S05E174 - Navigating CrossFit's 2025 Open Changes and Community Challenges
Can you really reach the pinnacle of CrossFit without a dash of luck? Join Coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic as they dissect the 2025 CrossFit Open's latest shake-ups. We tackle the burning question of how well the shorter season might serve the community.
We share insights on the adjustments athletes must embrace as they gear up for February 27th's kick-off. You'll learn the targeted strategies to adapt to a season that's as thrilling as it is challenging.
The CrossFit scene is evolving, and we're here to guide you through the maze of changes in competition structure. As we reflect on the transition from the 2011-2018 era to the current setup, we ponder the impact of financial incentives tied to Open registrations.
Are initiatives like the Community Cup the answer to rekindling unity? We explore these pivotal shifts and offer a glimpse of how to navigate the financial and logistical challenges posed by the quarterfinals.
As we wrap up with an exciting discussion about a new partner competition format, we celebrate the pairing of master's athletes with younger competitors. This innovative approach aims to rejuvenate the competitive spirit and broaden the demographic reach.
We explore how these partnerships foster camaraderie and community ties, even amidst heightened competition stress. Plus, those wary of the loss of quarterfinals might find a silver lining in the changes this season brings. Join us for an episode packed with insights, motivation, and a call to embrace the evolving world of CrossFit.
@crossfitbison @crossfittraining @crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates #supportyourlocalbox #crossfitaffiliate #personalizedfitness
S05E174 - Navigating CrossFit's 2025 Open Changes and Community Challenges
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 very happy co-host, Dr Sam, and Coach Sam Rhee. Sam, why are you all decked out in all gold today and why do you have a smile bigger than the?
Sam RheeCo-host
00:37
state of New Jersey. On your face it's maize, and if you know, you know this will probably come out about a week after. It's true, but I'm still basking in it. I couldn't believe it. So Michigan beat Ohio State for the fourth time in a row. A lot of stats I could go into about that whole thing, but all I can say is you can't actually celebrate too much because you know these rivalry games. The pendulum always swings one way or the other.
David SyvertsenHost
00:58
It does. But you know what. You have to be happy when you're on top and and and bask in it a little bit, because you don't know when these things are going to come back. So good life lesson there.
01:08
Um, speaking of life lessons, the CrossFit Open is back in our scope. You know, we we kind of forget about it. It's something that's in the long-term future for most of the year, but about uh, let's see, about 10 days ago, crossfit outlined what the season will be looking like for athletes, affiliates this upcoming year. Now we're still three months away from this thing, so don't get freaked out, don't get nervous. It's not coming up next week. You can still have a lot of time to prepare. We're going to have a lot of stuff coming out, both with Fia Bison but also on this podcast, about the Open and what you can do and what not to do in the coming months, but it's finally we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, if it's something that you train for or think about throughout the year in terms of your personal goals. You now have the start date of the season and that is February 27th. It's the last Thursday of February. Like I said, it's about three months, a little under three months away from now, and I want to go through some of the changes. This will be somewhat informational for a lot of you guys, because you have not heard or you don't really pay too much attention to the announcements that come out and then also some analysis and opinions on the changes that were made and I would say there are changes every year to how they structure the season for athletes, affiliates and coaches. This is probably the biggest change we've seen in a very, very long time and it's actually gone in the opposite direction of the direction they have been trending in over the past years, a few years in terms of what happens after the Open.
02:43
So, sam, I was in Dallas last week and I was with a couple of former Bison someone that's currently from Bison and I was in Dallas and getting ready for my High Rocks race, and this is when the information came out, and when someone told me, oh, did you hear? This is what's happening. I didn't believe it. I was like, no, no, you probably read it wrong. That's not the way it's going to be. We're going to talk about the biggest change. The most of the podcasts will be about the biggest change in relation to people from this gym. Uh, in regards to the quarterfinals, but where were you? Did you? Have you really kind of caught up yet on what is going to go on with the season, or are you going to kind of use this podcast as that information session?
Sam RheeCo-host
03:23
Yeah, when I first heard it, I was a little surprised and then I read a lot of hot takes that people had online about it and I've kind of gone back and forth. I think the only thing that you can depend on with CrossFit is that they're going to change it every freaking year and we should just expect that. And yeah, I'm really interested in breaking this down with you because I thought about it some. But there are probably some aspects of this that we actually haven't even anticipated about these changes.
David SyvertsenHost
03:51
Yeah. So let's dive right into the biggest elephant in the room and I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about the games. Want to talk a lot of, spend a lot of time talking about sanctionals and even the semi-finals, because no offense to anyone it that that relates to less than a half a percent of the people that do the open, the vast majority of the people that do the open. I want to talk about what impacts them the most. So let's start off with the lowest hanging fruit here. It is going to stay at three weeks.
04:23
Every year I always like we'll send some input in or talk to a couple people and I said I think four weeks is the sweet spot. Five weeks was too many. Three weeks sometimes feel like it's a little rushed and, in terms of trying to help people qualify for the next stage, I always feel like there could be another test and you're never going to have perfect programming. There's always going to be luck involved, both good and bad, for all athletes that are trying to qualify for next stage. But I like the number four. I like it being around for an entire month. Your opinion? Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks what do you think? Five too?
