The Sevan Podcast - Answering Audience Questions | Shut Up & Scribble Ep. 5

Episode Date: July 1, 2023

J.R. and Taylor go through how they program for affiliates, games athletes, competitors, etc Get programming from Taylor at Self Made Training Program Free 7-Day Trial - https://www.selfmadetrainingprogram.com/ Follow the boys on Instagram: Taylor Self - https://www.instagram.com/taylormidself/ J.R. Howell - https://www.instagram.com/crossfitcrash/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's BetterHelp.com. meeting with friends before the show we can book your reservation and when you get to the main event skip to the good bit using the card member entrance let's go seize the night that's the powerful backing of american express visit amex.ca slash y amex benefits vary by card other conditions I said, showtime. I just texted, hi. Testing the Savon podcast comment function. What's up, everybody? This week, this show, we're going to be answering some questions that we've gotten in. Will has got a Google sheet for us that he's populated with some questions. These have come from our Instagram, the Shut Up and Scribble Instagram,

and my personal Instagram, JR's a bit. So if you guys have questions that you want discussed on the show, please submit them to any of our Instagrams or wherever, comment them on YouTube potentially so that we can answer these. We like to do one of these shows every few weeks just to satisfy the

crowd and to promote conversation and dialogue, a healthy dialogue in the CrossFit community. That's what this show is for. Yeah, I think too, it's good. It's a good exercise for us because we take a lot of things for granted. One of the questions that we'll get to today are just simply how you write a workout. We don't really think about how we write a workout. We just sit down and do it. And to get us to kind of reverse engineer that process, I think is going to be not only good for the audience, but good for us too, because it'll probably make us realize some things that maybe we need to fine tune. All right. So do you want to start with that one? Yeah, let's do that. All right. I'm pasting it to the, Ooh, see if it's too big. Okay, dope, it's not too big.

All right. Or maybe it is. Okay, we'll start with the first part of the question. This is from Thomas Spock. Okay, recently got my level one and feel like I'm really struggling to come up with workouts that aren't just repeats of things

that I've seen in the past. Would be interested in a show where you explain your processes for designing workouts, how you plan them out for some of us new people that understand the basics, but seem to miss the mark when we create a workout. Boom. All right. So where do you start creating a workout. What is the workout? I feel like where I start is what do I want out of the workout? That's what I need to start with.

So first question to answer, what am I trying to do with this workout? Yeah? Yeah, that's a really good one. Shortly after that, I would say, what did I do yesterday and what am I doing tomorrow? Those are two really good things to think about when you just sit down to decide what you're going to do today is because if there isn't really a plan for your three on one off or your two on one off or your five on two off, it's hard to not repeat yourself. It's hard not to get in the same exact pattern every week. So I think it's good to think about what you want to get out of the workout primarily, but then what's my plan for tomorrow's workout and what did I do yesterday so that

I'm not repeating the same stimulus. You don't do everything every day. Okay. All right. All right. So yeah. what have you done yesterday what are you doing tomorrow where does it fit in the week what's the point of the workout what are you trying to get out of it i think that's a question i ask a lot in my training beyond you know i think for programming for a general affiliate typically what are you trying to do with this workout should fall in the basket of okay i'm just trying to get my affiliate members fitter potentially. And then in that sense, what you've done the day before and what you're doing tomorrow is far more important, maybe in the sense of a competitor where you are training at such a high volume

that variance is so much more hindered, I would say. Like you're almost handcuffed in terms of variance because you're doing so much every day. Like you're almost handcuffed in terms of variance because you're doing so much every day. The question becomes, what do I need? Stimulus wise to get out of this workout from there, where do you go? Yeah, in that situation, a lot of times to variance when programming at a high volume can keep you healthy or vice versa can hurt you. So it's really more important when you're doing a lot to make sure that maybe you're not repeating

the same movement combinations, movement patterns over and over again. I think in this question, since he's saying he just got his level one, we can maybe assume that he's writing workouts for himself or let's just say he's writing workouts for a small group of people. Like there's a group of five or six people

