S06E180 - OUTLAST Unveiled: A New Concept Gym for Wellness and Longevity from Bison Fitness

Unlock the secrets to lasting fitness and holistic well-being with our latest episode of the HerdFit Podcast. Join us as coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic introduce you to OUTLAST, Bison Fitness's innovative new gym concept designed to complement the CrossFit experience by focusing on longevity and adaptability. Inspired by thought leaders like Andrew Huberman and Peter Attia, we aim to create a fitness journey that's as much about mental and emotional health as it is about physical prowess.

As we explore OUTLAST's unique approach, we confront the challenges of evolving fitness routines, particularly as our bodies signal the need for change. Breaking old habits is tough, especially when you're used to the adrenaline-fueled world of CrossFit. We discuss alternatives like Tim Carroll's Endure gym, which offers a refreshing take on strength and conditioning, minus the competitive pressure. Discover how embracing quality movement can support healthy aging and why different fitness paths cater to different personalities and needs. Whether you thrive on competition or seek a more structured, community-focused coaching environment, there's something here for everyone.

Finally, we unveil the strategic decision to establish OUTLAST as its own entity, separate from CrossFit Bison, to broaden our community's reach. Addressing the perception of CrossFit as intimidating, OUTLAST provides a welcoming gateway for newcomers while still offering pathways to explore CrossFit when ready. We envision a community-first approach, ensuring that all fitness levels feel at home. Dive into our vision for Bison Fitness' expansion and learn how we're committed to helping you achieve your fitness goals in a way that works for you. Tune in for an exciting conversation that might just transform your approach to fitness forever.

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

S06E180 - OUTLAST Unveiled: A New Concept Gym for Wellness and Longevity from Bison Fitness

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 Syverton. I'm here with my co-host, dr and Coach Sam Rhee. I got my notes on my left, my microphone in front, and I'm watching my four-year-old son on the gym's ring camera to my right. So we are ready to rock what is up.

00:38

Sam Good, just got done coaching the Thursday. This is the second week in a row. I'm asking Sam to record after coaching three early morning classes because we're going to bring up talk about today Outlast, a new gym that Bison Fitness is creating in the coming months, and it will still be at 265 Greenwood Ave. It's going to be in front of the building Don't need to go too deep into the specifics of you know the lease and everything but it's going to be in the same building as CrossFit Bison, but it is going to be a separate gym and that's really going to be the premise of today, because we announced it via email last week that we were going to do this and I got so many people coming up to us and be like hey, like congrats, I'm like hold on, can you just actually just say good luck or pray? I'll pray for you because starting anything from scratch like this it's hard, it's stressful, it's a little risky and we need a lot of boxes to be checked before we can really feel confident in it.

01:40

But I think it's really important, with all these people asking about it now, is to really put out, get out in front of everything we can, as possible, as much as possible possible, to really tell you guys about the gym itself and you can share this with your friends and family. You can share this with people that used to cross it but it's not for them anymore, but they still kind of miss the community vibe. I really want to dive into all of it. I'm a pretty open person when it comes to our goals with B bison and the business. I don't really hide that much um, don't keep that much private, and I really want to be as open as possible so you guys can have a really clear vision of what this is going to be like.

02:13

Sam, this, this it's going to be called outlast. We wrestled with the name of the gym back and forth. I I don't really think it's that important. Some people think it's very important with, like marketing, whatnot, but where, in relation to the word outlast, how does that relate to what we're actually trying to achieve with this gym, in contrast to what we do with CrossFit?

Sam RheeCo-host

02:37

I actually liked Hawk's idea of the stable, but that would have thrown too much cred to the stable boys, I think so, and Susan was like I don't want to work out in a barn, so I think that got shot down. I like Outlast. I like the concept of it. What is it that you felt like when you came up with the name? That this had to represent what the ethos is of this gym.

David SyvertsenHost

03:03

Yeah, uh, because I know that myself in particular, but bison also, it were very well known for or have a reputation I should say well-known reputation for going hard, performance, crossfit, you know, suck it up, mindset, and I am still like that. I am never, never going to get away from that. But I also know that's not, as I've done this for over 10 years. That's not the feel everyone wants and you have one of two directions to go. When you start to realize that that, hey, see you guys later go find somewhere else to work out, no, no hard feelings, nothing personal, but this is who I am, that's who you are. Good to you, I'll go do me.

03:43

But I also started Bison with Chris and still want to do this moving forward with you guys, because my number one goal has always been to help people and that's it. I mean, it really is that simple. I remember when Dallas was involved in this place, he's like, hey, we need to come up with something cooler or more catchy than we want to help. And I'm like, fine, go find someone that has a marketing degree and you can go play around with your words. But that's really I want people to understand. That is what the goal of this place is we want to help physically, mentally, emotionally and I know that there is a certain personality that fits in really well with CrossFit style training. That doesn't mean they're better or worse than anyone else, but I also know there's a certain kind of personality that it's just not for them.

04:27

And as time passes and I look into the future, I've always said I want Bison. I don't need to ever be the best gym. I personally don't ever need to be the best athlete but one of my goals I actually started using this in a hashtag a long time ago is I want to outlast everybody. I want everyone to start shutting down because it's too hard and I want to still be there. And if I ever compare myself to others, that's where I want to be. I want to outlast others. And then I think that really plays into one of the catchiest trends in fitness these days, especially with our age group, I would say people that are above 30 and getting into their forties is longevity. You know you stop training at some point to look the best or, uh, perform the best, like you just want to live a longer, healthier life.

Sam RheeCo-host

05:13

Absolutely. I think if you ever listened to Andrew Huberman or Peter Attila who are really popular they espouse working out and fitness for longevity and health, not for max intensity, for putting up the best number on the whiteboard, and I don't think that that's. I think you can honestly have a little bit of both and I think you can incorporate a little bit of what makes CrossFit special and not just sit there and do super boring long workouts that serve maybe some purpose, but it's like eating broccoli or anything.

