S05E156 - Question and Answer #6 Enhancing CrossFit Precision: Judging, Standards, and Scaling Strategies Explored
Can implementing judges in CrossFit benchmark workouts like Fran and Elizabeth take your training to the next level? Coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic tackle the provocative idea of introducing judges for these iconic workouts, weighing the logistical hurdles against the potential for more accurate performance assessments. We explore the fine line between fostering a fitness-centric atmosphere and the desire for precision, and how having judges could transform the structure of your typical CrossFit class, enhancing both performance and efficiency.
Moving into the complexities of group fitness, we delve into the nuances of maintaining workout standards during benchmark workouts such as Kelly. Is personal accountability enough, or should there be a more structured approach? We discuss the pivotal role of coaching oversight in upholding form and standards without disrupting the flow of the workout. The episode highlights how athletes should focus on personal growth rather than falling into the trap of over-competitiveness, interpreting whiteboard results wisely to serve the broader goals of group fitness.
Finally, we provide a comprehensive guide on effective scaling strategies, especially for those new to CrossFit. From attending whiteboard talks to making informed decisions about scaling based on personal limits, we emphasize the importance of understanding the intended stimulus of each workout. Varying your scaling techniques, like alternating between ring rows and banded pull-ups, can significantly enhance your overall strength and stability. Wrapping up, we underscore the importance of consulting with coaches while cultivating self-awareness and independence in your training journey.
@crossfitbison @crossfittraining @crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates #supportyourlocalbox #crossfitaffiliate
S05E156 - Question and Answer #6 Enhancing CrossFit Precision: Judging, Standards, and Scaling Strategies Explored
TRANSCRIPT
David SyvertsenHost
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 Syrups and I'm here with my co-host, dr and Coach Sam Rhee. Back just the two of us. We have the next Bison Q&A. We actually have two questions today instead of three and we are going to dive into both of them. We'll talk about 10 to 15 minutes.
00:38
These are also questions that have come from you guys and we always like to get some feedback from you, whether it's, you know, in the comments section on YouTube or you find us at the gym and you want to give us some kind of feedback, agreement, disagreement with what we said. It's always fun to kind of hear feedback on these particular situations Because at the end of the day, you know we don't we don't have facts for answers here. We just have our opinions and you know the opinions come from a lot of experience, both as coaches and as athletes. Uh, but you know we do want, we do like, like to get feedback, especially on these episodes, on the on these questions, these q and a's. So the first one should crossfit benchmark workouts have judges, and what crossfit benchmark workouts we are talking about? Are the girl workouts, and this has recently come up here at CrossFit Bison, because we're going through a run of the girl workouts. Obviously, we're not doing all of them, but we're doing at least one per week, one or two per week, and we have, I think, another two, three weeks of it, and these are workouts that we see at least once per year.
01:41
Right, you know your typical, your Fran, your Grace, your Elizabeth, diane, kelly, which is such a long one. I'm going to try to program that when I'm on vacation. But these are workouts that I would say they're on the more serious side of what we do. They're not just a normal programmed workout. These are workouts that have been around for I mean gosh now like 15, 16 years.
02:03
And when I go back into Bees of Bison and I search Fran, you know there's 11 different whiteboard pictures that we can look back on, which is always fun to do. But when you repeat these workouts and because it's a performance-centered goal, meaning you're going to try to beat your time or you simply just want to see where you stack up compared to the rest of the gym or where you were five to 10 years ago. Whether you like that result or not, to really legitimize your score you need someone else doing the counting and you could even say judging, and we're going to bring up Fran as an example. But before we get into Fran as that example, sam, if an athlete came up to you and said, hey, we're doing Elizabeth tomorrow and we're doing Diane on Wednesday, we should have judges. What's your first response?
Sam RheeCo-host
02:48
Well, logistically, that sort of changes how you have to deal with things. And we do set up judges, especially for open prep, and I know when you program them you set up a workout so that you can judge someone and then they can judge you for that workout and if that workout lends itself to that and if the class size is reasonable, I would love that. Like personally, I would love that. I think logistically is always the issue.