that work out with this guy. And it's like, hey hey how do i do this um pass the basics and maybe the basics that he's talking about is at least once every two weeks there's a heavy day um at least once every two weeks we're going to go really long so let's just assume really long is like 30 minutes plus and then outside of that you're living off of what couplets triplets amraps a lot of for time, some chippers, and then maybe some varying formats. And I think in 2003, if you ask this question, most people can be the same answer because they're more so regurgitating what they've learned at the level one. I think nowadays people

have become a lot more creative. People are understanding a lot more of what CrossFit is and the idea that, hey, interval-based training is CrossFit. Training long is still CrossFit. Doing single modality work is great, but you don't have to do a long workout that's just run, bike, row, or ski. Correct. I think that's something really cool to dive into is that, let's say it's Monday, and I rest at Saturday and Sunday. So I've got anything at my disposal is that let's say it's Monday and I rested Saturday and Sunday. So I've got anything at my disposal. And let's say you decide Taylor to do, um, uh, the CrossFit games workout from 2019 first cut, right? Running squat, snatching, and lettuce road climbing.

So for most people that is a intense metabolic workout when done correctly, but there's also a lot there, right? You're doing upper body pulling in a strict fashion. You're doing a high level, high skill, moderately heavy barbell movement. So then what do you do on Tuesday? If you decide, Hey, I'm going to do first cut on Monday, then it's Tuesday. How do you approach Tuesday? You asking me, where do I go from there? So if we're doing first cut,

which is four rounds for time, uh, three legless, seven squat snatch, 400 meter run, or it starts with the runs, 400 meter run, three legless,

seven squat snatch. That's like an 18 to 25 minute workout. 12 legless rope climbs, some squatting, 28 squat reps, and some running. I think the next day I'd probably look to dumbbells a bit. Ah, man, first cut's tough because you got some pulling. I would press in some form or fashion. I would look to dumbbells potentially. Maybe a dumbbell bench press paired with potentially, I just look at things like this. What's the volume of squatting? What's the volume of upper body

reps and what's the volume of monostructural and that particular movement. Um, and if I'm just doing one workout a day, I would like the next day to look probably quite a bit different. Um, so maybe that's something like JT, like JT is so different from that workout. Ideally, if you're hitting the stimulus, it's like six minutes or less. And it's just completely different. It's short, a lot of pressing, not as much pulling. The thing about a squat snatch that is tough is it's a hinge and a squat in one movement. So it's like, okay, am I going to be redundant in the form of I'm going to have them pull from the floor again? Or am I going to be redundant in the form of, okay, I'm going to have them squat again. And I, I'm ambivalent on that matter. If it's a squat snatch,

I'm not as, I don't, I don't think a squat snatch, at least at that weight is more dominant one way or the other between a hinge or a squat. So maybe you do neither the next day and JT is neither. Yeah. And I definitely set you up a little bit saying that we're doing that workout on Monday because there's a lot that people like me and you think about, but we can expect most people not to dissect it that deeply. The good thing about that workout is it gives you a lot of freedom the next day and Wednesday because nothing is really high volume. It's not a lot of running. So if you decided you wanted to jump rope the next day and Wednesday because nothing is really high volume. It's not a lot of running. So if you decided you wanted to jump rope the next day or do box jumps,

you would still be fine. There's not a lot of squatting. So if you decided you wanted to do Karen the next day, you could still do that. The next day, if you decided you wanted to do pull-ups, I might recommend another hanging variation like a toes to bar instead because there isn't any bent arm pulling in that movement but it does kind of it it gives you a lot of freedom to mess up on Tuesday is what I'm saying so like the only way doing first cut you could really really mess up is back cool let's do a ton of dumbbell snatches a ton of pull-ups and let's run again right or squat yeah a lot yeah let's make sure it's 15 to 20 minutes.

