S05E147 Starting Strong in CrossFit: - Fundamentals for Beginners and Experts

Embark on a CrossFit journey that's as rewarding as it is challenging, with our essential guide for the CrossFit novice and expert alike. Coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic are ready to guide you through the early stages of your CrossFit adventure with anecdotes, pitfalls to avoid, and a treasure trove of tips for mastering this intense fitness regimen. If you've ever felt overwhelmed by the complex movements or the vibrant community of a CrossFit gym, we've got your back, sharing our experiences and the epiphanies that transformed our own fitness paths.

Strap in for a no-nonsense look at what to look for in beginner (or on-ramp classes), and how the proper approach to scaling movements can be the smartest move you make. We discuss the importance of proper gear, from the shoes that ground you to the grips that save your skin, and how personalizing your equipment can make a world of difference.

Plus, we reveal why tracking your progress is more than just a number's game—it's a psychological strategy that primes you for peak performance. By the end of this heart-to-heart, you'll understand why virtuosity in movements and a commitment to mobility can mean the difference between plateauing and reaching new heights in your CrossFit journey.

Discover the transformative power of a supportive gym atmosphere and why community is one of the most powerful tools in your fitness journey. As we wrap up, we encourage you to seek wisdom from coaches, engage with fellow athletes and remember: CrossFit is a marathon, not a sprint, designed to be a lifelong commitment to your health and vitality. So tune in, lace up, and prepare to meet the best version of yourself—one WOD at a time.

@crossfitbison @crossfittraining @crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates #supportyourlocalbox #crossfitaffiliate #personalizedfitness

00:00:05 Starting CrossFit

00:10:56 CrossFit Beginner Session Importance

00:23:37 The Importance of Scaling in CrossFit

00:33:55 Choosing Essential CrossFit Gear

00:42:10 The Importance of Tracking Progress

00:53:36 Focus on Mobility and Virtuosity

01:00:52 Importance of Community in CrossFit Training

01:14:17 Nutrition and Fitness Discussion

S05E147 Starting Strong in CrossFit: - Fundamentals for Beginners and Experts

TRANSCRIPT

David Syvertsen

Host

00:05

Hey everybody, welcome to the Herd Fit Podcast with Dr Sam Rhee and myself, coach David Syverton. 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 am Coach David Syverton. I'm here with my co-host, dr and Coach Samri. I apologize, we did not have an episode last week and I think I got a few death threats for that, by the way, that someone's Monday morning commute was not as normal as it used to be. With the Herd Fit Podcast we do try to get episodes out every week. I would say 50 weeks a year. We do get that done.

00:51

Just really, really busy over the past few weeks, so we took last week off and we were back on the saddle today. So today we are going to talk about or I would say the title of this is so you're starting CrossFit, what next? And I just got done doing a couple of beginner sessions. We call them beginner, some other gyms call them fundamentals or on-ramp, and basically this is where it's like an introduction to CrossFit type. At CrossFit Hoboken we had to do six classes before we started taking normal classes at CrossFit Hoboken. I remember it was like $225, and then you bought a month membership and you had to be there Tuesday, Thursday 7.15, or Monday, wednesday 7.15. There was no flexibility whatsoever and a lot has changed. That was back in like the early days of CrossFit. Things are a little bit more sophisticated and cleaner and easier to plan around.

01:40

But I just got done with one and as I'm doing this, I'm like this is gonna be a good episode, because I've been wanting to put something together that we can always send to a new member here across at Bison. And for those that listen that don't come to Bison and you coach or you own a gym, I would love for you to bookmark this and save this and give this episode to them, because it is really hard to explain in an hour class what this is, what you need to be ready for, what not to be ready for some common mistakes that we see and have made ourselves, what to avoid and what to really pursue physically, mentally, with your wallet, with your money. You know in terms of what to buy, what not to buy. So this is really a guide to starting CrossFit. Sam, do you wish you had something like this to listen to when you began?

Sam Rhee

Co-host

02:30

Yeah, I didn't know what to expect when I started CrossFit. I mean, we all have our CrossFit start story, as we've talked about before, and this is really to help sort of streamline that beginning. We all have awkward beginnings with everything. No beginning is usually ever smooth and CrossFit is a pretty I wouldn't say complicated. But there are a lot of aspects to CrossFit and so when you first come in it might be intimidating, scary, difficult in some ways, a real difference in terms of mental attitude and change. And so if someone had sort of helped explain some of these things when I first started, as opposed to you just looking at my clean form being like, oh my God, what the heck, and we have a long way to go Right Like just simple things which I think probably could have streamlined things for me, I would have appreciated that.

David Syvertsen

Host

03:25

Yeah, and I think this is also important for people that have been doing CrossFit for a long time and I think it's great to always kind of circle back to fundamentals and your start story. It's no different than in tomorrow's class. We're doing pause back, squats and dumbbell snatches and burpees. Before I just did it, I coached a burpee workout this past week and we were teaching people in class how to do burpees properly, like what is the standard, and it's not just because it's rep and no rep. We always want to circle back to fundamentals and that's one of these things that we talk about in beginner sessions. I mean, if you have someone that's never touched a barbell before and you're trying to teach them a snatch with a PVC pipe, you almost like I've done this so many times over the past 12 years now of coaching, where it almost gets more frustrating to coach than it used to be, because you know that there's this, it's going to take a long time to understand and you're trying so hard to teach them, but you also know it's going to come with experience and you're not going to teach it in 15 minutes, right? So I think it's. But one thing that we always tell these people is like hey, just so you know, you don't need to learn the movements today. It where do your hands go? What are you actually doing? You're getting the bar overhead in one fluid motion, right? That kind of get that in because, by the way, every single time you come to a class and there's a snatch and a workout, that coach is going to circle back to fundamentals. Have you ever done a snatch workout here and not gone over the snatch in a warm-up with a coach? I don't think so. I hope not. You know, and so that's something that just needs to be. You always are going to circle back to fundamentals. So for those of you listening that you've been doing CrossFit for a long time, I think this is going to be a good episode for you as well to circle back to the foundation and fundamentals and what you need and what you don't need, and what to keep track of, what not to keep track of within CrossFit, within your workout program, because I think it's going to help elevate your end process.

05:25

And I'll say this I've had so many conversations and I think it's because we have a lot of people in this age right now in our gym my age 35 to 45, where, in the past 10 years a lot of things have changed in our lives. A lot of our body feels different. Our body responds different. We have different lives. We have kids, we sleep less. We have less freedom. We can't come in twice a day. Right when you have a lot of people that used to be these go-getters in the gym and they are no longer the go-getters. They just want to come in, work out, not get hurt, and they think this is the best way for them to exercise. That's why they're here and it's hard person that's going to try as hard as I can Now. I'm just hoping I don't get hurt when we do a squat snatch. It's like, well, 10 years ago you probably looked down on that right, and now you're that person. So now you're kind of recalibrating your foundation across it. Why are you here? And I think this episode can also help you kind of take in and accept that there's a transition time Maybe.

06:24

I even told someone after class yesterday that is going through this. I told her this is gonna take a year. You're gonna have to go through the entire CrossFit calendar here a week Murph Bison Bowl open, prep open and now you're gonna be like, okay, I got through this year with different goals, different mindset. I'm still okay, I'm happy and I'm healthy. Now it's easy for me to come in and just have fun. So let's circle back to some of these basics.

