S05E164 - From Discomfort to Reward: Mastering Running and Scaling Running in CrossFit Workouts
What if your discomfort in running could be transformed into a rewarding fitness experience? Our latest episode unpacks the art and science behind effectively scaling running workouts in a CrossFit setting. Join coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic as they navigate the intricacies of gym programming at CrossFit Bison, where many athletes grapple with choosing between running and machines like the rower, ski, or (gulp!) the assault bike. We tackle the real issues—like equipment choices and the temptation of athletes shortening their prescribed scales—and offer practical solutions to ensure everyone gets a balanced and effective workout.
Ever wondered how body weight impacts your performance on different fitness machines? We dive deep into the complexities of balancing running and biking workouts, with insights that might make you rethink your approach to fitness. From discussing potential weight classes to sharing stories of overcoming running-related injuries, we highlight the importance of perseverance and stepping outside comfort zones. Our goal is to inspire you to reflect on your workout intensity and commitment, encouraging a mindset that embraces both the challenges and the rewards of running. Tune in to elevate your understanding of fitness scaling and athlete development!
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S05E164 - From Discomfort to Reward: Mastering Running and Scaling Running in CrossFit Workouts
TRANSCRIPT
Speaker Names
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 Syrton. I'm here with my co-host, dr and Coach Sam Marie. After a week off, we are going to talk about a really kind of funny slash, serious slash, very relevant topic today that, I'll be honest with you, when we talk about meeting Sam, we're like all right, what should we talk about today? Sometimes it's like it's obvious what we should talk about, especially the more serious situations that happen in CrossFit or here at Bison Easy topics to talk about. But there are, I would say, in a week, 52 weeks, there are probably three or four, so this doesn't happen often where it's like all right, what should we talk about today? And that's where I like the Q&A is what do people want to hear about? And we were in not a heated conversation, but a kind of it was starting to get heated and I was in a group chat with Sam and a couple other guys and I said Sam, here we go.
01:15
Here is this week's episode topic that we are going to discuss, and it centers around something that could probably be its own episode scaling workouts, how to properly do it, how to properly coach it, how to properly program it, how to properly approach it as an athlete. And then that conversation can dive into several different bullet points of volume, loads, stimulus. This one is going to be pretty specific and it kind of sounds weird but I guarantee you're going to get something out of this because you're going to be here at some point and the conversation is when we have running and workouts, how should we scale it? And the obvious answer for a lot of people is a machine, you know, and it could be a row ski. A machine, you know, and it could be a row ski bike. At CrossFit Bison, we have a growing trend of people that can't or don't want to run, and I'm going to give them the benefit of doubt that it is. It's more body-based. Hey, I'm in pain when I run, I'm in pain after I run, and we'll dive into that, don't worry.
Sam RheeCo-host
02:20
I'm not. I have not said a word yet. Did you hear me say anything? No, no, no, okay, I could read your nonverbals.
David SyvertsenHost
02:26
You know me too well but the so it's just what used to be two or three people in the back biking during workouts, it's now six, seven, eight people. And these people want to know, like, how long should I bike if I don't run the 200, the 400, the 800? Sam, we came up with an objective scaling option for every machine, every run distance about a year and a half, two years ago, and I'll give some history on that. But I want you as a coach on Thursday mornings. That coached a rather long running workout this past week and you deal with a lot of people. When you coach 567, 90 people, sometimes in those three classes. What is your initial stance on how to properly scale someone that let's say they need to scale the run?
Sam RheeCo-host
03:17
All right, let's put this all into perspective here. The specifics why this got kicked off. So we had a couple of run workouts and we have two C2 bikes yes, For the whole gym, For the whole gym and then we have a bunch of assault bikes and echo bikes Yep, so the scale to run if you run, was it 400? No, 800 meters? Yep, it's going to be. Was it 12 cals? It's 12 cals per 200. On the assault, oh yeah, okay, 12 cals per 200?.
David SyvertsenHost
03:47
Yeah, so for the 800 meters it's 48 cals For men.
Sam RheeCo-host
03:51
So 12 cals on the assault bike for every 200 meters. The C2 bike, which is just the pedals, is double the, so it's 400 meters versus 200 meters running. So every class there are people that get here 15 or 20 minutes early because there are only two bikes and guess who's grabbing them? The first come, first serve people. So they're just like I'm grabbing the bike.