David SyvertsenHost
03:14
Yeah, For example, we're doing Elizabeth tomorrow, which is 21-15-9 of squat cleans at 135-95 with ring dips, All right. So it's a relatively short workout not as short as Fran, but people can do it in five, six minutes and then you'll have. I think we have a 12 minute cap on it, but prior to that we've been doing some thruster, complex work. So we have a squat clean thruster, hang squat clean, thruster and then a hang squat clean, and that is geared at two things yes, Trying to get a little extra work in, get some barbell strength and work in, but also it's a great way to prep for the workout. You know it really gets, instead of just telling people to get ready for squat cleans after you know, a cliche warm-up. That's going to really get people ready.
03:54
We did that before Fran and it really makes that bar feel light when you start off. But you have to if you're going to do two heats in a class. That's my first thought too is, like you, you have to knock, knock out part one, and the issue is you also have someone standing around for 8 to 12 minutes and now you're gonna have to hurry up and get ready for the next heat, which is what we do a lot throughout heats and bison benchmark workouts, but that that is. That was my first response after fran when someone said we should do judges for benchmark workouts and there's a huge part of me that agrees. But the other part of me was like, all right, well, we would have had to take out the lifting prior to and you know what's more important getting real Fran scores on a whiteboard or really properly training people. Let them lift, get them warmed up, don't have anyone standing around and maybe even end class with 10 minutes left so people can stretch out, roll out, socialize a little bit.
04:51
You know, when you're doing a two heat workout you've been there coaching before it's like, hey, we got to go, we got to go, we got to go, Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. We're constantly feel like you're in a rushed, uh, stressed out kind of mindset so that logistically you could say it probably does not make sense for a fitness-based gym. We do perform, we do write down your scores, we do care about your Fran score, but we want people to come here for fitness. Let's talk about the other side of the coin. Why would you want to have a judge on a workout like Fran?
Sam RheeCo-host
05:20
Well, because I saw a lot of people doing brand this past time. That's why and I would say this, when you yourself are really focused on getting the best time and that is what a lot of what the focus of these workouts is is, like you said, they are benchmarks. We are measuring from year to year and you are really pushing yourself if you choose to, and if you do choose to, maybe you're not hitting the right height on your chin over bar on the push-ups, maybe you're not fully locking out on the thrusters Because listen, the pro athletes do this too. When you're really pushing yourself in a workout, you may not even realize that you're not hitting the standard, and when you do that, you have a time that you are so proud of, but you don't even realize. You may not. It's not intentional.
06:15
I don't think a lot of the people that I've been watching are intentionally shorting these movements. They were just trying to push as hard as they can. But then you're like, yeah, but you know what? That is not a legit score for you and it's really hard as a coach to be able to say that or even honestly, to write that time up on the whiteboard. And so you would be helping the athlete by saying here's your judge, you're meeting standards, this is legitimate and this is really what your score is. And then they can take that to the bank as real information for them, not just some kind of like makeup information.
David SyvertsenHost
06:53
Right and you could even say this actually helps the athlete long term to have a judge and to have another set of eyes on them. For this reason alone, if I did Fran this past time and let's say it's my first time ever doing it and I got my time was 5.05, right, but those I had a lot of crappy reps in there because I didn't have a judge. I didn't squat all the way down. I didn't understand the whole lockout. Maybe my chin wasn't getting over the bar because I was trying to go so fast. Now let's fast forward to next year and I've really worked on my quality movement. I am fitter, I am better, I move better. But now I have a judge again. Now I know standards. Now I am squatting below parallel, I'm getting my chin clearly above, I'm clearly locking out my elbow with a pause and control the top, and now my time is 520. Your initial stance is like I guess you got slower after all that work. But really because you had bad judging or no judging that first time through, all right, that first score is really. It's illegitimate. It's not a real score because there's cheating. There wasn't range of motion involved in there where if you have a judge, you know, especially a fair judge. You know that, hey, no matter what your score is, it's a real score because you hit the movements. And I think that's a huge problem with kind of the back and forth nature of having judges. Now you do have some personal accountability and coach you have some responsibility as well. Hey, you're not squatting below parallel but hey, they might be 13 thrusters into the set of 21. You didn't get to see all of them. So there is a personal responsibility that you try to hit those standards and know what they are. But that's where I think it actually can do a disservice to the athlete long-term that if you don't have judging and then all of a sudden you have judging, or this athlete doesn't know movement, now they all of a sudden do know movement. A year later they didn't actually get worse, but that number on the whiteboard is worse and it can really kind of. You know it sounds elementary but I do think that can dampen someone's mood of themselves, their outlook of themselves, the work that they put in, and even those that say they quote don't care that much about scores when they see something slower than what they previously done. It does, it stings and I think it having a judge can really help out.
