Barbell Shrugged - 47- How To Prepare for the 2013 Reebok CrossFit Games and When To Peak For Competition

Episode Date: February 13, 2013

On this episode of the Barbell Shrugged podcast Mike, Chris, and Doug  are joined by competitive CrossFit athlete Mike McGoldrick to discuss priorities and preparation for this years 2013 Reebok CrossFit Games and how to peak for competition. Like us on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/BarbellShruggedPodcast Follow us on Twitter - @BarbellShrugged Sign up for our Newsletter - http://www.FITR.tv For Free Video on The Top 7 Snatch Mistakes visit - http://forms.aweber.com/form/14/989039414.htm Want to get stronger?  Watch our strength seminar - http://fitr.tv/collections/seminars/products/simple-strength-seminar Want to gain more mobility? Watch our mobility seminar- http://fitr.tv/collections/seminars/products/maximum-mobility Want to get leaner and increase your energy? Watch our nutrition course- http://fitr.tv/collections/seminars/products/faction-foods-nutrition-course To watch the Barbell Shrugged Podcast visit - http://fitr.tv/blogs/barbell-shrugged For free CrossFit exercise technique videos visit- http://fitr.tv/blogs/fitr-tv For answers to more CrossFit related questions visit- http://fitr.tv/blogs/the-daily-bs

This week on Barbell Shrug, we're going to talk about setting priorities for leading up to the CrossFit Games and peaking for the competition. Yo, this is CTP and you're listening to the Barbell Shrug Podcast, the number one strength and conditioning podcast for CrossFitter. If you want to check out the video version, which you should, go to Fitter.TV and watch that because it's way cooler than just listening. And how do you spell Fitter.TV there, Mr. Budso? F-I-T-R.TV. He's a good speller. All right, while you're there, definitely go and sign up for the newsletter. As part of signing up for the newsletter, you'll get a video that Mike made where he shows you the top seven snatch mistakes that you're probably making that are keeping you from hitting that next PR and lifting some big weight.

Yeah, look at the seminars, tune into the show, and get ready to become a more awesomer version of you. We give you the tools you need to succeed. You become a tool. Welcome to Barbell Shrug. I'm Mike Bledsoe. Here with Doug Larson, Chris Moore, and our guest, kind of, recurring guest, Mike McGoldrick.

Stay tuned, at least to the middle of this show, because Mike will be doing a rope climb technique wad. Is it good? Yeah, it's good. It's pretty good. Everything I've ever learned about rope climbing, I learned from Mike. Watching this one show.

He's our best monkey in the gym, for sure. If you're a fat gym kid, you need to stay tuned. Word of the day is precast, so ears open for that. Oh, no, pre-crastination. No, pre-crastination. Pre-crastination is the word of the day. We're going to be doing nothing soon, before, procrastination. No, pre-crastination. Pre-crastination is the word of the day. We're going to be doing nothing soon before we do nothing. If you pre-crastinate, you're planning on doing nothing before you need to do something.

Exactly. Make sure to check us out on iTunes if you haven't done that yet. So if you're watching on YouTube, go to iTunes. Check us out there. Listen while you drive your car. Don't watch the videos while you drive your car. And don't text about it. Some people have been doing that.

They've been taking pictures of their speedometer with their phone right next to it. D-Rob. Don't watch the videos while you drive your car. And don't text about it. Some people have been doing that. They've been taking pictures of their speedometer with their phone right next to it. D-Rob. Don't do anything dangerous. And don't forget also, we're going to be at the Garage Games in a few days. So this posts on Wednesday, and we'll be there like two days later. We're going to be podcasting. All of us will be there. Mike will be there with his mobility kits. You're going to have your own booth. You'll be selling some mobility kits. You're going to give aing. All of us will be there. Mike will be there with his mobility kits.

You're going to have your own booth. You'll be selling some mobility kits. You're going to give a discount. Is that right? That's right. You have a booth? I have a booth. Awesome.

10 by 10. All to myself. I'm going to have a moat with alligators and everything. Do you have booth girls? Yeah. You have one? That's a good idea. He's like, I should have thought about that.

Crap. You have an attractive girlfriend. I think you should ask her kindly to serve that role. There you go. She's not coming, right? No, she's not. No. So all you available ladies out there, put a big weekend in Atlanta.

Another crushed idea. Convince her to take a picture in a bikini and let you print it off. This is my girlfriend, I swear. You can make a life-size cardboard cutout. For holding a mobility kit. She's mobile. Get as mobile as her. We're going to be hanging out.

Chris, Doug, and I are all going to be speaking there as well. We'll have our own booth. We're going to be podcasting on site. Doug is talking about? Talking about recovery. Recovery. Chris is talking about? Progression kind of thing.

Still thinking about it. Progressive movement? No, no, no. You won't know. Chris is going to remain as big as possible. And for a surprise. It's how to go from point A to point B, but a different take on it. Cool.

Radically. No one's ever thought my thoughts. I don't know what that means, but all right. I'll take it. Like when it's over, are people going to come out the door just crying? Oh, my God. I can't even look at the sky the same way anymore. All right. I'll be talking about running a gym business.

And whether you're in the business of running a CrossFit box or want to be in the business of running a CrossFit box or whether you just run a business that has nothing to do with CrossFit, hopefully I'll be able to offer up some nuggets and pearls that will help you have fulfillment and success and all that don't stink maybe even make more money michael blutzo we'll talk about making money but it's more about what happens inside your box for sure inside your box no doubt it's more about what happens inside your box the title of my talk is don't open a box it's the worst title in a good way we weren't sober when we came up with that one. That's okay. Don't open up, Fox. Today we're going to talk about... I like how we got drug into that one.

We weren't sober. It was you. I was being pressured, and it was the Super Bowl. You were drunk in my living room floor, I think, at the Super Bowl. Yeah, probably. Again, I'm not an alcoholic. Mike, you finished... You just did the OC throwdown a few weeks ago.