Sam RheeCo-host
04:55
long.
David SyvertsenHost
04:56
I'll take three, okay, yeah.
Sam RheeCo-host
04:58
I'll take three. I think we've been stuck at three for the past couple and there have been some people that kind of didn't get exactly what they wanted in that three-week period, and mainly because they're more accessible-type workouts and not the higher-skill-type workouts. You can't really test high-skill stuff in just three workouts per se most of the time, so it is a compromise, but I feel like participation is higher with three than four, like I bet you it would be lower with four. Good point.
David SyvertsenHost
05:31
I would bet participation and retention and when I say retention I mean people that sign up that do all the workouts. Um, e, three, three is tough for for all of us to get there and you know, barring injury, just life and schedule and kids schedules it's always tough to for for our coaches to get everyone on their respective teams 200, 250 people to do all three workouts. Adding a fourth week, I do understand, does add a lay of complexity. So I'll compromise and say I would love every year, if it's going to stay at three weeks, to have at least one workout with their R2 test, and usually that shows up in a workout plus a lift, blah, blah, blah. I would love one year for them to do a workout and then a gymnastics capacity test or a conditioning test. You know, for example, do a workout and at the, you know an eight minute workout at the 10 minute mark. You know everyone do a 500 meter row for time, like something like that. I just think that's fresh in my head because of what we just said at Bison, but something like that would be. I think four scores gives everyone a real fair shot at really trying to find out where they are in relation to the CrossFit world and their fitness, but this is where we're going to spend most of our time talking about it, because I've thought about this nonstop since it came out.
06:48
The quarterfinals is no longer a thing, and you go from the open to semifinals and you have to. For age group, you have to finish top 2% in the world. If you are open division, you have to finish top 1% in the world for you to move on. Now, top 1% in the world for you to move on. Now, that number. I did a little bit of research in relation to Bison, so most of our listeners are from Bison, and we do have one of the fittest gyms in the world, if not the fittest gym in the world when it comes to athletes qualifying from open to quarterfinals, and so you can use this as a pretty good gauge as to what the numbers are like. If this was a thing last year, we would have had five people qualify for the next stage.
Sam RheeCo-host
07:32
Wow, that many.
David SyvertsenHost
07:33
As opposed to 75. Yeah and, masters, I think we're all five of those. So that difference right there. So that difference right there. My first reaction was.
07:47
I felt very bad for people athletes that their goal was to make quarterfinals. That used to be top 10% and that was a really hard to get to level. Even if you worked your butt off, there's no guarantee you would get there. Last year they lowered it to 25, which you know. Feelings aside, that made it much easier to reach the next level and it it added so many layers of complexity. I personally loved it because it keeps people in the game, it gives people something to shoot after. So my initial oh man, this is going to take the wind out of the sail of so many different people. And do you see or feel that initially, or did you go in a different direction? Because I will say I have a few thoughts on it, but that was my initial reaction. I think initial reactions should be responded to.
Sam RheeCo-host
08:41
I was mixed. So personally I was like, whew, I don't have to worry about making quarterfinals again. It's getting harder every year, although this year I'm moving up in age groups. I was kind of like, oh well. But the other thing is is that I did feel poorly because there are a lot of people in our gym who made quarterfinals and they are.
09:02
They worked their butts off to get there and it was a real accomplishment for many people and it was and it was a great incentive to really really challenge themselves over the year and then get into the open and perform well and then get into quarterfinals. And so that was a letdown for me when I saw that. On the other hand, it's there was some precedent to this. It wasn't this sort of like AGOQ as you mentioned, like top 200. Like that's what they used to do. Like, as an age group qualifier, you had to get into that top 200. And that was nice.
09:39
It was brutal, like absolutely brutal. And so I feel like I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about the community cup and so there'll be other opportunities. But my first thing was, yeah, I don't have to even worry about it Making quarters, so I can just enjoy the open a little bit more. But then the second thing was there were a lot of people that made this their, their linchpin, and there are also people who are going to be disappointed because they were close last year and they're going to be like, oh man, now I can't even try to shoot for this thing.
David SyvertsenHost
10:07
Yeah, they were a hundred meters away. Now they're two miles away from that goal, and so that that's so. We kind of share that sentiment on it, and I want to look at this, to really break this down. I think you need to look at it from the athlete perspective, which I think is what we initially did. We looked at it from these athletes, their perspective, these people that had this goal. Also, these people that were like all right, you know what? Thank God, I don't have to have this weighing on me over the entire Open.
Sam RheeCo-host
10:32
Would you have made it last year?
David SyvertsenHost
10:34
Yeah, oh, actually, you know what? I didn't even look at myself, I was looking at everyone else. I don't want to do it right now. It was uh amy, uh-huh, coda. Yeah, mike mckinney was one percent. We had three people one percent away. Well, I feel like if they had to review workouts right, which we're gonna talk about that- okay um, man off the top of my head, I'm on the spot there, tracy. Yeah, kathleen, yeah, um, I think it was, and me, I think it was, and me, I think it was those five, okay, okay.