09:11
Do you remember when we had that wipe, that laurang scoreboard, yeah, um, where we did girl workouts? We had karen, we did fran, we did, I think, diane and we were and we made athletes. Since we were writing your name on an all-time leaderboard which we were going to keep up, we took it down eventually. Um, those scores crossfit hoboken had this right, you have every girl workout on a whiteboard and the best all-time scores are always up there. It was like a really cool thing.
09:37
I thought I liked the idea back then. A lot of gyms do it, yeah, um, I just don't know how, but to me they're not real scores unless you have a judge. So I actually just got done talking with Alex about this prior to Open Gym today. Is that? You know, I've always wanted to kind of do this advice and we're like hey, here's a monthly challenge guys, one year we did 60 cal bike for time, if we remember when the whole gym did that.
09:59
Another one would be like you know, 10 muscle ups, 20 cal bike muscle-ups, how fast can you? Just a very short, simple, competitive. Hey, let's have some fun, here's a challenge. But I told him I was like, but I don't want to go down that path because I don't want anyone reporting a score without a judge. And that's where I think the legitimacy of a real result. That keeps coming up over and over and we say this all the time at the open it's not a real result unless it's in a competition setting, and I hate to say that, but that is the truth, because we don't know if you counted correctly, if you hit the standards correctly. So I can see why. Now should Bison do that?
Sam RheeCo-host
10:39
What do you think as an athlete, I would say no, and only because from a health and fitness, not a performance aspect, for a health and fitness aspect, it's better from the workout perspective not to do it. For example, like you said for Monday, we tend to go right into it. I'd be like I don't know, you know I'm not going to really chase a lot of intensity because I'm not going to go wait 10 minutes and then suddenly, you know, try to kill those reps. So the fact that you have programmed squat clean, thruster, hang, squat, clean, thruster, one hang squat clean for multiple sets, I'm warming up, I'm starting to feel how my body is moving and then when I go to Elizabeth I'll be like, okay, I now know what I can do.
11:32
I can do the 135. I can go this intensity. I know how I'm feeling and I feel better because of it. And so as a class for me, as a coach for my athletes, I want them to go through that first part so they can really chase the second part, the girl workout with some intensity, agreed. So that always, I think, trumps to a certain degree the fact how legitimate is that Elizabeth number going to be? I don't know Right, but I want my athletes to be healthy and to feel good when they hit that workout.
David SyvertsenHost
12:04
This is classic pro and con discussion. You know there's pros and cons to both sides and you know other than something that is a documented competition. All right, you don't need judges Now. We've done that for bison benchmark workouts and we haven't done it in a while. I'm sure we'll do one at some point. But here's another issue you have to keep all of them short.
12:27
There's a girl workout. It's called Kelly. I don't want to get this wrong. I think it's five rounds per time of 40-meter run, 30 wall balls, 30 box jumps. It might be box jumps, wall balls, but it is a workout that almost no one finishes. When we program at the gym it's like a 25 minute cap and you have maybe 15 to 20% actually finish. You can't do that one in two heats. It's impossible.
12:48
So what do you do, do you not? Do you not do that workout? I think it's. It's a great workout. It's a great test of fitness. You do it once a year, but if you don't but you can't do that twice in a class, it would be impossible, right? So you're going to go down the line of do pick and choose certain workouts, do judges and pick and choose certain ones. Not to do that, I'm going to err on this side. I think, unless it's a documented benchmark workout for the gym or the open like a competition-type setting, I think we're going to have to just rely on personal accountability and a good coach walking around and just making sure like, hey, you've got to squat lower in your next rep, hey, you're not hitting the target, you're not hitting the range of motion, and then just kind of leave it at that point.
