S05E150 Harmonizing CrossFit's Competitive Future: Leadership, Communication, and Judging

Are the voices of CrossFit's leaders striking the right chord with the community, or is it time for a tune-up? Coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic have a no-holds-barred discussion on the leadership symphony—or cacophony—that's shaping the future of CrossFit. We're not just spectators; we're embedded in the trenches as consumers, affiliate managers, coaches, and athletes. Prepare to gain critical insights as we propose actionable solutions to harmonize decision-making and amplify the sport we're all passionate about.

CrossFit's evolution is akin to a complex dance—steps forward, steps back, sometimes a leap into the unknown. In this groove, We break down the choreography of CrossFit's communication and the CrossFit Games' development. We scrutinize the leaderboard's transparency, the qualification process, and the financial footwork involved, all while considering the delicate balance between inclusivity and the elite beat of competitive integrity. This chapter is a backstage pass to understanding the rhythm and reason behind the sport's transformative journey.

Finally, we turn the spotlight on the oft-debated judging controversy within CrossFit competitions. From leaked workouts to the potential of video submissions shaking up fairness, we dissect every angle. Plus, we weigh the pros and cons of a community-engaged judging system and explore how Masters athletes might pirouette through the current challenges. Join us as we choreograph solutions for a sport that keeps us all on our toes, ensuring that every rep and every workout hits the right note.

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

00:00:05 Solutions for CrossFit Leadership Challenges

00:05:16 Transparency and Evolution in CrossFit

00:12:51 Issues With CrossFit Competition Judging

00:22:07 Improving CrossFit Games Judging Process

00:30:54 Solving CrossFit Games Masters Issues

S05E150 Harmonizing CrossFit's Competitive Future: Leadership, Communication, and Judging

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'm Coach David Syverton. I'm here with my co-host, dr and Coach Sam Rhee. Back to just us two today, after speaking with Amy last week, and we are going to kind of keep the discussion a little bit on the sport for just one more week, and then we have a couple other exciting guests coming up in the coming weeks and we want to talk about some solutions. Right, sam? What's one thing we always talk about with coaches? It's like all right, don't just talk about problems, bring some solutions to the table. Right, I don't want to hear about problems, I want to hear about solutions after we talk about the problems.

00:53

And CrossFit sport is they're struggling dude, and I love them and I'm loyal to them and I love the people at the top. But if I was not involved in CrossFit as an affiliate owner, as an athlete, as a competitor, as someone that just has a lot of love and appreciation for guys like Dave Castro and Boz and Wilson, who I got to speak with a few weeks ago, and our new CEO, don Fall. I would look at it from the outside and be like this is a disaster. Just way too many mistakes that are getting repeated over and over, and I do think that they are really proactive with trying to find solutions to problems. They do. They change the season up every year, yeah, but some of the issues that are reoccurring are really alarming to me and I still don't think that the people that are making the decisions have come up with the right solution. And we're gonna here we going to talk about a couple of our solutions that might work, that might not work, why they could work, why there's no way they could work, and we also I just want to put the disclaimer out there we don't know all the details to their problems, but I do want to talk from the consumer perspective, as an affiliate manager, as a coach.

02:04

From the consumer perspective as an affiliate manager, as a coach, as an athlete, as a competitor, that I'm kind of getting sick of a few things with the shortcomings, that in my opinion, they're really easy to fix, and as a business owner here, when we have issues, we have issues all the time it happens you have to try and simplify them as much as you can and knock out the easy parts first, or at least the foundation of the problem first, right, and then you kind of work your way up, and that's what I want to do here.

02:32

So you know, just opening thoughts on this sam, where you know you're into the sport, you're not to die hard, but you're into it, you're very involved in it, and you now have a different label next to your name in terms of what you are to to cross at bison as a part owner. Now that I think that what you say about this means a lot, because and what you think about this does mean a lot because of how long you've been involved and bison is one of the biggest gems in the world when it comes to open registration and quarterfinal registration that I think what you say matters. So what are your opening thoughts? You don't have to hold back if you don't want to, because I think CrossFit needs to hear some of this stuff.