11:08
Now that athlete perspective. This is where I'm huge on athletes needing goals to keep themselves motivated and to keep themselves coming back in and working hard and making decisions outside the gym, outside the box, that really do lead to a healthy lifestyle. Whether or not competitive goals are the thing to fuel you, that's what I'm going to get into later on, but that's where my first thought is. That's where we just broke down. The athlete perspective is man. This could either take the wind out of the sails or just relieve stress. For most people, I think it takes the wind out of the sails because I remember the first time we had a quarterfinal weekend here. It was amped up. I remember that opening night there was only like 12 of us and that, right there, I know for a fact that feeling, that aura, that atmosphere is what people are like. I want to do that next year. I'm chasing that next year, and they worked for 11 months. They come back in, they're ready to rock. Okay, then they, then they.
12:09
There's another group, and this is why I think this is like. This is a system here at bison. It kind of feeds itself, where the people are inspiring others and there's good and bad, good and bad behind that, but that that's going to be gone for the most part, because you can dedicate your entire life to CrossFit training and you're still not going to get to that level. Top one, top 2%, is legit and you have to get a little lucky with programming because I'll tell you this right now those names I just said I could create one workout that is open caliber. It would knock any one of those guys out.
Sam RheeCo-host
12:40
Yes.
David SyvertsenHost
12:41
Like individually I could come up with different, myself included. We all got holes, yes, and significant ones, and you only have three workouts. Like I can come up with a workout that eat for each one of those athletes, and so, and if they had to do it in the open, they're not making it to the next stage period. So that that's something that there is luck involved and it does carry some stress. So from that athlete perspective, I do, I empathize greatly.
13:03
There's a few names in my head right now that I do genuinely feel bad for, and I've, and I have felt this before when I started pursuing masters games. There's like 30 spots or 20 spots and like that's really cutthroat, hard to reach, and then that one year they brought it down to 10. I'm like Jesus, like it's not happening. Right, you know, like I was able to be honest with myself that I can't get to that level and it really is a crappy feeling. But I go back to like one of those like really corny statements that you hear as a kid. It's like you shoot for the stars, you might land on the moon, like there's still. If you shoot for something that you can no longer reach, it's still going to bring you to places that you've never been before, still going to bring you to places that you've never been before. There are other elements to sport. As an athlete and I can tell you this from a Bison perspective without spoiling any surprises Some of you guys still pursue that top 10%. Just trust me, there's going to be a reason why I want you to still pursue that top 10%, if that's been your goal and all of a sudden, this is going to kind of diminish that flame. Trust me, still pursue the top 10%.
14:06
Affiliate owner slash coach. Okay, sam, we're both in this position, and I've been on calls and I've listened to affiliate owners talking about and I'm telling you this I think this is part of the reason why this is happening. So many affiliate owners complain about how hard it is to run quarterfinals, especially when you have 30, 40, 50, 60 people. Trust me, I've been there. It is a whirlwind, especially if you're trying to compete within that weekend as well. It is so hard. I love it, though, but I know I'm biased. I love the sport. I compete in the sport. If you don't like the sport and you don't compete in the sport, it's something that is just almost a waste of time.
Sam RheeCo-host
14:40
Didn't you shut down the gym, which you've never done before, for last year? Which a waste of time. Didn't you shut down the gym, which you've never done before, for last year? Which is crazy.
David SyvertsenHost
14:50
It is crazy that you had to, logistically like literally shut down the gym so you could get through quarterfinals for everybody. We canceled fitness classes so that competitors can find out that they rank eight, 800th in the world in a workout. You know, and like that sounds like a douchey comment, but it's the truth. You know, there's going to be a lot of things that I'm going to say in the next 10, 15 minutes that do sound a little douchey, but I am as opposed to all the time, yes, as opposed to all the time, says the Michigan fan after they beat Ohio State A little extra confidence today from Sam Ray.
Sam RheeCo-host
15:19
You know, that's what I'm here.
David SyvertsenHost
15:21
I'm just putting you grounded. I do think part of this conversation needs to be real and this is where the conversation is going to shift Again. I just said out of respect, I'm never going to throw anyone under the bus on a podcast, but I've heard a lot of affiliate owners complain to CrossFit on calls about how quarterfinals it's too much work for almost no reward. Literally, you're losing money, like we spend money on quarterfinals every year and you know we've paid coaches, we've paid, I've lost hours, I'm paying coaches to coach my classes so I can go in at all hours. Family has definitely takes a hit over that weekend. Again, it's part of the service attitude of what we're doing as a gym. We want to make everyone, we want to help everyone bring you, want to help everyone, bring everyone to their goals and that's part of the goal for everyone. That's a big goal. It's a big deal that you make quarterfinals. You get to compete over the weekend, but I'm actually going to kind of turn this towards this being a good thing. Okay, here's the problem with making it 10% and 25%. This, that goal of making top 25 slash top 10%, makes people think that they are something they are not Competitors big time competitors that can take on five to six really difficult, high level tests of fitness back to back to back, simply because they had a good open, simply because they had a good open.