Sam RheeCo-host
13:32
When you go on vacation, when you program Kelly, I'm going on vacation too, because running, box jumps and wall balls are the three kryptonite for me. That would suck, and I don't want my coach to sit there all day being like, oh my God, this guy's never going to finish this thing.
David SyvertsenHost
13:45
I will say I am going to give a partner version so you can do the work. I'm going to say, hey, do Kelly, or do Kelly with a partner of your choice, but you have to run every time. So you basically split the inside reps.
Sam RheeCo-host
13:55
And I think you're right. I think if you are training your athletes to meet standards all the time, hopefully that sticks for when they do the girl workouts and if not, I think it means for all of us really it's a work in progress. So maybe I notice someone's not really hitting the pull-ups to standard on Fran, then on our next pull-up workouts, and when we do that I'm really going to work with that athlete and make sure that at least they're aware of where they are with their standards. I might not interrupt them right in the middle of Fran, but I will take a note of it as a coach and I will continue to see what I can do to help them so that they do get better. Like you said, the beginner when they first start really hard to know where their body is in relationship to the bar and what's going on. And so you're right, the process of meeting standards is not just for that workout. It's a preparation all the way up until that workout, for months and months and months. Yeah.
David SyvertsenHost
14:58
So last thing we'll wrap this one up is athletes. Your responsibility is going to be this you have to kind of take all results on the whiteboard with a grain of salt and you have to try to not get too competitive. And you're, in time, you will learn what scores to trust and which ones not to, and you know, for an example, if you see someone up there that put up a 225 and you know, hey, that athlete doesn't move that well, they don't squat, they don't lock out, they don't get the chin above, then you have to ignore it. You know. I mean, mean you could say something to a coach if you want. We get that all the time, um videos even, yes, um, but we also, at the same time, you know, for every one of those, you probably have five to ten people in the gym that you really hate. You trust those scores. You can. If you want to compete, if you feel you need to compete to get the most out of yourself in a competent, in a fran type workout, then go after those people, have your little battle with them. But this is where we are a group fitness gym and I think we have to take care of the class more than the individuals, because, at the end of the day, the only people that truly care about what other people's scores are to the point where we think you need to reconstruct the entire class to get judges are the ones that are ultra, uber competitive, and we can't make plans around just those people.
16:16
Question number two, last one how do I know when and how to scale? Really, really big topic. We could probably talk way too long on this. We're not going to, but I do think we can give you some preliminary answers. We get this question a lot as coaches and a lot of times it comes from newer athletes. This question came from a new athlete just started CrossFit and hey, how do I know when I should be scaling and how do I scale? And I'm going to bring up the whiteboard talk. You know I'm huge on this. We've done discussions on this multiple times that if you're somewhat new to crossfit, I think if you're a crossfitter you got to be at that whiteboard talk, have to be. You know, don't show up after I know. And hey, certain circumstances happen, traffic this bubble for the most of your workouts. You got to be there before that whiteboard talk starts, even for the experienced athletes. But especially if you're new.
17:15
A good coach will talk about the workout. They talk about the scaling options, but then they also touch on like the stimulus of the workout. So tomorrow, 21, 15, nine, you know, squat cleans at 135 ring dips. You know, one of the things that I'll say to my classes is that barbell should be something you can do consistent singles on. You don't need to do go, touch and go. But you also don't want it to be something where you're doing a rep and you need a 20 second rest, like you have to be able to move well through that, and then I'll, maybe I'll even touch on a percentage like hey, this probably should not be more than 70% of your clean. That's just going to get way too hard, way too slow. The workout is 90 reps. It's a 12 minute workout. Hey, if you're eight reps a minute, you're going to be in a good spot. So if you want to relate that to the barbell, could I do a rep every eight seconds? And that is where I think a good coach can help answer this question. That's not the end, though. That's not the end of oh. The coach will tell me what to scale and how to scale. If you are overly reliant on that.