Finished fifth place. That's right. How'd that go? What do you think about that? Well, he's finished fifth. Sometimes competitions you don't feel were weighted, balanced, in a balanced way and stuff like that. What did you think about OC Throwdown?

Yeah, I thought the events were great great it really surprised me to be honest because looking at the events when they first started announcing them i was like i don't even want to do this anymore well i remember according to my like my old strengths i remember you when they made the announcement you were like this is gonna this is challenging yeah i'm like this is exactly what i need yeah like the first event was like a 7K run with a sandbag for a third of it. That's not a runner. It's a lot of Ks. And then.

What did you finish in that event? You did pretty good, right? 20th, I think, or 18th or something like that, yeah. But, yeah, I mean. How many people competed that weekend? Well, you had to pre-qualify to get there. And then I think. There was like 700-something people that tried to pre-qualify, get there and then i think there's like 700 something people well i mean tried to pre-qualify yeah yeah the the like online qualifier was pretty large and then

they took like the top 60 basically plus they had like special invites like 10 or 15 games athletes and and other like high highly finished regional competitors that were there so uh i don't know maybe like 60 men or so i can't't remember exactly, but 60 or 70 men, but all, you know, good athletes. Can everyone check their mics real quick and just push these in. We're getting a little buzz.

Who's buzzing? Who's buzzing? Oh, that was Chris. It's gone. We're good now. Okay. See how I fixed that.

So those two years of ITT, Tegel Institute, really paid off. What are we talking about here today? Oh, I need to talk to my microphone. Today we're going to talk about training priorities leading up to the CrossFit Games or any kind of CrossFit competition. We brought Mike on because he is the one who competes the most and does the best out of all four of us. Actually, he's the only one that signs up.

Doesn't matter. I'm still the best. Oh, my God. What are you talking about? Why are you looking at me like that? Move on. I want to talk about your training leading up to the CrossFit Games. Your goal is to go to regionals.

You've been to regionals the last couple of years. Your goal is to go to the Games. What's kind of led up to that? Why is this your goal now? What was your goal previous years? How has it all led up to this um obviously i've grown as an athlete over the years you know uh first time i ever competed i didn't even make top 30 at regionals but it just opened me up to um not

doing it recreationally anymore that you know if you want to be the best you gotta you gotta take it a little bit more serious than just kind of like, oh, yeah, I'm going to work out during the week, but I'll still have my fun on the weekends and do whatever. Would you say you had an honest, if not reasonable, goal of making it in previous years, but you didn't quite know just how much you'd have to put into it? I saw that you could get there, but it was like I was just kind of doing it. I'm like, oh, man, it'd be awesome if I want to go to the games. Yeah, I want to go to the games, but I had no idea what to the games. But, like, I had no idea what it really took.

Kind of the way most people would make these big commitments. Like, oh, yeah, I want to lose X. I want to accomplish X. Right. But next year, the year before, it'll happen. But they don't put any actionable steps into place. They don't actually understand what will get them there. I think Mike knows that now.

Pretty damn well. I think you know enough games athletes now, and you've competed with them and trained with enough of them to say, like to be next to them competing and, you know, standing toe to toe with them and beating them in a lot of cases where you're like, you know what, this is totally a possibility. Whereas before, if you haven't competed with those people and you haven't been around those people,

it seems like this really far off goal. Oh, absolutely. Once it's like, you know, once it's right next to you, you you go wow i'm just i'm just like the rest of these guys i can totally do this yeah you cross a critical moment where you don't you actually see the path to getting what you want yeah i mean you definitely have to see yourself doing it you know otherwise it won't happen you can't see yourself and it's getting the field's getting so narrow the field's getting so strong now that you're not just going to get lucky anymore. So, uh, so last year you got second,

you were in second place for a long time at regionals and then two years ago, right? Two years ago. Okay. I remember, but you're, you've been really close in the past and like, just kind of like right on the edge and haven't, haven't quite gotten there. And I think this year, I mean, your training has been spot on and you're, you're this year, I mean, your training has been spot on, and you're by far, correct me if I'm wrong, but you are like the best athlete you've ever been right now. Yeah, definitely.

Wow. Actually, you kind of brought up something by accident, but you competed at regionals two years ago, and then last year you didn't compete as an individual. You went on a team. And I think it's kind of important to talk about their priorities at that point. So you didn't have the priority last year to go to the games. And you kind of took the year off.

You joined the team with faction and participated that way. And part of it was you weren't even in the country for all of the Open. Right, yeah. And so what kind of went into the decision-making there to go from – you went from competing and going to regionals and doing really well. You were in second place for a while. You went to seventh place by the end of it, unfortunately. You had a bad WOD.

And then the next year, you didn't take time off. I mean, you trained really, really hard. You decided it was more important to take an opportunity to go to Africa and enjoy that. Miss some of the open wads. That way it would make you ineligible to go to regionals. But you could still be on the team. You compete on the team. The team did really well and had a good time.

And then after regionals, it know, it's like something clicked and you decided to really take the next 12 months to go to the games. It actually started when we were there competing that weekend. I think I decided to hire a coach the week before we went to regionals. I had started training again and getting the team ready to go to regionals and do our best. And leading up to that, I was like, you know, I miss this. Like I miss giving it everything I have. regionals and do our best and leading up to that i was like you know i miss this like i miss um

giving it everything i have i just want to see exactly how far i can go with with with everything i've got um and and taking trips and whatnot you know wasn't fulfilling like it was fun to get out of town and travel and see a little bit but uh you know i felt incomplete you know i i knew that uh i was just scratching the surface two years ago and i had a lot more so i wanted to what are your what are your training priorities kind of leading up to a competition you know four months out three months out two months out one month out for a big competition that you really want to do well how do you how do you structure and restructure and tweak your training leading up to a competition uh for me