16:44
And to me, the higher level you get in sport, the further away you're getting from health. Not everyone agrees with it. That's my opinion, but in this long time I've seen it with myself and I've seen it with other people. Because you feel this constant pressure to squat, snatch, to muscle up, to walk on your hands, to lift heavy, to do capacity workouts, to do extra sessions per day, you're constantly pushing yourself away from health and you're pushing yourself away towards sport. Some of you guys are cool with that compromise. I respect it and I admire it. It is, but in some ways it's stupid.
17:21
And making quarterfinals because they keep lowering the threshold and I'm going to talk about before quarterfinals what it was like because they keep lowering the threshold to hey, you're now a quarterfinalist, give us another 50 bucks. We're going to put workouts in your scope that you are not really fully capable of doing safely. You're going to pay to put yourself through that pain so that you can tell people you're a quarterfinalist. And this is the thing when you lower the threshold. Okay, you have a lot of people in those quarterfinals that don't live the life of an athlete. They cross it four to five days per week. They sleep like shit, they eat like shit, they drink a lot. They don't spend time mobilizing, they don't spend time doing accessory work. They don't videotape their workouts to analyze their movement. They're just very fit.
18:09
Example we had someone make quarterfinals last year that scaled one of the workouts. There's three workouts. She scaled one of them. She crushed the other two. She made quarterfinals. Now she ended up not doing the quarterfinal weekend, but she was permitted to. And CrossFit is getting a lot of I don't want to say attention, but maybe some flack from affiliate owners that we're all aging up. We're seeing injuries increase and I think it's because some people are pursuing something they should not be pursuing, and opening up quarterfinals to tens of thousands of people can easily do that. Do you see that perspective?
Sam RheeCo-host
18:50
I agree. I think when you look at, do you remember that GHD rope climb workout in the quarters a couple years back? Sorry say it again the GHD rope climb workout. Yep, yep With pistols. Yeah, how many people got rhabdo? Like at least two or three from this gym.
19:07
Yep, swollen abs. They couldn't move for weeks. No-transcript, anything. We paid money. We spend money every year on quarterfinals, right, so for them to get rid of it makes complete sense from an affiliate standpoint and from an athlete standpoint. You're right. The safety factor of some of these workouts they are absolutely brutal. If you look in years past on all the quarterfinal workouts.
David SyvertsenHost
19:59
And we're not coming down on CrossFit for making them hard. They have to. No, no, no. They have to make these workouts hard because semifinals are next. It's a tap to the game.
Sam RheeCo-host
20:06
Yeah, so you can't just sit there and go easy, go easy, but to lower the bar from 10 then to 25, you're now asking all these people who have no shot at the games to try levels of intensity that they are not used to. Yep, that's exactly it.
David SyvertsenHost
20:23
And what are we here for? Are we health performance? Sometimes, sam, I don't know. I go back and forth.
20:29
I love the performance component to CrossFit, but I also know it doesn't work for everyone, and part of this comes down to your ability to help athletes. Scale comes out to athlete responsibility comes down to your own programming. It's something that we constantly, every day, every week, analyze, overanalyze, that it's really hard to find this perfect medium. But when you start opening up the sport to be more inclusive and not sport, not for the elite okay, it's simply going to make people do things they probably should not be doing. And of the athletes that we've had over the 10 years, the ones that are constantly getting hurt I don't want to say constantly getting hurt the ones that are nicked up the most often, I would say eight out of 10 or nine out of 10 of those athletes are people that are pursuing sport, not health, not quality movement, not proper stimulus training. They're they're pursuing scores, reps, weights, performance, performance, performance.
21:31
Now that you take this goal away from them, whether you agree with it or not, does this change your perspective to being like I need to be more responsible as an athlete? Because now my goal is not to make the top 8%, 9%. The goal is for me to stay healthy all year. If that's your goal, does it change your life? Does it change your perspective? Original CrossFit when I started it was the Open five weeks, sometimes six scores, right on to regionals Top 60, then it was the top 40. There was no quarterfinals. And I'll tell you what back then the Open grew every year.
22:07
Back then was the biggest surge in CrossFit you've ever seen, and I do think part of the reason was you could be a really really fit, great looking, great moving person. You had no shot at regionals, so it wasn't even something you trained for or thought about. Throughout the year You'd sign up for a local comp 908, bison brawl, you might try to try legends or something like that. There's opportunities for you to compete, but crossfit season no guys, you have no shot, so you don't think about it.
22:36
And it actually back then there was no other, there was no, we didn't have quarterfinals and then they took it away. There was no thought of it, what it was. It was like dude, I ain't that level, I can't snatch that, I can't do that. I'm not gonna overextend myself. And that is where where CrossFit, in my opinion, that was like the heyday of CrossFit from 2011 to 2018, where there was sport and there was community fitness moving upward together. And it was partially because the sport, when it came to the CrossFit season, was way too elite for almost everyone that ever stepped into a CrossFit gym. That is another thing, because you still have Boz and you still have Castro very involved in this.