18:11
I think you're in trouble at a CrossFit class, especially if you come to gyms that have big classes. I think every day, for as long as you do CrossFit, you should be putting thought into your workout prior to you getting there. Dave, I don't look at the workouts prior to getting there. Okay fine, show up a little early if you can and lock yourself in there. Okay fine, show up a little early if you can and lock yourself in. You see the workout. You have to immediately start thinking about what can you do, what's the point of the workout, what's the stimulus? And then, if you still have questions, you ask them. But this is where I'm huge on. There needs to be independence with CrossFitters. You can't always be told what to do. You'll be told what to do if you keep asking questions, but I actually think you're going to lose out on something for yourself. What's your initial thought on this Coach?
Sam RheeCo-host
18:54
guideline whiteboard talk is essential you need. They have studied this workout for you and they will know what the stimulus is. If you do and it makes a big difference If you're doing a workout that has three handstand pushups per round or you're doing one that has 30 in a row, like we did last week, like your scale is going to be very different. Or how you approach your scale. Is it a 30 minute workout or 25? Is it a 10? So your coach, like you said, has numbers. They're going to have percentages, they're going to have the thoughts about stimulus which, listen, I know even you should think about the workout beforehand, but you might not be considering all of these factors. That being said, yes, you have to know yourself and, as an athlete, I will be looking at the workout, usually for days.
19:46
Unfortunately, like a lot of people, like, oh my God, what am I going to do with this workout? What am I going to do with this workout? And some of it is I have ranges, so I might think, okay, if I'm feeling really good, I might go 135. But if I'm not feeling good, I might go 115. I don't know. Sometimes until I hear the coach, I think about the stimulus, I start warming up. Maybe the day before I just did something really heavy, or maybe I'm still working on my hip flexor because it's a little bit sore, and so I will warm up and more often than not I will sit there and be like this is not bad, I can do this more. I can't.
20:29
I think you as an athlete and I always say this as a coach we don't know how you're feeling or what you're doing. We only can see what's on the outside. But on the outside it's really hard to tell. You know, is your knee a little sore? Are you not feeling so awesome? Did you go out last night? Like I know you, but I don't know you the way you know yourself, and so you're going to have to trust yourself, and that takes time and experience to figure out how you're going to approach the movement and what kind of scale you're going to do.
David SyvertsenHost
21:02
Yeah, especially with something as simple as a wall ball. Right, and this is one that I see a lot of newer athletes struggle with, with the scale. When I do wall balls with beginners strong or weak I usually start them with a six or 10 pound ball and sometimes they kind of like look at me, like dude, this, this is it. I'm like bro, you got to be like do 20, 30 in a row, like with your heart rate high and your arms already tired. And what happens a lot and I think this is where a lot of athletes and I think we could do a better job as coaches with this is it's one thing to be capable of doing a certain movement, all right, a muscle up a wall walk and or a weight. You know, a 135 pound squat clean, a 95 pound thruster it's one thing to be able to do it. It's another thing to be able to do multiple reps in a row to hit the stimulus of the workout right, like I'll often talk at the whiteboard about, like, hey, guys, you know, wall balls, it's only nine at a time. This past Friday you should be doing them unbroken every time. You shouldn't be capable of doing a few wall balls, you should be doing nine in a row every time. If you fall apart at the end, guys, okay, I get it, you're tired, but if you're in the first half of the workout and you're breaking these things up, yes, I know you're capable of doing that heavy wall ball, but because you're breaking it up you're missing. Kind of the point of the workout or this happens even more often, especially with newer people and squatting in general is that the range of motion starts to lessen. Like you do a 95 pound thruster you could do one you hit the bottom of your squat, but the second you start getting tired, all right. You start to lose integrity in your joints, your muscles. You start going halfway and now in your head you're thinking man, I'm doing a 95 pound thruster, but it's really what you're doing is a push press, and that's something where the coach has that watchful eye. But I'm still trying to think in my head what are ways that we can get that message across respectfully, of saying, just because you can do a few doesn't mean you should do the workout with that? So when you start CrossFit, you know I get jealous of sometimes starting someone starting CrossFit right now. It's like you're starting from scratch. You shouldn't put yourself on any sort of timeline or expectation level of performance early on.
