Barbell Shrugged - The Pros and Cons of Scaling Workouts

Episode Date: November 23, 2016

To scale or not to scale?  That is the question.

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we talk to you about how to overcome your worst case of scalio. That's funny. Overcome your ego. Are you on the scalio diet? Scale video. This week on Barbell Shrugged, Coach Mike McElroy and Kurt Mulliken come back to town to join us and we talk about scaling workouts. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. I can't think of a specific example off the top of my head right now,

but, like, yeah, we were just talking about, like, when you're a kid, you don't pick up on, like, the little innuendos or jokes. Because kids' movies? Yeah. Because the adults have to watch the movie. Yeah. So the adults got to have some movie yeah so the adults gotta have some entertainment factor so they throw in some shit in there yeah you're laughing as a kid because

it's goofy yeah adults are laughing because there's actual like humor in it yeah yeah yeah for sure kids don't pick up on it what's we're talking about like raunchy music playing in a class and how like awkward it is like like you're listening by yourself and it doesn't like doesn't bother you or make you feel uncomfortable or anything but when there's like when you're like coaching like women and like older people or anything, but when there's like, when you're coaching women and older people or anything, something comes on and you're like, this doesn't feel right. What's funny to me is the most

overplayed song in a gym is that disturbed song, where at the end of it, it's like him getting raped by his mom, and I'm like, why does everyone keep playing this song? Because that part is so like... I was coaching a fundamentals class once, and it was just two old men, and the song that came on was ass and titties.

Ass and titties. And you're just like, here, Kurt, take this. In big booty. Hey, Kurt. Hey. Hi. And you're like, yep, that's right. Keep your back straight.

Feet together. Are we talking about training or a three-six mafia song? Yeah. We're talking about music in the gym when you're coaching and, like, a raunchy song comes on and how, like, awkward it is typically. Dude. And we're talking about that Disturbed song that's played in, like, every gym across the world ever.

The Sickness song? Yeah. And at the end of it, it's, like, getting beat and raped by his mom. Fuck you, mom! Yeah. And you're, like, every time I'm, like, why did you stop playing this crap? Like, it's so annoying. This is unrelated.

It's a good song, but then, like, that comes up and you're, like, every time I'm like, why did it stop playing this crap? It's so annoying. This is unrelated. It's a good song, but then that comes up and you're like, it's over now. Recently, everybody has the Donald Trump hats, their own version, but it said, make America make that noise from down with the sickness again. That was awesome. Oh, no. I want that make America lift again that Arnold was pushing. That shit is dope. For sure.

Yeah, political leanings aside, I don't give a shit. It's a badass hat, yeah. Oh, my God. And what do you think, McElroy? I don't know what's going on right now. Look who popped up. You guys are back. Welcome to Bottle Shrugged.

I'm your host, Mike McGoldrick. Here with Alex Macklin. What up? CTP behind the camera. And McElroy and Kurt Mulliken are back here to join us. Kurt just moved to Memphis, man. This is Coach's Kurt Mulliken and Coach Mike McElroy, for those of you who don't know.

I've never met these guys. Hi. Welcome, guys. What's going on? What's up? Welcome to town. Hi. Thank you.

McElroy, you drove this morning from Jackson? Yeah, I got up at 5 a.m. It's fun. He was like, if I get up at 5, I'll get there at 8.30. Is that okay? And I was like, well, I want to start earlier, but I can't tell this guy to get up any earlier than 5 to get here. Well, tell him I got up at 4.30.

I got in the car at 5. Yeah. And, Kurt, you just moved from Lebanon, Tennessee. Lebanon. How are you liking Memphis so far? Oh, man, it's great. I got you guys here, so, yeah. Lebanon. How are you liking Memphis so far? Oh, man, it's great. I got you guys here. Yeah.

Is that it? You don't like anything else? I haven't been to Gus's yet. You literally got here last night. We went to Chili's. We had the gym of Cordova, Chili's, middle-class fancy. Let me guess, CTP picked you up, and he's like, I got just the place. CTP loves Chili's.

We logged our own individual purchases last night. I'm with him. Let me guess. CTP picked you up and he's like, I got just the place. CTP loves Chili's. We logged our own individual purchases last night. I'm with him. Everybody paid separate. Yeah. We all paid separate,

but before you could, you know, they got the little kiosk at the table. I love that, dude. It's a Ziosk. It's a Ziosk. Excuse me.

He logged himself into everybody's purchase so that our points or whatever went on his Chili's rewards. Are you that? So Chili's, if you're watching this, went on his. Chili's rewards, yeah. Are you that? Gaming it. Chili's, if you're watching this, we love you.

You'd go that often? Is Chili's the sponsor of this show? Can we get a sponsor for Chili's? Yeah, we talked about that last night. Oh, my gosh. Yo, yeah, Chili's app on the phone. It's a thing. We get some, what are those things, those chicken crispers?

We get some chicken crispers and Southwest tacos on the house, you know. What's up? No. Okay, whatever. What are we talking about today, guys? I don't know what we're talking about. I know. CrossFit?

I know what we're talking about. CrossFit? We're talking about CrossFit and scaling. All right. So we thought this was one of those that we haven't really touched on a whole lot yet. Not necessarily like how to scale. Well, I guess that will be part of it, how to scale workouts. But dealing with the people that think they're maybe too cool to scale.

Oh, my gosh. Maybe you're one of them. I've been one of them. We've all been one of them at one point. At one point. Maybe you don't think you're getting a good enough workout when you scale. So we just want to talk about it a little bit and address it. So if you're a gym owner or if you go to CrossFit classes or –

Where is this going? Do we have nicknames for those guys? Didn't you have some nicknames? Oh, we did come up with some. Didn't we? Like Mike or Steve or something like that. CTP always dropped Tater McSteve. No.

Chad McMetcon was one. Chad McMetcon. Yeah. I don't remember what that was. No, I mean. Scaling. Wild scale. Scaling.