Sam RheeCo-host
23:17
Yeah.
David SyvertsenHost
23:18
I bet that they had some say in this in that regard that, hey, dude, what worked for us during that span? What are we doing different? Maybe we've lowered the threshold too much to make people CrossFitters think that are here for health, that they're athletes and competitors. And in this social media surge, where you can go watch athletes you know train all the time and, wow, I want to do that too and be inspired by it, but it gets you thinking that you should be doing something that you should not, I agree. So that's where that's the last thing I want to say. In regard to that part of the change from quarterfinals, looking back on it, my initial reaction was I do feel bad, because this can help, that this makes people diminish their goals or, sorry, it kind of makes some goals disappear. But now I do think it's the right, responsible move. Finances this is a part that I think some people are not paying attention to and it's going to lead me to my next thing.
24:16
But the prize purse for the CrossFit Games is dependent on open registration. I'm telling you this right now, sam, I would put money. If there was a betting market on this, I would put money on this. There are going to be less people signing up for the Open this year than previous. This happened in 2018, 2019, when CrossFit took away the regionals and numbers went down significantly. That was also the same year Greg Glassman got rid of the media team. That was part of it and I remember thinking, wow, that many people are not doing the Open this year because they took away regionals. Like most of us that didn't have a shot at regionals, but it's still, it kind of took away some of the flame. This is what you would call trimming the fat. This is like get, get those people out. That like all right, if you're actually not going to sign up because you're not going to get a quarter finalist badge email that you could put on your instagram that people will clap for for about five seconds and they're never going to think about it again, all right, if that's going to get you out of the open, then maybe they don't want you here. But what this also does okay, all this like infighting with CrossFit, the games, the athletes, the PFA, pfaa, the whole situation that happened last year. If you're a games athlete, that's trashing CrossFit and telling people not to sign up, guess what? You guys are making less money at the games. This is another thing that I sense a huge difference between now and 2015,.
25:38
The golden era, right, it was so affiliate-centered All these games. Athletes worked out at affiliates. They were posting videos of themselves working out with classes and members of their gym. They were out socially with their gym. Now it's training camps, training by themselves, sophisticated programs that are just so good, right, and you kind of shun the CrossFit affiliates away. Now it's hey guys, guess what? If you are going to not help us get people to sign up for the Open, you're all making less money. That's a huge deal. What do you think about that?
Sam RheeCo-host
26:11
Yeah, they basically said whatever the prize purse is is based on the number of open registrations. And you're right, they're going to, they're going. There's most people predicting fewer open registrations at this point, whether it's the controversy that occurred because of the death last year at the games, people boycotting other issues, lack of interest, I don't know. But they don't want to take a bath, so they're not going to front money that they don't have. They're basically going to base it on whatever income they make, which is fair. And, like you said, if a lot of people boycott, then because of the PFAA, well then, so be it. They cut off their. They're hurting themselves. Yeah, it puts them in a tough spot. Castro said in last week's affiliate meeting that a large amount of money will be worked back into the affiliates in the open, and he didn't specify exactly how. But they are trying going to do in terms of helping affiliates with encouraging them to have more people register, because it somehow benefits the affiliates as well. So I think they're going to shoot for some kind of incentive for affiliates to encourage people to register, because affiliates are going to benefit. So we'll see what that's about. I also feel like the Community Cup is another opportunity, and PEARS, which I'm sure we'll talk about, is another way of trying to get affiliates and more people involved.
27:48
The individuals you can't stop them from having these training camps. Right now, the performance is so high you can't do GPP general physical preparedness and train for the games. You have to be so specialized in your training. So I don't blame the individuals for being elitist in this regard, but you're right, the philosophy of what makes up an elite CrossFit athlete has dramatically changed. Where you can't be part of an affiliate. They did try with the teams. They did say, though no super teams, right, you have to be part of an affiliate in some way in order to make sure that they're not taking people from all over the world and pulling them together to a super team. So I think their overall goal is to try to make it more affiliate-centered.
David SyvertsenHost
28:36
Yeah, and for age group and open division semifinals are in affiliate, aka virtual Age group. We're used to that. Now there are going to be there's a little gray area, what they mean but there are going to be what we call sanctionals. There will be some live in-person semifinals. I don't know how that's going to be run, how people are going to register. Is it top? You know, one percent of blah, blah, blah.
29:00
But there is a path to the games for men and women all over the world to do the open and then do two semifinals in your affiliate, which I love. I love the the whole in affiliate thing. It can limit, but I do think that gets overstated, overblown a little bit, especially with these guys, these masterminds, castro and Bosman. They'll come up with the proper test in your affiliate to get people to the game. So I'm really looking forward to seeing how they do that. They've also upped the quality slash standard for judging, the quality slash standard for judging. So this is going to be something that we're going to have to talk about as coaches at our next meeting in the coming months in regard to the Open Judges that are going to judge the semifinal athletes and I'm pretty sure this is age group and Open, you have to have a level one.
Sam RheeCo-host
29:51
Yeah.