04:15
And then the people who are left are like oh, I don't want to do the assault bike, 12 cals is too much. Oh, and then they're like so I'm sitting here, like, and I've done this because I had some heel issues, I'm getting better and I'm running now, but I did do the assault bike and I will tell you that 12 per 200 sucks ass. It sucks ass up a big way, especially since I'm not Alex Lanzana, who's a big, strong, powerful guy. I'm a little dude, you know five, four, 160 pounds or 60, you know whatever and like, I'm just like sitting here peddling with my little arms and legs, and I'm like this sucks, this sucks, this sucks. And then all these people are running and they're coming in and I you know, and so what a lot of people will do is they'll short it and we see them short the scale and we'll talk about that, I'm sure, but that's what kicked it off. And then we had this big group discussion with the coaches and other people, and then now it kicked off into this. Yeah.
David SyvertsenHost
05:06
So that's the context of where this came from, and this is not a recent, a new issue. I mean, the reason why we came up with some objective measurements is for two reasons. You know, we're an experienced gym now and we can pick up on trends over time, and we have a bigger staff now and we have more members now. So, because we have more coaches coaching a more uh sorry, a wider variety of coaches coaching a wider variety of people, we really need to come up with something objective for us to, at least as a starting point, to properly scale runs with machines. Whereas in 2015, I coached 30 to 35 classes a week. I pretty much saw everyone work out at some point. I could go to any person in the gym up until like probably 2021, to be honest with you, even at the new space, and be like, hmm, you're this person, you're going to do this many cows. You're this person, you're going to do this many cows. You're this person, you're gonna do this many cows. It was never a concrete. It was always based on size, aerobic capacity and, and, honestly, some mental toughness. It was like that. That was it. One thing we also did with scaling in an objective manner with, especially the the air bikes is. We came up with a cap of hey, try to get the 12 cows guys, 10 cows ladies, by the way. Okay, it's 10 cows per 200 meters for the ladies. But if you don't get it done in a minute, the 200 meters one, just just come off the bike. If you don't get the 400 meters done in two minutes, get off the bike. If you don't get the 800 meters done in four minutes, get off the bike and just see how many, how many, you get. And there's a pitfall with everything and people. By nature it's not CrossFitters and it's not talking shade on anyone. People find loopholes in anything, all right, whether it's their taxes or air bike workouts. You're going to find loopholes and that's human nature. So some people will use the time cap to their advantage and just not try hard and then just get off it and they might've biked half the cows.
07:02
So here's where I stand on how to properly do this. If you are programming, coaching, working out yourself how to properly do it, and I'll give you my system of how I figured it out. Okay, know this. 60, we have a thousand meter run workout on this upcoming Friday. It's a pretty long, it's three rounds. So you're going to run a thousand meters three different times. If you're doing the air bike, guys, you're doing 60 cows Ladies. I think it was 50, 48 or 50. And that that number to some people is like are you, are you kidding me? There's no way I can do that. That's me, okay, I, I ha. I am not a good runner and I am good on machines.
07:48
And here's one thing that makes this hard, and I don't think there's an exact science to this. We did a 60 cow sprint one time at the gym. We like made a contest. Hartman, myself and Dallas were like at a minute. We did 60 cows a minute. We almost died, but we did 60 cows in a minute and you only did it once. You never did it again, right? I? It's honestly. If you told me, if you gave me a thousand dollars to do it right now, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't, because I don't know if it'd be life to spend a thousand dollars. I just ran a thousand meters at like, kind of like an average pace after workout. I just did this morning. It took me five minutes. So from that perspective, you're like dude, we got to make these bike cows a lot because you can. You can cheat the bike a little bit, you can sprint it and we're trying to.
08:29
Again, the goal of any scale is what? Achieve the same stimulus? Right, that's correct. Achieve the same stimulus or similar? Yeah, at least as close as you can. And I look at it from a time domain and effort perspective.
08:44
Let's use Adam Hawkinson, who's a part of this chat that we're in. We're complete opposites. He can run all day. It looks like he's not even trying, but he's moving so fast and he's never tired. You put him on the assault bike. I think he cries every time he goes on it. It's a bike of tears.
09:00
And what's the difference between Hawkinson Hawk and I? Physically I weigh probably 50 pounds more than him, so I have an advantage when I'm sitting on a machine and getting to use some of my body weight. I'm not necessarily a better biker than him. I weigh a lot more. So every time I put effort into a machine, I have more power producing from my body weight and the same breath. Adams Hawkinson should be a better runner than me. It's like if I put a 50 pound weighted vest on him. That's how I feel when I run.
