Or I've talked to the Radcliffe's at their gym in Texas. They have to do a lot of the work themselves, they have to tape the floor. It's just too much for some affiliate owners and coaches. Maybe that's a discussion for another time, but I do understand they're trying to make this as affiliate-friendly. To me, that needs to be. A class needs to be run at a really high level. 20 minute workouts it's not going to happen. Um, but you know that that's. That's really far down the list of important parts of of criticizing.
13:32
I thought the programming macro level was great, um, because the gripe I have with a daniel brandon type, which was, you know, week one we had dumbbell, snatch, burpee, and then the next week we had row, deadlift, jump, rope, and the easy thing to say is oh my God, we're hinging and jumping two weeks in a row. This is so stupid, right? They're completely different workouts. Yes, does the? Does the hinger have a slight advantage over the squatter? Um, after two weeks of the open? Yep, absolutely, and it's been the other way around several times. Um, trust me because I am a hinger and I'm not a squatter and I have felt in a few days, man, we're squatting again. Hey, we're doing single leg again. Oh, we're doing pistols again.
14:15
Like that kind of stuff. Like you have to take it in stride. That is what the sport is. You don't get to plan this stuff out. Um, would I have programmed it differently? 24.2?, yep, but that still doesn't mean that we should be criticizing it, because why? We don't know the quarterfinal workouts. And at the end of the open, here's a question for you, sam. Did you have any of that repetitive like? Yeah, we're doing repetitive movements again two weeks in a row? Did you have any thought like that? Some people did.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
14:40
I, some people did. I did until I did the workout, okay, and then I was like, no, they're not the same workout, completely different.
David Syvertsen
Host
14:46
Let me ask you a question If 24.3 was put in as 24.2, meaning the thrusters and the rig work, and then 24.3 was the road deadlift jump rope, do you think that would have calmed down some of this? Oh, this is too repetitive.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
15:03
I thought it was an ascending skill set of workouts, right. So it made more sense to me to see 24.2 as is and 24.3 as is, right, yeah, and that's because my scores reflected that there was no skill for the first one, yeah, and I did very well in my age group, yeah. And then the second one had a little bit of skill with the double unders and so my performance dropped. And then the last one had even more skill with the rig and the bar, muscle up stuff and my performance dropped even more. And then I also saw at the gym the athletes who had high skill level abilities. They kept going up in terms of how they did. So I thought it was very intentional the way they did it in terms of making it the way they did. Also, the ascending level of difficulty in the third one I thought was the way to do it, like you want to apex it at the very end and give the most challenging workout, because I think the most challenging one was the last one.
David Syvertsen
Host
16:07
Yeah, I agree, like to the point where people just couldn't do it anymore, right, right Like everyone got kind of stuck at some point.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
16:12
Either it was the heavy thrusters, or it was the bar muscle-ups. If you were RXing it, yep, yeah so.
David Syvertsen
Host
16:17
Yeah, I mean, I like how they keep it inclusive early and make it a little bit tougher as they go. But again, I just want to make sure we never get too predictable. Like I thought last year's first workout was pretty accessible, right, because it turned into how fast can I get to the rings, right, it was 60 cow row, 50 toes a bar, 40 wall blow, 30 cleans, 20 ring muscle ups, and for most it was how fast can I get to the ring muscle ups for that tiebreaker time. But, like, the movements leading up to were very accessible. So I love stuff like that and I do.
16:45
I don't want to break down Boz and Cashier too much. I trust those guys and, like I, just I do get bothered when a games athlete who has zero programming experience whatsoever games athlete who has zero programming experience whatsoever has no idea what she is talking about just using her platform to literally literally say, um, I wouldn't sign up for the open next year. This is where, if, if I was just doing this for fun, I'm like well, okay, you're a nobody without people that sign up for the open. Like games athletes, they don't exist without the open. That's right. So to use a platform to criticize programming, um, when you don't exist without the open, that's right. So to use a platform to criticize programming when you don't have all the information and b it's just not your expertise. I would just kind of keep the mouth shut on that and just kind of play like you know you're you signed up for a sport that this is what they do. They send you workouts. You got to do them, whether you like it or not, and I think there's a mental component there that um is really important that some are missing about what the Open is.