David SyvertsenHost
29:52
That's going to limit. I mean we usually get 20 to 30 people that offer to judge. Take the judge's course.
Sam RheeCo-host
29:59
You're going to be judging a lot of it. Our coaches are going to be judging Our coaches. You're right, we have enough coaches to cover, we do.
David SyvertsenHost
30:06
But that's a big deal and I'm wondering is this like a sly way of them trying to get more people to sign up for the level one? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I mean, to each their own when it comes to business moves. Don't you think a judge is better, though, if they have an L1 too? Absolutely, I mean. I'm a strong believer that if you really love CrossFit, you want it to be your workout program for life. L1, I'm not going to say it's mandatory. It'll help you though. It will help you understand CrossFit at a whole different level, and I think a lot of CrossFitters need that. That. You know they can't just listen to us coaches. I think going in, really getting that high quality um level one seminar with from the red shirts, I think would actually help their own quest to fitness, health, wellness, everything, um, there's also going to be an advanced judges course which.
Sam RheeCo-host
30:49
I'm not looking forward to oh my God, the judges courses used to be so difficult.
David SyvertsenHost
30:52
So, like, I think there's going to be like that initial buy-in judges course and now an advanced one Again, that if you're doing semifinals you're going to have to take that as well, which is probably another revenue source for them. So that's going to be a little bit more strenuous.
Sam RheeCo-host
31:06
How many more times do I have to count double unders and get it wrong? Wrong? Yes, a, b.
David SyvertsenHost
31:10
How many more coaches' chats do we have to have with the answers? The answer key is somewhere in there, but that's going to be a different kind of feel to the surrounding forces as well. But, you know, sticking with the affiliate, just so you guys know. We don't have that much information on the Community Cup. All we do know is that it's inune and that everyone is eligible that submits scores for the open. So if you sign up for the open and you submit all three scores, there's going to be another layer of the cross at season. It's called the community cup and that has uh, that sounds like bison to me, like I. I think that's something that we're going to do really well with, have a lot of fun with, but we need the date, the date asap, because we're gonna have athletes competing in asbury that second or third week in the june oh um including me.
Sam RheeCo-host
31:59
So okay, I'm hoping it's not the same weekend I think what john woolery uh suspected or guessed, was that you know how they gave us levels in terms of our performance. Yeah, every year. Yeah, like 10 was if you got to the games, nine, if you got the semis, eight or seven, six, five, four, three, two. Yeah, depending on how your percentage performance was based on everyone in your age group. Yeah, and so eights will compete against eights, twos will compete against twos and you will have a rank and you can log your score and see how you do against all the other twos. Blah, blah, blah, blah blah.
David SyvertsenHost
32:33
You think the community camp is going to be more workouts though.
Sam RheeCo-host
32:36
Yeah, it will be more workouts and it will be like, let's suppose You're just competing against other twos and threes, that kind of thing. Right. So if you have a five and the workouts are given and then you do it in your affiliate, do you think the workouts will be tailored to the levels.
David SyvertsenHost
32:54
No, I think they'll be.
Sam RheeCo-host
32:55
Everyone will be doing the same workouts you're only competing against 5, just like the Open, but then your leaderboard is based on 5s, so you can see how you do it. I guess that's cool.
David SyvertsenHost
33:03
I don't know. I guess that's cool. One thing I question is part of what makes the Open special is that it's that time of year. It's a 3 week of year, it's a three-week sprint. We can get a lot of buy-in for that time, but for us to leave the Open in March and be like, hey guys, in three more months by the way, there's another one of these that we're going to have to plan around I mean, maybe that's cool.
Sam RheeCo-host
33:28
Maybe I don't know, what if the affiliate makes money?
David SyvertsenHost
33:33
What if the affiliate makes money? What if the registration for the community cup? We're doing it, we're doing it hard. I mean, maybe that's what they said. They want to pour more resources into it, and I do. It gives another opportunity, like we just got done, not shaming, but kind of coming down on athletes that are really upset about this top 10% thing. Well, here's your other shot to compete at the Community Cup and it gives you a few months to really maybe work on some holes, like, hey, the Open is going to expose you. Let's work on these holes for the next three months, which is a nice number. We're three months away now. I think a lot can be done in three months.
34:00
This can really, you know, open up the door to another love competing. That's not so time intense, right, because you have the Open. Two weeks later it's the age group, then a few weeks later it's the individuals, quarterfinals, semifinals. Then you have the sanctionals and all that stuff. Then you have MRF. That's a nice time of year, and June is a pretty kind of dry time of year. I've always noticed that's like a lull from MRF to the summer. That's a nice little period to get things going. So I'm all about opening more opportunities for the gym to compete together, doing something together. I just hope that they do it well and they do it right.
Sam RheeCo-host
34:38
Are you going to comment about the pairs competition?
David SyvertsenHost
34:40
Well, okay, the pairs again. Crossfit loves to do this. They love to open the door. You start looking in and they shut the door in your face. You can pair with anyone in the world, so virtual. I can go pair with Rich Roening. Right, Rich, I'm there, I'm interested if you want to.