David SyvertsenHost

05:53

Yeah, exactly, and so the term outlast to wrap that up. You're trying to outlast aging as best you can. We all know we've talked about it a few times at some point you are going to die, at some point you are going to be incapable of doing things. But I think it's a challenge and a borderline responsibility for every human on the face of the earth to try and outlast aging as best you can, and to do that, you need to exercise, you need to lift weights, you need to eat well, you need to lift weights, you need to eat well, you need to sleep well, you need human connection. And that is really the direction of Outlast, and that's where that name comes from the inception of this idea.

06:34

I think it's important for you guys to know where this actually came from, because this idea actually began when we moved here in 2019. That's when, in my head, I started saying, hey, my dream gym was CrossFit. And then, in some other area of that building, there was an area for you to just come in and lift, do some cardio and go home. You don't need to go to Fitness 19. Monday, tuesday, wednesday, crossfit Thursday, friday, saturday my dream still to this day.

06:58

We might get it someday we might not is to have one massive building where you can have it all in one shop and you can really kind of decide, based on where you are in life, how your body feels, what the workouts are, if you want to be a cherry picker, what direction you want to go in every day at that gym. And we moved from our original gym, which was a little under 4,000 square feet, to this gym, where the workout space was a little over 6,000 square feet, and we walked in like, oh my God, this place is so big, we're never going to have space issues, it's just going to get jammed in here. And we started thinking right away we might need to come up with a different way of working out for some people. Do you remember when we first walked in here in 2019, how massive it felt compared to the other gym?

Sam RheeCo-host

07:40

It feels kind of tight now actually. Yeah, it does. It feels kind of tight now?

David SyvertsenHost

07:42

Yeah, it does, and we ran out of space again. But I remember thinking we need to find different ways. We were going to run two classes at once. That's how big we thought this gym was at that point. And now it's still all CrossFit all the time. We're running out of space again. But that's when the idea for me personally started was like, hey, I would love to have a different version of class-based fitness for the. For those that think CrossFit is too intense, and you know, we grew. Then COVID hit, we grew back and now we're almost too big for this space. In some ways that you know, we've, you know, really took that conversation to the next level. Uh, once we had some new ownership, you know, when we went down to Birmingham together, that's when we really started getting aggressive with the conversation. Now, that's the inspiration behind it. I think that needs to be known as well, sam. Why do you think this is important for us to explore and go for? Because this is a big bite for us.

Sam RheeCo-host

08:41

I think we have to serve our members, and there are a significant number of people who are looking for something slightly different than what CrossFit is, and I think that I can think of at least 10, 15, 20 people off the top of my head where this type of training is going to appeal to them in a very appealing manner.

David SyvertsenHost

09:03

Yeah, a conversation we had at CrossFit, a conversation we've had with ourselves, our coaches. We are an aging group, an aging gym. We don't get a lot of new young people and we don't lose a lot of people. But you look back 10 years from now, 10 years in the past, five years, even five years in the past, it was even five years. In the past it was a much younger gym, different walks of life, different goals, different intensity levels, different aggressiveness levels. Now, if you forecast five, 10 years from now, where we're all five to 10 years older, I still believe very much so that CrossFit is, and should be, the foundation of someone's fitness. But you know what? That's just my opinion. I would be arrogant to say that should be your opinion, and I like to listen to people, and one of the predominant thoughts I hear from people is that it's too hard, some of this stuff is just too hard and scaling is not for them. That's a different discussion, for a different discussion, different discussion for a different time. But they don't want to come in and be the only person not doing this or doing something that they. They have to scale, that they used to not be able to. That's a different discussion, and I don't judge it. It's just a fact. People don't want that.

10:18

A lot of people used to view CrossFit as this like confidence builder, pursue performance. Cross it as this like confidence builder, pursue performance. I still got it, bro. Look at me, I can still do all this right. You get that first injury. You have that third kid. You get that little less sleep. You get that second injury, your fourth injury and all of a sudden you're like you know what dude it's, it no longer fills my cup, and the conversation, the thing that Sam said for a long time is that people would leave the gym.

10:44

I I think it originally came from Tim Carroll, which I'm going to talk about in a sec is that people started to feel like they never felt like they were winning when they came to the gym, and you can say, hey, man, that's in their own head, that's their own fault, fine, go say it. It's still the truth, though, and at some point you start feeling like it's just not worth the squeeze anymore, that I don't feel like I'm winning. You know, touch on that a little bit, sam, because I know you've had a lot of those conversations with people that you've coached and work out with.

Sam RheeCo-host

11:09

Yeah, I think Tim Carroll you said you're going to mention it, he really said that and I feel like every day when you come in, you have to come out of that gym feeling like you've accomplished something, because you have no matter what you did. You came into class, you showed up, you worked out and no matter what you did, that should be a net positive for you. Maybe you didn't feel your best, but when you're up there and you're looking at that whiteboard and we did deadlifts today and someone hit 225 and you hit 195, and maybe 195 was close to your one rep, but you're like, oh, man look he did this, then where are you with that?

11:50

And I don't love when I see my athletes feeling like, oh I just I didn't do well when they did frigging awesome, and so a lot of times. Sometimes you have to take that context out and give them the win without putting it like framing it against everybody else.

David SyvertsenHost

12:10

Yeah, teaching an old dog new tricks? Trust me, I have an old dog and I can't teach him anything now because he's set in his ways and a lot of us, myself included, I'll put myself out there. I'm really hard. It's really hard for me to break certain habits that I have because I'm old. I'm really hard. It's really hard for me to break certain habits that I have because I'm old. I'm stubborn. I've done them for a long time.

12:27

Crossfitters that have been doing this five, six years and they come in every day trying to get the best score, trying to rank here, hit that, lift, pr, this, and all of a sudden their body's telling them like, hey, you can't do this anymore. You have one of two directions that when you hear that you embrace it and you go after quality movement, you reshift your goals. Some people they just cannot do it and they leave. They will leave for that reason. And that that it's hard to be. We ignore people that don't come to this gym because they can't trust themselves in this environment. And I get it, dude. I mean we just watched nick squire and I just deadlifted together and we were both like yeah, like I don't really feel like going above. You know, x weight today, and then by the end we were both like, oh, I did it, now you have to do it up. We're going up now, I'm going up, and it's just some people, you can't control it, and so the inspiration is is for those people. All right, partially, it's not just those people. The other one is I want to bring up tim carroll and give him a shout out for a gym that he opened, uh, that we uh that I visited and worked out with, we talked to him, we had him on the podcast a couple months ago. It's called indoor and I remember when he announced it I was just like yep, like same wavelength, like this is a great idea. And tim is a pioneer, like he's a guy that can kind of forecast kind of trends before they become a trend, and I think that's one of his greatest gifts and it's one of the reasons why I look up to him.