personally um like you know starting four months out um much more volume kind of like building up your base on everything you know whether it be like your gymnastic endurance and your motor just working a little bit more on your motor and just growing as a as a as a as an athlete not necessarily work sharpening the skills yet so you're kind of tempering the sword at that point and then as you get closer to one or two months out then you start sharpening it okay so so let's stick on that just for a second um you're working on your motor and some ambiguous terms that people could you know take one direction or another but you're not working on your skills so give some examples about what you might do versus what you might not be doing um specific and it's all right so for me

specifically now this is different from athlete to athlete like so for me um i feel like i'm pretty balanced in all my skills there's not really anything that's going to keep me out of a competition so i just need to raise it all up as far as my motor and everything else you know like so i'm uh biggest weakness would be you know like an aerobic base so four months out i was doing you know i'm an aerobic base. So four months out I was doing, you know, I'm doing a lot of long distance stuff, um, motor training still. So a lot of, you want some specific examples. You said, give me an example of a workout you would do to train. How do you turn your, turn your motor on about five days a week? I'm up and I'm doing something monostructural. Um, what is monostructural? I'm going to be getting there when I say, um, a run run a row, an airdyne or a swim and it's 30 to 45 minutes to an hour long every time.

Um, and it's, it's always very, you know, some mornings I get up and I just run for 45 minutes. Um, not, not, not competitively, just like more just to kind of get up and get, you know, the breathing work in and just to, just to get my body used to moving that kind of a distance. I guess a good point of perspective for most people is that this is sort of what he does as an active recovery thing. Honestly, it allows me to train more because it forces my body to kick everything in gear and get going. If I got up on a random morning and ran 45 minutes casually i'd be exhausted different for you it's different for me yeah so this is your relaxation recovery mode oh this is said by a guy that jerks damn near close to 400 pounds like you you have a good strength base it's okay

for you to focus on your aerobic stuff because that's what you're not good at exactly like you know if you were to uh i always like thinking of this comparison is like uh you know you played like football games or hockey games on like uh you know super nintendo or something you go through players and you have like the different meters right like your accuracy agility all this and that the better athlete's gonna have those balanced right rather than the strength bar being up here and your stamina being down here you know so you want to balance them out um i mean we gotta think the same way as crossfit athletes so you got a program like you would design a character on tech mobile. And if,

if, yeah, that's interesting. A new way of looking at it. That's incredible. And you know, sometimes you can buy it. It depends.

I've got it. In five years, it'll be the next great coach. No, but so, um, so that's four months out. Yeah.

So four months out and that's you, that's right no but so um so that's four months out yeah so four months out and that's you that's not right every athlete so if you're an athlete that maybe doesn't have the same strength base that mike has then you may be doing something very different so if you're if your coach is having you do something different it doesn't mean they're doing it wrong yeah yeah this is for him only this is very specific right so Yeah, so if you're more of an enduring athlete, you're probably going to be lifting a ton four months out. And you just have like once a week or every two weeks, you're just going to touch on the long-distance stuff because you don't need to. It'll come back. If that's your natural essence of an athlete, it'll come back quick.

All right, so you're working on your motor form once out not so much skill work and then what are you doing when you're not doing your your morning monostructural you know 30 minute runs and whatnot you mean the pms sure um the pms what do you do for your pms mike trains twice a day right now testing uh i do a lot of tests in the pms when i say tests i mean like like CrossFit-style workouts, regional-style workouts that you're going to see. Because that's another weakness of mine. I need more experience. I need to learn more.

I need to learn more about my body and just the randomness of it. So that's practicing. Get out there and mix it up. But it goes in phases, too. There are specific types of tests per phase. Okay. So four months out right now, basically what what do your testers look like um right now they're all over the place right now to be honest it's hard to give an example um you know monday is monday nights right now i'm in the phase i'm in i'm doing uh

uh like a short very heavy powerful workout so you know like a 21 15 9 of like heavy power cleans and box jumps something that'll you know it'll put you down pretty fast are you doing a heavy power clean yeah um the 185 or something okay you know for lots of reps yeah that's 45 power cleans and 45 box jumps you know 30 inch box just a gasser you know um and then you're talking about like a five minute wad yeah four to five minutes you know something heavy that'll just burn you up yeah um you know tuesdays more tuesday pms are more uh kind of like gymnastic endurance you know more motor training i do a high high volume low intensity session so like it's about an hour long but i'm accumulating like 150 chest bar pull-ups 100 power cleans 100 toes to bar

you know just a ton of work over a long period of time yeah kind of like uh starting from scratch and we'll build on that each week uh building up the base you know yes you got a big amount of work you're putting in you're doing you said a lot of variation so it's also time to to literally get feedback on the things you might discover that will need more focused work later on like absolutely actually not as good as this one thing as i thought i would be so you have plenty of time now to focus and draw it up a little bit yep yep brilliant and then smart wednesday mornings i swim it's but but you know i learned how to swim the past few months so I can use swimming now I go in the mornings and it's

rather than going out and learning how to swim and active recovery I can use it now as another training session because I'll do swim 25 meters on the minute for 40 minutes it's basically one to one work

30 seconds on 30 seconds off it won't beat you up too bad five meters on the minute for 40 minutes you know like it's basically one-to-one work you know 30 seconds on 30 seconds off yeah kind of thing i don't want to beat you up too bad no not at all and i'm actually recovering from that you know but it's an extra training session a week you know just because i learned how to swim and then the pms uh i have like a long grinder workout like a 15 to 20 minute just something you would see like on a sunday or a saturday night and then that to be honest um i don't ask too many questions as the athlete from my coach. I just kind of do the work. But my guess is that it's just beating me up, just getting me used to training tired and sore.