Sam RheeCo-host
34:57
You guys are both masters.
David SyvertsenHost
34:58
Yeah, yeah, so same level too. So if you want to compete with someone, but I still think that's going to be a virtual type score, and to me that stuff always looks cool on paper, but then it's like, all right, well, these three games athletes are competing with each other, like what's the point, kind of thing. I mean it's I I hate not having all the information before commenting on it. What do you think it could be? What's the upside of it?
Sam RheeCo-host
35:28
well, I think it threw mfc master's fist in this championship of bone, so Legends was handling the games. Mfc is like we want to do something with you guys too. So they're like OK, you know what A master's athlete, individual athlete, they can take their open scores, they can pair them up, and the best pairings are invited to an in-person competition in October at MFC. Okay, and so let's suppose you got a buddy somewhere, could be anywhere, it doesn't have to be in your affiliate. And you're like, hey, you, me, let's go. So it's like an online qualifier. That's correct. But they're using the Open as the qualifier. So the Open will be an online qualifier. That's correct. And so they're driving more registration for the Open, because then you get to compete in person. That's cool.
36:11
I guess the other thing is because we have so many old people in CrossFit because of our demo, they're trying to pull young people in. So this is not just an age group comp, right? You got to find someone under the age of 35 to compete with. So all of these factors are coming into play. We're like, okay, how do we pull younger people in? You know what? Let's get an old person to pull a young person in, Got it. Let's start competing in person. Let's use the open as the qualifier.
36:38
So these are all sort of tricks to try to get more people involved. I think.
David SyvertsenHost
36:43
Note all of this right, what you just said, what we talked about it being hard to now qualify for the stage. After what I love about all of these changes, it's going to add so much intensity to the Open. It has lost a little bit of luster because of like I've literally said this to athletes in our gym multiple times hey, don't worry gym multiple times, hey, don't worry about the open. Like you're shooing, like you can jog through the open, you will make the next stage. And now it's on. Nobody can say that now unless you're the elite of the elite, tia, you know, and even though those guys still go hard at the open, this, the partner competition that you just said, combining your scores to hopefully qualify for something, trying to make the next stage this is going to add so much intensity to the point where we are going to see repeats and repeats and repeats on Sundays. Now, yeah, not just the people on the bubble, the best athletes in the gym, and I've always felt this way about CrossFit.
37:38
This is something Tafar and I always used to say about CrossFit Hoboken that we loved. We had a really high level elite athlete there when we were there and he was. He almost made the games one year and he worked out the classes. He was one of us, we were, we were with him, we like we just being in that same environment. It just bonded everyone together and that's what I mean by blending sport and community together. It was like that back then. It's going to that again now. You know, warning and disclaimer, the stress level is going to be through the roof, with a lot of athletes trying to reach that level now very much. Like you know, we on average it's actually diminished a little bit. We we get maybe five to ten people that want to repeat open workouts per week. That number is going to be, I said 20 to 30 now absolutely the open is your score.
Sam RheeCo-host
38:20
yeah, there's nothing else that's going to determine all of these next steps. Yep, just the open.
David SyvertsenHost
38:25
Yeah. So between the partner competition, the lowering of the sorry, increasing the level of the threshold for the next stage, this is going to add a lot of intensity to the open and honestly, I think that's what it needs to be. I think the open needs to be stressful, hard, like anxiety filled, because that's kind of like what bonds us together. We do it together. You know, no one no one's no one in this gym is skating by the open. Not one person I don't care who you are, not one of you guys is skating by the open.
38:55
You have to start training now for it. We're three months away. I have athletes that in February start to amp up for April quarterfinals. Nope, you better start, not next week, not after the holidays, tomorrow. You better start training for the Open tomorrow. Like everything, if you want to take your performance seriously, waiting after the holiday it's too late. You have to be amped up in good shape for the Open and that to me, it kind of raises the entire level of the gym up when everyone's under that mindset. So I'm really looking forward to it.
Sam RheeCo-host
39:26
Are you going to compete in pairs? Are you going to consider that?
David SyvertsenHost
39:29
I would. Yeah, I want to see more details on it. I would prefer to do it with someone from here.
Sam RheeCo-host
39:35
Not some young bucks that are really good on the individual side, yeah.
David SyvertsenHost
39:40
Now, but do you think it's not going to be age group related?
Sam RheeCo-host
39:44
You have to have one master's, one individual. I didn't see that, yes.
David SyvertsenHost
39:47
Oh, I thought it was just, I did not see it. Oh done, all right, I think, okay, we'll see. We'll see. Yeah, if that is so, that's what you were saying. Okay, I wasn't picking up on everything you were saying there, so I didn't even read that I. I just saw a potential partner competition that you could be up with anyone. So, okay, so that's going to be really cool. Do you know? So I'm still considered a young masters athlete. Do you know, if this could be like I could be the young person and I could do it with someone older than me? Or it has to be someone that's a non-masters.
Sam RheeCo-host
40:15
It depends on their qualification. Maybe there's a numeric age that the two athletes have to have.