So many people think it's a bad thing. I feel like people think it. Negative connotation. Yeah, I think it definitely has a negative connotation in scale. If you go in the workout and you see, all right, this is the prescribed weight, and because it's written, you feel like you automatically have to do it. And if you're not doing it, then you're not worth it. I don't know.

Does that come from more of the coach's fault for writing it in a way that makes them feel that come from more of the the coach's fault for riding in a way that makes them feel that way or is it the athlete's fault for it i think maybe yeah maybe you get the thought that because there's a written workout anything that's different from that is less but it's not always the case like you know sometimes like every workout that's written is not going to be perfect for you so you've got to just be okay with sometimes making adjustments. I don't even like calling it scaling. Like we made adjustments to get the workout in. Yeah.

I feel like from day one that you always had the leaderboard and, and if you did something other than what was on there, you were automatically now like removed on leaderboard. So like that. Well, you're automatically ranked lower. So we, yeah,

we had this talk earlier about what it's, what it, what it does mentally or whatever. Yeah. I almost – kind of sometimes I was talking to – I can't remember what I was talking to maybe Chris last night. Like, what would it be like if CrossFit did not have, like, RX? Like, what if they did not – what if they just got rid of that concept? What do you mean?

Like, what if they just basically said you don't have RX weights. It's just whatever you feel, like, is doable for you. Well, it was kind of like that in the beginning on some of the workouts, wasn't it? Some of them. But, I mean, the whole point of – or one of the whole points of CrossFit is to be able to measure and repeat things. Right. So if you don't have that measurable, then you can't judge against people. Yeah, and it's hard to collect data, too, that way.

You're right. Yeah, I mean, that's a good point. But, I mean, at the same time, it's like, yeah, now you have this. And it's good to have – I think it's good to have maybe a standard. I think to answer your question, there would probably be less ego and maybe less injuries you could make an argument for. Yeah. But I don't think there would be nearly performances going on

from anybody across the board. Whether it's games athletes or whether it's the grandma i don't i don't think there would be near the performance being achieved if there wasn't that kind of thing out there to shoot i think people have taken that though they see like all right so many workouts like 135 95 or whatever and they set that as the standard in their own head so when you as a coach present a workout that says do this workout with like eight unbroken thrusters. They're like, well, what do I use? Like they don't know where to go.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think even in CrossFit brings this up in terms of threshold training. Right. Is that a new term? Because I feel like I heard something else differently like a few years ago. I don't know if it's a new term within the Crossfit community but i mean threshold training is not a not a new term i think from what they were using it as is a new term yeah um and they kind of used it as the example of when i went back and redid the level one they kind of redid uh they started talking about threshold training was that point where you're

not doing every movement absolutely perfectly so you're not slowing down that much where you're not doing every movement absolutely perfectly. So you're not slowing down that much where you're doing absolutely perfectly, but you're also not just going at reckless abandon. Yeah, because the central premise of CrossFit, from what I understand, is intensity is how you build work capacity. And they're basically a definition of fitness. So if you are doing a workout and every rep is perfect, you're probably not doing it as intensely as possible, which means, A, either you need to move faster,

or B, the weight or the load or the movement needs to become more challenging. But I think people tend to take that and they see that as, well, technique doesn't matter. Like people see that and misinterpret that as like, oh, well, you just need to make it intense. It's always got to be as hard as it possibly can. Or you're maybe missing the point of what that workout's intended to do. That's true. And sometimes there's not an intention behind it.

But for most of the time there is, and maybe there should always be. I don't know. But we all know that guy or that girl that looks at the workout and it's tough to deal with when they don't want to scale the workout, even though they know they should, even though the class knows they should, even though the coach knows they should. They still don't want to. And then, you know, let's say Fran, for example, they're like, you know what,

I'm just going to wing it on the pull-ups. I'm going to do it. I'm going to, you know, put myself at risk for getting hurt. And, like, it's like that's really annoying and tough to deal with sometimes. And it's not even sometimes that you're even risking getting hurt. You're just missing the whole point of the workout, like you said. Like that's not the design of the workout. Yeah.

For, say, 20 minutes. Exactly. Like if you're doing a workout and, you know, the weight, you're supposed to be turning it over real quick. But you're sitting there doing, you know, one at a time every 30 seconds. You're not getting the actual stimulus that you're supposed to be getting through the workout. Yeah.

Which, I mean, most people, okay, I'm going to be saying, like, most people if they come into the gym, they're going to look at a workout and see the workout. They're not going to understand the purpose. So is that more the coach needs to explain the purpose of the workout yeah and that's why i brought that point up like at our gym we you know we a lot of times i won't i won't write a prescribed workout um depending on if it's an interval workout or what the premise of the workout is then i won't write a prescribed workout and it's up to us as the coaches to describe the workout in a way

that they know what weight they should use. I mean, even yesterday we had a wall ball workout, and I didn't even write the wall ball weight because it needed to be adjusted for a lot of people, and that's not something that you typically think of as scaling. Like 20 pounds was heavy for what the purpose of the workout was, which, like you said, if you write that up on the board, everybody's going to do 20-pound wall.

Don't you – I've seen your programming because you program for, you know, our Shrug Strength Challenge. You typically write out, like, how it should be – Right. Like how you should feel during the training. Yeah, like the description of, yeah, exactly how it should feel, if it should be unbroken or if it shouldn't be unbroken or if it should be a big bottleneck because you're stopping because the weight's heavy

or if it should be something you can cycle and keep breathing and moving through or something like that. And that's why I brought the coaching on the front end. Like, is it the coach's fault that the person's not scaling appropriately or is it the athlete's? I think it's a little bit of both. I mean, there's a lot of ego that you have to come out with that. For sure.