09:32
So you can't make a clear-cut advantage one way or the other. So I think you have to try to find the best possible athlete. Example in the gym of hey, they're pretty much a balanced runner biker and I've done this because I have a lot of next data and a lot of my next level testing is a 10 minute assault bike and the average biker for men gets 12 cows a minute, if not a little more Okay, so that the average runner at our gym runs that 200 meters in about a minute. So that was my starting stance and to me I wanted to keep it simple for coaches and I want to make coaches do all this math on the fly. So that's kind of where that number came from. It was 12 cows per 200 meters.
10:20
And when I watch, I don't even pay attention to an Owen the extreme runner and Alex the extreme biker. I don't pay attention to them. They're kind of just like Specialists. Yeah, there's a mathematical term where it's like, yeah, liars, yeah, I don't even want to look at them. But I'm trying to find that average athlete and compare them to another average athlete in the same gym and I watch them do their cals, I watch them do their run. It's pretty similar. Do the run. It's pretty similar. So, like that's kind of where I settled in on it. Do you think we should have? This is very complex. We should have weight classes scales for machines, because think about your wife, yeah, should she be. Should she be biking the same cows as some of our? I'm never gonna put names on this, but biggest, strongest athletes on the bikes Sure.
Sam RheeCo-host
11:07
So if you had Amy Edelman and Susan bike, they have completely different body types, they're different ages, different everything Strength levels, power output, right, and so if you made one do 10 cals and the other do 10 cals, it's going to be completely different. And when I do 12 cals and someone else does 12 cals for 200, it's different. So, yes, it's not a exact science when it comes to that, but it's also, like you said, not the same for running, right? So if you're going to use that definition, right, then you should custom the run to everybody for their abilities. Yep, are we going to do that? No, we're not going to do that. So I have to approach it from a coach's perspective. So I looked at it. When you asked, you said we've got to talk about this and I agreed 1,000%. I said I'm looking at it philosophically from a coach. So I'm looking at it.
11:57
When you program a run workout, and I'm a coach and I look at that WOD and I'm coaching my classes, and I did this the past two weeks, I said I know a lot of us don't like running. It's sort of a meme that crossfitters don't like running. I said and I got crap, for running is part of the human condition, like you should, if able, know how to run, yeah. And then my class was like yeah, that means I'm not human because I'm not running. I'm like, no, no, no, that's not the point. The point is, if you can run, you should run, and if you are skipping the run because you don't enjoy it to do the C2 bike and not do the assault bike, you are not pushing yourself the way that I think the philosophy of CrossFit is, which is to push yourself. Make yourself uncomfortable. Yes, be comfortable being uncomfortable. So I counseled my classes if you're not running just because you don't like running, consider that you should be running.
13:00
And some people were like well, I always get injured when I run, then it's my job as a coach to help you learn how to run safely. Just like every time you do a barbell clean, you get elbow tendonitis or a wrist problem. It's our job to help you get through that so you can do it properly. Don't treat the symptom, treat the cause. That's right. So the issue then is a lot of people find the C2 bike less intense it is Than running or the assault bike. It is, so everyone loves that. Yep, it's not like you're not getting conditioning from it, but it's not as intense, it's not as painful.
David SyvertsenHost
13:34
They're not the same machine and I think that needs to be known. And I mean, could I up the cals, the meters, the requirement of a C2 bike? I could, but I still don't even think that makes a difference. It's a completely different machine. They're designed differently and they do different things to your body. Example that 60 cal thing. I can't do 60 cals. If you put a gun to my head I couldn't do 60 cals on the C2 bike in a minute. Nobody can Air bike. You can. It's calibrated differently and there's resistance that builds on the air bike as you go harder. So it's just not the same machine.
14:12
So you could make this conversation less about the coach, the uh, the science of scaling and the art of coaching and how to blend the two, because that is a huge part of coaching to me is trying to find that mesh of art and science, because a lot of people lean one way and a lot of people lean the other way and I really do feel like that answers. It's like massaging that, like right in the middle. That's where the truth is, that's where the most help is that you can provide for other people is being able to match that too, but those like it's just they're objectively a different machine. It looks similar, but you can't compare. So the other part of this conversation would be like we can now, sam, turn this on. The athletes, yeah, and I'm going to yep. What are?