Yeah. That's really the only way you're going to mess up something like that. So for most people, it's still kind of a blank canvas. What I would recommend, though, is exactly what you said, is to keep the movements simple because you had a high skill gymnastics and a high skill barbell. So keep the movements a little bit more simple and go short. Yeah. It would be my recommendation. Yeah. Short was the big, the big thing for me. I think, you know, when I start, okay, this guy's talking about, he just got a level one. I think where I would start is go on.com and just look back as far as you can, like start early and look at workouts.

back as far as you can like start early and look at workouts and then for the first workout you're trying to create come up with two to four movements that you want to do in this workout man that's tough because i'm trying to gauge the level of case this guy so i think wall ball overhead squat thruster front squat like that's what i'm picturing in my mind when I say, yeah, so I think, yeah, so I think a really good exercise to do, and I can remember doing this really early on is get down a notepad or get on your computer and break up all the movements into categories, breaking up upper body, pushing upper body, pulling lower lower body pulling or hinging lower body bending so to say squatting single leg movements are those titties so like so like horizontal displacement right and that goes for all different kind of carries sleds all that and then monostructural

movements and we're going to keep it really simple this is another big topic but let's just limit that to like jumping rope running rowing skiing so you know any machine swimming biking all that stuff do that and then just like it says right in world-class fitness five to six days a week mix these up in as many different variations as possible. Redundancy is the enemy. So for someone, you could literally go through and say, all right, cool. This week, I'm going to do a couplet on Monday, a triplet on Tuesday, a chipper on Wednesday. And I'm going to make sure that I'm pulling from those different categories. And I'm not going to try to repeat any movement combinations for a few months.

You could do that. And then the following week be like, all right, cool. Instead of this couplet, I'm going to do a heavy day. Instead of this triplet, I'm going to go really, really long. And then on Wednesday, I'm going to come back and I'm going to do a couplet or a triplet. You could do it that simply starting out and still be really, really varied just by getting those categories and trying to say, cool, this week I did bench press. Next week, maybe I do dips as my upper body push. This week I did pull-ups.

Maybe next week I need to make sure that I do some kind of row climb variation. Things like that I think is a really easy way to keep yourself honest and make sure you're not coming back to the same movements over and over again. And to extrapolate on that list of movement variation categories, I would think, you know, upper body push, upper body pull. Do you talk about monostructural weightlifting, gymnastics, a list of those as well, and categorizing them into all those things. I think in addition to that, when you're looking to write a workout, I would start super simple. I mean, early on when I started writing my own workouts, it was super simple, typically couplets or triplets. And for time is where AMRAPs are the easiest way to do way too easy initially or just not completable initially until I understand, okay, what's possible within this minute or this time domain.

So I'd stick to for time and AMRAPs. And then I would think about balancing modalities and having complementary movement patterns as much as possible, at least in terms of your aim for intensity, complementary movement patterns are ideal. Um, uh, you know, in the name of variance, you need some redundancy, but complimentary movement patterns, the perfect CrossFit ask example is the squat and pull up. So the thruster and the pull up, you're not pulling the bar. Um, you're pushing it with your legs and you're not pushing the pull up bar with your legs. You're pushing it with your legs and you're not pushing the pull-up bar with your legs. You're pulling it with your arms. So those movements don't hinder one another.

You can do each nicely. You can go fast when you do them. So think about complementary movement patterns and then balancing reps of each movement so that they take a similar timeframe aside from maybe a monostructural portion within a workout. So if you think about first cut, it has those seven squat snatches and the three legless rope climbs. Time to complete each for the athlete that's balanced and does well in that workout is probably pretty similar.

Those seven squat snatches probably take around a minute. And those three legless rope climbs maybe to 15 feet, not 18. I think that workout was like an 18 foot rope. So if it's a 15 foot rope climb uh legless those three reps probably again take a minute and the run takes two minutes so think about balancing time per repetition within your set i mean you think about a workout that's like okay five rounds for time 20 wall ball shots 10 power cleans you're probably looking at you know 20 pound ball 135 you're probably looking at, you know, 20 pound ball, 135. You're probably looking at similar time domains.