Sometimes coaches' answers might be, well, I want you to hurt today, so we're all going to do Fran. It's like, I guarantee you in most gyms, 50%, I don't know, 50% of people doing it don't hurt the attention that you want them to hurt. I don't mean like you're trying to make people hurt and go damage them. I just mean like you want them

to do a short, powerful workout that's going to really sting. Most population is eight minutes, and that's not what we're going for. That's not the same thing as a two or three minute workout where you want just fast turnover in that constant kind of like high rpm just ouch yeah but i mean you you've got you've also fighting that that uphill barrier like when you see if you walk into a class and you see everybody else is doing this or maybe even somebody like smaller than you or or whatever like you just started like you're that dude

or that girl who just started, and you're like, oh, well, she's doing or he's doing this way. Like, I should be able to do this way. How do you get over that? Like, I mean, that's a huge – I mean, you don't want to seem like the bitch and, like, the weakling, you know. Yeah, I mean, that's ego, and it comes with maturity, you know. Having a good coach explaining, like, what the plan is,

why you're not doing this, and just more why behind it definitely helps um we all get tired of hearing that we've explained that on other shows like you know you're gonna get there it's gonna be very safe but at the same time it's like it requires some patience on your end too well what about the people that are flat out just like well i'm just gonna do whatever i want to do bro like like i mean i'm seeing it yeah like what seeing it. What do you say to those people? I'd ask him. He coaches more classes than you. I'd say no, you're not.

Yeah? Yeah, I mean, I'll stop them. We talked about this before, I think, but I'll take weight off people's bar in the middle of class, and my coaches will do the same thing. I mean, that's our job. If they won't let us do our job, then they're going to have to find somewhere else that they can do whatever they want to do.

So you will literally go in there like you're either doing your scaling or GTFO. Yeah, we'll just come and strip the weight off. That's like a hard lesson to learn. If you walk over and strip the weight off, they usually stop talking back. Yeah. They're at a point where they're like, okay, he's serious about it. If you allow it once have you ever had anybody like expect it have you ever have you ever anybody like get up on

your face and be like what the fuck dude like no i mean i've had people get frustrated but i mean to be honest the the hardest thing that i've seen being dealt with is female coaches with male athletes yeah and that's the like when i do it it's they're usually not a big deal yeah it's when a female coach does it to a male athlete, and then it's like you're fighting a big uphill battle, and it's challenging for the coach. Yeah, you got to be stern, huh? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, what do you tell your female coaches? I mean, I just tell them I'll usually get them to come to me, and I'll address it because their ego is not going to come down. Don't be that – man, don't be that dude. Don't be that dude, yeah. Don't be that dude. Don't be a douche. Come on. It's for your best interest.

And at the end of the day, what are you supposed to do? You come in here. You are putting your faith into the coach and the program. Listen to the fucking coach. If the coach is trying to get you to the point where you're doing the workout in a safe manner and you're going to get a good stimulus out of it and the coach is explaining himself, come on, dude. If you've been around me at all,

you know I'm a little bit sarcastic. I usually make some kind of comment like, yeah, the workout I wrote is just a suggestion. You don't have to listen to me. You're just paying me for the fun of it. Just whatever you want to do is fine. It takes some good intuition as a coach as well. You should probably see that kind of stuff coming.

Right. Yeah, yeah. When you work with the person that come in your gym, you've worked with them a few times, you're like, this dude's probably going to be really hard to keep the reins on. So maybe the workouts kind of fool them into that almost. All right, we're going to do this, but you're going to hit this piece really hard.

But it's like you're trying to get something out of it that they don't really know they're training at the same time that makes you make them think that you're doing a benchmark of some type because that's people people you know crossfit is great because it's super competitive yeah right it makes people do things that they didn't know were possible because it's super challenging and you asked earlier what it would look like if there weren't numbers, basically, or if there weren't, like, standard weights. I don't think it would be as competitive because everyone knows, like, this is, like, the target.

We're going to try and hit that target. You compare to that direct target. Yeah. All right. So if there's nothing to compare to, it's kind of like it's just not as competitive. It can be, but I've also twisted workouts without a weight prescribed to make it more competitive. So maybe I'll give a percentage or something,

and I've done this with some of our Metcons in the short strength challenge where you'll find a weight, and then you'll do a percentage of that, and then it's a Metcon based off that. So now everybody's on an equal playing field. So it's not 95 pounds, whereas you squat 400 and the next person squats 300. So 95 pounds is different. It's the same percentage for everybody, which now makes everybody on the same plane.

And I like that because, you know what, it shows that, okay, yes, you're doing a weight that's appropriate, but it also shows you that, okay, well, maybe I need to go and focus on getting stronger, like outside the Metcon or doing other things, like, yeah, strength program. Yeah, maybe I noticed. The Metcon is not where you get fucking strong. Right. Maybe that's yeah that's a whole nother argument that's a whole nother show in itself because people yeah because people people think that okay well if i'm gonna do

this metcon and 100 i'm doing heavy fran heavy to get stronger yeah no that's not gonna work like a 95 pound thruster is not gonna unless you're you're, like, brand new, like, fresh off the couch, it's not going to get you strong. What's going to help you do that Fran better is, you know, energy system training and then just getting stronger. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Sorry, go ahead. People who – I mean, if you're trying to argue that Metcons gets you stronger,

I mean, you're dealing with mostly people in that first year of training, and it will get you a little bit stronger then, but once you get past that, you've got to do specific strength training to prepare you for stuff that you want to do in the Metcons. What's the purpose of Metcons? It's conditioning. Metabolic conditioning. Yeah, it's not strength.

It's not strength work. Yeah, I think with that argument, like you said, the beginner that sees, they believe it works because they haven't done, like, everything works at that point. Like, you could do anything and see gains. So it's hard to argue with it. But after one year, you know, or however long, when they stop seeing gains and hit those plateaus, you have to explain and help them understand. But you know what?