06:48

Guys not just the new people and if you are new to CrossFit, really try to tune into this. We're going to try to keep this 30 to 40 minutes and really go over the most important things you need to know as you're starting CrossFit. Why are you starting? I came up with six and, sam, you tell me if you think of anything else, why someone would start. But why would someone come from a crunch fitness or a globo gym or orange theory and come to CrossFit? What are you looking for? Variety, accountability, community motivation, intensity and programming. That, to me, is why I think people come in. The most predominant reason why people start this coming from like a I work out by myself type situation is they just lack motivation to always work and they don't want to plan anything and they want to switch it up. That's usually the most common. Do you have anything else that people usually start CrossFit for?

Sam Rhee

Co-host

07:43

Yeah, I mean, I know why I started why? Because I went on vacation with someone who did CrossFit and he looked pretty effing good and I was like what are you doing? And he's like I'm doing CrossFit. And so I was like I want to try that. If that is what makes you look the way you do, I want to try that. So for a lot of people it's to look better, to look more fit. A lot of people I know in their heyday, when it was on the ESPN the games were broadcast on ESPN they would watch the games and they were like holy cow, how do I look like that? Yeah, absolutely. That's CrossFit.

David Syvertsen

Host

08:19

Yeah, because it's a combination the top of the top, like you're jacked, you're muscular, but you're also very lean and ripped.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

08:26

And doing crazy stuff. Yeah, you know, really amazing functional fitness and for some people it's literally and I see this with beginners all the time I've been sitting around, especially during COVID I am unhealthy. I need to do something better. Like you said, switch it up.

David Syvertsen

Host

08:42

Do something to improve my health no-transcript under that umbrella right, the process of actually starting in most crossfit gyms and I think this should be the way that you do start is that you go through some sort of really really small group training or even personal training, learning the movements in a non-intense setting, and we call them again, we call them beginner classes here. I've seen fundamentals on ramp I'm sure there's other creative names out there but basically you learn the movements and you have a lot of Q and a type time with a coach. Often it's one of you, one coach, sometimes there's two or three of you and a coach, and I think this is a really important. We've talked about here at Bison getting rid of it for a few different reasons and I never had a strong feel like it would probably make our process a little easier. But I think beginner sessions here are some of the most. It's probably the most important and best way to actually start CrossFit and it's not because you learn the movements. That is a kind of like an appetizer to the entree of you get a feel for what this really is.

10:17

I've turned my personal beginner sessions into less about keeping your heels down on a front squat and more about hey, what's it like to work out here? Do you need to be in shape to start? It's almost because I've been asked the same questions about a hundred times over the years, like literally the same question. So I kind of know what. I can have a conversation with someone for five minutes and know exactly kind of where they're at. Are they scared of getting hurt? I just had a guy and he's like, yeah, my wife doesn't want me to do it. She goes you're going to get hurt, that's why she doesn't want me to do it. Well, okay, let's talk about this and you get into a conversation. It goes on 10 minutes and we haven't even done a movement yet.

10:54

So that's why I think these beginner sessions are really important. And then, yes, it's important to know basic elements of a movement. Where do my hands go? Where do my feet go? What should I concentrate on? How do I not get hurt doing a movement? And the positive is you're not out of breath, like you didn't go run 400 meters, come inside. I had to do 15 cleans, like that's when it's hard to keep track of motor control and awareness and coordination and technique. So, sam, do you remember your beginner sessions? I remember mine pretty well.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

11:24

I do somewhat remember struggling with the barbell quite a bit. I had never done any barbell other than bench and you know I was a runner before I started CrossFit so I had a decent cardio background. So anything that involved that I felt pretty good with. I just remember struggling with the barbell for the longest time.

David Syvertsen

Host

11:43

Do you think these beginner sessions have a ton of value in terms of teaching, or do you have it more of conversation and have a coach really give a feel of what we do here? What do you think is more important?

Sam Rhee

Co-host

11:53

I think it's important in the sense that you get a sense of what that coach is like, right, you get a sense of just how complicated the movement actually is, of just how complicated the movement actually is. But whether or not you're actually learning anything from that first session is irrelevant, and I've learned that more and more as a coach taking people through movements. That first session, second session, 15 sessions, like it really doesn't matter, like what is being picked up because it's it's a gradual, gradual process you know why.

David Syvertsen

Host

12:28

I think it's hard to learn initially and this is where a coach needs to be present, for of their perspective is when you come in here, especially for the first time, if you have, especially don't have, a lifting background, your mind is on 11 different things, even though the coach thinks that your mind is on your air squat and pushing your knees out and keeping your chest up Like, yes, you're hearing that and you're trying to do it as the coach tells you to squat further and your legs are burning.

12:54

But you're also looking at the seven people in class that are taking the WOD, throwing up 225 pounds above their head and people laying on the ground being dramatic after a hard workout and the music being really loud and people ripping their shirts off.

13:10

It's really hard to fully concentrate on what you're learning because of there's like almost anxiety about starting a hard program that might injure you, that doesn't have the best public perception, and there's weird stuff going on in the gym that you've never seen before, and I think a coach needs to be really present with their athlete if they're doing a beginner class, while there's other things going on in the gym that, if you talk too much about a movement, you're actually going to get them to understand less.

13:39

So I think it's really important for a coach, when you're teaching a snatch, a clean, a deadlift, be as short, like less is more, like be really short and concise with how you're teaching it, because I can say I could write a book about how to do a deadlift, but if you do, they're going to zone you out or it's just going to confuse them too much, among other things. So when you're coaching a class, a coaching a beginner, a fundamental class, assume that athlete is thinking about seven different things while you're teaching them how to snatch and see if you can clean up and almost funnel the best way to teach that person movement. Now, if you're an athlete because we're talking to athletes here on this podcast if you're new, take our advice. The most important times are when the coaches are trying to teach you something that you need to zero in on that as much as you can.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

14:28

CrossFit is. I mean the definition of it is constantly varied functional movements performed at a high intensity, and then you include lifestyle changes and all these other things to become the most functionally fit person that you can be. That is very complicated, so the opposite should be happening. When you're coaching, especially beginners, it should be simple and that's that's as a beginner. When you're starting, look at your coach, see how they're evaluating you and moving you. If it's that, that was one of the things I learned as a coach. As I was coaching beginners, I started, I took my L1, I took my L2, I started throwing all these terms at beginners in terms of like you know your hips and this, and that Hip extension, shoulder extremity is key.

15:21

When you work with beginners and now, as someone who is constantly trying to improve my barbell movement and teach others how to do their barbell movements, simplicity is key. I cannot tell you how many times and they teach this also in the CrossFit L1, l2, is your cues need to be short and actionable. So if you're a beginner, focus on the simple stuff and you should look and see if your coach is helping you in a noncomplicated, simple way. You can't fix 15 things. Maybe you just work on knuckles down. And I tell you, when I'm lifting, I'm not thinking, oh, knees here, foot placement here, hips extension here, I'm thinking knuckles down. And so I will tell you that so much of this is about keeping it simple, keeping it enjoyable.

David Syvertsen

Host

16:10

Yeah. So beginners are sorry, new people. You just got done with your beginner classes. You are now going into the fire, literally. You're joining the real classes at whatever cross that you're joining.

16:23

Here are three things that I think you have to know. I can give you 10, but again, we're talking about simplifying, so I simplified this right. Here are the three things you have to know. If you're starting CrossFit, Okay, you have to do show up way before class as much as you can. I know schedules are really tight for some, so if five minutes is all you can do, fine, get here five minutes early. If 10 minutes can be done, get here 10 minutes.