Sam Rhee

Host

03:13

I've heard people talk, especially on other podcasts talking Elite, fitness and Hiller and so forth about what the problems are and how they think it should be fixed. You're right, a lot of it is complaining, not so many solutions, right, exactly, yeah, but I would really like to hear your take on the solutions, because I've not been very happy with the solutions that a lot of people have proposed. I also know that CrossFit and we know them their leadership is very strong-minded. It's going to take a lot for them to change what they think is right, and so any solutions that are proposed have to really resonate with what they believe. I know you're a true CrossFit person, like your beliefs, and I think HQ beliefs actually align very closely. I agree, where I've seen their programming going, where I've seen them sort of try to approach their philosophy of growth, it really meshes, I think, with what our affiliate has done, which is, I think, why we've been so successful. But the solutions have to really align with the way they think in order for them to implement them.

David Syvertsen

Host

04:24

Yeah, yeah, and I think that is probably one of the biggest challenges that Dave Castro and Don Fallen and Boz have that you have to get everyone, every voice in that room to align. And one thing I know about CrossFitters a lot of egos are involved in this place and people that have a lot of success outside of CrossFit, so they're confident in their ability to make decisions and make calls because they've had success in these leadership type positions. And I would love to be a fly on the wall and I'm never going to be but like I would like to see some of these conversations that go down that who really is like the alpha in there, or are there too many alphas in there? There's too many cooks in the kitchen where, because of that, they there are too many alphas in there. There's too many cooks in the kitchen where, because of that, they can't come up with a really streamlined solution, and a lot of that comes from.

05:10

You have to check your ego in these meetings and these decision-making processes and I give credit to Dave Castro for going. He's pretty transparent on his weekend reviews that he puts on YouTube. I don't think he gives us everything he shouldn't, but he's pretty transparent and that's one of my biggest complaints with CrossFit is how bad they are at being transparent with issues, with communication. They had a huge one this year. That really pissed me off and he, at least, will go on there. And he acknowledges that there's mistakes and he acknowledges that we're making changes next year. He said there's going to be a huge change next year. I have a feeling I know it's going to be too.

05:43

What pissed you off? When the leaderboard was supposed to be final, it didn't become final until, I think, 18 hours after. Oh, I see, and that sounds not like a big deal, but when you're on the, when you're checking like refresh, if I made it, if not, if they made it, if they didn't, we need to make plans to communicate this to the gym and stuff like that. And you tell us it's going to be ready at 8 or 9 pm Eastern. It's not available till the noon the next day and in that time there's no communication. That, hey guys, there's a bug, we have an issue.

06:13

I texted someone at CrossFit and I said this is what you guys are really bad at. I was like you're not. Just let us know you made a mistake or something happened. Right, let us know you made a mistake or something happened, right, like if if here at bison, if we said, uh, you know you couldn't design it, what happens every single time zen planner goes down? Remember, remember that zen planner was going down every now. And then, yeah, right around 5 am, 5 pm, 6 pm, when most of our people sign up, yeah, the first thing we do is go onto facebook. Hey guys, there's an issue with zen. You know, if we didn't like have and it has nothing to do with us either, but we did let the gym know that. You know, we notified zen, we notified their help desk. They're on top of it. And then what do we do when we hear back from zen? Hey guys, they're working on it. So at least you guys know that. We know that there's a huge issue and that's that. But, dave cashow, he only does these once a week, so that doesn't help you.

07:02

We need more real-time communication and in today's world, not being able to communicate in a timely fashion, there's no excuse. There are so many mediums, so many outlets. You can put some information. A simple one-liner there's an issue, we're working on it, goodbye, that's it. That's all you got to do. It's very simple. So that's where I think Dave Castro does a good job of being transparent, but I wish the whole company was a little bit more transparent with issues like that.

07:27

So let's talk about some of the history of the games. I'm not going to go give a history lesson, but I want you guys to know where this came from. You used to be able to sign up for anything that you wanted to do, including the games. I want to sign up, I want to go compete at the ranch, and then it became I have to qualify. Then it became I have to qualify. And then the open started in 2011 and if you finished, it used to be top 60. Then it was top 40. They switched the regions around, but basically, you started at the open and if you were good enough, you qualified for regionals and that was really what helped CrossFit games take off that whole regional scene going to these big arenas and people you know traveling all over the country to go watch these athletes and then, if you qualified from the games from there, that's when the actual CrossFit Games took off and they switched locations and kind of fields and everything.

08:11

You also have to keep in mind Castro says this all the time it's a very young sport. If you want to go research he says this all the time go research what Major League Baseball was in its first 10 years. And NFL, I mean those guys are changing rules every year to make it better. So there is some grace given to. I don't mind making mistakes like that. That's a part of any process, any growing process, and they are still very early in the process. But repeated mistakes is where I start to get a little bothered by. So basically, when Greg Glassman took regionals away after 2018, and then COVID comes and then three or four different CEOs in a matter of four years, it's just a lot of instability in the company overall and the games kind of stayed alive. But they were qualifying through sanctionals and online and then they got invites and then they had one person from every country.