You know, it's my third day on, and you end the third day with a grinder. People have to remember, you know, CrossFit's a somewhat unique sport in that the strength and conditioning portion is easy there's like that gray area where you're practicing your skill so like any sport say a football player you know they spend their time in the gym getting bigger stronger faster you know working with their olympic lifts and squatting and stuff like that but then they also practice their skill on the field and you know and that's practice so at crossfit there's definitely times where you're you know doing some intervals or you're doing some uh weight training that doesn't mimic what you're

going to see at a crossfit competition but that's that's your strength and conditioning yeah and then yeah that 15 minute watt on the weekend that it looks a lot like what you might see at a competition that's your practice yeah like you like football coaches say, we're going live today. That Wednesday night is going live. And that's the test. You're tired and beat up, and you just got to learn from that. It can't be so structured because it's CrossFit. You never know what they're going to have next year.

We think right now it's two workouts a day for three days. Who knows what they're going to do this year at Regions regionals it could change and part of the practice is recovery as well practicing to recover doing multiple wads on a saturday mimicking what's gonna happen in competition what what are some things you do for your to prep for that recovery do you try to like do exactly what you're gonna do on competition day well um that goes back to uh being specific per athlete i i'm not well we'll see but i don't really feel like a weakness of mine is uh is recovery during weekends i feel like i hold up pretty good against the volume so i'm not i don't have i only have basically one session on saturdays right now i have a pretty tough friday night and a fairly easy Saturday.

Maybe two, three weeks out of the competition, I'll bump up the volume. But I feel like my body's built up to that now. I've been doing this for three or four years. Plus, I had a pretty big background before this in other sports. So the volume isn't something that I necessarily need to work on. Maybe like specific per workout, yeah, but four you know three or four in a day you know i don't i don't ever really feel like i have a problem like bonking in a workout because i'm just not used to the volume yeah well i totally bonked that one coach it's okay some ten percent all your lips be bonked this past year was it was about a year ago this

time you decided to hire a coach and get in all that. And you were a really strong guy already. I mean, you already had really great numbers on the Olympic lifts. Your squats looked good. You could pull a lot of weight. But maybe your endurance side of things weren't as great. Like, how has your strength been the last year? Have you gotten stronger the last 12 months?

Has there been a lot of focus on it? How's the training looked? There's not been much focus at all, and it has not really fallen off that much. And I feel confident that when we get closer, we're going to introduce it back into the training, and it's all going to bump right back up. But yeah, when I hired the coach, it was because I was trying to do it myself, and I just kept kind of going back, favoring my strengths just a little bit. And you don't really realize it until you kind of step back and look at it that you're doing it, you know,

because egotistically, too, like you don't want to let that go. Like it feels good. That's what kind of athlete you are. You want to do that, you know. So hiring a coach was great because he can prioritize and and let you know what's what's he sees what you can't see yeah yeah it's tough to be objective with yourself pretty much impossible so how do you switch up your training we talked about four months out what kind of adjustments do you make leading up to competition you know

two months out one month out uh One month out, excuse me. One month. One month out. And then, you know, even two weeks out, one week out. How do you taper and how do you peak for a competition? You know, you can do it very slowly. So four months out, I'll give you an example. You know, let's say training sessions per week, I'm at like 10, right?

So three months out, we may bump that up to 11, but it doesn't necessarily have to be like a high intensity day that you bump up to it. You're just getting used to getting up and moving for another session. Who cares if it's just a 30 minute row, but you're still getting up. Then another week you switch that road to maybe some intervals, you know? So it's a little bit higher intensity. You didn't really add another training session. Um, but, but the volume, you know, there's a little bit more work there. So the next week you might change that to a test, you know, so, so something a little bit more high intense rather than just dumping it in all at once. A lot of people tend to do that. You know, they're only training five days a week,

five sessions a week, and then a month out, they double it. And that is really hard on your body. And most people get to competition and they're like, oh, my God, I'm just beat up. Well, yeah, because you doubled your training in a matter of one or two weeks. It's called progression. It takes time. Slow progression. And a lot of people, too, have the problem with have a long-term plan. Don't start training for regionals two months out. Start a lot of people, too, have the problem with, like, have a long-term plan, you know?

Don't start training for regionals two months out. You know, start a year ahead. You know? You got to decide, like, what your actual goal is. All the adaptations and accommodations take a lot of time. You can't do something for, like, three weeks ago. Oh, this shit's just not working. It takes time to reconfigure your body.

People used to be able to prep for regionals a few months out and get away with it. Not everybody, but some people could. That's just not possible. You're not getting more fit in three weeks. There's just too much talent, too many people gunning for this thing. You need time to get your business sorted. So you're suggesting that as you add training volume, add in another session, add a lower intensity, maybe kind of like you were saying earlier, maybe a a 30 minute easy row sure just adding in some volume and then from there you can add in the next week make it a little harder do do 10 sets minute on minute off of hard

intervals you know and then maybe the next week then you can do like like a serious you know 10 minute amrap tester of you know some harder movements and you're easing into that volume and be patient with it you know like a lot of people think you know if you have a four-week program and you're going to add each week i'll give you an example um row 500 meters eight sets at a minute 40 pace the first week um and your goal is to get down to the next week doing minute 39 then a minute 38 then a minute 37 um a lot of people that first week they're like man the minute four is easy you know easy. I'm going to do a few more. It's okay for that week. Be patient because the next week it's going to be harder,

and the next week it's going to get harder, and it'll get even harder. So you've got to be patient and realize that the first couple weeks might be okay. Not all four weeks are intended to be weeks to kill yourself. I think that's the most critical thing people can learn. It seems so simple. And that translates to all matters of your training. Yeah, same thing i was saying same thing goes for lifting if you're gonna do like oh i'm gonna start i want to get

strong so i'm gonna do five six to five on a squat in week one you may pick oh let me think uh 200 pounds seems like it might be really tough but you do it let's say it was actually a lot easier than you thought the first thing that pops your mind is like watch just go back and do some more because this wasn't hard for me right you have week two and week three to build up to kind of build into this this sort of accumulation of work a small peak hit this peak rewarding moment we're actually pretty close to having a really tough workout and then you have some time to recover then you start again so over three or four of those you hit sort of really what you should be doing and it's okay that that takes time i think also has a lot to do with the experience of the athlete.