16:48

When I started again different life lived in Hoboken, didn't have a kid I showed up a half hour before my class so that I could watch the end of the previous class, so I can go and be like oh, that's what a clean is. Oh, that's what a clean and jerk is. Oh, that's how long this takes. That's the weight that guy's using. Right, there is so much you can pick up on by showing up hopping on a bike, getting a warmup in, get a stretch in, get a roller and watch a class operate that you're about to do.

17:14

That's one of the great things about CrossFit that a lot of people don't know. When they start, the 5 am class is doing the same thing in the 7.15. So if you show up a half hour before your class, chances are that class is doing the workout that you're about to do, and if you're new, I promise you will pick up on things by simply just watching the class. Part two of the most important thing about showing up early is that you ensure you're going to be there for the whiteboard talk, and if a gym does it right, they put a lot of thought, effort, energy into the whiteboard talk so that everyone in the room is on the same page. What are we doing today? What's the stimulus? What are the scaling options? What should I do? What should I not do? You are going to get that at the whiteboard. If you're showing up halfway through the whiteboard talk, or you show up and you never see a class prior to you, you're going to get less out of CrossFit at the start of your experience than you would otherwise.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

18:07

The first thing I do when I start a new activity is get there early. When I was a brand new attending as a surgeon and I started doing cases by myself, I got to the operating room over an hour and a half early, even though I didn't need to. I would go through the pre-op area, I would go through post-op area, I'd get in the OR, I'd check out things, I'd make sure I knew and was familiar with everything that was going on before I started, and that should be the same for you. When you start CrossFit, you feel a better sense of comfort if you're there and you're sort of observing and and and knowing what, what everything is, and I think most well-prepared people will do that. Warming up is incredibly important. If you're someone who hasn't done CrossFit, warming up like you said, getting on the bike, stretching can be so helpful and, honestly, more of our experienced members don't do that and I think that that's a huge issue in terms of potential injury risk. I need to do that more. I was much better at it. I'm not good now and now that you say that I'm like shoot, I need to get in a little bit earlier and I need to do a little bit more mobility, work, if you can, heart rate, if you can. You know and I will talk.

19:30

Listen, there are some people in my classes that always show up right in the middle of the whiteboard talk and it drives me nuts. I don't say anything. I know who you guys are and I want to talk to you, not because I want to berate you, but I want to figure out like, what is it? Sometimes it's my fault as a coach, because there's just like a lot of we have very big classes sometimes and the parking lot gets like to be nightmare and I really try hard to make sure that that doesn't happen. Sometimes it does. Sometimes people have like four kids and it's really difficult. But on the other hand, even as an experienced CrossFitter, you are shorting yourself if you show up a couple minutes late every time and you're not getting that whiteboard talk. You're right, the coaches spend a lot of time at least I do trying to make sure I am efficient and explain exactly what's going on. If you're a beginner, there's definitely no excuse.

David Syvertsen

Host

20:20

Oh yeah, like you definitely need to be there early and uh, and I would even say those whiteboard talks are for the beginners more than any people in the gym, so that and I hope a beginner can really take that in as all right. This is a good thing. This is going to help you out, you know, because we really do dumb down, I occasionally will change up my whiteboard talk. If I have four people in class and they all like really know they're doing experience, then it's like all right, I need to not dumb this down. But the other classes, basically every other class, especially in the morning, it's dumbed down to the point where a beginner is gonna get the most out of this as a coach if people are constantly skipping your whiteboard talk.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

20:59

You also need to look at yourself and be like am I adding value with my whiteboard talks? I look at yourself and be like am I adding value with my whiteboard talks? I need to add value. They need to be useful. I try to provide something. If I can give you a time estimate for how long this part of the workout will take, what you might feel after this, what is the challenging part of this part of the workout? I need, as a coach, to add value. So, on both sides, show up for the whiteboard talk. If you're giving the whiteboard talk, make sure it has a lot of value to your athlete so they don't want to miss it.

David Syvertsen

Host

21:31

Yeah, the next two I could kind of tie together. We could talk about them separately, but I want to say them at the same time. So again, three things you have to know slash, do, understand the purpose of scaling and progression and thinking about the long term in relation to your ego. So, example you start beginners and we show you what toes to bar are, we show you the kipping pull up, we show you the handstand push up and then 99 times out of 100, people are like I can't do that, what am I supposed to do? Oh, by the way, here are the next three levels, down from that movement that you'll start at, level you know, all the way down, at the easiest, and work your way up and almost, like I would say, this happens 50-50, where I show a toes to bar and then we go over the knee raises, we go over the leg raises, all these hey, this is the benefit of doing it this way. But then the person wants to try a toes to bar, like, hey, can I do it? And like they put everything they have into, like barely getting like their toenail to grasp of the pull-up bar, and they come down, they start swinging back and forth, they try to get in the field. This happens a lot. So this is where understanding that, hey, you can do a toes to bar, that's awesome, but when they show up in a workout and there's 12 of them at a time, you can't spend a minute 30 seconds trying to get those 12 toes to bar. We have to scale because there's a perceived intensity that we want everyone to go under.

22:55

It's one of my favorite things to talk about with a beginner, especially one that you get a vibe of like some insecurity, self-consciousness, where, hey, guess what, I, you, are going to feel the same after this workout as that dude up in the front that is one of our top athletes here and like they're at me, like wait, what, how is that possible? He's doing that way and doing that movement. I'm doing this and this. I'm like it's all about your current level of fitness, your capacity and the stimulus of the workout Catchy word, right? What's the goal of today's workout? We need to know that and we need to know that, if I can't do these three movements or these weights, I need to find these weights with guidance from a coach, so that I am getting the same feeling.

23:37

That is the perfect CrossFit class is that there's 17 people in class, all different walks of life, different goals, different experience levels, different strengths and weaknesses, but they all felt the same way at the end of the workout because they scaled properly and it also gives you a ladder to start walking up to eventually get into that RX level or whatever your top level is, whatever you want to get goal-wise. But you need to know steps one through 10 need to be taken one at a time. You can't do one, two, three and then skip steps four through six and then go seven, eight, nine, 10. It's a progression and that is what, to me, really kept me in the game. It's like, oh, I used to only be able to do two muscle-ups in a row, then it was four, then it was eight, then it was 10.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

24:32

no-transcript. Scaling is important both for the beginner as well as for the experienced athlete, in the sense that it helps you build. The goal is to build quality movement and unfortunately, I and a lot of experienced athletes don't do that and I'll give you an example. But let me talk about the beginner first. So yeah, beginners, you're right, there are a couple different kind of ways beginners approach this. There are some that are like ah, I can't even do RX, let me just do the scale, and I'm very happy to do that. It's a really good workout for me. I love that. There are some, as you said, who want to do RX. You know may find that challenging. Do the scaled. Let's face it, there is always ego involved at CrossFit in terms of RX or scaled. You're never going to get rid of that. You're going to have to figure that. You're going to have to wrestle with your own ego and figure out what works for you in terms of are you RXing or scaling it. Hopefully, as a beginner and as an experienced athlete, you're going to use the scaled progressions to build quality movement.

25:35

I am one of the worst examples of this and I will explain exactly why. With toes-to-bar, for example, I can do some toes-to-bar reasonably well with reasonable quality. They break down pretty quickly and then I'm doing that whole like curl, look up to the sky, like you know kind of thing where I'm not keeping anything like engaged and I do singles and I can get by. I am technically lifting my toes up to the bar, but the quality of that was would not be something you would want to see. It's pretty ugly Once.

26:12

Once I start doing those curl up, you know, single toes to bar. What I really should be doing and I just thought of this as you were talking to me about this right now is you know what I'm going to do as many good toes to bar as I can, and once I start doing those horrible like curl my body, look up at the sky type of toes to bar, I'm going to scale it to toes to whatever. Yeah, not touching the bar, but I'm going to keep my plank position. I'm going to keep an engaged core. I'm going to move. If I don't get to wherever I don't, if my-.