09:01

Change, change, change. Basically, I think we've found a rhythm. We are back to now to a three-week open and if you're good enough, you're going to qualify for quarterfinals. I don't care what they do with it. Top 10%, top 25%. 25% makes sense to me because of the money. You get more money. Call it a money grab Done, it's a money grab Awesome. They need the money. So if they don't have the money, there's no games. Okay. I thought it was good for affiliates and a lot of athletes too, absolutely so I'm all about. I don't wanna make it top 50%, but I think 25% is a very good number. Okay. And if you qualify for semifinals for age groups, it's another online competition for Open Division. You go to a live competition that eventually brings people to the games. I think it's going to stay in that rhythm. I think it's a really good flow. Most people like a three-week Open. Quarterfinals are really cool. I think they're more affiliate-friendly now. Semifinals are really cool, whether it's Masters or individual, and then you've got the games. Do you like that flow?

Sam Rhee

Host

10:06

masters or individual, and then you got the games. Do you like that flow? Yes, I think that that sort of mimics what sort of worked before, but in a more cost efficient way. Uh, and I think it's the accessibility that they presented this year was was. They're all welcome changes and I think that if they kind of stick to an outline like this, that would work yeah.

David Syvertsen

Host

10:23

So that's what simplify the problem start from the bottom, create your format, and I think CrossFit has created their format. I hope they don't change it next year. Right, there's been a couple rumors that it's you know you're going to qualify for the semifinals from from the open or something like that, or they bring back regionals. I think this is the solution. They they found. They've tweaked it multiple times. It works three Three-week open online quarterfinals, semifinals in your gym for Masters and an actual location for Open Division Cool, then go to the games. I don't want to get too into how many people from each region qualify. That's like math. How many people are registering from certain regions. I don't want to get into that.

11:04

The train wreck of two things leaking workouts, you know like this happened twice. It happened without dave cashrow and he said and he kind of like scoffed at it, laughed at it, and now it happened with dave cashrow in charge and he's pretty pissed off about it. He went on his weekend review and said he was pissed off about it. Why does that happen? Happen. I'm not a tech guy so I'm not really sure what happens. You know, something got posted as public and it shouldn't have been public. Someone pressed the wrong button which leak the open, leak the open workout. So 24.3. Yep, yep, does it bother you that it gets leaked?

Sam Rhee

Host

11:41

It just shows a sign of potential shoddiness. So it's not like that, it's such a big deal, but it just shows you like you don't have any everything squared away.

David Syvertsen

Host

11:51

So you're like, okay, if they're leaking this, what else isn't like yeah quite right, right, and now the semi-final workouts get leaked, and castro also said this. You know he didn't want to, he doesn't know who did it, but he goes now that we're going to these semifinal satellite locations. You know there's hundreds of people that need to know the workouts. Well, he said 51. Yeah, okay, outside of CrossFit. Yes, so I would say I would assume that that number right there one of those people from those competitions leaked it to someone. Yep, and that's kind of like that is what it is.

Sam Rhee

Host

12:23

Yeah, I mean we know that process. We had to sign NDAs before the open announcement, yep, and any one of us could have leaked it Absolutely. And but, for the grace of God, like listen, there are people who are willing to do that, right?

David Syvertsen

Host

12:36

So yeah, I think that Solution there would be control the narrative, put the workouts sooner, before the people have to know and hey, it's not a surprise anymore. Whatever, honestly, if anything, it might make for a better show.

Sam Rhee

Host

12:51

The technical issues. He got pissed. Yes, someone dropped the ball there. I will be shocked if that ever happens again. Technically, yeah, the vendors and other people who have to know who leak it. Unfortunately, if anything he said, there are going to be changes. What will probably happen is people will suffer because of it, like they won't release them, like the later, or the vendors won't have as much time to set up.

13:19

Like there's going to be some negative changes overall. It's like, well, now you ruined for everyone, so we're not going to be able to release these properly yeah.

David Syvertsen

Host

13:27

So whoever released that really poor job by you, like really selfish decision, because now there's like going to be consequences that other people have to deal with now and that's just. It's just not right and really the only reason anyone would leak a workout to a coach or an athlete is for for selfish reasons. You know, and like that, that, that we need less of that. So, the biggest issue that we've had so far this season and this has been an ongoing issue, and this is why I'm so bothered why they haven't released it or haven't fixed this yet the online judging the subjectivity to that and giving out penalties. You know Sam's illustration that he gave is one of the best ever about getting a speeding ticket.