If you're not very experienced, then for me personally, when I'm coaching somebody, if they're not very experienced in lifting, less than two years of squat volume under their belt, it might be good for them to be more aggressive on that. But if you've been training for a long time, being conservative and planning it out and making sure you stick to the program is more important because a lot of times people that aren't as experienced can make really really fast gains and and yeah and having a coach will help

because they can see that better than you can on a mat like i remember doing mine uh my own programming and you know i wanted to get better pull-ups so i was programming oh shit i was just doing a ton of pull-ups each week with no progression but just high volume for four weeks and i jacked up my shoulders you know i wasn't patient enough to have an easy week and then a harder week and a little bit harder a little bit harder you know i had no i just had no idea of like how to come back to that i. You don't get better from doing work. You get better from recovering from doing the work. Boom! Boom, boom, boom! Pearls and nuggets!

And with that, we will take a break. When we return, we will talk about how to set realistic goals and peaking for competition. Hey, guys. This is Rich Froning, and you're listening to Barbell Shrugged.

For the video version, go to fitter.tv. You ready? All right. Werugs. For the video version, go to fitter.tv. You ready? All right. We're back. We're back. First, I want to mention Mike McGoldrick is actually offering some remote coaching. So if some of this stuff really interests you and what he's saying, what we're talking about,

that's available on the Barbell Shrug shop. So if you go to barbellshrug.com and click on the shop, there are not only seminars that you can purchase that we've made, but also some remote coaching. If you click on the coaching, you can see where Mike McGoldrick is now available to be your coach. When you click on his stuff, it'll kind of – his stuff. Yeah, you can click on his stuff if you want. It'll still take you there. Nothing's going to happen. Nothing's going to happen.

You'll kind of see a breakdown of what all you'll get with remote coaching. We've got little bullet points there. You can see Mike's stats. He's not the only one. Matt Barrett is on there as well. We've got these two guys coaching, and they do an excellent job. Very happy.

High quality. The other thing is we've got t-shirts to buy, as you probably already know. coaching, and they do an excellent job. Very happy. Thank you, Mike. High quality. High quality. The other thing is we've got T-shirts to buy, as you probably already know. We're still counting them as pre-order. We have shipped some out, but we're still counting them as pre-order just because the inventory is going so fast. We're not really good at this inventory thing, so we're still figuring it out. Once we get it figured out, then you'll be able to buy them and get them like three days later.

But please bear with us. We're also now shipping to Australia. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that right, Jason? Perfect. Perfect. All right.

So before we took a break, you were talking a little bit about volume and progression and leading up to competition and peaking. Right. How do you do that? Going back to one of the earlier points, we talked about slowly adding training sessions in to increase your volume, you know, to avoid dumping, you know, too many intense workouts all at once. So you, you know, start with maybe adding just a long session, you know, or a short lifting session, whatever kind of athlete you are trying to work on it. And the reason why is, like, because for every session you add to your week, that's going to take more time out of your day.

It's going to require more sleep. It's going to require more meals prepped. And you need to prepare for that rather than dumping them all in at once and then you're like, I don't even know where to start trying to recover for all this then you're over trained so so doing it slowly like that will help you uh outside of the outside of your training as well so what you're saying is don't do don't go from five training sessions a week to 10 training sessions a week in one month if you've never done it before yeah yeah you want to go all right this week i'm doing five next week six maybe i do six training sessions for three

weeks and then the next three weeks i'll i'll throw in because seven yeah you have to learn to recover from that not just you know your body but just getting everything else in line in your life to to work around all of it because it's basically adding another job to your life you know for sure your muscles are always going to recover faster than your tendons and your ligaments and your joints so you want to add that volume slowly that way even if your muscles are always going to recover faster than your tendons and your ligaments and your joints. So you want to add that volume slowly. That way, even if your muscles feel fine, you don't start to get achy shoulders. Yes, exactly.

You got to ease into that. Story of my life for the last two years of training. Being too awesome. No, but that's the greatest point ever. I struggle with that every week and feeling that i could do so much more but the one little ligament the one joint in my wrist uh this that and the other is where it's sort of like the the great indicator that now you're doing a little too much yeah that definitely comes with age as well you have to you have to sort of yield to that defer to that reality yeah that comes with training age uh a lot of people you know one year if you've never had the volume leading up and you want to compete in regional level and you just start throwing that volume in, yeah, you don't have the joints and tendons to handle that volume yet.

That takes some time. And although you may be able to, you have the, your muscles are recovering, like you said, you know, you got to slowly add and, you know, account for those things. Takes time. Takes time. It takes time. It takes patience. So after you peak with your volume, you have a period of time where you do a little bit less volume, maybe like the week out where you can be recovered, rested, and ready for the competition where you're not sore, you're not beat up, kind of like we just talked about.

Your joints are feeling good. And when you show up for game day, so to speak, you're ready and you're fresh. What do you do that week out to limit your training volume but still be doing something and make it where you're totally 100% recovered and ready for competition? Yeah, so two to three weeks out, the volume is really high, the intensity is very high, you're feeling pretty rough, but you're performing great.

The next week or two weeks, you start to back it down. You may not, so the two weeks out, you may not necessarily drop off training, training sessions, but you may decrease the volume in those training sessions per session. Right. So and then and then the last week out, you know, the priority is just to stay healthy that week, stay healthy and stay sharp and alert and focused. So for me, for for example you know let's say i compete on friday i would train monday tuesday wednesday um you know maybe maybe have a double on tuesday maybe one you know train once on wednesday rest thursday and then you know train once on that monday um stuff that's you know uh will will keep your nervous system alert, some power cleans, row sprints, nothing that will beat you up necessarily, a couple of 400-meter runs, just one or two,

and maybe one test that week, short but powerful. A 2K row or something high skill is very fast. A workout like Amanda, if it's not going to beat you up. Something that gives you confidence, that you know you're going to do good at, and then it will prep you for that weekend. You don't want to do anything that's going to crush your spirits that week. You want to do stuff you know you're good at, build up that confidence, and then that way you're ready to kick ass on Friday.