Sam RheeCo-host
14:53
you gonna say I was gonna turn it on the athletes. Oh, your turn. That's, yeah, sam's specialty. Because I thought, oh, we only have two c2 bikes and I had a bunch of people say, oh, I really wanted the c2 bike, but this is what happened, so you had the scale be what it is for the assault bike. I had at least four people say, especially with my coaching, like this is a human condition and whatnot. They said, you know what? I didn't want to do? The assault bike, the C2 bikes were all used, so I ran and I'm like we won. We won. That's exactly what the scale should do is, if you can do the workout as prescribed, you should do the workout as prescribed. Maybe you're not the best runner, right, maybe you know whatever, and so that is what the purpose of the scale is. So I'm very reluctant to one buy more C2 bikes and two, change the scale, because I think it's incentivizing athletes, like what you said. We're turning it on the athletes to make that choice about what to do.
David SyvertsenHost
15:52
So before I turn this on the athletes I do want to use I don't like talking shade without putting myself out there so I will talk down on myself a little bit so that I can talk down on you. But I've had I mean, I've talked about this on the podcast several times, I've had several Achilles and calf issues over the past 10 years, like that's probably been like my predominant issue. Knock on wood, it's feeling okay now. As I've known. I've signed up for a High Rocks race and it's a couple months away, early summer. I'm like, all right, I'm going to run a lot. I tried running a lot. I had significant calf and Achilles issues, to the point the track, and I'd make it 600 meters before my calves locked up. I actually went down the medical path and saw a couple of doctors. I saw a rheumatologist to deal with some leg swelling, like trying to figure out what's going on, and came up with some solutions and answers and nothing's overly wrong, which I'm thankful for. But I spent more time treating my calf and my Achilles and I went to the cause of the issue and I saw Kayla. I saw, I saw I've seen Marissa, liza. I've gotten physical therapy. I've spent an hour at the gym doing drills and accessory type stuff.
16:56
And now, even after that, when I started running again, whether it was bison workouts or on my own I was still kind of like in pain as I was doing it. I was like frustrated because I got through workouts but I couldn't like open it up, I couldn't run fast and it had nothing to do with competitive. But I'm like man, I can't. I feel like I'm not training. So I'd be like you know what? I think I'm going to get a better workout if I go on the bike, because I can push and I'm not in pain and I'll be honest with you, I like biking more than running. So I chose that path a few times. And then this came up a few times, this conversation. This has been going on for a few months, this conversation, and it just heated up in the past couple of weeks and I remember thinking I'm like man, I should not be a hypocrite here. So I started running, pushing myself through workouts and, yeah, I dealt with some pain and pushed through.
17:47
Now that I'm in this rhythm, I am not in pain and I'm running better, I'm running faster, I'm feeling like I can work on my stride and I do think, guys, running is by far. I actually think nothing's even close. It is by far the best form of conditioning. Like I don't think the row bike ski is even close. And what I can do is this I relate me a heavier guy, especially right now, that right now that's not a good runner, but I do enjoy it because I think it's a good workout to bikers that look at a certain amount of cows and they're like this is too long it's going to come down to.
18:27
You are going to have to simply try harder. That just got done, telling Alex and Dan we just did a legends qualifier and it was a row dominant workout and I said know what I love about workouts like that, you can always go a little faster. Always, you can always push a little harder. It's just do you want to or not? I don't throw shade on anyone that doesn't want to, but you have to be able to remove yourself from your own bias, your own situation, and say, hey, it's not too many cows, you simply just don't want to try that hard. That's the issue. I can tell you, I've come up with the most objective way possible to come up with cows on the bike to replace runs.
19:06
But if that's not good enough for you, you have to first look in the mirror and be like are you really trying harder? And if I am going to err on one side, sam, I am going to make you bike more. I don't want 18 people in a 24-person class to go for the run. They come in from a hard run, they're the ones running and come in and see the six bikers on the third round of the workout already. That's right, that's an awful look, yep. So if you are going to bike, you should accept one of two things or both. You're going to have to try harder than you want to, and or you're going to be. You're going to be on that thing longer than the guys are running, and that's it. And if you can't deal with that, then start running.
Sam RheeCo-host
19:46
I think you feel that way because you've seen a lot of the assault bikers and they're just you're not seeing them bring a lot of intensity, 100%, and I know that and I see it too as a coach. But I will say the first thing also, caveat I agree with you a thousand percent, and there are going to be some people out there that say, oh, but I really have a medical issue.
David SyvertsenHost
20:04
Oh yeah.