14:05

Yes, athlet, athletes can't really be that upset about getting caught. Well, cheating, slash, not hitting the standards while others didn't. That's just not the way it works, ok. However, is there a better system to prevent this from happening? And or can you find a way to actually check the other people, meaning getting more cops on the side of the road to check if everyone's speeding to make it more quote fair, even though life is not supposed to be fair, it's never going to be fair. Is there a solution to this, and I think there are, and I think we're going to see something drastic next year. Does it bother you as much as it bothers me that every year there's a huge stink about online judging and videos and these people are getting away with this and these people are not getting away with that? It's there's got to be something that can be done. What do you think does it bother you? Or is it just like? Hey, it's like umpires calling strikes and balls is subjective um, the problem is me.

Sam Rhee

Host

15:03

The problem isn't the judging of the videos. The problem is there is such a sustained outcry every year and perception drives the narrative. So I don't necessarily think CrossFit's doing anything horrible, but when you have so many people making a big stink about it, that perception is what the issue is. So I have listened to these athletes and other people on these podcasts and they're like the process needs to be opened up. We need to be able to know what's going on with the penalties and how they're deciding, and how many people are looking at these videos and what standards are they looking at. Are they looking at a slow motion or fast?

15:42

And forget that CrossFit will never open up that system for others to look at. You want to look at it because you want your finger in the pie and to figure out how to game it. How to game it. So screw the athletes who say open up the system. That is not the solution. Yeah, the solution is going to have to be CrossFit has to control the media perception with this. So how do you control the media perception with it and yet still be cost effective, still make it fairer, still make it work within?

David Syvertsen

Host

16:16

their control and Dave Castro does a decent job of that because he actually shared some statistics objective statistics of the amount of videos that were watched, the amount of videos that received penalties and the amount of videos that did not receive penalties. And it's overwhelming that almost all the videos that they are not, that are watching, are not getting major penalties. Some are minor penalties and a lot are no penalties and they are catching guys and they he did. He put out the number of thousands of videos, so that that means that that's peeling back the curtain enough that you can give some objective numbers and people like statistics. So this is what I think. Idea number one is and I had a feeling they were going to do this and they are doing this for something called the service open. So the service open is something I think you had to sign up for prior to the open and if you were military, police, police, fire, you can hashtag affiliate owner, affiliate coach and you can take on another kind of like a quarter final, semi-final level. Yeah, but it's rogue who's running this. Yeah, it's rogue that's running it, and you have to video things, which is weird because there's one with running in it, but don't want to get too deep into that.

17:24

They have three leaderboards. Leaderboard number one competitive, with videos, so you have to video if you're in that leaderboard. Part two, community rx no videos, meaning it's your own leaderboard, you're not videoing. And then community scaled, which is basically your skill and workouts no video, only competitive. That's first section are eligible to move on, slash, get prizes, and so I think they might make people sign up next year for hey, if you're going to go the competitive track, you have to video everything Open quarters, semis.

18:00

Now, let's say you qualify for quarters and like, hey, I'm probably not going to move on, or I don't want to move on. You don't have to video, but you're not going to be on the leaderboard. You're going to be on your own filtered leaderboard where it's just a bunch of people. We're just going to use their scores as reported. We're not checking them, but there's no prize, there's no moving on. And then you have your scale leaderboard, which is no videos. You know, just submit your score. Same thing, honor code. And well, dave, what if people cheat? Doesn't matter, because they're not moving on, they're not going to affect anyone's score. That's the direction I think we're going to go in. I don't think it's going to go well. I don't like it either, but that Dave Castro has been saying you guys want a solution. Well, we're going to have a solution.

Sam Rhee

Host

18:40

I think that's it I have my thoughts about this. Why tell me why you don't like this?

David Syvertsen

Host

18:48

I just I hate the idea of separating the community so much between, like, competitive and really good crossfitter that doesn't want to compete, example.

18:58

Um, this is what's going to happen.

18:59

Let's say we have an athlete that's a really good lifter, all right, struggles with a lot of other things, but a really good lifter, all right, struggles with a lot of other things, but a really good lifter and there's an open workout next year with a workout, blah, blah, blah and then a 100 max snatch, right, and that lifter doesn't get to see their name in that leaderboard with the competitive athletes.