Like, I don't want to, like, throw them under the bus and be like, you know what, we don't want you in the gym. Like, you're out of here. It's the biggest thing that could be helpful is letting them kind of do it sometimes and then letting them. Seeing how it happens. Well, sometimes people have to do it themselves. You can tell them all day long, but then until they go do Fran and get crushed

because they can't do pull-ups because their upper body's not strong enough, it's very exposing that. And that's how you learn go back to the to the stripping weight off somebody's bar that's an unsafe scenario yeah so otherwise it could be something like that where i like okay i'll just let you do the workout and you get done and you feel totally different than all these other people do after the workout yeah and i'm like see that's what i was trying to tell you that you missed the feeling of the well i think asking them like uh you know how's that working out for you?

Right. Just straight up ask them, like, you did this workout. How's this working out for you right now? During the thrusters? So, yeah, so I put the RX weight is 275. My deadlift's only 250. And I did it anyway. I'm like, well, how'd that work out for you?

You can ask people questions, and sometimes they'll come to a realization. Like if they're doing thrusters with 95 pounds and it's too much, I see that your elbows are where your penis is. You're collapsing. How's that working out for you? I think when you're coaching groups of people, sometimes they see things differently.

So shifting their perception of what the leaderboard or Wattify is because if you get down to it like Wattify or whatever you're using the leaderboard it's a digital journal for you and your fitness journey and it's to collect data but they see it as the

whiteboard the scoreboard it is pretty much so it depends on how you're looking at it if it's a scoreboard to some people who are very competitive, that scoreboard, if it was a person, it would be in their face like, you ain't shit all the time. And you're trying to prove yourself to that person rather than logging your workout and using that for data. Yeah.

Well, what about the people that think that if they scale, they're not going to get a good workout? Because I've heard this before. I'm not going to call my mom out, but yeah. My mom is like, I'm not going to, but I'm just going to go right ahead and do it. She's already like, what the fuck, Alex? But yeah, what about people who think that they're not going to get good training if they scale the weight?

Like, you didn't push them hard enough. You know what? If they feel that way, they either are probably right, meaning right meaning that so far whatever it is the type of scaling you're doing isn't giving them a good enough workout because they would know right so i think that comes down to scaling correctly which we can dive into here in a second but um yeah like that's all i would say is if you feel like you're not getting enough workout and you're probably not then yeah like it you know when you get a good workout in so i think scaling can be broken into two things it could be movement selection or intensity and volume right so when you go to scale something you either do it by changing the movements or

you change the intensity and or the loading and the reps right right so if you do that incorrectly your workout's not going to be changed i think too or it's not going to be challenging educating on what is a good workout yeah because sometimes they think it's only a good workout if they reach muscle failure or if you're laid out on the ground after and that's not always what a good workout is so educating them on that on what the purpose of the workout is so that you know what a good workout is oh i think i think yeah i agree with you but at the same time it's easier to it's it's easy to say that as a coach and not always convince the person, not always convince the athlete that. Because people, I want to feel that I've done something.

I want to feel that. And if that's what I'm paid to come here for and do, then let me have that. So you've got to find that balance. That just comes with good coaching and maturity. So what are some of the ways that you would maybe scale? You mentioned volume and load, movements. What are some of the – maybe do you have any examples off the top of your head? So let's just use –

After this break. After this break, we'll come back and give you the lowdown. I know you are, but what am I? That's really what we're saying right now. I know you are, but what am I? And we're what we're saying right now. I know you are, but what am I? And we're back. All right, wait,

that's saying you're stronger. So before we took a break, we were just now getting into explaining like, honestly, how to scale properly. So one of the first things that we think you should look at is, what are you trying to get out of the workout? Right?

Yep. Like, so if you go to a workout and you know there's limitations in it, that things you can't do that would keep you from doing it as written you need to figure out what is the purpose of this workout yeah what are some of the things you would look for when taking a stab at it i think big big picture um like taking a bird's eye view is is what is the workout designed to do so whether it's energy system or whatever what is the workout designed to do And then what is the biggest thing that's keeping you from getting that response? Is it strength that's keeping you from getting that response?

Is it muscle endurance? Is it technique? Like what is the factor that's keeping you from getting that response? And then from that, you can figure out how you need to scale the workout to get the most benefit for you individually. But how would you know that just looking at – you would need a coach to kind of explain that to you which is yeah which is kind of what you were talking about earlier the coach needs to educate the athlete yeah on what the actual purpose is yeah so we may not give the exact same scaling progression for every single athlete and like i said that goes back to the

coach understanding it but that that right there what you just said is a huge point because uh i feel from just going from going and watching and being in CrossFit classes, there's a prescribed scale. Right. And you just said that there should be a scale almost for each individual person. Yeah. I want people to think on a level of, I don't think, like if, let's say Randy is the workout, which is 75 snatches at 75 pounds, which is the weight that any of us here would do, or anybody at the games would do. So is doing just a lighter snatch okay for everybody?

And I would argue that it's not, especially if it's your 60-year-old grandma who has never done a barbell lift in her life. Just making the movement lighter is still probably going to wreck her back. Or her shoulders. Yeah, or anything. So we need to think deeper than just making the weight lighter when we're talking about scaling. Yeah. So give an example of that.

So if you had to scale something like Randy. What's Randy again? Randy's 75 snatches. 75 snatches. 75 pounds. Snatches per time. So it's basically for somewhere like McGee or athletes at that level, it's 75 rounded back good mornings with an overhead raise. Right. So for me, it's just like how fast can I do 75 reps?

Because it's meant to be. With almost no limiter, maybe a couple of breaks. Maybe a little bit of grip, and that's it. Because it's meant to be something you just blow. It's supposed to hurt, yeah. I don't know what the times were at regionals. It was a couple bit of grip, and that's it. Because it's meant to be something you just blow. It's supposed to hurt, yeah. It's supposed to hurt really bad. I don't know what the times were at regionals.