23:11
The goal is to hit the standard with lightweight all the time, every time, and that if you get through that battle you make a mental note. Some people journal Now my next step is next time. I see that wall ball. I'm going from 10, I'm going up to the 12 pounder. If I do it again, I get through another wall ball workout. Okay, maybe I'm ready for the 14, where it no, don't start off at the 20 just because you can do a few, let's prove to yourself you can get through a whole workout. And hey, if it's too easy, you know what Dave's answer is going to be Go faster on everything else. Like seriously, that's the answer. There is no such thing as too light. It does not exist, especially in fitness. Right, you're here to work out, so you see this as a coach a lot too. Sam right, people, they start pushing the weight, the movement quality goes down, but they still got the lift. What kind of habit can that set up for?
Sam RheeCo-host
24:03
someone down the road Injury I mean, you're going to get injured. I saw that with two of the guys doing the I think it was a split squats that we did this past week, okay, and it got really hard and they were starting, the hip planes weren't level and they weren't moving well and I just stripped a lot of weight off and I said this is really where we need to be and both of them were coachable, like they were two partners together, okay, and they did a great job focusing on, you know, equal engagement of their quads and their glutes for the front leg and the back leg and they really worked on that. And so there's that side of it where, if you have a coach, you got to be coachable in terms of knowing when they're giving you those recommendations. On the alternative side, I've seen you and Liz I think you two are the best at this looking at someone and saying I think you can go up, like you've been doing 15 pounds, like 10 pounds, you should probably try the 12 pound wall.
25:03
I haven't gotten to that point where I know people as well or as talented at that, but I do see you guys also doing that, and I've also seen some athletes who like honestly my daughter Sasha. We did a workout yesterday and she said you know what I'm going to do? 25 pounds instead of 20 pound dumbbell snatches. I'm a dumbbell, yeah, and I was like great and I knew she could do 25. I've seen her before but I would never tell her.
David SyvertsenHost
25:28
So know what I like about that and this is not by design, I'm not. I'm not pumping myself up here at the whiteboard. I said this would be a good day, that if you want to try a heavier dumbbell and again, that's what every coach can do it's not a gift. You're not like like, hey, you're only doing 10 dumbbell snatches. Coaches, how many snatches do we normally do in workouts? It's like more than 10 usually at a time, or really piles up in volume. You know the girl's gonna do 40, 40, uh, 60 snatches today spread out over 30 minutes. This is a good day to try 10 at a time. Hey guys, if you've always been using 20 and you feel good, this is the day to try 25. That's right, and a lot of people did go heavier on the dumbbell yesterday and now she knows, and Sasha's smart, she'll have a recall hey, I have the 25-pound dumbbell in my bag now.
Sam RheeCo-host
26:09
So that was a combination of the coach's whiteboard talk plus her assessing herself and knowing herself and then figuring out what to scale to.
David SyvertsenHost
26:16
Yep, and that's where there's a lot of kind of I always call coaching athletes a 50-50 relationship. You can't expect 60-40, 70-30. It's got to be 50-50. You got to do your half. And I'm talking to the coaches too, not just the athletes there.
26:29
So here's one that I struggle with as a coach. Right, I'm comfortable with the weight stuff, gymnastics, scaling especially with someone that has a goal of really getting to a high level of gymnastics, meaning they can RX everything you know ring muscles, bar muscles, handstand pushups, strict handstand pushups, toes to bar, chest to bar but they're not there. They don't have the basics yet. They don't have the regular pull-up yet. They don't have the strict pull-up yet. They don't have the strict handstand push-up yet. How can an athlete that wants to get there that is not currently close to that level, how do they know what movements to do when they scale? Example again I love bringing up tomorrow's workout plan this properly ring dips, really tough movement. As a coach, I see more people struggle with real ring dips, by the way, like real full range of motion, than I do short handstand pushups, like I think they're harder. I really do so, and you can say they're a little bit more dangerous too, because the rings are moving so you gotta be really careful and not go to failure on them. That's gonna be kind of like a rule for everyone tomorrow, like don't go to failure on ring, ring dips. This is not a good idea If I want to get ring dips and coach Kayla sent our coaches a really a lot of great scaling options and she's coaching tomorrow morning.