19:16

It's a really cool feeling to be like, wow, I came in 38,000th place in this workout, but I was 104th in the world in the snatch, isn't that like that's out? You're no longer gonna be able to see that unless you just manually pretend to put your numbers in that leaderboard. And that, to me, starts separating, fracturing the community at large. That if we get people on separate leaderboards because you like to compete and you don't, and that that happens a lot, we have a lot of athletes that are never going to qualify for anything beyond quarters or semis, but they have a specialty that they can be top 10, top 15 in the world in a certain workout, and now you rob them of that experience by having them in their own leaderboard, in a leaderboard where people aren't technically allowed to cheat because there's no one's going to ask them for this score.

Sam Rhee

Host

20:07

People aren't technically allowed to cheat because there's no one's going to ask them for the score. Does that make sense? It does. I understand, and I figured it would be a philosophical viewpoint, that it's a collective, not divided, right. But the issue is is let's suppose that person was competing this year and they didn't record their videos and they were in the top 50. Yep and CrossFit was like hey, where's your video? We need your video for this. Yeah, they're in the top 50. And they're like I don't have a video. They're like zero. Yeah, right, yep, and that has happened, yep. So is that a better solution? I don't know.

David Syvertsen

Host

20:38

It does suck that if someone doesn't have a shot at qualifying for the next stage. But they crushed a workout and CrossFit's like let me see that video and like I'll have it.

Sam Rhee

Host

20:46

Well, okay, zero's a little rough but I mean, look at Mandy, like she submitted whatever she had because she didn't think she was going to make semis, but the videos did show her workouts, maybe not quite to the standard, like you know, the recommended standard, right, but it was like the recommended standard, but she had something. But if she had nothing let's suppose she had no videos whatsoever don't you think that would have really hurt her in terms of qualifying for semis?

David Syvertsen

Host

21:13

Yeah, yeah, If they were really strict with that, which some people think they should be, she wouldn't have qualified and she would have robbed her of that first semifinal experience and that whole experience that she just had this weekend that might lay a foundation for her for her long term future as a competitor, and again she would have been robbed of that.

Sam Rhee

Host

21:31

So I like the philosophy, I believe and I agree with you. I just don't know technically or logistically that it would solve the controvert Like. So if we didn't do this, well, let's talk about the other solutions, right?

David Syvertsen

Host

21:49

yeah, the other one is my favorite one it hasn't been done yet it's the online judges. So basically, you leverage the community there's a lot of us and basically, if you pass the judges course, you're allowed to watch any video you want and you make everyone that wants to qualify for the next stage. I'm just talking about quarterfinals here, not the Open. Open. I think we have to keep it. Honor code Just submit your scores. You'll qualify great. If not, don't. And if you're in quarterfinals and you're talking about thousands of athletes like there were 23,000 Masters athletes alone right, if you want to qualify for the next stage, I think you should make the rule that you have to video all workouts and you have to post the video with your score so that I can go onto the leaderboard. Anyone that I want, I can click on their video and I can watch it. And you know there's thousands of people that will do this and I watch it. Hey, good video, bad video, and you're gonna have some immature people out there.

22:49

Maybe you know giving thumbs down for a lot of different personal reasons. Like, oh, I don't like that, that bitch from that gym down the street. I'm gonna give thumbs down what? I don't think that that means anything that won't affect anyone's score, but I think cross could have a metric where, like, hey, if over 20 percent of someone's votes are negative, we need to go, it's flagged, we have to go check that one out. And but if, if these people have, you know, 91 percent of their videos thumbs up, they're moving on. We're not even going to spend a second watching them and that's where I think you can use.

23:24

Now you have thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people doing the judging for you 24-7-365, because it's a global thing, whereas I bet the people that are watching videos it's like all right, well, tomorrow morning I'll get it done tomorrow afternoon, like I can't, where this would just around the clock for a week straight. You have people watching videos. You know the danger in it is that some of these, you know you might have a lot of unqualified people doing this and doing a bad job of online judging, and it could create more work, honestly, for some. I still think some people are going to sneak between the cracks just based on numbers. You're going to get lucky you might be the 188th ranked, 35 to 39 year old, and not one person watched any of your videos. But I think the net think it's, it's, I think the net positive, net negative. It would end up net positive for CrossFit if they did this.