17:37
What should you do result-wise to assess yourself moving forward? Any level, foundation scaled RX. Been doing this for 13 years, been doing this for one year. You can always break this stuff down with a coach, but I'm looking at Sam's score right now on my CrossFit Games app so you could do this on your own app, right, you could search for your name and it will give you a pretty clear cut what your rank was in every single workout, and there's nothing more objective than here are your strengths, here are your weaknesses.
18:19
So in 24.1, um in Sam's 50 to 54 age group, he was 173rd in the world with his time when we got to the deadlift jump rope sorry, row deadlift jump rope he was 614th. When we got to the thrusters and muscle-ups and pull-ups, he was 728th. So, like he said, deeper into the open, his scores start to worsen. I mean, the guy still finished 96th percentile in the world, for he's been top 5% since 2020 every single year. That's pretty cool, because this is last year in the 50 to 54 group, thank God, and you're still top 5%, which is cool. But these are numbers that if I was Sam and I wanted to assess myself, right, some of you guys don't want to, that's fine. Right, it's pretty clear cut.
18:58
We already knew Sam is one of the best burpee athletes in the gym and obviously in the world. That's why he did really well on that first one. And Sam's got a decent engine right, he can sustain pace. That's why he did okay in part two, but because he went down um about 400 plus spots in the standings in that second workout in relation to what he did in the first workout. So that, right, there can be like a little bit of like, uh, like an alarm in your head. Why did I struggle? It's not his engine, not his jump rope. He's pretty good. It was my jump rope act. Oh is it? Yeah, I was gonna.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
19:33
I was gonna say the, the rowing it uh, rowing wasn't bad because you didn't have to sustain a high pace. It was actually the skill of jump rope, and some days it's good, some days it's bad. I sustained it for a certain amount of time and then anyone who watched me could tell I just kind of lost it at a certain point. So if I could bulletproof because some people have bulletproof double under yeah, I know I'm so jealous, I know right. And so if I could bulletproof them a little bit more and that is practicing with a little bit of longer rope, a little bit of shorter rope, like different pacing, try to go as fast as I can, try to go as slow as I can, like all the little things I know would make me more bulletproof. I don't do Right, and so that was one takeaway from that workout.
David Syvertsen
Host
20:18
That's awesome and that's something that Sam can look at it and he already knows he's had much more significant struggles on the jump rope than this, so he has made gains on them. But if he was like, all right, I really want to get better for next year. I'm going to an age group. I want to be bulletproof. There's the sign right there that that's where his weakness lies. Right, and your biggest gains in fitness will be you attacking your weaknesses.
20:40
Karen McKinney last year, for example, in the muscle-up workout she didn't get any right and she didn't get her first muscle-up until May. Right, she was seeing red after the Open last year. She worked her ass off all year and muscle-ups were a big goal. Did a lot of strict pull-ups, lat work, ghd sit-ups, right, so much accessory work. This is what I'm talking about, right?
21:06
You see a result. That's in this app, right, and now it is objective. It doesn't care about your feelings. It's like, hey, you got your butt kicked in this workout. Why, let's go figure it out, work on it. You have 11 months, right, you can make enormous gains. And then she comes back in year two, gets her first muscle up in May and crushed the muscle up workout this year. And that, to me, is because we look back on this result right here. This is what we did, right, like don't just look at Karen McGinnis results, like don't, don't get wrapped up into, get wrapped up into her process and process. Step one was looking at where she was weak and then you have to make that plan from there.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
21:36
And it took a year, a year, and she didn't stop. I remember early last year where she was working on them and this is a multi, multi, multi week, month type process. You're a semifinals goal plus athlete. So what did you take away in terms of your performances this year, athlete?
David Syvertsen
Host
21:56
So what did you take away in terms of your performances this year? I want to get my numbers up, so yeah, and also I would even say, don't even bring up caliber. I don't want to get into that. I would say this right, I'm really experienced. I'm looking at my open like 2012,.
22:10
Every year I've been doing this right, and I can still look at my results and have the same approach. So I was 81st in the first workout, which I knew that was going to be a good workout for me. I'm really good at dumbbell snatches and I can move on burpees, right. Yep, so that was like and low skill, low weight, my specialty. All right, the next week, what's my biggest? What is one of my other than pistol stand? What is probably like my biggest dent in my armor? Yeah, jump my double unders, right. Just same thing. I get tired. I can do them, but I just get so tired they take a lot out of me. Yeah, 907th, like that's a significant drop, right, don't just get wrapped up into the number, get wrapped up into the margin between your best and your worst. All right, Me like.