David Syvertsen

Host

26:43

But, Sam, you're a quarter finalist and you're a coach. You know you can't. You've been doing this for nine years. You can't scale workouts, You're too good for that.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

26:51

I just had an epiphany right when you told me I was like, wow, I just did a bunch of open workouts where I listen in a competition setting like that. You're going to see me, I'm going to be doing some pretty ugly toes to bar. It's coming baby and I'll grind. But for the rest of the year, what I need to do is use my scale progressions to build quality movement so I can do better movement and not depend on falling apart and doing crappy ones. And so that's what you do. As a beginner, you should always work on your scale, knowing you're going to get better and better and better. And if you're an experienced athlete and this resonates with you and you're also like I too can do some, but then I start falling apart. Don't do crappy movements, maintain quality of movement, scale it down and eventually, as Dave said, you'll snatch 135 and 145, then 155.

David Syvertsen

Host

27:43

And in relation to lifting, how many people do we see this, especially with lower weights? Let's say, snatch 65, they go to 75, then they go to 85. What about the five pound jumps? That's where a lot of our progress, that's where a lot of the issues pop up. And then you go to a weight that you just can't do and you get used to doing bad movement. And the longer you do bad movement, the longer and harder it will take to get rid of it.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

28:04

I have seen so many people snatch 135 and do the ugliest press outs, but they wrote 135 on the board. If I had seen you do more of them at 95 and really kept that movement quality better, and you probably would feel better too. Safety wise, less injury risk. So this is both for the beginner and for the experienced athlete Don't rush through your progressions. Make sure, as a coach, when you're working with beginners and experienced athlete, don't rush through your progressions. Make sure, as a coach, when you're working with beginners and experienced athletes, if you can get them to get that ego because I know there's some athletes I'd be like dude, don't do that 135. Go down to 105. They'd be like they're going to 145. And there's no way on God's green earth I'm going to be able to convince them. So be it, but don't try to be that athlete where the scale progressions are helping you and you're not using it as a lack of ego like an ego problem.

David Syvertsen

Host

28:56

Yeah, like the ego problem. I was talking to this guy, just a beginner, with him, really big, big, strong dude and he's a retired police officer, just like a very alpha type dude and he's a retired police officer, you know, just like a very alpha type guy. And he said he's very honest. I told him I tell all my guy beginners this especially like hey, early on some of these more complicated movements, every girl in this class is gonna be lifting more than you. You would need to be okay with that. And some guys like I don't care, like whatever. And then other guys you could tell them that they squirm a little bit and it's like hey, it's probably one of the most important ways to protect yourself If you genuinely don't want to get hurt, because a lot of people say that and then week two they're doing a heavy deadlift with a flex back, right. That if you genuinely can check the ego at the door, that's great, but in most cases you have to constantly check this. It's not like a one-time thing, I still need to check it and I want you guys to realize, as a beginner and I swear on my life this is how I think about this stuff and I am into the competitive scene. I respect quality movement more than quality scores and the older I get, the stronger that notion gets, and when I have conversations with coaches I rarely am like yo, did you see that time? Did you see that weight? But what we do see often do you see how well that person's moving? That person moves so well.

30:18

I had a conversation with Liz about it yesterday with a couple people doing the ring muscle-ups and it wasn't. How many did he do in a row? What did he do? Right before? I was like dude, his movement is so clean, he catches it hollow. He has a great arch, he extends both his hips, he never chicken wings. It's like we don't even know and there are probably 30 athletes that can do more ring muscle-ups than that person. But the person that we respect the most is the one that does it right that, the one that is coachable, the one that is doing safe. It's not the best athlete and I think this is a performance center program I'm going to get into that at some point and we write your scores down on the whiteboard and we're a competitive society, so we always think more is better.

31:00

But really the respect that you get the extrinsic respect that you get. I would say 80% of it comes from what your quality of movement is, especially from the coaches, things you have to get. So this is going to be a little bit more lighthearted. But you know you go to CrossFit. It's a pretty expensive gym membership compared to most gyms and I actually feel guilty sometimes, like, oh, so your membership is this and, by the way, you need to go buy about 80 bucks worth of stuff. I do think the CrossFit equipment gets a little overblown with what you actually need and some of this is individual based, like some people need, like compression and belts and wrist straps.

31:40

I do think there's three things you really got to figure out pretty quickly. One of them is hand protection. We call them grips, pull-up grips and there's all these different brands. When I started it was you got a tape and you know there was. I remember watching a YouTube video on how to create pull-up grips for your hands and it was always great for like the first three minutes of a workout and then it was just a complete mess by the end and we we really CrossFit grips were not really a big thing until 2012, 13, 14.

32:08

So like if you were. Before that you were barehand on bar and can you guys imagine that? You know you guys doing CrossFit now, like some of you guys put grips on when we hang from a pole bar in a warm-up. You know like it hurts too much, right? Like you guys would do entire workouts like that. And I do think it can impede someone's progress if their hands are always hurting. Like it is an awful feeling at 5.30 am on a Tuesday where you hop up there and the second you touch the pull-up bar your hands are throbbing. It kind of throws you off a little bit and you get pissed. You don't want to be there. So I think getting pull-up grips is the. If I told a new person what's the first thing you should buy, that's my answer. What do you think?

Sam Rhee

Co-host

32:49

Yes, especially if you're a woman. Because, as guys like, when I first started I had really soft surgeon hands. They never did anything manual or hard in my entire life. I picked up books and then I picked up scalpels. That was pretty much it. And then I started CrossFit and I noticed I developed all these calluses and I didn't mind so much.

33:13

But I know a lot of women like it's a big effing deal if they start getting calluses. They really hate that. So I remember I was at a party once and it was downtown. There were some CrossFit NYC-type people there. It was like one high-level regional athlete and she comes to me and she says how do you deal with calluses? You're a doctor, how do you deal with calluses? Like she didn't care about anything else, she just didn't like her calluses. And I was like, oh wow, this is really a big thing Aesthetically. Yes, I think they just want soft, nice hands. And so the good answer is the good is that the best way is to avoid calluses, not develop them. There are a whole bunch of things you can do for skincare and calluses which I'm not going to get into, but grips are tremendously helpful. If you start tearing and ripping, it's like it's a bad thing.

David Syvertsen

Host

34:05

It's a bad thing and it does like even to this day. I get annoyed when I rip because then, like I know, the next week of workouts are going to have to be like slightly altered or you have like it hurts and you could still get through a workout Like my. My least favorite thing about ripping is that snatching for the next like week sucks Right Like you do it, but it's like it's annoying, you know, it's like you suck it up cupcake. I know, and I do usually. But there are people that I've seen them rip really bad where, like they almost can't work out normal for like five, six days and that's like all right, what's the point? Right?

Sam Rhee

Co-host

34:34

So grips are very individual. You'll get tons of advice about which ones to get, but I agree, investing and figuring out what grips are good for you will improve your life quality.

David Syvertsen

Host

34:48

Google, pull-up grips, crossfit, and there's so many brands now I don't even want to. You know, we don't have a sponsor from a pull-up grip, so I'm not even going to get into any, but maybe someday. But there's so many different brands now. The second one I think is really important is figure out your footwear. This is tough. I actually don't lean heavily in one direction in terms of telling people what to do with footwear. I do think it gets overblown. And there are a lot of like CrossFit type companies or companies that have benefited from the growth of CrossFit Reebok and Nike and Noble and TYR. I'm not going to endorse one, but I do think you need to kind of figure out your jam with that, because the traditional CrossFit sneaker with the Nike Metcon or the Reebok Nano even some of the no ball trainers they suck to run in like awful, like to this day.