Sam Rhee

Host

24:23

Uh, how would that have solved this year's controversy? So, for example, paige Powers got dinged on a video and I assume that CrossFit is still going to watch like the top 40 or 50 videos of every division. Right, they're not just going to trust the crowd, yeah, and so they saw it. They assigned a major penalty to it. She gets dumped down. Like does the crowdsourcing help that in any way? Because what happened was the athletes were pissed that it was a major penalty. They had no decision on how many. Like it was an arbitrary penalty that dumped them all the way down and then you have like 400 videos that you have to go through. Are you going to use the crowdsource to help judge those 400 videos between the top 40 and Paige Powers, who's now like 500th? I don't know? Like that gets kind of complicated.

David Syvertsen

Host

25:13

It does get. It does get complicated. I think Paige Powers someone like her would still be screwed. If you're getting bumped down to 600th place because of a major penalty, you're screwed.

Sam Rhee

Host

25:21

Right, I think that's really where the issue is. It's not like everyone who's 300th to 400th, it's like the top 40 or whatever. Do you think Paige Powers deserves to be in semis? No, but because she had 40 cleaner videos ahead of her, so it didn't matter if she was 40, if she got a minor penalty, got bumped to 41, right? If the 40 videos that they saw were better than her performance, then she doesn't deserve to go right that's why I think page powers.

David Syvertsen

Host

25:50

It's kind of like you're screwed whether this changes or not, but it depends on the penalty, like how severe should that penalty be? I think CrossFit gets the final say on that in this scenario where, if you and I are judging people from our home and we just give thumbs down, we're not assigning minor or major Right.

Sam Rhee

Host

26:08

But I think that's where the athletes don't like it. They're like well, why are you giving me a 20% penalty? Right, it should only be five.

David Syvertsen

Host

26:18

It 20% penalty.

Sam Rhee

Host

26:19

It should only be five. It was just 18 step-ups. Why not just deduct 18 reps from my score? So I think that it's the penalty part of it that I think bother people a lot too. A little inconsistent there, yeah, or opaque, let's just put it that way. They don't know what criteria.

26:31

I think maybe if you post a video, you have to say everyone has to see it. So I want to see Paige Powers' video. I want to see like Vellner, yeah, like him. Posting it publicly made it so much better because you could watch and be like, oh, now I understand why they gave him that major penalty. That makes sense. So it's like I would say, instead of crowdsourcing it, just say hey, listen, if you're going to post a video as an athlete, it has to be public, it has to be public, everyone can see it. So then when I see Paige Powers' major penalty, I could be like, oh yeah, there's no more stinking. No way should she go. Or hey, that's a little minor, I don't know, maybe she should go and that way at least the athletes can all see each other's videos.

David Syvertsen

Host

27:19

Yeah, but I mean that could be a good solution. You're giving up a lot of privacy and you are do that give up, make everything public. I mean that's fine. You are just opening the door to so much more criticism. I mean, if you really watch even the best athletes in the world like when they're moving so fast, like you're, like there's a lot of like, that's not perfect movement, it's not, you know, even the best like they get away with a lot of like, that's not perfect movement, it's not Even the best.

Sam Rhee

Host

27:41

They get away with a lot of especially barbell cycling type stuff and ring muscle up stuff. It might mean more work for CrossFit to address some of the controversy when people are like, hey, 41, number 40, better than 40. I don't know, but I feel like, if you open up every video, because I will say, when I saw Vellner's video it explained a lot to me.

David Syvertsen

Host

27:57

Yep, yep, okay, all right. Outsourcing age groups and teams, all right. What I mean by this is CrossFit finds someone. They have Bob and Joe and Bob and Joe I know they're receiving support from CrossFit. Same thing with the teen division adaptive. All this receiving support from CrossFit. Same thing with the team division adaptive. All this If they really I think they if their issues are a lack of resources right, they just don't have enough people that can watch videos, right, and again, you just do the math on it, you just don't have time to watch all these videos.

28:30

They might be better off the CrossFit Games. To me, as much as I love Masters and it's all about the individual, like that's what the games are to me Teams are kind of like a sideshow, Masters are a sideshow. So they've already made step one of like alright, hey, joe and Bob, go, take the Masters to Alabama, get them out of here. We'll still call down the games by legends, whatever, right, did the same thing with the teens. I think next up might need to be the teams t-e-a-m-s, right, not just the teens, and so that they can just put all their attention.