22:50
One of my biggest issues as, as an athlete, we have a few people in the gym as well is that the gap between my strengths and weaknesses is too big. It's just too big so that when my bad comes up, I just can't keep up and then I come back down, kind of like for the last one it was 213th place, so I think that should have been a little better. It's okay, so I can look at it just like this and say you know what, if my body can withstand the amount of work that I need? Jump rope needs to be a focus Now. It has been a huge focus of mine for the years. But I am going to be honest about this I can't do much more than I'm doing right now with jump rope because of my Achilles. The more I do of it, the more it acts up and then affects other movements. So you might be in this situation too. Let's say, the bar muscle-ups are your biggest issue, but your shoulder hurts when you work on them a lot. Let's say that the burpees were your biggest struggle, but your low back hurts a lot when you do a lot of them. So you have to be honest with yourself in terms of how much you can put into them, or you have to put some thought into it. Have a discussion with a coach. What are some things I can do to work on this without just doing more volume. That's going to beat me up.
24:02
Here would be an example of someone that struggles with jump rope all right, instead of me saying every day because I hate when people say this every day I work on jump rope for five minutes. I'm like my first thought that get crushed if I did that. Right. How about this? Get yourself tired, really tired, safely. Then go do 30 double-unders. Do that five times so that you're only doing 150 reps, like I'm not. I'm telling you this right now. I'm not doing 500 dubs a day to get better at them. I'm not doing it because there's too many things that are going to go wrong. But what I will do is go sprint my ass off on a 15 cal bike when you know how much that can hurt. Yeah, all right. And then go do 30 double unders, all right.
24:41
One thing I worked on with my double unders that I'm proud of, um, is I did a lot of skierg jump rope combo because my jump rope issues are not like. I'm not the lightest on my feet, but I think I'm okay there. Um, it's not my breathing. My arms get really tired, like I can't spin the rope anymore to a point, and like I think I'm super tense. So I tried to fix some posture. I've I've used the weighted jump rope to develop muscles that I need for jump rope, so I'm just stronger, like my muscles that are used for double unders, right, but I also did every two minutes. I've done this probably 20 times this year, every two minutes for 10 sets. I would do a 15 cal ski sprint, like as fast as I can. So about 30, 35 seconds, 25 double unders, all right, and I would like I've, and I that has helped me develop the stamina that I need. This is like kind of like hinshaw type, yeah, like active recovery kind of stuff. Yeah, you know, like get the muscles tired, then train them, because that to me, like it cuts down the volume a little bit and it gets me to train the component that makes me so without wrapping up, without getting too wrapped up into like my workouts and my it's, you guys can get creative with working on what you need work on, without just doing more work. I think you need to think about smarter work. Get the results. Like Karen McKinney Again, bring her up.
26:04
It's an easy. Example A she put the work in, she was consistent. She had plenty of downs. Trust me, this is not all just good times. Trust me, I would. Actually, if you asked her, her she probably had more down times than up times with working on muscle ups. Okay, um was. I think the thing that helped her the most I don't want to speak for her were these lat pull downs that we did. Basically, you put the pvc between the band and straight arms. You're just bringing that thing to your waist. I mean, she probably did a thousand of them over the course of the year and a lot of strict pull-ups. Nobody likes strict pull-ups, or a lot of people don't like strict pull-ups. That is what got her there. If I was a juvenile coach that was just like didn't know what to do, I'd just be like yo imam 10, three bar muscle-ups every Monday, every Wednesday, every Friday. What do you think would happen to her? She'd get hurt. Yeah, her shoulder, her upper hands, yeah, yeah.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
26:53
Yeah.
David Syvertsen
Host
26:53
So again, there's smart ways to approach this work.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
26:57
You do that as a programmer. You program tired something all the time, oh yeah, and it's like you don't have to make the load the heaviest, like if you do tired cleans, yep, but the net effect in terms of stimulus is the same fewer reps, but when you're tired, that 135 barbell feels like it's 185 or more, absolutely. So I did a workout like that today, yeah. So all of those things in terms of figuring out how do you get to the stimulus without doing a million reps, which F you up is a really good way of doing it.
David Syvertsen
Host
27:31
Truth be told, especially with our crowd, masters crowd, a lot of us can't handle much more volume right? Especially because we don't do this professionally. Yeah, sure, maybe you get an extra hour here in the gym, but you're not living like an athlete. You have a job, you have kids, you don't sleep as much, you don't get enough recovery, you don't put money into the recovery tactics and getting treatment right. So working out more is usually not the answer, but working out smarter definitely can be.