35:39

I hate running in a Nano and I will avoid it if I can. Based on what other movements are? Um, because there's just they're too flat, there's not enough giving cushion to them, so my joints will start to hurt, my Achilles will start to hurt, but at the same time I don't want to wear running shoes all the time, because when I'm inside doing movements with a dumbbell, barbell wall ball, I don't feel stable. I feel like I'm kind of almost like on a pillow and I'm just falling left to right. And I don't like feeling like that when I'm lifting a load and then I have weightlifting shoes, where it helps my lack of ankle flexibility out or it gives me a little bit more of a platform to really like screw my feet into when I'm doing a heavy lift.

36:16

So you're going to have to figure out your gym. I would say this don't buy a CrossFit sneaker, because other people have CrossFit sneakers. Start off with whatever cross trainer you have, whatever you normally wear to the gym. Give that a shot, and then the only thing I would recommend not wearing are full blown running shoes for a traditional CrossFit workout, because they're just like. There's a little less stability in those and they are meant to propel you forward, and a lot of times in CrossFit you need to drive through your heels and that can be a little bit of an issue.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

36:50

Shoes are incredibly personal. I know someone who did their first four months of CrossFit in loafers until someone pointed it out to him hey, maybe you should not be wearing loafers when you do your CrossFit and he bought another pair of shoes. I would say running, I feel exactly the same way as you. I don't like running in flat um sold shoes, which are what a lot of the CrossFit shoes are. I feel the same way about my ankles and my feet. I don't like high ride, like big heels, thick sole shoes for lifting or indoor movements. Um, I do have different types of shoes.

37:28

Unfortunately, most crossfitters after a while and it's a meme you collect a lot of different shoes and I have a couple of different pairs for running workouts, for mixed modal type workouts, for weightlifting workouts. I think you should try to find something that works for you. I think that's great advice. You should try your own cross-training shoe first and see how that feels, and then you can try other shoes. I think one of the big things for me is width. I don't like narrow shoes, I like wide shoes and it took a while for me to figure out which ones worked better for me. Yeah, but I think worked better for me, yeah, but I think honestly it is really personal and you could try almost any. The first three to four months you could literally do anything in any shoe. You're not gonna need a special.

David Syvertsen

Host

38:19

I had a pair of normal cross trainers for, I think, for the first year.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

38:22

Yeah, I mean, like you said, the only major thing is the running part, though Like you need to find something that you can actually run in Yep.

David Syvertsen

Host

38:29

The last thing I think you should get doesn't have to be right away, because a lot of gyms have multiple jump ropes for you to borrow and maybe even test out. I do think at some point you should get your own jump rope, and this is going to come down to personal preference. Some of these people like these really light metal cords that can just whip and whip it as fast as they can. Other people really generally like the heavier ropes that you can feel the resistance, you could feel it spinning. It's easier to kind of keep track of when to turn it, whether you're doing double unders or single unders or now even crossovers. And I'll tell you what, man I mean. I'm not a good jump roper and for a long time I always thought it was the jump ropes fault. But I think I went through six jump ropes and probably in six years, and just wanted to try a different kind where I think the best.

39:19

Maybe one of the top three double under athletes in our gym, aaron, my brother, yeah, has been using the same jump rope that it was like the OG CrossFit rope from 2010. He has not bought into these speed ropes, these ball bearing rope, these ones that are designed to go super fast and super light. He just never trips up. There's long handles, there's short handles. I don't think it's going to matter that much If you master that jump rope. It's not going to slow you down or going to matter that much. If you master that jump rope, it's not going to slow you down or speed you up that much.

39:50

Not everyone agrees with that, because the lighter ropes do cause less shoulder fatigue, but that's not the issue. For some people it's not always a shoulder. So, just like the shoes, this is a personal choice, and here at Bison we have 50 jump ropes that you can try all right, different sizes, different brands, different thickness levels. What I would do is maybe play around with those for a month or two, maybe even longer, and then find the rope that you kind of just naturally gravitate towards and go buy that rope.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

40:20

And a good rope will last you a couple years minimum, so it's not like you're buying a new one every very often if your you're start, if you just do single unders and we have a number of people at our gym who don't push themselves and only do single unders, unfortunately, and uh, if that's the case, you could pretty much choose any rope, because you can get through any jump rope workout doing single unders with any crappy rope. Yeah, uh, if you start doing double unders regularly or you want to learn double unders, your rope length with weight does make a huge difference. It took me a while to learn double unders and it took getting an RX smart gear rope which was kind of heavy, which forced me to go slow. I could have eventually learned, but it helped speed the learning process for me in terms of my rhythm. And then I've switched over to a speed rope and even now, anytime I kind of mess up on jump rope, I will go back to a longer, slightly longer rope to help me slow down a little bit before I go back to my normal rope.

41:23

So the length of jump rope is incredibly important for a lot of people when it comes to consistency on their double unders, I think, and you can pick out the jump rope that you want every time. Oh, I have a favorite rope. There it is on the hanger over there for me, but what happens if it's not there? What if someone broke it? If you're going to be in CrossFit for more than a couple months at some point, just spend your money for don't buy lattes for two or three days and just pick up a jump rope.

David Syvertsen

Host

41:57

Yeah, the most expensive ones are $90, but really most of them are anywhere between $20 and $40. And it's a good investment. You're going to use it a long time. It'll last a long time. So those are the three things I think are most important. Sam, would you think of anything else off the top of your head? That is really important. Like, I don't want to go down the knee sleeves games Not everyone uses them.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

42:16

I don't want to encourage them just because right Is there anything else off the top of your head that you have to pick up stuff? And trust me, my bag is full of stuff. But I think when you're especially starting, and as I've gone farther along, I try to strip. I try to use less sound size stuff. I try to use less knee sleeves, less wrist stuff. I'm still a big taping guy, but other than that, yeah, less is more.

David Syvertsen

Host

42:45

I'm still a big taping guy, but yeah but other than that, like, yeah, less is more. So five things that most people, including ourselves, don't realize at the start of their CrossFit journey, if you want to call it that. That man, I wish, I wish I knew this Right, and we've. We've talked about this in some ways in previous episodes, but again, we're really I told Sam before this like act like there's 10 new people sit in front of us right now and I want to go over five things that a lot of people just don't realize early on. That, man, the sooner you get this, the better off you'll be. And one of them is testing your progress slash workouts with the whiteboard, with the open, with certain benchmark workouts. This can revolve around recording your results. The way we do it here. We take a picture of the whiteboard, so you don't have to do it. I do think it's better and more efficient to keep track of your own stuff, especially benchmark workouts, and you'll know when there's a benchmark workout that comes up. The coach will talk about that on the whiteboard.

43:40

But this is a program that in some way, everyone needs to be somewhat performance-centered. I'm not saying you need to be the best, right, but you want to kind of get your best. You want to push your thresholds and you need to test yourself every now and then. And testing yourself often brings in some stress. Example what happens to all of our stomachs the day of an open workout a minute before the workout, you get nervous, you get butterflies, you get butterflies. You got to pee for the seventh time in 15 minutes. Right, and why do I feel like this? I get that every open, like some random guy or girl is like why am I stressed out? I'm like I need your care and you're about to get tested.