13:51

And they started a gym. That is exactly, I want to say exactly. It's going to be very similar to the vibe and the feel in terms of what we're going to do At the end of the day. It's lifting a lot of tempo work and a lot of endurance work. What it's not. There's no barbells, there's no high-level gymnastics, there's no kipping, there's no going upside down, there's no Fran, there's no RX, there's no scaled, you know, there's no. What's your time, bro? It's just an old-school strength and conditioning program with coaching, a community, community feel, and that's where, kind of like, the last piece of inspiration for this place came, it's like.

14:30

And the interesting thing about this because we're going to jump now to who is this for and who's this not for what's important for everyone to know and I don't, this is what tim told me months ago, so I'm not sure if this is still true, but the vast majority of his members at that gym did not come from CrossFit. So in my head, in our head, we're like oh, I know 10 to 20 people here that might come to this gym that just CrossFit's not for them. That might not be the case. It's possible they might not come. Maybe they left because they don't like us, I don't know. Also possible, so they might not come back. Or they found a new routine. They like I know a couple people here I'm friends with.

15:10

They are in a new routine. They're in a great place with their workout routine. I don't want them to leave that I generally don't. I want them to stay where they're happy and where they're building their health and fitness. But the demographic I think this is truly for are for the people that need a group environment. They need a coach, they need someone else to program for them. But they do also know that they have to lift weights if you want to outlast aging. They have to partake in long, slow endurance if they want to outlast aging. You can't cherry pick and just do everything that you want to do at the gym. You have to do new things and lift weights. Thoughts on that, sam.

Sam RheeCo-host

15:50

Yeah, studies have shown you have to maintain your muscle mass and if you don't, you're going to be in a really bad situation as you get older. You don't have to squat snatch, you don't have to do bar muscle ups, you don't have to do handstand walks, but if you're not lifting, you're not doing in some endurance and if you're not doing conditioning, you're going to be in a bad place who is this not for?

David SyvertsenHost

16:16

I think this needs to be put out there too. I mean, at the end of the day, it's for everyone. But I do think it's important to know that I enjoyed the class that I took at Endor at Tim and Aaron's gym Should have mentioned Aaron earlier too. Tim and Aaron, carroll and awesome gym. Awesome class Felt great. After, too, it felt really good. I would not want to do it every day Me personally. I like the intensity, I like going after it, I like the times, the scores, the RX, but that's how I am. If you are addicted to that feeling and you want a coach to ask you what your score was and you want a coach to record your name on the whiteboard and write down what you did, and you like the feeling of you know, ripping the shirt off mid-workout and dramatic loud music, this won't be for you.

Sam RheeCo-host

17:02

I will always be a CrossFit person. That's just who I am as well. I like recording my scores, keeping numbers. I know they're going down. I mean I know I'm not as fit as I was 10 years ago, but I need that push for me to feel like I'm getting the best part of my fitness and it's okay if I'm not doing as awesome as I did. I still need to keep working on skill building, on continuing to try to push what I can. I just know that that intensity for me is necessary.

David SyvertsenHost

17:39

Yeah, and to me. I honestly I always go back to, it's fun Like I get way. I like woke up this morning and I was excited to come to the gym today.

Sam RheeCo-host

17:46

Like.

David SyvertsenHost

17:46

I really was excited and I don't know how excited I'll be to come and do tempo one arm rows, tempo press, tempo goblet squat with a 24 minute row bike workout after. I know it's important for me and I know it's good for me. But I like to. I like to part of my fitness routine for now, at where I am in life, I want it to be fun and I also still want to compete in CrossFit and I need to do CrossFit to compete. Now I know that we have a lot of people that just are addicted to working out and they do a workout. They they need more. And the question is, sam, should people do this and Outlast? Should they do bison classes and then outlasted it? Should they do outlast as their warm-up and then and then come to gross it, bison as their wad? Because I know for a fact I will put, I will bet money that there are people immediately thinking, oh, it's just going to be another opportunity for me to work out more well, if you want to pay for two memberships, go right ahead.

Sam RheeCo-host

18:50

Like, go ahead and give us all of that money because it's not going to be cheap and do that. But I would say probably not going to be what you expect that to be. That's it.

David SyvertsenHost

18:58

It's important for us to put that out there. I was kind of like teeing that up that it's a separate gym and I think that actually and I want to respectfully put that out there now this is not more classes for Bison members. This is a different gym, it's a different membership. It might be a different staff We'll talk about that in a little bit but it's not going to be like hey bro, I'm going to go take the 830 outlast class and then 930 wide, like you can. You're paying for both, and I think it's really important to know if this thing blows up, if we do really well and we get a good vibe, it'll probably be its own building at some point. Like, we're still actively looking for something like that. We've been looking for a long time. It's really tough, uh, to find something that makes economic sense. But they're, this is a separate gym, it's a separate schedule. All the times starting times on purpose will be different than what Bison's are. For example, we have 5, 6 am, 5, 6, 7 am here at Bison. We're not sure yet, but the morning classes will start on the 30-minute mark, so there's never any confusion. You know, like 5.30, 6.30, 7.30. We'll see. I'm not sure we're going to have that many classes, but it's important to know that there will be an option to be a member of both and you'll pay for both. You know, um, there's going to be an option like punch cards at both gyms and, but there'll be separate. You won't use a bison 10 pack for uh, you cannot use a bison 10 pack for an outlast class. It's completely different.

20:19

And do I think there's a time and place to do both? I do, I absolutely do. If, do I think there's a time and place to do both? I do, I absolutely do. If you're like, hey, I need an off-season, I need two months of no CrossFit because I'm beat up and I don't have any competitions coming up, that would be like, hey, pause that membership, start that membership. It could be like, hey, I want to stick to my four days. I like working out every single day. Four days of CrossFit is for me, but I can't do seven anymore. It's just beating me up. Then do four and two. You get a 10-pack. At Outlast, you get a bison membership. You can do that.