It was a couple minutes, yeah, two or three minutes. But then you've got a six-year-old who wants to do the same thing. Obviously, they come into the gym. They won't be there for a month or two. You're not going to say, all right, we're just going to do it at the PPC. You could, but what would you recommend instead? I would recommend something like kettlebell swings or maybe deadlifts, but probably more something like rushing kettlebell swings or kettlebell swings if they're comfortable with that movement

because it's still going to get them the hinging volume. It's less technical, so they're not worried about as much technique, and they're still getting a good workout out of it. Whereas if you take them down to the PVC pipe, really all you're teaching is movement and technique, which is fine. But in my opinion, that should be addressed separately because what you mentioned earlier, the Metcon is for conditioning. So use that for conditioning and don't spend their whole day just doing PVC pipe. So when you're looking at a, uh, a workout to scale, you're also maybe looking at, are you looking at like movement like in terms of like you want to

kind of get the same movement stimulus right movement patterns yeah so snatches your hinging or bending pattern so we're not going to sub something like sit-ups or something in it we're going to get the same general movement pattern but it doesn't have to be the exact same movement or what about something like like even even than that, like let's say that they don't even, they're probably not even safe doing 75 sumo high pulls, 75 strokes on the rower. Yeah, I was about to say

calories on the rower. You know, it's not the same score, it's hard to do, but you could just base it on something like that where they can still play with the rest of the class. There's several ways you can do it

because we can tell them what not to do and why they're not doing it, but at the same time, you've got to keep them keep them motivated you got to keep people interested and you want them to be able to be involved in the class yeah i mean think outside the box and if maybe kettlebell swings bother their back or whatever and they can't do so we don't want to do power snatches with a pvc pipe because it's basically technique work we don't want to do kettlebell swings what's the next step down to still be a conditioning workout because that's the conditioning piece

and it would be something like rowing. So it may be changing the movement completely. Do you – I have a question for you. Do you wait for people to come to you to suggest a scale, or do you – you're like, well, I know this client, or I know this athlete, and you go to them first. Like, how does that work for you? A little bit of a mixture of both. I describe the workout in detail first,

and if I know there's somebody in the class that has specific limitations, then I'll address them first. I'll go ahead and give them their scaling. If it's somebody that's just maybe a little bit deconditioned or maybe not strong enough, then I might let them come to me. So if I know somebody's going to be in danger if they don't scale it, basically, then I'll go ahead and give them the adjustment. You probably do that off to the side, yeah?

Right, yeah, yeah. Like call them out like in the middle of the thing, like, hey, Margie, I want you to – That being said, those people usually don't have the ego, and like when I tell them that, they're like, yeah, good, cool. I'm good with that. So they're not worried about getting called out. I want to talk about some of the most common substitutions that you see.

Like, number one, pull-ups. Yep. All right. So what are the other ones like? What for? Well, let's just start with pull-ups for now. So when you see pull-ups in a workout, like let's go back to Fran, for example. If you can't do butterfly pull-ups, you hear the coach say,

grab a box, you're going to do jumping. Or do you hear them say, all right, you're going to do regular reps for Fran on the thrusters, but you're only going to do half the amount of pull-ups. So there's know, you're going to do regular reps for Fran on the thrusters, but you're only going to do half the amount of pull-ups. So there's a bunch of different ways to do it. So give me some examples on if you had someone that isn't very good at pull-ups. Let's say that they can only do five unbroken kipping. How would you substitute that for them?

If they can do five unbroken kipping, then I would probably go on the side of – I mean, I would have to know the athlete a little bit more how their endurance is, but I would probably go let them do it or break down the reps of the pull-ups a little bit more because they can get through that and still get a good workout with 21-59 thrusters, like you said, and 12-9-6 pull-ups or 15-12-9 pull-ups or something like that. What's someone worse than that? If somebody can only do one on a good day,

then I would either have them do... Let's back up a little bit. To get the stimulus from Fran, you have to move, kind of a classic CrossFit definition, you have to move large loads long distance quickly. So to get that same response, you still have to do a lot of work. So scaling to ring rows

is probably not going to be the best option i'm not a huge fan of jumping pull-ups either um so i would just pick that based off what their weakness is what's your beef with jumping pull-ups i'm just curious i just don't like the the they're still jumping down a lot of people don't control that bottom position so they're still hitting a lot of load on that shoulder without any control they're not strong enough to get eccentric eccentric work because they're just falling no no the the control at the bottom a lot of times they just land at the bottom and land on their box so they're getting a lot still getting a lot of pressure on their shoulder and we know they're not strong enough to handle anything and they're getting they're basically

doing box jumps on their calves right so what would you do what would you so what would you do on the as an alternative i typically do ring rows and And I explained this to our coaches the other day that I do ring rows because I don't think there's near enough horizontal pulling in CrossFit. So that's just kind of a general overall thing. I think everybody would be healthier with shoulders and everything if we do horizontal pulling. And we do a lot of negative or eccentric only pull-ups for strength work. So we're still getting that vertical pulling in.

So with my overall program in mind then that works better i got to pick on that for a second okay so we already discussed that i'm right you're wrong we just talked about how you don't want to use metcons to get stronger but in that case and i'm sorry i'm not like attacking it but it sounds like you're trying to use ring rows to build strength. I would look at it more from if you're not strong enough to do pull-ups in the Metcon, I don't think you should try and substitute another strength exercise to improve in that Metcon. I think the point of the Metcon is to put your dick in the dirt, like Alex said. I agree. Are there other movements you could do in lieu of ring rows or whatever?

Ring rows are pretty good because you can get your heart rate going pretty high on those still. It's kind of – you know. You're thinking more about the effect. The metabolic effect. Instead of it being like a – like, okay, well, we want to do, you know, jumping pull-ups and slow the negative. Like, I don't want to tell them to do that in Fran because I'm not trying to make them stronger during that Metcon. I want to make them stronger outside of that so they can do it in the Metcon.

Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, definitely. And that's what I was saying in the beginning. A Metcon is for that, and especially Fran, you have to be doing that large load long distance quickly. So I think for me that's the hard one to program in group classes because of that, because it is hard to still get that response from most of my population in my class. So I just avoid a workout like that.

It's not because I'm avoiding it in the sense that I don't know what to do with it. I think there's a better way to get a four-minute, five-minute, really hard effort response than thrusters and pull-ups. Yeah. So how do you – and we're just picking on Fran because it's like universal. They did it at the level. I don't think they do it anymore. No, they do thrusters and burpees.

Which I would say – Whichouch, that's terrible. I would even say if you were talking about getting the metabolic effect and not having the strength aspect, thruster burpee would be how I would scale Fran. I think for most. There still could be a lot of people that probably can't dig because burpees probably are still pretty taxing to the upper body. Holy shit. But, yeah, for the most part.

I think a higher percentage of people can hurt on that more than regular Fran. Yeah, 100%. I agree. I was going to ask what percentage you think of people at the level one can actually do Fran prescribed, let's say, in 10 minutes. Like, I think when I went, it was like maybe 50% of people. Yeah. It wasn't that many.

Yeah, I'd agree. It's probably 10 minutes, probably a little bit more than that now. I think a good bit of guys that go to that can do it under that. But I don't know what that has really to do with the topic. Yeah, where were we going? Huh? Yeah, more examples. What other movements are common scales?

I think just real quick on that note, I think that's why it's a responsibility of the coach to design workouts that you can get that energy system that you're looking for. Or if you don't want to think about too detailed an energy system, that you can tax it metabolically. Well, that's something that I wanted to chime in on a little bit because if you are going to a gym, if you're an athlete, you're going to a gym, ask your coach. Because a lot of times they just come in blindly. They might be scared to ask their coach that specific day or or uh or they don't understand the scope of of whatever the are they in a program is it just random is the coach just throwing up workouts on on the whiteboard every day yeah like what they should

know the goal and the scope and then as the coach you know like i've heard of example of amanda getting thrown up in group class workouts fairly fairly often and i'm like you can't scale that and get the same response from certain people like you can't scale that and get the same response from certain people like it's squat snatches and muscle-ups like yeah 99 of your clients can't do that and get the response that it's designed to be because it's supposed to be a similar feeling like i get the same feeling out of that as i do fran and to get that same feeling by scaling it down is nearly impossible unless you just completely change the movements. Gotcha.

So basically what you're saying is, like, you know, if you're designing, if you're program designing, you've got to be aware. You've got to be aware of your athletes. Yeah. I mean, even something like we just talked about, burpees was a great maybe scale to get that metabolic effect of Fran. But there's a lot of people, if you just did 50 burpees for time, for us it would crush. You could just knock it out super fast.

There's people that can't do burpees fast. There's a large percentage that are like, what do you do? Stick them on an air bike, rowers, something like that. What about people at home that maybe don't have access to a coach and don't necessarily, what are ways they could look at a workout and say, all right, this is probably what I want to get out of it, and I know kind of a good idea how to scale. Because in a gym, you've got coaches that tell you and oftentimes tell you the same thing every week you shouldn't have to do that but you know what do you say to people at home that don't have access to it I

would almost say just to start use some fucking common sense like I mean if you if you're looking at a workout like use some common sense like if this is clearly going to be something that you know you can't do with good you know with good form and and to the level that you're supposed to be doing it you probably need to scale so use some fucking common sense i think breaking it up and breaking it up into some some categories what are some principles or order operations right so you've got you've got to look at movement and things that you're capable of as skill work is the limiter, strength is the limiter, conditioning is the limiter. When you're designing your conditioning workouts, don't put something in there that you know you're not technically sound at. If you can only do four double unders in a row, don't put double unders in a workout that you're needing to do for 20 minutes straight. Right.

You said it way better. I think another way to look at it, too. And use common sense. I think another way to look at it, too, is look at the total amount of reps in it. Right. If it's something that's like 100, 200, 300 reps, you can assume that that's supposed to be a high turnover, long workout. Right? Just almost assume that.

If it's really short reps, like 9, 7, 5, you should assume that that's supposed to be short, probably painful, and probably kind of heavy. All right? So just kind of think of it like 9.75, you should assume that that's supposed to be short, probably painful, and probably kind of heavy. All right. So just kind of think of it like that. And if you aren't able to do that, and if you see something like 9.75 and you're not able to do that under 10 minutes, you might have scaled incorrectly and you might need

to either change the loading or choose a different movement. Would you say most people probably should scale? Or how would you say? I don't know. That's all relative. It's relative to the workout that pops up. It's going to depend on the program. Yeah.

Because I feel like when I was doing CrossFit and I was doing a regular class, I almost feel like I probably should have scaled more. I think it depends on the gym you're at because any gym you go to, if someone – one gym could program CrossFit.com every day. One gym could program Invictus Competitor's blog every day. And that just changes the percentage on who should scale all the time. You know, if some gyms could do, you know, do what Dan does or something. And everyone needs to scale.

I need to scale. We all need to scale. I think on your topic, too, is looking at your total reps, looking at what you've done in the past. So if the most you've ever done in a day is 20 pull-ups and the workout cost for 100 pull-ups, maybe you should tone it down a little bit. Or change the movement. Going on that, what are some of the biggest, let's say, top ten mistakes

when scaling, when choosing a scale? I think the wrong movement. I think one of the biggest issues is that you can see a thruster and then maybe you completely underscale it. Maybe it's not challenging enough. You still want something that's going to push you. That's a long, big movement, so it's got to stay a long, big movement. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's a good point. movement, so it's got to stay a long, big movement. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I guess – Long, big movement. Yeah, that's a good point. You saved me on that one. I didn't know where I was going with it, but yeah, just good movement selection. That's one rep max relative to high reps. Yeah. I mean, well, it goes back to what both of you guys were saying is that, one,

you want to look at the movement pattern, and you want to make sure that you can do the movements or whatever. And then two, you want to get the metabolic effect. Yeah. So if you're doing a thruster and, like, it's a long, big movement, well, you don't want to do something like super short range of motion. LBM. Yeah.