You know, you reduce your volume, increase the intensity. Exactly. That's a really pretty awesome approach. I did the same thing in later years with training. I made one key switch where I moved that last easy week up a week and then made the week before the competition, that prep week, kind of a little bit of a ramp back up. So I was well-rested, all pain going away. That last week I kind of turned the engine back on a little bit of a ramp back up. So I was well-rested, all pain going away.

That last week I kind of turned the engine back on a little bit just to sort of build momentum, and I go in way more confident, actually. That's one key thing I learned maybe a little bit too late. I like going in knowing, primed, having one or two actual real sessions back under my belt, knowing that the adaptation is there, then being ready to hit it. Yeah, and as CrossFitters, we recover fast're we're used to having a lot of volume so i don't i don't really believe in shutting the week down you know like a lot of people take a full week off like

that's probably too much you just went from training 15 times a week to taking a full week off you're gonna feel sick you know like so we're you're still gonna work you're still gonna work a week out good power thing coaches always teach me that saying that look you did you going to work a week out. Good piloting coaches always teach me that. Just smarter. Saying that, look, you want to rest, but then again, you're doing all this stuff because it's making you a good lifter. So sitting on your ass for a week and eating. You need to keep doing those things to stay good. That's about as simple as you can state it.

So, yeah, sitting on your butt and doing nothing, thinking you're recovering is probably a little too much. I mean, you need to be loose and stay focused you need to be doing some few things with a barbell just so you can keep sort of primed so mike how do you how do you suggest people be more objective about their weaknesses we were talking about weaknesses and strengths earlier what are some things people can do to uh identify that you can try and guess all day long and you can try and uh predict what's going to be at regionals uh the best way to find out your weaknesses is to go compete just get out there and and whether it's good programming or bad programming at the at the competition if you suck at something it's obviously a weakness you know so so get out and compete more it's it's

great practice. Yeah, you just learn a lot about yourself because you can try and mock those situations in the gym all day long, but nothing is ever the same as actually getting out and having a judge next to you in front of people. You know, the cortisol levels are different. Everything is different. You're stressed. You can't mock that in the gym. It's really difficult. You may be really terrible at double-unders.

Maybe you know that. Maybe you put time into your training to practice that extra. Maybe you have improved. But until you get out in the meet where you're being rushed through a line to do it in front of spectators under a schedule that's not ideal for you, then you really know if you've got better. Doing it on your own when you're comfortable in your garage is not going to be a test. Training is a skill and strength is a skill. Competing is a skill. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Big flas flasher buzzwords that's right pay attention to this point right here yeah you know prepping your meals and in knowing what to eat and how how long uh before the workout to get some food in you and yeah what you can tolerate when you're nervous you know what you can eat when you're nervous and and you know you kind of freaked out about the next event or whatever yep you know a lot of people can't eat normal on competition day they just don't they're not hungry and you got to know that like and how would you know that if you've never competed you know you're the only person who can answer those questions so so yeah and if you can't find a competition set up your own mock competition and do everything that day

that you would do a competition the food like everything you got to know exactly what you want to put in your body that day. You know, you don't want to take chances. You don't want to guess. You don't want to eat things that your body's not used to using. Coach Chris, give me some advice. Before you have this, what's the toughest workout you could see pop up at a competition? What would make you really scared? For me at regionals?

Yeah, for you personally. Oh, I mean, I know they're going to be there. The long workout number four on Saturday night, you know, with 150 pull-ups. You know you be there, the long workout number four on Saturday night. You know, with 150 pull-ups. You know you've got to do long workout number four. God damn it, long workout number four. Oh, my God. I'm going to be sick to my stomach.

I want to be recovered and well nourished for this. I'll eat a large French dip sandwich with extra roast beef. That would be a mistake. That would be a mistake. And you would only know that unless you had tried to eat the long French dip sandwich with extra roast beef, and you figured, wow, this is just a terrible, terrible decision. But now you know, and there could be this guy out there who's like the key to him focusing and relaxing was eating that French dip sandwich before he went and did long workout number four. Yeah, discover that. You got to discover this for yourself. No one can guide you.

So yeah, self-discovery is huge. You got to compete. Encourage the experimentation. Yeah, experiment. what do you do kind of in between competitions you can only compete so many times per year especially depending on where you live and if you're a part of the you know a big gym or whatever uh you know if you don't know what you're good at you don't know what you're bad at you don't know that much about programming necessarily like you know who do you talk to do you talk training partners what if you don't have a coach at all like how do you find out what your strengths and weaknesses are what if you train your garage um yeah i mean uh well we skipped you know asking

a coach so so if you don't have anyone to ask or to bounce off ideas from you're screwed no i'm just kidding there's no hope for you that you. You've got to test yourself. You've got to be creative. You've got to keep changing it and find stuff that is going to challenge you. I mean, you're pretty much on your own at that point. And I believe everyone needs a coach if you're trying to be the best you can be for yourself. But not everyone has the funds or the ability to do that. I guess you could use video to sort of see what you can't see, tape everything you do. I guess you could put that online so people can comment.

Yeah, I mean, the community is so tight-knit that everyone's willing to help. Like, you know, be that guy who's posting your videos. You know, everyone take a look. Let me know what you think. I mean, watch yourself over and over and over and just, you know, critique yourself. Ten people may comment. Two of those people are going to make fun of you for doing what you're doing because they have no courage or desire.

Yeah. Who cares? But you're going to get like four or five really awesome comments. You can get into the community and get feedback that way, I think. Yeah. And then make, I say also make things as objective as possible. If you're going to write out a plan for some test, you got to, you got to hold yourself to some, some strict guidelines or whatever you get out of that experience is going to be sort of tainted.