20:49

I do want to discourage people, though especially initially, from doing both in one day because of the addiction to working out Most of you cannot handle it and I do think it's just not a good because the programming is not going to be synced with each other. Example you know outlasts on Monday might be a lot of overhead tempo work with dips and you know Tabata pushups right, and then bison might be doing bench press, shoulder overhead and clean jerks in that day. You can't do both those. It wouldn't be smart. So I think that's important to know that it's not for the people that just want to do more. You really have to have a different mindset.

21:30

At both gyms that opened up the door to compare, contrast programming and coaching class size format. Let's just compare and contrast. There's a lot of these people that listen right now are from Bison and I want you to know ahead of time what will be similar and what will not be similar. The programming is probably the biggest thing. What do you envision, sam, as being the biggest difference between CrossFit Bison programming and Outlast Fitness programming?

Sam RheeCo-host

22:02

Skill work and barbell, you just said it. Skill work and barbell, you just said it. And I'm actually interested to see how you program the outlast, because if it's like regular crossfit, without the high skill stuff or barbell, then that just seems like crossfit light. So my guess is is that you're probably programming with a different intent in mind yeah, yeah, there's definitely gonna be a different intent in mind.

David SyvertsenHost

22:26

Yeah, yeah, there's definitely going to be a different intent and I experimented with a few people that did some programming for me in December still getting some feedback from some people on that. But what I think the general flow would be it'll probably be two straight days of strength and conditioning, something different in the middle, and then two more days of strength and conditioning and something different in the middle. This is where I kind of want to put my own spin on it. I do want there to be a high-ish intensity day interval work with simple movements though you know. But you know I wouldn't say we're going to be doing dumbbell overhead squats and squat snatch or anything like that. But I could see us doing, you know, a high intensity alternating emom type with dumbbell snatches, burpeespees and assault bike Like.

23:08

I could see that it's not going to be like your heart rate does. Like, if we're going to talk about longevity and outlast aerobic capacity, it needs to be trained. You can't just say like, nope, I'm not getting above 60% heart rate. No, no, you are going to hit the top heart rate. It just doesn't need to be as often. It would have a little bit more of a balance field to it and it would probably be a set day so that people can plan ahead of time, kind of similar to what we did with Wednesdays at Old Bison. It's like no barbells on Wednesdays. We did that for a long time. People could plan around it. That's where I do want to put my little spin on it, that there is going to be one pretty high intensity, cross-fitting type day, just not with those certain movements. How about the aesthetic?

Sam RheeCo-host

23:45

component of like bodybuilding. Like, how about people who are like oh, I want to get swole and I need to get my glutes?

David SyvertsenHost

23:51

like you know, looking big and all that Like.

Sam RheeCo-host

23:54

is there a component of that in this, or is this mostly for just strict longevity wellness?

David SyvertsenHost

23:59

Yes, so I'm going to refer you to a plastic surgeon. Yeah, I do think aesthetics will be a bigger part of this than crossfit. I I think aesthetics are in every form of fitness. I think there's a lot of people in the gym right next to us right now that they're here because they like the way they look when they do it. And you know, am I going to go into, like I've already done some research and like I already know enough from, like my history of you know, what is the the best route to lift, like what is the best, um kind of lifting to improve, like muscle size and and what it looks like, and that, if that is the main goal, like that's where a lot of the tempo work comes in. It's not just, like you know, strengthen your the muscles around your tendons and get better range of motion. It does increase muscle mass, like when the muscle is stretched out more and it, like a pause bench press is better for aesthetics than just pumping them out as fast as you can.

24:55

I do think that the aesthetic part of Outlast will do more for someone than CrossFit will. Bicep curls oh yeah, bicep curls will be in there. Oh my God, yeah, bicep curls, tricep extensions, skull crushers, glute ham, bridges all the glute exercises those will definitely be a part of Outlast. We occasionally do this stuff at Bison, like those really slow lifting days. We have one on Monday coming up with the deadlifts after that. It's fun, it's cool to do every now and then, but again, I hate to do every day and the energy is lower. It's just, it's a different vibe, but I do think there's a place for it and, and yeah, so to answer that question, there will be more, I guess, aesthetic type training, uh, in Outlast.

25:40

Um, the coaching and the class size. It's important to know that the total square footage of this place, once we get these walls knocked down and things built up, it's not going to be big compared to Bison. It'll probably be about 2,000 square feet. I think that's what we're projecting. Okay, so we're going to cap the classes at probably somewhere between six and ten people. Yeah, and the coaches it's important to know that.

26:04

I'll be very involved, mike D will be very involved and from there, part of the reason we're bringing a new full-time coach onto the Bison CrossFit staff is to open up a few kind of options for us, but we have a few kind of balls in the air right now that need to drop for us to make final decisions on how we're going to staff it. But there will be a coach and it might not be a CrossFit coach. I think that needs to be known. It's important to know that. You know you're not going to. I don't want people coming in or intimidated to come in because Dave's in there and he's going to make something too hard. He's going to make me do burpees at some point. There will be.

26:41

We are talking to a couple of people outside of CrossFit coaching right now and I'll even use this podcast as a like. We will be looking to hire at least one or two more coaches in the very near future for Outlast, not for Bison this way I wouldn't do it this way. But if you're listening and you have some interest or you're listening and you know that someone else would have interest, I would love to talk to them. Because how we staff this will probably be a little different than how we staffed Bison at the start, because at the start of Bison it was basically Chris and I and Ash for at least basically a year and we coached everything. It was like 30, 40 classes a week. We won't be doing that this time around. What do you think is and this is a guess Sam is the best skill set personality for a coach at Outlast, compared contrasted CrossFit.

Sam RheeCo-host

27:35

Movement quality is still going to be a major issue. You always want to make sure you have someone who is cognizant of how an athlete moves, of how an athlete moves, wants to develop a relationship professionally with these athletes and get to know them, because you want your coach to know how you move, how you moved last week, how you moved this week. I think all of those things are important. Those are the same for CrossFit classes as well as for an Outlast class. I think some of it is going to be, um, I don't know, scaling. I'm trying to think what else coaches might need for outlast classes. Uh, a little bit of patience maybe. Uh, you don't have to be rah, rah, like you know, pedal to the metal all the time. Right, but you also have to make sure that these athletes are not just dogging it, because if you're dogging it, then what's the point of even doing it?