All right. I know one. We talked about trying to get strong in a Metcon if you're trying to improve in something that is a mistake, and we talked about, like about the wrong amount of reps. I think that trying to get better technique in Metcons is a huge mistake. Someone who's not proficient in the snatch or maybe double unders, trying to do them in Metcon. That's what I was saying, skill, strength, and Metcon.

Break those down. Typically, you want to practice new skills in a non-fatigued environment. Now, you do have the cases, and we touched on this in a whole technique episode with Doug Larson, on the rare cases where, hey, I got tired and I started actually falling into my snatch. It's like, yes, that can happen, but it doesn't mean you still couldn't practice it fresh and get just as good. Here's one principle i used to and you asked about principles earlier like they're in in my opinion there's there's no the only people that should be doing something really heavy in a metcon is somebody who's really

experienced and really moves well with whatever that movement is even if it's just a basic dead lift i still don't think my most of my general clients should be doing very heavy deadlifts in a general metcon because they're still not that experienced in it to hold posture when they're under fatigue and breathing hard and all that stuff and the only way you should do that is if you're extremely experienced otherwise keep them separate can i ask you a question and pick on you again yep put you on the spot yep i'm giving you about five seconds to prepare three i can't you haven't asked the question what do you do when the open workout comes up and they have a max lift after the mechon what do you what do you do with your clients i will let them let them do it and when as soon as form starts breaking down yeah okay so you monitor it very closely yeah so you

kind of risk assessment i guess what are your what are your thoughts on on uh it's because they came out when did they come out with the scaling version of the Open? Two years ago, right? Yeah, two years ago. Oh, yeah. There was definitely some mixed views on that. What are y'all's views on the scaling option for the Open? I don't know.

I think that there could have been a million options for it. I think they just – they put some thought into it to let people play. Yeah. You know, like, it's discouraging when people are like, what the fuck, Dave Castro? I got to do muscle-ups. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, well, you know, and he says repeatedly, like,

this is the test for the world's fittest. But at the same time, he also says, like, this is a test of, you know, the opening that everyone can do. But it's easy to say that, but you're also, like, discouraging people because they can't do stuff. So's easy to say that, but you're also discouraging people because they can't do stuff. So they want to play. I think it was great.

It allowed people to play and get in there. Like some of the scale divisions, I've got some clients that do it, and they're super competitive in it. They love it. They love it because there's not huge limiters in it that they have to put themselves at risk or they actually get a good workout in. How many people in the gym did you see start the clock, spend 10 minutes trying to get the first muscle up, start it over,

start the clock again? You know, like, that's not – I don't think that's what it's about. I wrote an email, or I sent it out to our email list while the Open was going on. I talked about scaling. Like, it was my first time doing the Open this year, and I was like, well, I'm probably going to have to scale some of these workouts i got a lot of like emails back like what the hell like why would you scale just do it rx like i yeah that that kind of because the point is is like it goes back to trying to get the stimulus of the of the workout like if you

are if you can't do a muscle up exactly you're gonna what restart the clock five times until you can get some muscle ups what's the point well it's aup, exactly. You're going to, what, restart the clock five times until you can get some muscle-ups? What's the point? Well, it's a square peg around a hole. You're trying to, like, force it. And, you know, overhead squats is another thing that you see a lot. People will just – they just will simply scale the weight, and it still looks just awful.

Yeah. Yeah, if you can't do it with a PVC, just don't add weight. Ain't nothing wrong with scaling. I mean, I'm not – I feel like if people listen to this, they may be like, well, you're just saying that people should not challenge or push themselves. I'm like, I don't think that's what we're saying. I think scaling is a way that you actually can challenge and push yourself to the true limit because you're doing the best that you can do

as intensely as you can. That's the whole point. That's how you build work can do as intensely as you can. That's the whole point. That's how you build work capacity is as intensely as you can. If you can't move the weight the way you're supposed to move it in the workout, you're not building work capacity. Yeah, I mean, the reality is, and this goes a little bit with ego, but dialing in the basic mechanics is what's going to set the platform for whether it's optimal performance or longevity.

And you have to take that into consideration. You have to know that's where your coach is coming from when he wants you to break it down, that we have to build mechanics first. And we always use the example, Rich Farring is the perfect example. Like, he moves perfectly. And that's why he beats so many people. Even in the level one, they talk about that. And that was interesting because I took the level one a few months ago

and they were like, yeah, people always think that CrossFit's not about, like, technique. No, we're very about technique because you can't actually build good work capacity with shitty technique. Right. You can't do it. I always use the example, or I used to use it a lot more when y'all did Jackie at regionals. Yeah.

And, like, we would do Jackie because I think that's a good benchmark workout because it is light enough. A lot of people can do it prescribed and go pretty fast. And it's terrible. But people would drop the bar or just get careless on their thrusters. And I'm like, they're like, well, I'm trying to hurry. I'm trying to get the best time. I'm like, until you beat Froning's score because he set the bar down,

until you beat him, then don't drop the bar. Yeah, that's lazy. That's like the drop in the kettlebell from overhead. Yeah, you're not going that fast being in control. It's funny. That may have just been a rant. No, it's lazy. That's like the drop in the kettlebell from overhead. Yeah, you're not going that fast. Right. Being in control. That's funny. That may have just been a rant. No, that's fine.

Feel free. But looking from the other side, you know, I 100% like and agree with having challenging movements in the Open because it pushes society to adapt and grow. Every year, how many more people every year get their first muscle-up because of the Open? Oh, yeah. PR lift. I absolutely love that.