44:21

And I don't know if you're like me, but when you got tested in school and you think you were prepared but you weren't sure if you're prepared. You think you study but you don't know if you started enough. There's that nervous feeling Like did I pass your board exams to become a surgeon? There were some nerves there because you were being tested. You put a lot into it and as a CrossFitter, you have to accept that. You can't turn a blind eye to it. You can't turn your shoulder to it, because to me, you're really not doing CrossFit if you're not testing yourself every now and then. It doesn't have to be every day, but every now and then if you don't test yourself, in my opinion you're not doing CrossFit, you're just exercising, and we take it a step further, not to the extreme. But we're also not just basic dummies here running around with our heads cut off.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

45:07

Measurement is important for both the beginner and the experienced athlete, and I'll give you an example. There was a pretty new CrossFit athlete even last week and we were doing hand cleans in the workout and the athlete asked me oh, what weight should I use? And I said, well, you know, last week we just did power cleans from the ground. What did you do? Oh, I don't remember. Wait, I think it was. Maybe it was like 55 pounds or something, I don't know. I was like, all right, let's put some weight on the barbell. And it's like, yeah, it was this, this, like there was a 10 and this. I was like, okay, perfect, all, all right. And how did that feel last week? Oh, that, yeah, I could do that. That wasn't a problem. I was like, all right, you know what, start with this and see how it feels. Let's see you do a couple of there. And it was like, oh, yeah, yeah, this is good. Well, if she had known, yeah, that she what she was doing. And then after that workout, she's like, oh, yeah, that was what she was doing. And then after that workout, she was like, oh, yeah, that was really good. I was like, okay, keep that number in mind. So when you're doing cleans, you can say, all right, this is where I know I could do and maybe I can like, depending on the workout, go up. If it's a lot more, maybe go down. Now you've got a baseline. So for all of these workouts, if you start keeping track of all of these things that you do one as a coach, we will thank you because it will help us guide you better. But two, you can now say, all right, last week I was doing this, or last month, but now that's way too easy. I can actually add five pounds on each side and do more. So you are measuring and improving your performance by those measurements. And that is the same for Rich Froning, same for Katrin David's daughter, same for me, same for a beginner Keep track of these things.

46:55

So you know I don't do as good of a job these days as I should recording. I do record my workouts. I'm not logging them in a good, coherent way, but I think, even if you just wrote down what you do every day in some fashion, I just take a picture of my whiteboard and keep track of it. So it's not very efficient, but at least I can know. Oh yeah, I did a snatch workout like two weeks ago and I can like kind of scroll back on my photos and see what I did. Like whatever it takes as a beginner one, you will be amazed what kind of progress you can make in three months and two. You can dial in, for safety reasons as well as performance reasons, what you should be doing for a workout.

David Syvertsen

Host

47:37

And the CrossFit equation centers around intensity, and intensity is not screaming your head off, trying really hard, sweating a lot, getting your muscles to burn. It's a mathematical equation. Are you doing more work in less amount of time? All right, like that's the goal. Whether it's more weight, whether it's more reps, whether it's a faster time, you need to have a gauge to chase after. So there is some sort of sense of responsibility on the athlete side. Yes, even though you're new, you got to know what you lifted last week. You got to know what you did last time. There was toes to bar. Write it down, have a good memory. That kind of stuff Like that really does accelerate. What you want to get out of CrossFit will come from you pushing your own threshold, trying to improve by 1%, and I'm telling you this right now, your first year CrossFit. If you're dedicated, smart, stay healthy, you're coachable, you're going to make gains across the board. But you need to know that you used a green and red band two weeks ago and did pull-ups. If you show up and say I don't know, it's like, all right, well, I don't know about your results. I don't know if you're going to get that much out of today's workout. So just trust me on that. It really try to make this a performance center movement, not because you're trying to be the best in the world, but because you want to get better. That is the. That's the reason why you're here, right? You getting leaner, gaining muscle, losing fat, losing weight want to look better. You got to get better at something. It's not going to happen by showing up. You have to get better at something and the way to get better is to keep track of what you're doing. So this kind of like goes into my next comment. It's performance centered.

49:11

And let's bring out the CrossFit Open. You know we are worldwide known for here at Bison for what we do with the CrossFit Open. It's once a year. It's a test. I view it as a test. I think you should too. It's three weeks long. It's one workout a week. So when you don't have to do that much, it's 20 bucks. It's not that expensive. But if you're new to crossfit, your next, the next open, will be your first one. So we just got done with this. So if you're starting right now, you got a good 11 months 10, 11 months before we do the open next year and you get a rank, you get a number something objective next to your name how you ranked in every workout scaled, foundations, RX, whatever.

49:46

The next year? 12 more months of training. You now have something to try and beat. You don't need to beat people in your gym. You can, and I do think that can help you accelerate your progress and keep you focused. Blah, blah, blah.

49:58

But look at what you did in year one. I love looking back at what people in this gym did their first open, then their second open, then their third open and it just gets better and better and better. And that's when you get to compare against the world in relation to who you are in the CrossFit sport. And again, it's not because I know you're trying to be the best athlete in the world, but it means when you see someone go from the 45th percentile to the 65th percentile, you think that's luck. Maybe some of it is, but no, they worked hard and I always love to show someone an objective. Look what you did, Look what you did last year, Look what you did this year. Not a pat on the back and say, good job, they do that at any gym. You know, a crappy personal trainer will do that even when you don't do a good job. They're like hey, good job, Good for you. Where's the objective? Progress.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

50:46

Here's your open rank no-transcript is it keeps your relative intensity high. The only way you're going to get better is if you keep your own relative intensity level high, which means trying really hard, which means you're chasing after your own relative performance. If you're focused on doing better than you did before, then that's the only way you're going to be able to keep your intensity high and not go backwards, not slide, not improve. And then the second thing is that you might not do better. I have many workouts gone and done it and not done better and realized I have a huge hole in my game. I am not doing this movement well, I did not. You know, I'm good at like eight minute workouts, not so great at the 20 to 25 minute workouts.

52:03

There are a whole bunch of reasons why you may. I'm getting older, like. All these reasons will point out why you know what it is that I can do to try to improve myself as a, as a fit person. And if you're not trying to improve yourself now, that literally means you're backsliding. If you just try to maintain, you're falling back. So as an athlete, as a functionally fit person, I have to try to keep improving. I have to try to measure my performance in order to make sure I'm not getting worse.

David Syvertsen

Host

52:39

Number three things that people don't realize when they start. Mobility is a game changer. We don't want to admit it. We don't want to stretch. We don't want to admit it. We don't want to stretch. We don't want to dig a lacrosse ball into our scapula.

52:50

Right, if you can improve the mobility within your joints across the board ankles, knees, hips, elbows, shoulders, wrists you're A going to be much safer doing this program, but it will also open the door to you accelerating your fitness gains, strength gains, skill gains. You know, the longer you do this, you start to realize like even someone just holding a front rack requires a lot more mobility than what people have when they start. If I had someone ask me like what's the thing that people struggle with the most when they start, cross it, and I'm like front rack. You know it's a really uncomfortable thing for them. It hurts their wrists, their fingers are getting bent back. Their fingers have never been in that position before. Now you're doing it with a loaded barbell on your throat while you're out of breath. It's a really uncomfortable position, and the people that I have seen use Matt Cipollaro as an example.