David SyvertsenHost

28:28

Yeah, you want to be able to really push them with the weights. I mean, this is something where, again, there's not going to be Rx2 scaled on there, but you are going to be expected to lift heavy weight and what's heavy. You know, like if I give you an 80-pound dumbbell and I tell you to gob a squat 12 times, but every squat has to take five seconds, two down, one pause, two up like you're gonna be shaking at the end of that, 35 would make me shake yeah no and it's like, but you'll be surprised, like, with that kind of lifting it's a very different kind of lifting.

28:57

It doesn't feel as unsafe because it's not fast and you're not in a compromised position, you know, as like with your front rack or overhead, but it is. It's brutal like. I hope people don't view this as, oh, it's kind of like an easier version.

29:09

This is really hard work and it's actually more grindy in my opinion um, and a personality trait that I think I really want to look for is like someone that's really comfortable, like talking to people and connecting with them, because there is a lot more downtime in these workouts. Like example, you know, imam six, five goblet squats, pause at the bottom for three seconds, like you know, that's like you know, and then we move on to a different movement. That kind of stuff. Like there's a lot of downtime. You know, sometimes the energy in a room of a crossfit can help, that awkwardness sometimes. But when you don't have it like, you kind of have to find something to talk about and some people have that skill, some people don't, and you don't have it like, you kind of have to find something to talk about, and some people have that skill, some people don't.

29:47

And you don't have to be friends, you don't even have the common interest but you do need to be invested in the person. It still always comes down to fitness. Coaching always comes down to how much you care about the people. Like if you're there because you like working out, you like the way you look in, you know it's not, it's always about them, and I think that's the number one trait you'd have to look for.

30:06

Um, the format of this class. I'm still wrestling with this a little bit. I prefer personally and I know a lot of older people do as well that I like doing endurance, slash conditioning and then lifting, because it really gets you loosened up, warmed up and especially with this kind of format of working out, we're not doing Tabata assault bike sprints where you're crawling after, because when you get to that state you really can't lift effectively. But if you're doing 15 to 20 minutes of endurance, you never really get that tired, you get really warm and you're ready to lift after, and I think there's a lot of science that proves that doing a know, doing a lot of conditioning after you lift, actually can, kind of you know, counteract strength gains. So what are your thoughts on lifting before conditioning versus conditioning before lifting?

Sam RheeCo-host

30:59

I mean that makes sense. I love, like today we did an eight-minute sort of warm-up workout and then got to the deadlifts and I think that that felt really good when I did it and I don't know if you can smush all of it into 60 minutes and is that the plan, and so you're kind of limited in terms of, like, what you can program within a 60-minute time period.

David SyvertsenHost

31:21

Yeah, yeah, and we'll do both, just so that everyone knows Like there will be days where you lift and then condition and condition then lift and we'll kind of find the happy medium. But you know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say we have this thing figured out yet, it's just cross it, we're gonna open and we're gonna kind of, you know, figure some stuff out as we go. But I do think it's important to know that we will be doing both there. Um, also important performance scores, rx.

31:45

I'm leaning towards right now not putting any scores on a whiteboard, because I do want there to be a contrast between this across it. But I do want to push people to record results still, because there's going to be a lot of movements that you guys have not done. Like what, what's your one rm caustic squat, like not, we're not, we're not testing that. But if we tell you to have a 50% feel like you kind of have to look back on some notes, you know. So you know we talked last week, sam, about you know, not having the discipline to always record results and man, like we really struggle with that. I need, I need to be better, I need to be very new and you just you have no idea because you're not using a barbell anymore how important those first few visits, those first few months at this gym will be when it comes to recording results.

Sam RheeCo-host

32:35

I agree, I think you have to take more extensive notes actually, because and it's not just objective numbers, it's that concept of what rate of perceived exertion, because you will be cycling through multiple different types of movements or you know, like you said, you're going to be more static hold for some stuff, so it's not just like what that weight was. It was, what was that? How did it feel?

32:59

if that felt like when you program it and you say you want this to be like a 50, toughness to a 75, like you're going to have to make notes as an athlete, like when I did it this way. It felt like 50. This felt like 75. And that will help you as you progress, to know what that RPE is for, whatever movement that you're doing.

David SyvertsenHost

33:17

Very good point. Rpe will definitely be a thing here. You know, I also like, like in the programming I sent to people. It's like hey, do a 12 dumbbell bench press? Uh, the weight is hey, something that should be. Like you, you could have done one or two more, but you could not have done six more and you're not hitting failure. And again, there's a lot of experimentation but it helps to record your results there and a lot of that will be on the athlete themselves to do that.

33:40

Um, you know, a lot of these workouts will be more amrappy than uh, than for time. You know, like, three minutes on a machine. You know, rotate the machines four times, that kind of thing, rather than, hey, 34 cows, 24 cows, 14 cows, three times. You know, 18 minute cap because we want it to be more like, hey, everyone's working for the same amount of time, no matter what, and that's a better way to invert, build endurance. You're working for x time, then hey, hey, how fast can you do this?

34:09

Will there occasionally be workouts like go row 2000 meters? Yeah, but it's going to be a lot of it will be hey, you're going to work for x amount of minutes and then you'll choose your intensity level. You're going to do x amount of pull ups, all right, and then so you'll have to choose what band you need for these pull-ups, because I want you to hit 12 in a row, that kind of thing. So we've talked about this a little bit already. But why, sam? We both said already in this podcast I think everyone believes this but do we not believe in CrossFit anymore? Is CrossFit not the answer? Are we in panic mode that CrossFit's going to crash and burn at some point and we're just trying to hedge our bet here? Is that what we're doing?

Sam RheeCo-host

34:49

Yes, no, I will say. I mean, I think this is a sign of an open mind. I feel like, yes, are we CrossFit truthers? Absolutely, but we are also open to the possibility that there are multiple modalities of training. I never poo poo Pilates or yoga or you know what have you Like?