Yeah, that's what somebody has said. But if you're basing your success on whether or not you did the Open RXed, I think that's really tough because guess what? Their definition changes every year. Next year, RXed could be 315 deadlifts and muscle-ups for the first workout. And, like, that could be such a jump from what last year's was in terms of, like, you know.

Prescribed. Yeah, prescribed, right? So I would just be careful with that, you know, and just ask yourself why it is that going RX is so important to you. Yeah, that's a good point because somebody actually did. They used that exact example of, like, well, I got my first muscle up in the open. And if I hadn't tried, if I hadn't scaled it, I would never have pushed myself to do it. Yeah.

So good for you. Yeah. What else do you want to add? I agree. What do you disagree with? What? We always agree with each other. Just in general?

Yeah. Well, you guys don't agree. You guys, you know know had differing views on where to look at for like factors for scaling yeah i mean i think the the movement scale i mean i think that i don't know i guess it's my coach and and programming bias coming out but i think that the movements i can't we can't get into specific movements because i think everybody's gonna be different because they coach a different style and the athlete's a different person so I don't think you can get into the specific I think just understanding kind of what we talked about as far as why we scale why things are written understand

where we're coming from as coaches to the athlete like if your coach is telling you to do something understand that they're coming from trying to make you move better and move longer yeah I think there's no there's no perfect answer just if you're an athlete sitting down and looking at every workout and trying to either mimic that movement pattern or that work being done and just really thinking about it, like putting more thought into it than just simply the weight on the board. Well, I'm going to call out that Machismo dude, man, or whatever. Just – you got to get –

What? No, I'm talking about the dude – yeah. Oh. Yeah, yeah. you gotta get what no I'm talking about I'm talking about the dude yeah the guy yeah yeah the person that the person that refuses refuses

to to scale or do anything cause you know such and such I gotta be the top dog or do the most weight

or that person's doing it you gotta you gotta stop comparing yourself to other people man yeah you gotta you gotta go in there and do what's best for you

and be able to recognize that somewhere there's still a girl beating you. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Somewhere there's a girl outlifting you. So, dude, just chill out. That goes back to competing at a level you're proficient at. Yeah. Like finding something that's better than you to chase after

but not so far elite ahead of you that you're just like you're being unsafe. Now, what about – so we talked about like looking at a workout and trying to figure out like what its purpose is or intent is. Like, look, plain and simple, I do a lot of workouts that have no intent. I don't want anything out of it. I don't care. And that's what a lot of CrossFit is too. Like they don't have an intent behind it.

It's CrossFit. It's random. You're supposed to figure it out. How do you scale that or how mentally do you approach those? I think, I mean, I guess it's still the coach in me, but I think I still have, like even when I'm preparing people for the Open, like individual athletes or for regionals or whatever, I'll design a classic CrossFit workout that has random weird bottlenecks in it.

But, like, I still know that going into it. I know that that seven deadlifts with running GH sit-ups and deadlifts, I still know that that deadlift should be that heavy. So it's still... I'm picking at it, though. I just wanted to hear your answer. I look at it from, if it's a workout that has no intent or meeting or

energy system that it's trying to train or... Controlled chaos, which is what a classic CrossFit workout is. It's chaos. It's designed that way. I was just going to say, I think you need to look at it from the standpoint of just safety first. Right. As long as you're being safe, then whatever. It doesn't matter the scaling option. Who cares if it takes you two hours as long as it's not hurting anything?

Yeah. Whatever. I would think safety is the only factor in that. Yeah. I'll design workouts that are meant to be chaos, and that's exactly what we're looking for. As long as you're safe, that's the only thing I'm looking to get out of it. That's the shit that's fun. Yeah.

You see it on paper and you're like, that's going to be fun. What's one that you've done or that sticks out to you or can you remember? That stupid? Since you were like, since it was chaos. I'm trying to think if I made it up or. Kurt was about to say something, so while we're thinking on that. Yeah, while you're thinking on that, I was just going to say that when you have a group or you're just doing GPP,

just look at a workout every day as an opportunity to work on something. Pick something within that day that you see that your affiliate has programmed or whatever, and just pick something to work on. You could work on your form inside of the Metcon if that's allowed. You can do that.

You can take every day as an opportunity. You were asking me about what? What's the craziest? What's the most chaotic, crazy, no-meaning Metcon? There's a million, but one that came to mind was actually here in this gym. And I think it was like a 20-minute AMRAP, or maybe it was like five rounds per time, but it was long. And it was like one squat clean at like 90%.

It was like two rope climbs and like some handstand walking. It was just a bunch of random stuff that was really, really challenging. And I remember like doing it and was like, none of this makes any sense. But I don't care. This is really fun. I just want to see if I could do it. And I got done and I finished it and was like, wow, like it's just cool to see. I don't know.

Sometimes you just like to make stuff up to see what it feels like and to see what comes comes out the other end yeah i think there's more to it than that than it always having to have a purpose yeah well and like you said we're if we're training for the sport across it that's what crossfit is is just yeah the hopper model so if you're training for crossfit you have to have a little bit of that you have to have some of that you can't get so specific with just energy system training and just strength work and all these pieces which obviously i love but there's got to be some of that yeah i think that kind of critique comes in when you're trying to actually see progress in something right you're just trying to be better at being prepared for stuff

or being prepared for you know or improving resiliency even like you got to have some of that in there as well it also comes down to if you're looking at it for sport or for fitness yeah because there are two different for sure you know two different roads for sure there's so much to think about you know i think what the biggest thing we're asking you not to do is to get your invisible luggage and board the pain train to injury town you know that's around perfect yeah i i enjoyed that um you know we talked about movement selection versus scaling load and intensity we hope you gave you guys some good insight uh for you at home listening and uh what anything you want to add uh go to shrug strength towns.com go do the shrug strength test it's our test for strength

all right appreciate it guys thanks for listening yeah