So if you're going to test yourself, test it and take a cold, hard look of how long it took you to complete that. Videotape yourself. See what your form is. Stick to those sort of guidelines. Have some integrity when you're training. Take reps away from yourself. And having a video camera is great when you're on your own because it keeps you honest. If you're held liable for posting those videos, you're not going to cheat reps.

You're not going to – not that you intentionally do it, but when you're tired, it's easy to say, oh, my chest didn't hit the bar. I'll just keep going. Because you know you're going to show this to people. You're going to try to do a better job. You have that video. You're held accountable. You can just interview your friends. Just go to your friends and say, hey, I need some honest feedback.

I want to go to this competition. What do you think I'm best at? What am I not good at? Really tell me. I really want to know. I'm not going to get mad at you, that type of thing. Most of your friends, you're probably not going to get mad at him but you know get some get some real like critical feedback um in a in a friendly way from from the people that that know and care about you and want you to succeed and if you have a good group

around you you'll probably get some some good nuggets and pearls as we always say yeah and go into it ready to be told that yeah this thing you think you're good at you actually kind of suck at because everybody has those things like oh i don't have a problem with that. Actually, it's not really good at that. Yeah. The key there is just say, okay, what else? Don't go, well. No, actually, I was going to say, fuck you.

Be coachable. Yeah. Allow yourself to be coached. Don't get a ego. Because everybody has something that is a big weakness. Even you could say Froning's got some weaknesses, things that he could actually work on and improve. Everybody can't hear it. It's okay.

He's the one guy. He might. You can't even see him with a freaking telescope. Yeah. Once you offer some resistance in a situation like that, immediately your friends are like, oh, shit. I'm sorry, bro. He doesn't really want my feedback.

He wants to pat on the back. He wants some attention. Yeah. He wants some attention. They won't really want my feedback. He wants to pat on the back. He wants some attention. They won't give you real feedback. But they'll just try to make you feel good at that point. They don't want to hurt your feelings. So don't give any resistance. Just say, oh, that's awesome.

What else? And just keep asking what else, what else, what else. And just take all the feedback. And don't even contribute to the conversation other than saying, oh, that's pretty good. What else? And just keep it flowing by saying, what else, what else, What else? What else? I've heard that a ton of times. People ask for help and then they have an excuse for why they're asking for help, you know, or for the, for the example you give them. And you're like, just listen, please. Yeah. For the help. Just take it. I just stopped giving people advice at that point. They're like, what do you think? And

I tell them like, well, and they start resisting a little bit. I'm like, oh, okay. Well, now I'm just going to try to get out of this conversation as quick as possible. Screw you. When you went from, you were programming for yourself. When you went from programming for yourself to, well, actually you went from programming yourself to following a blog. Correct. To hiring a coach. Yep. What changed when you did those things?

When I programmed for myself, I was always scared that I wasn't doing enough, and I was never confident in my training. I always felt like I was leaving something out. I just never felt like I had the right program. And, you know, is this too much? Is this too little? I just had no confidence in it. When I went to a blog, if I started following a blog, it was nice because I was like, good, I can just get up and do this and that's it.

And I'll just do the work. And as an athlete, I really think you should just do the work. You shouldn't be worried about, you know, the stress of are you doing enough? Just do the work. Well, then having to sit down and think of everything you need to do it takes a lot of resource and time right right they were not a thinker right um what are you trying to do are you trying are you trying to learn more about the sport of fitness are you trying to be the best in the sport of fitness you know two different things so um following the blog was great because you just sit back and do the work.

Um, but then I slowly started to realize that, you know, I, this may not still be answering all the questions. I still have a lot of gaps to fill in and it's not, it's not for me. You know, if I'm following a blog and it's telling me to train three days on three times a day on Wednesday, I'm like, I have a full-time job. I can't do that. But I'm still trying to make it work. That doesn't make sense. It's got to be worked. I truly believe in individualized programming if you're trying to be optimal at your ability and who you are as a person. So then I hired a coach.

Better human being. Yeah. Leave humanity behind. Hiring a coach, they work around your lifestyle. It's catered to you specifically, and it's more efficient. You don't waste any time. That's a really good point. If somebody says you should do this, eat this, train at this time,

but it's so obviously not when it's possible for you to do any of those things, you need a different approach. Don't fight the direction your life is going and the shape it's taking. You have to work with that. And if you can't get a coach, be creative with it and mold it yourself. Follow a week behind so that way you can plan ahead and see what's going to come up. That's really good advice. I know you want to get on and push your scores with all those people.

It's important for you to see your numbers up against everyone else's, whatever. But follow a week behind you know and set up your schedule that way you know were there big swings in uh the type how you're training your training volume and and the type of training you were doing when you when you hired the remote coach yeah coach it's like it's like drastic was it drastically different than what you had been doing yeah fulfill that you know kind of fill those weaknesses yeah absolutely i don't lift near as much as i was i was lifting two or three times a week which is i didn't need to like you still need to be strong but that's not my weakness my weakness is longer stuff so i do a lot of that um i don't do as many like lactic endurance intervals

um a lot of like you know minute long to 90 second work, five to 10 minute rest stuff. Um, I was doing that like a bunch. I was doing a lot more interval training. I test a lot more now. I do a lot of long distance stuff and I lift once or twice a week, if that. So way different than what I was used to. Yeah. It's radically different. And it's fun. I love it. Yeah. I think, I think when you first started doing the longer stuff you were like oh gee a little overwhelming and now it's like

you're a different athlete I crave this stuff now I definitely feel like I've changed as an athlete before I used to love lifting it's all I wanted to do and even when something long came up I was miserable I went into it with a mindset of just like this sucks but if you want to change as an athlete, you have to get past that

and know that you're going to do well at that stuff. Everybody say goodbye to Doug. I got somewhere to be. Bye, Doug. Adios. Peace out, homie. Well, I want to talk a little bit about setting goals and talk about the difference between, say, outcome goals and behavior goals.