29:04

This is, I want to quote uh, just go back to like a ben bergeron thing that I heard probably 10 years ago, where he was running gyms and competitive programs and he ran a really cool competition called the east coast championship. I remember it was like when I first got into crossfit I was watching like man, I want to go there someday. He's at this huge convention hall, all the. It was like a kind of like what guadalupalooza was prior to guadalupalooza. It was indoors in the northeast and it was really successful and and bergeron pulled the plug on it for for the reason of he goes, I just felt like I was trying to do eight things really well and they were. They were going well, but I actually would rather go do four things perfect than eight things kind of well. And that was the one thing. I remember him. I remember listening to it, like yesterday. I remember like what car I was in and everything when he was.

29:49

Just like I'm pulling the plug on it because I want to make the other things that I'm doing better, where I think CrossFit could make the games better by getting rid of the sideshows and putting all of their attention on the judging and coming up with a better system for the open division of the CrossFit games and I'm not saying get rid of Masters Like hell. No, I mean we're huge, 23,000 people want to do something beyond the open. But just outsource it completely and just be like your problem. But just outsource it completely and just be like your problem. You guys figure it out, we're out, we will help with here and there, maybe some funding and sponsorships, but the whole leaderboard video review process on you guys. What do you think about that?

Sam Rhee

Host

30:27

I mean it would help decrease the manpower need that crossfit would need if they only focused on the individuals in terms of video review. I don't know if it would still solve some of the issues that the athletes have been yammering about in terms of the degree of penalties and all that sort of stuff. The process is still opaque and we don't have any information about it. But you're right, it would take the folk. They wouldn't have to worry about that. But then what do bob what and joe have to like? What are they going to do with? They still have the same problem. Well, crossfit had, you know, or the teams, or teams or or whomever like. Now they're like okay, what do we do to figure this like? Bob and joe wrestled mightily at legends dealing with the videos, and what they ended up doing is they themselves watched like a million videos which drove them nuts, yep. So I mean that's just passing the buck for them.

David Syvertsen

Host

31:23

I mean, that's I'm, but I'm I'm speaking from I'm not even talking from the, uh, the master's perspective. I'm talking about from CrossFit. What should CrossFit do? And, and I think to me it seems like they can't figure this out. So if you can't figure something out, have someone else try to figure it out and it's just no longer an issue. Because right now, to me, right now, I have a bad outlook on CrossFit for this. I look down on them.

Sam Rhee

Host

31:47

They can't figure this thing out what happens if Bob and Joe are like you know what, we're coming coming up with a totally radical solution for masters. You get a certified like and someone has suggested you get a certified judge. They come over, they judge you, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then crossfit's like you know that doesn't really line with us and we're putting our name crossfit games masters on this. Yeah, like now you're fractured, yeah, and so it's like that giving up of control thing that crossfit hq always has an issue with. Yeah, like with they're willing to give up some control, but I don't see where they would give up that much control.

David Syvertsen

Host

32:21

Because it's still a pretty big, lucrative business. They don't want to give up on that and I always say everyone's going to be a Masters at some point. You can't push them to the side. It's a huge part of CrossFit, so the revenue is driven by Masters.

Sam Rhee

Host

32:34

We know that you look at registrations how much money the athletes, the demographics Like. I think they're going to want to try to keep some of that.

David Syvertsen

Host

32:45

Yeah, I agree. My last idea is I'm having a hard time putting into words. I was actually sitting on my computer last night. I was like stressing over this like a half hour while Brock was taking a bath. I was like, all right, I got to just kind of just talk about it and just see if something comes out, and putting more on the affiliates. I wonder if there's a way to put more of this pressure and solution to hey affiliates. You're going to have to figure this out.

33:12

And my thought was you know, don't ask people to do work without paying them money. So make every athlete that registers for quarters or semis pay an extra five to ten bucks. All right, let's keep the math easy and say it's ten bucks, so it's $60 instead of $50. $50, that's going to CrossFit, $10 is going to the affiliate. And because now the affiliate is going to make money right, not a lot right? We had, I think, 50, 55 people signed up for quarters. It would have been 550 bucks in our pocket. But it does make us a little bit more motivated to be like all right, we need to be the ones that are accountable for the athletes moving in our gym. So I, as the affiliate manager, validate every score in the open all three weeks, like literally one by one. And I'll be honest with you, a lot of times I just click, click, click, click, click, click right. Like I don't like go to the leaderboard and go through the papers and be like, all right, did Susan Rhee actually get 101 or did she get 102? Like I'm trusting that she submitted her right score right. Every now and then I'll say, say, like I make sure they put rx and scaled for the quarters and semis. If I am responsible for their reps, their quarterfinals, I'm going to come up with my solutions at the gym to be like, hey, this is a legit score, this is not a legit score. Um, this is, you know, she actually hit weight, she actually did not hit this weight and you know you're still videoing and you're still sending in the videos. But it could be a sort of like a system where, hey, if you have a lot of athletes that are you know their videos are garbage, they're getting away with no reps. Our video review team is not agreeing with you and what you actually validated as the affiliate manager I don't want to say penalize, but you come down on them in some way, right, meaning I don't validate anything for the quarterfinals. Everyone just sends their scores in. I don't even look at like I don't see them. They can submit fake scores. I'll never know.