27:39
Actually, she's going to use them. I'm going to use them. Other coaches like thanks, I'm stealing that right. Some people want to do the box dips. Some people want to do the knee pushups with your, your forearm vertical. There's a lot of different ways. Dave, this is too overwhelming. What am I supposed to do? I thought banded ring dips were going to get me to ring dips. What's your response to that coach? Tough, tough one.
Sam RheeCo-host
28:00
I know, I think you know, brian used Kayla's progressions last week for his class and I thought they were perfect. He said you know, you need to try different stimuli in order to get to ring dips. The banded ring dip gives you one stimulus, but if you do a pop-up, slow, negative, that's also giving you a slightly different one. And so, as an athlete, you have to sort of look at yourself and say which one is helping me get like.
28:29
Where is my struggle Right? Is it like into the top? Is it like the stability? Is it like the stability, is it you know? And so the fact that he offered all of the ones that Kayla had sent us really helped us in the warm up and it helped people sort of figure out. Well, no, I, you know, banded is the way for me to go, or maybe I need to do the negatives, maybe I need to do it on a box. So it's never. You know, this is the one way, like coaches are giving you lots of different ways to work on your weaknesses and how you can eventually get to that movement.
David SyvertsenHost
29:04
Yeah, it's a great idea to just change up your scales. Like what movements? Like? Obviously you're not going to. If you're trying to scale squat cleans, you're going to scale the weight, you're not going to scale the movement, right. But ring dips and muscle ups and pull-ups.
29:18
One of my lines that I always like to use is don't always scale the same way. So if you want to use the bands, there is value, all right, but you shouldn't always be using the bands because it's literally, especially with the pull-ups and dips, it's basically erasing any sort of training of the bottom of the rep, the start of the rep, all right. Visualize yourself hanging from a pull-up bar with a band around your foot. So when you're at the bottom of your rep, there's that the most amount of resistance on the band. So it's going to help propel you up and then, as you get closer to the bar, the band helps you less. You really have to finish off that pull yourself. However, you're never training the first two, three inches of that pull. The band's doing most of the work and that is usually where most of you are the weakest. They can't do a pull-up or the chest bar or the muscle-up. It's the initial pull and now you're never training the initial pull. You might feel like everyone else because you're on a pull-up bar and I do think there's value in the vertical pulling motion and activating the lats and doing that right way. But that's why I say ring rows are probably a better way to get stronger. They don't look as cool but they're probably. But. But, hey, if you want to go for the vertical pull, I what my line is every day just switch it up. Last time I did band, this time I'm doing rings, you know, with ring dips. So Kayla sent out all those new scales like, try different ones out, because a you might find one one. That's a great scale for you, but it's also it's going to train different elements of that actual movement. So when you scale like, hey, dave, how do I scale this? Don't just think about the, the range of motion of like, hey, I'm hanging from, I'm at the top of a ring, going down and pushing myself back up. Think about the stability at the top, the stability at the bottom, the actual pushing motion, and try to find different ways to put yourself in those different positions. And that usually requires different scales. But I do think you have to circle back to if this is getting too complicated for you.
31:05
Scaling 101, there's two things you need to do. You got to hit the range of motion. You got to do the full movement as often as you can. Pull-ups, lock out your elbows, bend them All right. Get your chin over something, whatever you're you know. Get to finish that. Pull Handstand push-ups right. Get your head and hands on the same plane, lock it out at the top. Find ways to hit that range of motion.
31:26
And then B is hit, the stimulus. You know, if a coach says you got to scale to something that you can do two to three reps of in a row, we have a strict handstand push-up workout coming out and it goes three strict pull-up, two strict handstand push-up and then a clean right. I'm gonna say those strict handstand push-ups need to be done unbroken for at for most of the workout. So, like now, you have two things I'm going for range of motion and I'm going so. That's where maybe the dumbbell press would come in for a lot of you, because you're going to do two unbroken reps every single time.
Change Speaker
31:55
Full range of motion. That's how I'm eventually going to get there. So to wrap up, scaling and how do I know when and how to scale. All right, lean on the coach, all right. You can definitely lean on them, ask them questions, but put a lot of thought into it yourself. Hit your range of motion and understand the stimulus of the workout and be open to trying new things. Sam, any closing thoughts, couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks guys, see you next week. 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.