27:59
So how do you use daily workouts and typical CrossFit programming to line yourself up for gains? Because right now I know that people are going to be listening to this I'm like, ooh, I got to get on the next level and Dave's trying to sell next level to everyone. Or I need extra work. How about this? Don't do any extra work, but show up to every single WOD you do from now until the open next year. Right, with intention, all right.
28:23
I've had a lot of people ask like how can you sustain a level for years after years? That's it. That's my answer. It's be intentional every time you come here. Molly actually said this to me. Molly Cowder said this to me probably six years ago. I didn't.
28:36
You know, someone says something about you you don't really realize about yourself, but then just like it clicks. She's like every and I think it was actually over like an intimidation factor of like every time I come here, like I have like a very clear-cut intention. It's rarely, ah, just want to work out, have some fun and maybe like to a detriment sometimes, like sometimes I overthink it, right. But if you want to get something out of this, you don't want to pay for extra programming, don't have time for extra programming. You can come to the gym every day with an intention and I want to give you a couple of examples Standards, standards, standards.
29:14
If you move really well throughout the year, it's going to make you fitter and you don't think so. Sometimes you just have to slow down. But I'll tell you what A you get no reps less. But B the quality of the movement is what makes you better for long stretches of time. The best movers in our gym, sam, don't you think that they're the ones that are kind of just like always there yes, just always getting. There's always Incrementally getting better, absolutely.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
29:40
The people who don't move as well as they could, or at least don't keep trying to move. Well, trying Intent yeah, then you know the progress that they make will be so much more limited than the ones who do. The ones who can do 15 bar muscle-ups, but they're chicken-winging everyone instead of doing like half the number and trying to really like go straight. I do that with wall walks. I could do faster wall walks if I took like 12 steps with my hands instead of four, but I always try, even if I go slower, to do the four because I know in the long run that's going to make me a better wall walker. Yep. So yeah, absolutely. Standards make a big difference.
David Syvertsen
Host
30:20
Yes, I mean, and it's just, it's safer too. I know that's not the sexiest thing to say, but, like you know, if you do movements the way they're supposed to be done, you're just going to be in the game longer and I think your gains will be more significant. Your reps per minute, right? I know some people kind of give me some kickback on this. Well, it's just too much thinking, too much math. It's hard to do. I don't think it's like adamant that you need to do every single workout, every single movement. But I would have a decent idea how many reps you can do of certain things in a minute without blowing up right. Like, can you do 15 wall balls a minute? You know that's that's. You know, if you're unbroken you could do 30 in a minute. So it's basically giving equal work rest ratio.
30:58
How long does it take you to do 10 bar facing burpees? Because another reason I think it helps you out if you want to be intentional is maybe every day you come in with a goal, especially if you come in, you see some other scores on the whiteboard. It's like all right, kristen Torres got seven minutes and 40 seconds. I want to be right around there, don't want to say beat her. I just want to be around her. She's a really high level quarterfinal athlete, one of the fittest people we have in the gym If I'm around that.
31:21
So what do I need to do to get to that time, other than I hope I get it? You know it's like oh, I need to average about a minute 45 per round, give myself a 15 second rest. Can I sustain that? So you're done with your first round. You look at the clock. It says a minute 40. Ooh, I'm good, you take your 15 second rest. You start round two. Ooh, that took me two minutes and 15 seconds.
31:42
Like it's not a pass fail situation, it's creating this awareness of how to properly pace workouts. Um, I've gotten so much better at this over the years and I feel like it's helped me out as much as anything, because I don't train as much as I used to. But I have such a good awareness of what I can and cannot do, which is probably more important. I can't do this. I saw some times like sub 11 for that 24.3 and I was like breaking it down. I'm like can't do it, so I'm not going to pursue it. I'm not going to put myself on that goal, because I'll blow up and it'll probably even get worse.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
32:13
What was the difference between Nick Squire repeating 24.2 the first time and the second time he wrote slower Pacing? Yeah, and what do we do in workout? What do we don't do in everyday workouts? That we should be doing more Pacing? Yeah, right, like that. You know, I've known athletes at our gym who have worked out longer than I have and who just go ham from the get go and then they get to the workouts in the open and they're like man, I could have done better had I just started slower, figured out my pacing better. Why not start figuring out your pacing in the daily workouts and that way you would have actually start not having to have this suddenly foreign concept thrust on you during the open. Like, what Pacing? What is pacing? Listen, dude, we've been doing 500 workouts this year. You couldn't figure out what pacing was up until today. Like, do that now? The other thing is, is there are? So that's the first thing. The other thing which you mentioned is intensity. I just want to mention Wall Street weightlifter again, graciano Rubio.