David SyvertsenHost
40:20
Oh that'd be cool, okay. And co-ed versus same gender. Do you know? Oh, we gotta wait and see. This is gonna be cool. Alright, taking applications If anyone. Actually no one likes to work out with me anymore, so Whenever I have a partner on a Saturday it happened again yesterday like immediate eye roll, it's like you bring so much intensity.
Sam RheeCo-host
40:40
That's the thing.
David SyvertsenHost
40:41
Well then, if anyone wants to partner up with me, I'm a free agent. Unless, you know, maybe this will be Brock's opening competing season. Maybe him and I'll do it together, right, well, just see his toaster rings right now. They're awesome, he's what five. He's four.
Sam RheeCo-host
40:59
Four.
David SyvertsenHost
41:00
So if you had a again, this all circles back to. Let's conclude this with what is CrossFit telling us? Okay, and you could be pessimistic optimistic, you know I always like to be on the latter side of that, but you do have to consider both. This could be a way of them taking a step away from the sport. You know Don Fall has a board of directors. You know these guys from Berkshire, the private equity firm, that are very money driven, numbers driven, and I don't know enough to say how much that really prohibits or kind of encourages certain decisions.
41:37
But we've heard over and over Glassman and Don Fall the sport does not make money. The games, all that semifinals, regionals they don't make money. There's marketing things that are hard to put true values on. But if this is going to diminish open registration so much and there's going to be a lot of infighting with the PFFA, pfaa, maybe this is like hey, guys, we gave it a shot. This is the last year in the open and they kind of just wipe their hands clean and let someone else it's not going to disappear, but someone else take it over Do you think that's a possibility or do you think the CrossFit needs the open?
Sam RheeCo-host
42:14
I think they're just refocusing on affiliates. I think they realize the more money affiliates make, the better off CrossFit HQ is. So you're right, they're turning away from sport because the revenue on that side isn't driven by all of these top athletes the revenue for all of them and those guys are killing CrossFit HQ right now. So why would they lean into the professional athletes? What they're saying is forget about them. Let's make all of this competition about our affiliates. Let's make it revenue share so that the affiliates have more stake in it, and let's see how much registration open increase or numbers we can get by putting it in the affiliates lab. So if you got, if we got some sort of stake in it, if we get some kind of revenue back on it, because we've never like. A lot of affiliates have always been like why sign up for this? Why should we have our athletes do that? We don't get a dime of it, but if somehow there is, yeah, I mean, I absolutely agree with you.
David SyvertsenHost
43:15
I think this is the pivot that they probably had to make as a business. No offense to games athletes I know that's a whole different world to that elite level sport, but they're. They're not the people you want representing this brand. They're just not for a lot of reasons. One of them they're they're ticking time bombs. You know that and a lot of them have gotten very egotistical of the world, a lot of over the past few years.
43:37
I still remember games athlete being on her instagram telling athletes not to sign up for the Open anymore because week one there was dumbbell snatch and week two there was deadlift and they're two similar movements. So you should never sign up for the Open again and those kind of people. You just don't want them endorsing CrossFit brand. You let them do their whatever they want. The sport that that's not CrossFit. To me it never has been. It's cool and they're involved and they're supportive of it, but they don't not CrossFit. To me it never has been. It's cool when they're involved and they're supportive of it, but they don't represent CrossFit and athletes. They have a very limited shelf life. At some point they're no longer a thing and you could see right now a lot of games, athletes that leave the sport. They're not even in the gyms anymore, so they're not long-term solutions.
44:16
So I do agree that it is a good decision to lean into the affiliates and lean away from the elite athletes and go let them do their own thing. So maybe, maybe them getting rid of the sport is not what we're doing, but it's really making the sport about the affiliate, not the affiliate about the sport. And when you hear affiliates kind of what I said earlier on when you hear affiliate owners complain about what the sport does to the community, fractures creates false hope. It really this right there, what they're doing right now, could actually get them back towards the path of making this more about the affiliate. So that to me, that's all I really wanted to say about these changes. Guys. Sam, do you have anything else before we wrap it up?
Sam RheeCo-host
45:00
No, I think we're going to probably cover more once we get more information.
David SyvertsenHost
45:03
Yeah, more information, and then we still going to do our typical open prep workouts on Fridays once January hits. We're still going to take it seriously. We have some really cool things that some of the coaches here at Bison have started to map out that we're going to meet about soon next week actually and really kind of firm up some details that we're still going to kind of keep that whole like that dream alive for a lot of people. But when it comes to not having to pay 50 bucks for the quarterfinals, I think this is something that a lot of you guys are going to eventually find is a good thing. You know and a lot of times with changes across the season we've seen a lot over the years the initial reaction is not always the right one.
45:44
So let this sit. Let's get more information and affiliate owners and coaches. This is going to be a challenge to you, to I don't want to say capitalize, but make the most out of these changes and understand the positives that can come from it for both you and your members alike. All right, thank you, guys. We will see you next week. Thank you everybody for taking the time out of your day to listen to the Hurt Fit Podcast. Be on the lookout for next week's episode.