35:11

Crossfit is responsible for making sure it's the right score. What if everyone from my gym that had to video I validate that. I have to watch their video. Or I find my staff to validate videos and I pay you guys $10 a video. Hey, everyone on the staff $5 a video. Right, validate that score for me. Now it's on us Problem. I know people will cheat, right? I want my athlete to make the games Like I do know that, but I think that's the case. No matter what. You're always going to be fearful, but now it's like you have someone to point the finger at Like, oh Dave, you had seven people make semis but our video review team disagreed with your ability to validate their scores and there's some sort of penalty that comes down from that or that your athletes get a huge penalty because of it, which basically knocks them out.

Sam Rhee

Host

36:01

I mean, I think that would be good for policing the community. I think some of these athletes are not affiliated with any box, and that's true especially the pro level ones, so that wouldn't necessarily work for them if they're. If they're independent, what if you said you had to go to an affiliate to do the? I mean, that would be nice most. So that wouldn't necessarily work for them if they're independent. What if you said you had to go to an affiliate to do the workouts.

David Syvertsen

Host

36:18

I mean that would be nice. Most of them do them at an affiliate. They do yeah.

Sam Rhee

Host

36:23

I would say maybe not. I mean, I don't know. I don't know if they're going to trust the affiliates. There's so many uneven the quality is a little uneven out there. I agree, maybe as a proxy, using that professional athletes, the CrossFit Professional Athlete Association, as a proxy in some way. Maybe not necessarily in terms of validating the videos, but if CrossFit was like here are the standards, it's your organization is responsible for making sure that the athletes know these are the standards.

37:00

Like a lot of it again is just getting like if the pro athletes, the pro level athletes, were happy, there would be no controversy. It's not like you and I are are complaining, right, going on to these podcasts. It's, it's the ones who are using this as their livelihood, right? So how do you get them to shut up about this? The main thing is mostly it's about the level of penalties and how do you account for standards. And then the video review order, like in terms of ranking review order in terms of ranking. But I think if you got that PFA or whatever you want to call it involved and said, listen, we're going to do what we always do, but you guys are the ones that we're going to throw these standards towards and if there's an issue with standards or problems, the professional CrossFit association athlete association will handle that part of it.

37:55

Or something like that, I don't know, but just to take the heat off of HQ because a lot of people are like well, they never enforce standards and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

38:05

I agree, another entity can get involved, like you said. It could be the affiliates, could be the professional athlete association, someone to act as a proxy. You want to help sort of navigate this, mitigate some of the media exposure that's so bad, right, and at least make the athletes feel like they have some input. Um, I don't think crossfit h2 would ever let there be a um mediating type of session where you know, like how they have penalties for certain sports and then like it goes to arbitration and then they're like this was you know, just because you threw the basketball at someone that you don't get thrown out for five games, you get thrown out for three, or something like that. I don't think they would ever give up that level of authority. I don't think they would ever give up that level of authority, but they might give some amount of input to another proxy to help with this.

David Syvertsen

Host

39:03

Yeah, I mean, I think every solution that we come up with, they got to get help from someone else. They probably don't have the funding to create their own staff and hire more people and pay more people Agreed. So then you kind of leverage the community a little bit more. All right, well, that's's it, guys. Those are our solutions for the issues that are in this CrossFit season leading up to the games. I think the games are pretty good now. It's just like it's a machine. Once you get to that stage, I think everything is fine. But these stages leading up to that just need to be cleaned up a little bit. I hope CrossFit comes up with a good solution next year.

39:33

It sounds like something big is coming in terms of a change. Yeah, and you know, just be ready for it. And I think that anytime we change anything you know people are. Their initial reaction is almost always negative. But just kind of keep the open mind to two things A, they're trying to fix it and B, it can be better. It might be better, but it does require, you know, at least some positive mindset and not just, you know, walking to a room and trying to find what's wrong with it, like you had to kind of put your best effort into whatever change to throw your way and then we go from there. Make sure you buy a GoPro. Thank you guys, bye. 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.

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