33:20
Why do you get better? Why do people only work out an hour every day? Get better. How can they possibly get better? Because they bring relative intensity to their workout. Erin, to me, is the model of that. You bring real intensity. It doesn't matter if you're better than anyone else your own relative intensity to the workout. You're not half-assing it, you're really doing what you possibly can do for that workout. You will get better even if you're only coming in once a day doing one workout and going home, yeah, and he is a classic example of that where he is actually getting better regardless. Honestly, I don't know how he does it the sun chips he eats or whatever else, or four kids, yeah, whatever else he does in his life. That guy brings an insane amount of intensity for his workouts he does, and he's able to get better every year, which blows me away.
David Syvertsen
Host
34:09
Yeah, I mean, his engine is as good as anyone. He could really pace things out. He just crushed 24.2. That was like another clinic. I remember watching his row from every time. It was always every set 148, 149. I'm like dang. I was like he'll slow down, nope, and he was hurting at the end. But again, he's intense. He's been doing this for 10 years. He's member number one at this gym and he's still here and this was by far his best open.
34:34
So I don't want anyone out there to be like ah, I've been doing it too long, I just can't make the progress anymore. You can, but I think the intent behind your training just needs to be there and it doesn't need to be crazy. You don't need to count how many reps per minute you're doing if that's too much for you, but just follow the guidance of the programming and our coaches they're very good at this. The whiteboard talk really tune in. Can you not talk to your friend during it and just like really kind of tune into what the coach is saying, because I guarantee there's something in there that's going to help you? Maybe not the whole talk. Maybe some of the coaches talk too much, right. Maybe they're trying to dumb the talk down to the 11 scaled athletes in the gym or the three new people that just came in for the first time, but there's something in those talks that can really help you get what you most out of your workout.
35:22
The last thing I'll say on that is think 11 months from now, don't think about today. That is one of the biggest issues a CrossFit Open athlete has is they don't like this result and then they come in next week trying to get the best time. Beat that person. That doesn't last. You won't last either. Try to think deeper than that and just trying to like it's okay if you slow down a little bit and you don't have the best time. Nobody is going to know your time three days from now. Like, not one person. So no offense to those that think they care about your times. They don't. So just like it's okay if you have a few workouts it does.
36:02
It's a little annoying sometimes you like I put up a, you put a score up, and it's like oh, what happened? Like, shut up, I'm working on something, but like it's okay, it's like again, it's, this is a water the bridge. Like choose what you want to stress out about in life. You can't be on fire for the next 11 months. You're going to have to take some back and forth and some of this back and forth will include you slowing down in movements and really trying to be more mentally present, cleaning up movement pacing well, and you will not have to redo 24.2 two days after and do 800 double unders so you can get a minute faster. That was just a mistake that Nick made in workout number one and I'm glad that he got it done in workout number two, but we shouldn't need to do that.
36:49
If you really have intentional training in the 11 months leading up to what is one thing you can do with open gym time without paying for extra programming that can help you get better for the next open. So open gym time to me is like you're not doing a class wide, you're not doing a missed workout from last week or a workout that's coming up. What's something you can do to come in to help yourself in the CrossFit Open next year, because our open gym crowd is pretty intense on Sundays, very, and I like it. I like being around it, like even like I usually work out by myself, I just like being around the energy of other people that are working on stuff. Absolutely I don't care what you're working. I don't care if you're working on farmer carries or ring muscle ups Like I do not care at all, I just like being in the same room.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
37:30
Yeah.
David Syvertsen
Host
37:31
Because it helps lift me up. Sam, what's if someone said, hey, I want to get better at the Open next year. Sometimes I scale the workout, sometimes I RRX. What can I do? I'll throw that to you, go ahead.