Sam RheeCo-host
20:05
And I'm not saying to discount that. Listen, lance Lottie just had knee replacement surgery. He just got cleared for skipping, so he's freaking skipping, which is hilarious to watch. But I encourage that as a coach. I do not encourage you to, if you have no cartilage in your knees, to run 2 000 meters in a workout. But running zero, I mean, there's some like, there's a, there's a fine line here. Can you run 200 and bike the rest? Yeah, I would love that, can you? You know, like, for example, for that 1,000, one like Susan always has ankle injury, but she's like I will run one or two of the 1,000s that's great and bike the rest. You don't have to do the full runs, you don't. But the thing is is you do have to push yourself and if you don't run you lose it. And when you're older, what are you going to be doing? Are you going to be biking everywhere or are you going to be walking and running everywhere?
David SyvertsenHost
21:02
You're going to need to have to do that and you have to look at this from what CrossFit started off as and I think it's lost the mantra a little bit, but it's functional fitness. Even if you don't like running, even if it does cause some pain, we'd scale it like you would scale anything else in a workout like muscle ups. Right, a lot of people scale muscle ups, but you don't want to be someone that is incapable of running.
Sam RheeCo-host
21:21
if you ever need to. Yes, you're in a burning car. You have to run out from an explosion. What are you going to do? Where's my C2 bike? I better get out of here.
David SyvertsenHost
21:29
I mean, I'll make this personal. Parents, you have kids. You're going to tell me you're never going to have to run after a kid, absolutely. Have we seen these videos of parents running after the kid that are running to a street? If you can't run after them because you might hurt your ankle or pull your calf, you need to run Absolutely. It's not debatable. I don't care how much pain you have.
Sam RheeCo-host
21:56
You need to be able to know yourself and to push yourself.
David SyvertsenHost
21:57
And you're right, the more you run well, the better you get at running. Yeah, and like here, I've been crossfitting and running. I ran a half marathon when I was, I think, 22 on 22. I've been like running has been a huge part of my training, believe it or not, since I was like 19, 20 years old, ran a half marathon. I do like running. I just and I wish I was better at it.
22:11
The other day, sam was talking about running in a class he coached.
22:13
It was one of his best classes ever coached and he talked about beats per minute and he actually came up with a song that had the beats per minute.
22:19
But since then I've actually like changed things a little bit. I've run three times, four times since that workout, including this past week, and it's changed things and like, go figure, I felt great the next day, the next day and I'm like holy and like if you go into running as a crossfitter that doesn't like running, or you do have some pain or a bad history, with an open mind of, there's probably something you're factually objectively doing wrong when you run, because a lot of us crossfitters, when we run, we're either wearing bad shoes, yep, or it's in the middle of thrusters and burpees and you're just like slugging and pounding and reaching for the ground and like bad posture. That is what causes issues. So it's like I came in with this open mind of like, all right, I'm gonna listen to sam, I'm gonna practice this and go figure. Now I just gotta get sam to help me with my golf game. We're gonna go from there, that's that's a bigger task.
23:09
That's a much bigger task. All right, so that's gonna wrap up this conversation. I think we could talk more about this, and I do. It's kind of been spinning my wheels about maybe getting into more conversations on the podcast, maybe with some other coaches as well. In regard to scaling, how to properly do it, want to run without being a douchebag, right, like there's a way to talk about this correctly and respectfully, with the mindset of, hey, I am the one here that's trying to help you. By the way, right, you might not like what I'm saying, so part of it's the delivery of how we say things to athletes. But athletes, I will put this on you and I'm an athlete as well. You have to come in with that open mind of saying, hey, I probably should look at this from a different perspective, other than I don't like the feeling my legs have when I bike hard. That that's the last thing. That is the last, the least important thought of this entire conversation is what you feel like when you bike. You got to remove yourself from your opinions.
Sam RheeCo-host
24:19
Closing thoughts Sam, let me ask you for Friday are we going to have the same number of people we normally have, more or less, because you have three 1,000 meter runs programmed.
David SyvertsenHost
24:31
I thought about that when programming, and I purposely programmed Thursday for that reason. It's a lift workout for Thursday, and Thursdays are usually quieter, generally speaking, not in the morning it's never quiet in the morning and lifting days are generally a little bit quieter and it's going to force people that normally don't come in Thursday because of that workout to come in Friday. So I'm hoping we see a great turnout on Friday. I'm going to do Friday's workout. I'm actually really looking forward to it. I just tested the 1,000-meter run route that we're going to experiment with. It's not great, but it's not terrible, and I really want even if you guys think it's just too much running. It's a lot. It's something that we can look at from a few different angles and maybe this could be your first opportunity to scale half the run and then go the other half on the bike. All right, thanks, guys. We'll 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.