53:44

He started doing this in the right around reset, where he came in and did a 20-minute stretch every single day before he worked out, and it wasn't anything intense right, you don't want to do like a yoga session before working out most of the time but it was just attention to mobility. I mean, this was the best opening he's ever had. He didn't work out any harder. If anything, his life is harder now than it used to be with multiple kids. All right, so as a pretty serious job, his movement is so clean, His squat is better, it looks more stable, it looks safer and it's just because he put that attention to unmobility and this is a guy that's been doing it for a long time he's already really high level fitness. This isn't just for beginners, but beginners. The more you can pay attention to really putting effort into becoming more mobile even though it's not fulfilling and it doesn't make you look better in pictures on the beach during the summer, it's going to help you stay in the game longer.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

54:38

It's always a blessing as a coach when you have a beginner who has great mobility. You're just like, oh, that's so great, but so many of us are not blessed with awesome mobility. And I think when you start CrossFit, you're going to start doing these movements and you're going to see what movements are difficult for you because of a lack of mobility. Once that that shows up, that's where you can say I can work on these things to be safer, to be healthier and to improve my performance, because, like you said, crossfit is performance centered and you can make amazing gains that way. Now we also have a lot of experienced athletes who, including me, don't work on our mobility enough.

55:27

It's a bore, it's boring. I understand that it's not fun. Uh, there's, like you said, there's no sexy upside to it. It takes time, but if you do care about getting better, like you said, matt, I saw I just saw matt cipollaro kill last week's workout and I was kind of wondering what was in him that was it, and that blows me away. So it's a great reminder for both the experienced athlete as well as for the beginner Look at your movements, see what's holding you back mobility-wise and focus on that part of it.

David Syvertsen

Host

56:05

I think we have a lot of people here that are really good at working hard and they're ambitious and they're consistent. They show up and like I love it. It's like one of the most admirable traits to me just me personally when I look outward and I see someone that just like works hard and like I love that and but that that's not good enough. If for for this like there has to be a level of discipline with your mobility work and your recovery tactics, because you are going to eventually burn the candle from both ends. If you are not paying attention to that but also have that admirable trait of working hard, you eventually will get hurt or tweet or you'll be that person that every two weeks you're tweaking something. So when I see someone like really puts the attention on mobility'm like they get it all right. Um, what we just talked about? This sam off camera, what five things? People don't realize the value of virtuosity. Virtuosity is doing the comp, the common, uncommonly well. Aka, if you want a practical example, when we have air squats, push-ups and pull-ups, we have a workout that's coming up it's called cindy, I think it's uh next week and there's no barbell, not a ton of skill, it's just pull-up, push-up, air squat nine times out of ten. Those at those movements get really ugly as people get tired and they don't really care because they're just trying to get a great score. And then you got someone like Brian Miller In the corner, who is perfect air squats every single time, perfect push-ups, every time, perfect pull-ups. He might get 17 rounds. The guy that's moving poorly and faster might get 22 rounds. Guess who? We're more impressed by the guy that did 17 rounds and everything was the same Round one looked like round 17. That is the most impressive thing and that's virtuosity. That is wow.

57:53

This is a boring workout. There's not much skill, it doesn't look sexy, but hey, I'm going to put so much attention on doing every air squat so perfect. I'm going to do every push up so perfect. I'm going to stay hollow and arch on my pull-ups so perfect. That is doing something that's really common, uncommonly well. Uncommonly well means most people don't do that. They get away from clean movement because, hey, I'm tired, dude, chill, relax. I'm just here to work out, dude, I'm trying to get my beat score. I'm trying to beat the person that came in the morning, so I'm going to kind of short a few things and not move well. If you can be the one that moves well maybe not fast or strong you're getting more out of this than the other people. Virtuosity.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

58:41

I kind of went a little crazy on my morning classes last week with pushups Yep, you're allowed to every now and then and I basically told my classes that as a collective whole, our pushups were awful and I had seen it for a really long time People not reaching death, people not locking out at up top and I understand why we all want to chase a number because that's put up on a whiteboard. And I basically said what you said coaches, other people don't respect you when you don't move. Well, and I said it reflects poorly on me as a coach If someone who had never come to him so ask yourself this someone who's never come to your gym walks into your gym and they watch them. Your athletes are in the middle of a workout. What would they think about your class and your gym? Right?

59:36

And I was thinking if someone came in in the middle of a pushup workout, I'd be so ashamed of myself and my athletes, so ashamed of myself and my athletes and I said I don't want that. I know you guys can do better movement, but you're chasing the score. And I literally yelled at my classes and they responded amazingly well. I have never seen so many good pushups in my life with these people. Their numbers probably weren't as good and I said listen, I don't care what they do in the afternoon or evening classes. Maybe their numbers are going to be so much better than yours and I don't know if they took comfort in it, but I said your movements were so good today. That's what you need to work on.

David Syvertsen

Host

01:00:23

I'll tell you what I think it carried over to Friday because I coached Friday morning and all my classes, classes on that high school day the pistols, my self-sales, you guys moved really well. I think sometimes that message really does hit home with some CrossFitters and I think, just like this episode, it's for veterans of CrossFit as well. Let's remind ourselves we need to approach things like beginners and beginners just do things well.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

01:00:46

It's so much easier as a coach to coach a beginner because they don't know anything. So you're like do this, don't? You know you're not doing it well and they'll go slow on purpose Right. And as a coach, it is much harder to take someone who's experienced and has been doing it a particular way to make them move uncommonly well when they are used to working a certain way. And I still wrestle with that as a coach and you should as an experienced athlete.

01:01:09

I just heard of someone who is a very good athlete here and someone was giving them a tip about how they weren't I forget if it was a ring muscle up or something else and that athlete did not respond very well. And this coach is an excellent coach, not someone who I would ever consider being denigrating or confrontational, and I was like that made me one think less of that athlete big time. And two, I was like we as coaches should not be afraid, not just beginners, but with our experienced athletes, the simple movements, the common movements, as you said. This is what CrossFit hounds in us in our L1, l2. Don't be afraid to make them move uncommonly well. I think that that's one of my big focuses, probably for the next year is how can I make my experience athletes move uncommonly well and make sure the beginners don't learn bad habits from the beginning?

David Syvertsen

Host

01:02:12

Yeah. And if you're a beginner listening to this, you're like, oh, this is kind of intense. But I'll say this now's the time to learn. We're coming from a lot of experience over here. The people that ignored it, or maybe us as coaches, we didn't pound it enough. Two, three years from now, it's going to be even harder to fix. Four or five years from now, even harder, seven, eight years, almost impossible.

01:02:37

So if you ever have a coach that spends three minutes talking about your foot placement on a front squat, I'm telling you, if you can really zero in on that and practice it, you're going to get more out of this. You'll be safer, and I think that's why most people do respond well to what you're talking about. Like, yes, some people don't like to be coached hard like that, but I think most people do. You know, after the laughing is gone and oh, sam's being this like we, it means a lot and I actually think it shows if you're a newbie, if you have a coach that's like that, I'll tell you what it means. They care about you, because our jobs would be a lot easier if we didn't care. Like, bro, here's the push-up, here's the workout. No stimulus, no scale, just kind of go do what you want, see you later. I'm going to go sit in my chair for the next half hour. If you have coaches that do care about the movement and virtuosity, it's going to help you a long way.

01:03:29

Last thing that people don't realize we're almost done Importance of being with others. This is where I think it's kind of obvious. But I don't know if beginners really truly understand the value of being in a class, and you know some classes are bigger than others, some classes are too big, some classes are too small, blah, blah, blah. Right, the value and appreciation that you need to have for the other people in the room is going to make your like some little bit of meditation mindset practice. And maybe it's because it's new, but I do think it's helping me and my mindset during the middle of a workout Because, trust me, I just watched you and Susan do the pain face run row workout for this Thursday and those are hard workouts to be like, like be motivated for, because it's not fun. It's got running in it, you know, just a lot of heavy breathing but deep down. I bet both you guys are really grateful that the other person did with you, because if you did that.