37:44
So I think the biggest thing we try to work on is get you a little stronger. I think we should all have goals to get stronger, or that, usually the older we get, is maintain your strength, right. Right and that's something that I've had to kind of accept is I have to stop trying to PR my lifts and just try to keep my lifts where they are right now. That to me means I'm getting stronger because I'm fighting biology, right. Every day we live, we're a day closer to death, right, every day we live, we're a day closer to not being able to sustain this physical performance anymore. So every day you live that you do sustain, right, in my opinion, right you are, you're winning, right, and then you'll be surprised if that is the goal. Right, you'll be surprised what you might fall into sometimes. But if you ignore strength, right, just like a simple five by five back squat, five by five front squat, five by five, strict press I mean watching our gym, strict press, I mean watching our gym strict press the other day, I was like we need to strict press more, like we really do, and it's something I'll take the blame, not them Like I have not programmed that enough. Like we we have a lot of athletes that are strong, they can't press shit, so like we need to get that better as a group, as a gym. And those are the days I got. I know it's not fun to come in on an open gym and you're not in a class, but I'll tell you what A lot of times when you're by yourself, it's hard sometimes to like really put yourself into a hard workout, right. It's like you don't have any energy around like doing the same workout. You're not trying to catch that person, run away from that person, but you always can lift right, and it doesn't need to be max out lifting. So I would think strength is what I think the first thing you should try and do is just get a little stronger. It's going to help prolong your life in CrossFit, right? Because if you're never get working on strength at some point, you're not going to be strong enough to do something that you try and that you can easily get hurt.
39:32
And B it's not just the 135 thruster that I want you to get better at. It's just holding a front rack in that position right. It's being able to clean the bar without thinking about it right. It's being able to really good upright position on your front squat. It's not just the numbers on the bar on the weight, right. It's going to be about building positions, building confidence. If Olympic lifting always beats you up, right, a simple EMOM three cleans, three snatches right. If you can maintain confidence of the movement, it will make you stronger when it counts.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
40:06
I think strength is universal. If you're older, like me, like you said, you're trying to hang on to what you got. If you're young, if you're 25, or if you're like my son, who's a high schooler lifting, the gains you can make overall are just tremendous. I mean, when I see these young guys lift like it's insane how much progress that they can make with a strength program. So lifting is universal. I feel like if you're going to do anything in addition to what you do, it should be strength work.
David Syvertsen
Host
40:39
It should be lift work for sure. And if the lift, if you are immediately going down this like, I don't know if my joints can handle it. I don't know if I could squat more or hold, like some people can't hold, the front rack more. It hurts the wrist right. How about this? Farmer carries? Not fun, I hate them, but they are such. Or weighted carries right. Pick up a sandbag and go walk 400 meters with it, right.
41:01
Stuff that just does not include a lot of mobility. Don't need to warm up, don't need to be that motivated. Don't have to have your playlist or zone four with a low pull-up bar right, it can simply just be pick up something heavy and just go stand there with it or walk. There are significant gains that will come from enhancing your grip, and it's not just you holding on to the pull-up bar, it's the lats, the traps, the shoulders. Those muscles are going to get trained, because a lot of times you see people fall apart in an open workout because their muscles are just at capacity. They can't handle any more engagement, because time under tension gets us all at some point. A lot of people give up in a workout or have to break things up because they're just under tension for so long. I mean, think about CrossFit A lot of times you're not doing something for more than 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, right, occasionally bigger sets of wall balls or something like that where, if you put yourself under tension for a long time I mean that's what I mean by strength training as well. It doesn't always have to be the lifts, it could be some accessory type stuff, weighty carries. The last thing I would say in terms of prepping yourself for the Open next year it centers around accountability, and it's hard for a coach to always be the accountability person for you, because they coach 200 athletes, 300 athletes, right.
42:18
What about a training partner? What about? What about like a buddy, a friend that you either work out in with class, right, or you show up to at open gym and do some work with. In most cases, I bet everyone right now you're probably visualizing someone it's probably a good friend of yours. Um, I've had both. I've had training partners that are really good friends and I've had some training partners that were just kind of like gym buddies, like we never see each other outside the gym, and I've even had this before.
42:52
All right, here's a secret. I've had people that I try to work out with that don't know. I'm trying to work out with them because I want to kick their ass Now that that that sounds bad and I don't want people to actually try and come. But this is what I. I am competitive, right, and that that drives me in and out of the gym and I'm not going to get into if that is that a good or bad thing. But sometimes when I need a push that I need, I need like I'm not motivated right now. Something's bothering me. My mind's not where it should be.