And, you know, setting a goal, like I want to go to regionals in 2014, you know, that is a goal that some people should set. I mean, I don't think it's a goal that someone shouldn't set. And good for you for setting it. But you realistically have no control over that whatsoever. You know, A, some things could happen you um that are out of your control that could keep you from competing at your best that at that time but also there's uh you know billions of other people in the world that they could you know outperform you so you when you're setting these goals maybe don't set yourself up for failure maybe think about behavior goals yeah in order

to achieve those it's always really easy it's always really easy to set that big goal that makes you feel really excited and awesome for the five minutes after you say yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna go and make the crossfit games next year good for you but and you may but there's nothing in that there's nothing to wrap milestones around there's nothing to hold you accountable there's nothing to change milestones around. There's nothing to hold you accountable. There's nothing to change your behavior. The actual things that are going to be the steps along the path, actually making that a possibility. Like I said,

McGoldrick may have felt that way two years ago. Like this is the year I do this. Great. But until you've been close enough to see what the steps actually need to be. Yeah. Until you have the knowledge experience to actually understand what's going to, what's going to need to be done to get the Cross and experience to actually understand what's going to need to be done to get across the games, to lose 50 pounds, to do X strength, feet, whatever.

You're just not going to be able to do it. And it's no fault to you. It's just that you just don't know what the fuck you're talking about for right now. That's fine. I'm going to spell it out, too. The difference between an outcome goal and a behavior goal. An outcome goal is I want to lose 10 pounds. That's an outcome goal is the weight has been lost.

But the behavior goal would be, you know, I'm going to stay 100% paleo six days a week and I'm going to be in the gym five days a week. Those are behavior goals. Those are things you can control. Those are things you can do. And then if you're doing those things, then the outcome goal is kind of a byproduct of that. And so, you know, that's why I say if your goal is to go to regionals in 2014, that may be, you know, that's,

it's, it's something you don't have a lot of control over. But what you do have control over is, okay, I'm going to eat clean, I'm going to get, I'm going to recover well, I'm going to train, stay on the training program that my coach has set for me, all those things. Those are, those are behavior goals to set. And so what are some behavior goals you've set that help you? I mean, you obviously have outcome-based goals. Sure. And this year, what's your outcome-based goal?

My outcome-based goal is I want to make the CrossFit Games. So how am I going to do that? Top three in your region. Yeah. I want to make top three in the region. So, um, yeah. What are some behavior goals you've kind of set to to make that happen um no more excuses on you know uh what i feel like i i can also do outside of it you know like oh well you know i i worked hard this week i'm i can go you know have a few beers this weekend you

know um that kind of stuff or you know i um's pretty tough. You know, I can take a week off in training. Like, I mean, you got to – all right, so starting simply, you got to figure out how am I going to measure my progress or success. You know, am I going to measure it based off of how I finished in regionals or am I going to measure it based off how much I improved as a person? Because you set yourself up for failure, I think, if you measure it based off of how you finished in region person because you set yourself up for failure I think if you measure it based off of how you finished in regional that's out of your control it's out of your control because there's more people competing each year um they may change the

test so what you thought was your weakness last year something random shit can come out again this year hitting something with a totally blindsided you yeah and then but if so if you do terrible at it but you're just flat out a better athlete and you know it like are you know are you gonna be disappointed you can't be i mean yeah i mean it's gonna suck but you had no control over that so you got to decide how you're gonna measure that progress must achieve zen yep as an athlete be at peace that's a good point if you can't be happy and know you made progress

and if you're going to measure yourself just about what happened in some stupid competition that was, yeah, 100% out of your control, then you're really not going to

get the reward out of all this. The reward is in the day-to-day, the little signs of progress, the little short-term behavioral changes you make that end up changing the rest of your life

from there on out. You've got to keep focused on what really matters. Yep. Yeah. Agreed. All right. About, I guess it's about that time to wrap things up.

Does anyone have anything that they want to last minute words? All right, let's plug stuff. Cool. I'll let Chris more go first today. Yeah. So we're going to do the talk next weekend garage games one be there come out show your love be ready to learn lots of cool stuff bring a notepad bring two mechanical

pencils number two with you to take notes on you'll love it uh go to the chris moore blog.com cool stuff uh that's all i got man mcg. Back to the topic of behavioral modifications. If you're looking for an extra way to help increase your recovery or improve your movement and mobility, check out mobility kits.com. It's an all inclusive kit. It's a self massage and maintenance kit. It's a roller. It comes with a massage stick, a couple of cells,

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So there's nothing else you want to talk about? Maybe the fact that you're offering remote coaching now? Offering remote coaching. So whether you're a CrossFit athlete or someone who's just trying to increase your fitness and improve your fitness and longevity and lifestyle. I offer remote coaching. I want to help you to determine what your goals are, set them, and I want to help you achieve them.

Excellent. That sounds like a good product. That's right. If I hire your services, can I expect to see sex lines in 8, 12 weeks? Sex lines? In my abdomen? The abs. Oh, the, the F me lines.

Is that what they're called? Can you give me those? Remember, let's, let's go back to setting reasonable goals. I'm here to be honest with you. I didn't hire you to break my heart. Oh, all right. Yeah. That's good too, to have a coach that is realistic, help you set realistic goals.

Make sure to go to barbellstrug.com, check out the shop. And CTP is trying to give me hand signals to tell me what to say next, which is going to totally throw me off because my brain doesn't work that well. Yeah, now I'm totally off. Go to barbellstrrug.com. Check out the seminars in the shop. Just click on shop and see the seminars. Go to the online coaching.

See what's available. Myself, McGoldrick, Matt Baird, we all offer our coaching services. So if you're interested in that, drop us a line or just purchase it, and we'll get the ball rolling on that. And I think that's about it. Oh, yeah. Make sure to go to iTunes. Give us a five-star rating if you like this podcast.

Say something nice. Build our egos up. We need it because we have nothing else. This is all we have. Oh, God. All right. See you guys next time. Yep.