35:11

There's so much out there that is available to train that we feel is good, and if we feel like there's something adjacent to CrossFit which can also help a significant number of people, that is also appealing in my mind in terms of the science, the physiology to it, absolutely. Like you said, not everyone has the same mindset going in, and I know that. And so if we can offer something that is the best version of it, because we are taking what we know from CrossFit and applying it to this new way of working out, I feel like we can do it better than someone else who has no idea how to bring a little bit of intensity, how to bring a little bit of the movements that we know so well from CrossFit the functional fitness aspect of it. So this is us bringing our best knowledge base to this type of gym Because, trust me, I've seen a lot of other gyms out there that espouse this kind of thing and it's terrible. I don't think it's good and I think we can do it better because of what we know.

David SyvertsenHost

36:21

If Don Fall was sitting in front of us right now and he goes. So you guys are going to invest all this time, energy and money into building Outlast. Why wouldn't you guys use that to go start another affiliate three towns over? We'll support you in that. Why wouldn't you do that?

Sam RheeCo-host

36:38

What's your response to that? Well, we kind of thought about it too. That's not off the table either.

David SyvertsenHost

36:42

I wouldn't even say, we're still thinking.

Sam RheeCo-host

36:44

Yeah, I mean that's certainly off the table either. I would even say we're still thinking, yeah, I mean, that's certainly on the table, so why, but why not do all of it? Like all of the above, I think that's fine. I think we can grow on CrossFit. Trust me, we are growing. Our CrossFit gym is growing Like just look at the morning classes and look at our events, but like we can do it all.

David SyvertsenHost

37:08

There's no reason not to. Yeah, and this is. If I got asked that question right now, I would tell you that I know for a fact. People are not going to come through crossfit bison because of the word crossfit, straight up. That's the truth. They, those people, don't know what crossfit bison is. They, they have no idea, but the word CrossFit is up there. They don't know their answers to all their stresses and questions about fitness and their insecurities. They're found inside those walls, 100%. The community component, the coaching, the program, everything within the Bison walls can help that, but they people are stubborn. They won't listen if the word CrossFit's on there.

37:46

This place, outlast, is going to have its own entrance. You're not walking into CrossFit Bison to get to Outlast. There's no like, there's no walk of shame. You come in for the 6.30 am Outlast class and you've got to walk through the CrossFit class as they're doing muscle-ups and you're going to go do plank holds and sit on a rower like you're coming in a different door. You don't know each other there right front of the building, side of the building, and to me, I don't work for crossfit. I am not an employee of crossfit like I, I, we are in this, I am personally in this because I want to help people improve their lives through fitness. That's it. That is what will go on my gravestone and, whether it's a successful story or not, that is the goal. It's not to get someone to the games, it's not to be the number one CrossFit in the world, even though we're always trying to go in that direction. I don't want to rank or anything like that. We're just trying to help people. We're trying to create impact, impact that lasts a long time, and I know that we will shut people out because of the word CrossFit and if you know, we're not calling this CrossFit Outlast, outlast CrossFit. You know we do have to call it Outlast Fitness by Bison, outlast by Bison Fitness.

39:03

But my thought on this is that this is going to improve our brand and this actually could get some people into CrossFit. That's one goal I have. We're talking about all these people that can't handle CrossFit anymore going to Outlast. Right, I think I want to look at it from the other direction.

39:22

I think this gets people in the door and we teach them about weightlifting, we teach them about conditioning. We show us, we show up the power of our community and our coaching and our programming and we say hey, if you are looking to increase the intensity, increase the power output, the work output, head over on the other side of the wall, go give that a shot. I guarantee that will happen. And that's why I think we have to look a little deeper than Instagram posts. To get people to come to CrossFit Bison, I think you need to interact with them in a fitness setting to introduce the concepts, the ideas of it, because there will be a CrossFit field to outlast and I think that's the best way to open the door to people that would otherwise no longer open that door.

Sam RheeCo-host

40:09

This is an indictment on CrossFit HQ, unfortunately, and I've heard this time and time again from high level people on the outside looking at CrossFit saying why are gyms afraid to put CrossFit on their name? Because the reputation is it's too hard, it's too dangerous. You got to be too fit and so you're right. The fact that CrossFit is in our name CrossFit Bison probably turns off a lot of people, and you know what? That is a sad thing when your affiliation, the money we pay to CrossFit HQ, and there are a lot of gyms who don't put that on their name because they're like we'll be a CrossFit affiliate but we're not going to put our name on this. That's terrible and, like I said, that's an indictment on CrossFit HQ to figure out how to do their marketing better. That being said, if we bring people in the door who are not doing CrossFit, who are not thinking about CrossFit, and they find out, you know what, this is good.

41:04

I like this. I like the CrossFit principles that they are bringing to this. I want to. That we have both in close proximity to each other does make that opportunity of let me try one versus the other. Let me see what fits for me. Where am I in my life. Yep, those are. That's a great bonus opportunity, I think, for a lot of athletes, yeah.

David SyvertsenHost

41:40

And that's where, like, the business side comes in, like we're going to be the only ones doing this. You know, like this is another reason why we didn't do a hybrid version of this, meaning we didn't do like, all right guys, 7 pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays and 11 am on Mondays and Tuesdays is going to be Outlast in Bison's Gym. Well, that to me is like a hybrid gym, and some gyms do that, like cancel classes, and I don't want to do that because I don't want anyone in Outlast to be like, yeah, we're just kind of like the other people out here. You know, we get a four hours a week. No, no, you have your own gym, your own coaching, your own programming and I want that to be known, that we view them as two equals. But at the same time, I don't want anyone from Bison feeling that it's like they're starting to move away from us. They're starting to put resources into and I want to prove, and we're going to try to get him on at some point, just to introduce him. But you know, bring Bobby on. He's a great coach, he's going to be a huge asset to our community and we're investing in him and we've been talking to him for a while that it's really important for the people at Bison in the CrossFit section I should call it that. They are still priority here. They are our foundation. They are the things that we make 90% of our plans around.