43:22
I will sometimes show up to the gym and just quietly compete. I will find someone in the gym like that is better than me or they're faster than me on the runs, but I can get them on the inside, so I'm going to try to be in there. That has helped me a lot in a gym like this, where to me it's a training partner, but that person doesn't know they're my training partner. I think I saw you do that last week. What day the running? Oh yeah, thursday. Yeah, absolutely, you know me too well, I know, I know, I know who you're training against, I mean, and I like both those guys. There's two of them, right, but that helped me get the most out of my workout and that helps me in the open. That helps me when I show up to a competition, because I don't care what you think about. Am I right or wrong in doing that? Competing at a comp is trying to beat other people? If you never try to beat other people, you're missing a component of competing.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
44:15
I think if you don't have someone that you know in mind, I think they should ask a coach, Because I bet you at this gym, like if someone came up to you and be like you know what. I'm kind of looking for someone on Sundays to try to help me. Like you would find someone perfect for them, Absolutely.
David Syvertsen
Host
44:33
Easy and it could vary on the workout, right, right, and it's not. I don't want to make this a negative thing, like I don't want it to be, like people that I don't like I want to beat down, like that gets petty and immature. There's certain workouts where I know like, let's use alex as an example. Um, alex can beat me in a lot of workouts where there's a heavy load maybe not so much gymnastics or engine and although he's getting there, yes, yeah, nah, not really, no, but really. But him and I have a good enough relationship. We can look at each other and we both know what's going on. Yeah, and it helps both of us.
45:12
Yeah, and we're not going out and getting drinks tonight. We're not like best buds, right, but it does. It does mean something that if you can develop this like maturity to quietly compete with people, right, and don't rub it in their face or anything like that Just it's only there to help you get more out of your workouts I think that can get you better at the open next year, absolutely.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
45:50
And I I enjoy training with people, just like you said. On Sundays, susan showed up.
David Syvertsen
Host
45:54
Mike DeSilva dropped in. We did the same workout, so much better than doing it by myself. And the fact, coach, I talked about my performance 24.2 and having the lull and just being disappointed in myself. And then it actually helped me in 24.3, right, going back and forth. And it's based on other people right, it really is. I mean, all kidding aside, like I I love that aaron um got me in that workout. Uh, for a lot of reasons, but the it it actually because we're both competitive and we love each other, right, is it actually? I think, helped me 24.3. It kind of like dialed me in the days leading up to, and that's exactly what I'm talking about. If I didn't have that, maybe I wouldn't have done as well in 24.3. Maybe I would have tapped the brakes a little bit. Maybe my days sitting up to wouldn't have been as dialed in. So I think there's a disconnect when I talk about finding a training partner, whether they know it or not, trying to beat people, whether they know it or not. It's beyond the whole surface level stuff it really is, and you have to be able to think deeper. The whole surface level stuff, it really is, and you have to be able to think deeper and honestly. There are some people that cannot do that. It's just they don't have that maturity trait in them that you need to lose sometimes, like I want to lose sometimes, because I know it will happen as a result of that, even though if it stings in the moment. All right, guys. Well, that's going to wrap up the 24-24 Open.
47:16
We hope that you guys had a great time. I just want to say thank you one more time to everyone from Bison the vast majority of our listeners that it does mean so much to us that you sign up and represent Bison more than you think and I know that some people only sign up for that reason. It means the world to me that they represent Bison. On that stage we did have the most registered in the United States and it's just a really cool thing. I bet I'm trying to find out if we have the most people that qualified for quarterfinals from one gym in the world. So it just really means a lot to me that people do it.
47:56
If you're not from Bison and you signed up, that also means a lot to me because I want a million people to sign up for the Open one year. I really do. That would make quarterfinals really tough too, but let's keep this train going. I think CrossFit, for the third year in a row, has had more people sign up than the previous year, so I really hope that we can keep this trajectory going, sam. Any closing thoughts on the Open? I love CrossFit.
Sam Rhee
Co-host
48:18
I love all the athletes. If you competed this year, congratulations, and I really appreciate that everyone signed up either in our gym or out. It makes a huge difference and I'm really just proud of anyone who competed this year.
David Syvertsen
Host
48:31
You have 11 months, let's go. Thank you everybody for taking the time out of your day to listen to the Herd Fit Podcast. Be on the lookout for next week's episode.