01:04:34

If you found a solo version of that, like you did it by yourself, it would not has been as fun or as fulfilling. Relate that to a new person coming to a class. You're a little overwhelmed. You don't know all the movements. Can you imagine doing this in your basement by yourself? You wouldn't work that hard, I guarantee you wouldn't work out that hard. Maybe once or twice you would, on a repeated basis. Not happening, You'd quit. You'd short the reps, you'd short the workouts, you'd do four rounds instead of five. You'd do this weight instead of that way.

01:05:03

When you're in a room of people like this and most CrossFit's, in my opinion, are like that great community people that are go-getters, they want to work hard. They're going to feed off you and you're going to feed off them that kind of relationship where it's mutually beneficial is awesome and I want you to lean into it. I want you to show up and introduce yourself to people, introduce yourself to the coach, talk to someone after the work Like, hey, how do you do this? You know like I love these guys.

01:05:30

At 7 am that come, brendan and Angelo. They're the best. They'll spend a half hour talking to Dan Cota about. You know his big toe on snatches. But and like, what's unique about them is they're still relatively new to the gym and they really put themselves out there. They ask questions, they get into conversations, they reflect on their own experience and it's like it's fun to be around. It actually lifts the room up. So if you're new, even if you're not a big extrovert, try to as much as you can to lean into the community, because the community wants to help you.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

01:06:06

Yeah, and actually, if your gym isn't that, go find another CrossFit gym that does, because I think some of the people you mentioned had actually been at other gyms didn't find that came. I mean not to brag about us, but found it here. I'm an introvert, I don't like really putting myself out there, but in CrossFit gyms for some reason I am very social. I want and I think as a beginner and when I drop in at other places I don't I'm always reticent, but I do I force myself are you Go meet people, talk to people, because that will make your performance better, that will make your workout better and other people and theirs, and you'll help other people work out better. And so I have never regretted ever being in a CrossFit gym, reaching out to people, talking to them, saying you know, connecting with them. Even when I've been at gyms where people are like who are you Like, why are you talking to me? At the end of the day still better. And I've never regretted it. And I think if you're an experienced athlete and you see someone new at your gym, definitely reach out to them. Always say at least hello, how are you? What's going on? That is why CrossFit works, because of the social aspect of it.

01:07:27

There's someone at our gym who comes to the 6 am class. He's recovering from a back and he hates working out so much in his garage. He's always asking her can you just stay and work out with me instead? Yeah, right, and he's a really disciplined guy. It's just really hard to be motivated when you work out by yourself. Yep, I am so grateful I have a full gym in my garage. I could do almost every workout at home and I come to the gym because it's the people, it's the power of the community. Crossfit has talked about that. I am a firm believer about it. I also believe from a health perspective, literally from your health. It helps you to be around others, especially when you're fitnessing, and I feel like if you're a beginner and you don't take advantage of that, you are missing out on a tremendous amount of the benefit of CrossFit. It's not just the workouts and the training and the nutrition, it's the people, the connection.

David Syvertsen

Host

01:08:46

Yeah, yeah, take advantage of the connections here. So this went a little bit longer than I thought it would, because I'm just going to wrap this up just on your focus in year one. Right, because I hope that you stick this out for a year. I do get asked that how long, like when someone says I want to give it a shot for a month. I'm like not coming from the business owner perspective. I promise you got to give this three months. You really do, and you got to be consistent. You got to be dedicated and if you don't like it after three months, then I get it. It's not for everyone. I say that as much as I say everyone should do it, this is not for everyone.

01:09:18

What I would do in my first year is try to find my weekly flow. People ask all the time should I come in every day? I'm like probably not. If you're new, I would say either two on one off, two on one off and then every now and then, try three in a row, or you could try every other.

01:09:36

I like the idea of coming in two days in a row at least. So I like that idea of two on one off, two on one off or two on one-off, three on one-off, you know, get you two full rest days per week and see how your body responds to that. So I think that's really important. But also I think the next most important thing would be when you can try to dive into some material. Like there's so much stuff on youtube now, like if you have thrusters in tomorrow's workout, go type thruster into youtube for two minutes and like I guarantee you're going to pick up on things that your coach doesn't talk about, that you just haven't picked up on in this group. Setting that, if you can come in just a little bit more prepared and I'm not going to tell you to find 20 minutes a day to read about CrossFit two to three minutes and then maybe it'll end up doing more than that because you're getting into it I think that's something that can kind of accelerate your experience here.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

01:10:44

I think that's something that can kind of accelerate your experience here. It's just kind of diving into some CrossFit type media material the Herd Fit podcast. That will actually just kind of enrich you and again kind of change the mindset a little bit of what this really is, because it's not just an intense workout program. It's much more loaded than that. Yeah, embrace it. That is what beginners should do. They should, if you are doing this to make yourself a better person.

01:11:04

Not just showing up is helpful, like you said, putting a little bit of extra in and say you know, I saw this and what do you think of this? When they were talking about a particular workout or that like to me it's. It shows that they're invested in themselves. They're not just showing up saying, hey, make me an athlete, like they're actually caring enough about it to invest their own personal time into it. Now listen, if you just show up every day or you know, two on, one off, which is sort of the way I think it's, yeah, 60 days, two to three months, is a minimum to sort of really feel like you get it and you understand it. Give it your very, very best shot.

01:11:59

Not all gyms are for everyone. So if you find a gym and you're like this is really not my style either I'm not jibing with the coaches or the people, or something else find another gym, see what works for you in terms of that flow. But listen, we wouldn't be in this if we didn't believe in this. You know, for as many years as we have been, as many years as we have been, and honestly, I feel like the people that are in CrossFit are really quality people, a lot of people that I've known who have tried it and left. I don't want to be a snob, but there were a lot of reasons that I felt like they had mental issues that prevented them from really achieving their full potential. Yeah, and I always hope that they would address those and then come back, because it is a methodology that we truly believe in that really works and I think for beginners, if you're starting, keeping that in mind and really giving it your best effort is going to allow you to become your best person. Yeah.

David Syvertsen

Host

01:13:12

Yeah. So thanks, guys for listening. Just a disclaimer there's going to be someone out there that says you guys didn't talk about nutrition at all. Remember, this is for someone that's.

01:13:23

Yes, yes, the nutrition is the most important part of any sort of fitness and health program, but I really wanted to dive into what is the? What are the things that really prevent people from understanding what we do here? Right, like the actual logistics of a day and the workouts and what you need to be a crossfitter and then I think, once you get those are the basics to get down first in. In my opinion, I don't think it's the most important. But do you want to do this workout program? Will you put in all these extra little efforts and thoughts into it? And then you're going to turn into someone that's like yo. I want to get more out of this. I want to take my game to the next level. Then we go to the nutrition game.

01:14:00

I think you have to really fall in love with CrossFit. First, the coaching, the classes, the environment, the community, the intensity, the variety, the virtuosity. You need to fall in love with that, get that foundation and then all right, now I'm in this. I'm in this for three, four, five months. I'm in it for a year. I want to make this my program forever.

01:14:17

All right, we got to dial your nutrition, if it's not already dialed in. So I just want to put that disclaimer out there. But first, that's how I think you guys are going to have to star cross it and get the most out of it. I hope you got a lot out of it, or at least I hope it can create some questions in your head to go ask your coach, your owner, your friend, your fellow CrossFitters, so that you can really get the ball rolling and stay on track for a long time, because this should be a workout program for life, not just before the beach season. All right, thank you guys. See you next time. 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.