43:09

I think about Bison 95% of my day, you know, outside of my family. What can we do better? What are we not doing well enough? What am I not doing well enough? What are they not doing well enough? What can we do to keep people in the game that want to compete at a high level but also just want to come in and get a good workout in? And they are the top priority in my life outside of my family, and it's been that way for 10 years. And I think it's really important for them to know that I'm not taking any classes away from them, I'm not taking any resources away from them, I'm not taking any equipment away from. I'm not taking any resources away from. I'm not taking any equipment away from you guys for this new project. It just happens to be in the same building because, honestly, there really was not an opportunity that we liked to put this in a different building.

Sam RheeCo-host

43:56

I'm a CrossFit guy and I will always be a CrossFit guy, so I don't believe that this. I wouldn't agree to do something like this if I felt like it was compromising what we do on the CrossFit side in any way. That being said, I do feel like we can offer more for others to do this. You could live on the CrossFit side for the next five years and never know there was an outlast on the other side and you would be just fine, and this is not something that we want others to feel like. Yeah, we're diluting our product. That's what that would be is if we offered outlast classes during our regular bison schedule. Our bison schedule are CrossFit classes. I see a lot of gyms who offer a move class or a cardio class. That's not what we believe in.

44:48

I truly believe in the methodology, but I also believe that there are opportunities out there that we should explore in terms of offering a different type of workout for this gym. And, that being said, we're putting significant resources into building this gym. That's why it is just not bison light, and you can't just pay 50 bucks or a hundred bucks a month and be like, all right, maybe I'll do bison light today instead of bison. That is not how it's going to be. We're putting a ton of money into it, a ton of investment, because it is its own gym and time yeah. So don't be like, oh, you know what? I'm going to pay 50 bucks this month and do that. It's not happening, dude. First of all, it's expensive. Second of all, you better commit to one or the other. You can go to both.

45:35

But, like I said, this is real money that we're talking about. This is a separate gym. It would be like buying a separate gym membership and that's okay. If you have that capability financially and time-wise, go for it. But we want people to be like I'm all in on the CrossFit side, I'm going to do awesome on that side, or I'm all in on the Outlast side, I'm going to do awesome on that side, and that's how it should be. It should be almost as if it was a physical location separate, which is what we were looking for until we figured out. Listen, let's make this work. There are some benefits to being synergistic with it and, like you said, bobby was a huge investment for us and we're all in on growing the CrossFit side. The guy is a CrossFit guy.

David SyvertsenHost

46:17

That guy's not an Outlast guy, that guy's a CrossFit guy, all in.

Sam RheeCo-host

46:21

So I think let it not be said that we're not committed to that crossfit side. If people don't understand that, then they don't know who we are. Yeah exactly.

David SyvertsenHost

46:30

Yeah, they're not really paying attention, but the I will wrap this up with kind of like I have this on the outlines that as the journey, like I kind of want to open up you know, be vulnerable a little bit like what are we scared of what? What do we, um, you know what are we a little nervous? Like what? What are we scared of what? What do we, um, you know, what are we a little nervous about? And some of the fears of this because, like this to me, like I'm really excited about this.

46:51

Obviously, I told you guys, this became a thought in 2019, uh, became a stronger thought over the years, especially when ownership changed. Here we're looking to make a move and all this stuff, and but I will tell you there is a little bit of a PTSD in me from from the early days of bison, and I don't regret anything and I don't want any sympathy for it, but it was really hard for a few years, uh, like, really, really nasty, and I can see some of the issues from from doing this this way. But the difference now is our support system Ashley and I is a million times bigger than it was back then, with just being the ones that are close to the gym. You're opening the gym, you're closing the gym, you're doing every holiday, you're doing every Saturday all this stuff cleaning the floor, everything and not getting paid while doing it. Essentially, we don't need to go down that path again. We're more of an established brand now, but there are fears of starting something. That's why I said when people say congrats, I'm like bro, say good luck, because there's a lot is that it's going to go into this? There's a lot that can go wrong, there's a lot that can go right.

47:56

I would say my biggest fear is is FOMO, FOMO it the. When I pay attention to people talk about what's making them happy, what makes them upset. It's amazing to me that grown adults that are smart and educated and successful how much FOMO dictates their decisions in life. And my fear is that if some of the uh, I don't want to call the main people, but you know there's people in the gym you really like to work out with, right, yeah, they're in a class. Okay, I love. I love that class because those people not because the coach those six people are in class. It was fun.

48:37

My gym bros. Yeah, if four of them go to outlast because and they leave bison. Like hey, like I'm just taking a break, whether it's for two months or forever. Does that start to become like a follower type thing? Like hey, those three people from 6am who used to be like you know my energy, my flow and not talking even Caliber Athlete, just the people you connect with, three of them went over there. I didn't get the invite and now I'm kind of in this like weird place that I feel like I'm missing out on something on the other side of this wall. And here I am with a bunch of people I don't know, and now it creates this like not a jealousy factor although I do think that is part of fomo, not being involved. It's like, hey, am I doing? It's going to almost confuse people in terms of what they should do, because they have a hard time making decisions themselves about what they want to do, what their goals are and who they want to be.

Sam RheeCo-host

49:34

Wow, that's a deep question. I don't know how the culture will change if that, if something like that, were to happen. I guess it's possible, anything's possible. I feel like, um, I've been here for 10 years and my gym bros have changed over time. So I had some gym bros Andres and Ricky.

49:53

They were my gym bros, and so over time I found different gym bros as I was going along, new ones that I thought were awesome, some that left, some that come in, and so I try to get my juice in terms of the people that I'm around, depending on where I am, and lately I've been going a lot to the 5am because the 6am is just so insane and I got gym bros in the 5am now. So I feel like it is possible. But I think if you are a consistent person who needs to work out regardless, I've connected with people I never thought I'd connect with. So I will tell you, I think we will do okay in terms of our athletes connecting Because at the end of the day, when you're all sitting there in a pile of sweat like you'll find someone to commiserate.

David SyvertsenHost

50:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's part of the reason why we have Gym Bros and why we connect as a community, and I've always felt this way from early days. It's because you really do hard stuff together and that really does bond you, even like whether you're friends or not, there's a bond between people there's an understanding. It's kind of like when I was driving my snowplow around the other day you really love.

51:12

You love that looking at the other guys and just be like, yeah, we're snowplower, but there is a bond between people that do hard things together and both, like I said, guys outlast is going to be hard, like I will never be easy workout guy Okay, but the it when you do them together it can bond you and I think that's a good thought. I think that's a good response that, yes, you might lose some relationships that you have because you work out together but you will create new ones if you're consistent there. Um, another fear, yeah, and just a fracturing any sort of community feel to me, like I remember we've talked about we're still talking about opening another gym at some day and it might be two miles from here, might be eight miles from here. One of my thoughts was there is like hey, we're going to separate people from each other. We are kind of fracturing the community if we do that and is one cooler than the other, and you know that. That's where I hope we don't. We don't run into any of those issues. I would say the last fear I have and this is more of a personal insecurity that I'll be open about is that I am really, really confident in being a CrossFit coach and programmer. Like, really, I think I can walk into any gym on the face of the earth that does CrossFit and help them out via coaching and programming, and I think our coaches should feel the same way. Our coaches are rock stars. If we put a coach in China, in Saudi Arabia, in England or Arizona, texas, wherever they would do a good job coaching there. So that's a fact. This is a different kind of coaching. This is a different demand. This is a different level of competition too.

52:44

Like we're not going to have some of the machines and bells and whistles of a, of a global gym, and that's part of the reason why people like doing strength work there. Like I kind of miss a few of the global gym machines that we used to have. I find subs here and I do the same thing. Do we put mirrors in this gym? You know, like people are going to like, like they like looking at themselves, uh, with certain things, and it's not just in a a vanity thing, it's a technique thing. Like at tim's gym, there's a wall. If I have it correct, I think there's one wall of mirrors.

53:13

Unfortunately it was in front of the treadmills and I do not like to watch that, but I did like watching myself do some gobba squats in front of, like where my positions was going down and and then, yeah, if someone like I have, no, I have no problem. Someone likes like, hey, I like looking at my muscles when they work out Good for you, that's awesome. Should you do that, like I don't know, that's not my world and should I be making those decisions? Should I have? Should I hand those decisions off to somebody else? When I talked to De Silva about this, de Silva likes nice things. I've talked to Susan about this. She likes nice things.

53:49

Yeah, they like that fancy hand soap and all that and that to me that's not me, but I don't judge or look down on it. But if I'm making decisions or we're making decisions, I almost feel like I should be in the back corner with that kind of stuff, because let them go. What our lights look like, what the paint job's going to look like, how often we clean it, what, what equipment are we getting? That's part of my decision. But that's where I'm as confident as I am in anything crossfit related. I can say I can match that level of insecurity of building a gym. That's not CrossFit we have a pretty typical CrossFit gym.

Sam RheeCo-host

54:26

It's kind of grungy and a warehouse dusty. This isn't some Equinox or fancy hand towels being handed out and all that gold-plated dumbbell. I know De Silva would love that. I will say some of that. All of these issues are good issues to think about and will probably work out like a lot of kinks the first couple months. Mirrors I mixed Like I've worked out at hotel gyms and I never work out here in front of a mirror. And then I work out there and I'm very distracted.

David SyvertsenHost

54:56

I'm like oh, it's like you know, what does this look like, what does that look like?

Sam RheeCo-host

55:00

Yeah, like hmm, and then. But so I don't know. I mean, these are all things we're going to have to figure out as we go along. Yep, how about our social events, like are we going to have big parties with everyone together? Are we going to have separate parties? I have no idea. Like, these are all things that I think, honestly, the first members of this gym will help.

55:24

So if you want to be part of, like, shaping a gym, I think that would be a great opportunity because we will be looking at it saying, oh well, you know so-and-so said this and that was a great idea and they want to shape it this way so you can actually make this gym the way you want it to be when you first get here. Yeah, if you're there when it opens.

55:41

And I think that that would be a great opportunity for us to sort of help shape the gym together is that we can sort of figure out what works best.

David SyvertsenHost

55:51

We will be. I promise you this. We will be very opening. We will be very open to listening to feedback, good and bad. I can't tell you that we're going to take every one of your ideas and implement it, but if it's a trend and other people feel the same way, we will pivot away from things because it is a customer business. Customer is sometimes always right and we will adjust as we go. But yeah, I mean, I think sometimes I am like a control freak in that like I need to have the answers right now, but there is going to be kind of some like hey, we're going to have to figure it out as we go and kind of see what the clientele really does want. All right, guys.

Sam RheeCo-host

56:27

Well, that's when are you going to open?

David SyvertsenHost

56:29

Oh, that is a good question. We do aim for April 1st. I think it's aggressive because we're not, we can't start construction and breaking down walls and doing all that stuff until the until the space is completely available, and that might not happen until the first week of March, and I know this will not be a 30-day project. I just know. I've been through this too many times. So I'm going to say sometime between April and May, which is good timing, because I do think this is going to be very good high rocks type training and I know we're going to have a lot of people doing the high rocks here in, I think it's end of May or June early June and that I would love to be open way before that so people can come in and really get some endurance work in, like this place is going to have air runners like all that kind of stuff, so that would be good training.

57:16

But my goal is probably I want to say April 15th.

Sam RheeCo-host

57:19

I am so impressed with that if that happens, because I was thinking Memorial Day, but if you do, april 15th, that would be. It would be like it'll be hard to do, no matter what.

David SyvertsenHost

57:27

But it's you know, it'll be sometimes the spring. Let's say that, spring 2025. Sounds good. All right, guys. More information will become available as we get closer to it. Like, what is the schedule going to be like? That's going to be very tough for us to figure out, based on how many coaches we have, pricing, certain deals. We'll probably offer a free class to everyone at some point. We still have to figure some of that stuff out, but this episode is really the meat of what this gym will actually be like. I hope you can visualize it. I've been visualizing for years and now it finally is happening. We are very excited for it and I think it's going to raise the entire tide of both bison and this new gym and everyone that's involved. So we cannot wait to see you there, and if you have any other questions, let Sam and I know and we'll uh we'll get back into silver.

58:19

Yeah, hawk, into silver. We'll know, just so we'll know about, know about how expensive the hand soap is and we'll get back to you guys as soon as possible. All right, thank you, and 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.