So something like that I would look to. Yeah. I think, um, complimenting movements is a great point and go back for people that are like, well, what is that really? Just go back and look at most of the girls, look at most of the workouts that are couplets. Usually a push pull either as a squat and a pull up,

like a hang movement, like you're talking about or a pull from the floor and upper body press Elizabeth, Diane, stuff like that. One thing that I think is easy to do is if you know, Hey, I want to go short or if you know,

I want to go media and we know I want to go short, or if you know, I want to go media, and we know I want to go long, the number of reps that you're doing for most people starting out, it's hard to do too few. It's really easy to overdo it and do too many. And what I mean by that is I'm going to do a 20 minute AMRAP of 50 Cal row, 50 wall ball, 50 pushups, right? It's going to be really easy for a novice person to start out rowing at their all time best 2K pace, doing 50 wall balls on Brogan, trying to do pushups in two sets.

They're going to look up. They're going to be six minutes into the workout and think to themselves, I can barely row anything. Now I'm going to be doing fives on the wall ball. I'm going to be doing twos on the pushup. So that's a mistake to make. If you're going to go long and it's something cyclical, meaning you're going to be doing lots of rounds, keep your chunks small so that you can keep moving for that whole 20 minutes. That's a really good way to make sure that you can keep moving for that whole 20 minutes. That's a really good way to make sure that you're getting the desired stimulus of a long workout. Likewise, when you're doing something short, if you want to ensure that you're having maximum intensity for a sprint, don't give yourself huge chunks. Keep your chunks

pretty medium, right? Think of 21, 15, nine workouts. Most people look at the 21, they do them unbroken. The 15 is the hard round. Maybe they have to break a little on the 15 and then on the nine, they can hold on and do those unbroken. So thinking about number, number of reps per movement per round is a good exercise to make sure that whatever your desired intensity or stimulus was that you achieve it. Yeah. And looking at overall volume within a workout as well. I think on the programming lecture, they say low volume is like 25 reps or fewer on the day. So like your session has 25 reps total or less. I think they say moderate volume is like 25 to 60, or maybe 25 to 90 can't remember. And then high volume would be anything over 100 100 to 200 reps.

So play with that vary that as well. And of course, your low volume days are heavy or super fast, your moderate volume days can be, you know, your six to nine minute time domain really high intensity and your high volume days can be longer workouts at a light, light, lightweight, et cetera, or even body weight. Yeah. I think that's the next step, right? So you have your desired stimulus and you have your, um, very time domains, which is really, really important for people. And we're talking about Metcons primarily now and not heavy days. don't you know usually people don't struggle to figure out a good heavy day um as long as you're varying those heavy days as you go and you're not always doing deadlifts you're not always doing squats but looking at okay on monday i went long and usually

when you go long it's also going to be a high volume. So, okay, cool. Then I want to do a five-minute workout. Just by the nature of a five-minute workout, typically you're not going to overdo the volume. But if you're in that medium time domain of like an eight to 12 minutes and it's something like JT, like, hey, I'm just going to do a 12-minute AMRAP of JT, you're going to end up doing hundreds of pressing reps.

And you're like, wait, I wanted that workout to kind of be like a medium fast feel. I didn't really get that at all. I was just kind of staring at the clock and waiting on my arms to come back. Well, yeah, you learned the lesson, right? JT is JT because it's so dense in the types of press. It's really easy for people to look at that and just be like it's not going to be that bad but it hits you in a different way as another classic 21 15 9 triplet would yeah have you ever done acid bath um i've done intervals of it so no i've kind of copped out and never done the actual thing i've done it two ways i've done it the regular way and then i did

it the down under championship then i did it the down under championship where they did acid bath down and then rest a minute or two and then in reverse and it starts with ski row bike right 500 500 1k uh ski row bike yep yeah done it all right do we feel we've answered that adequately? I think so. I think the main things that we want to get across how to sit down and write a workout is what did you do yesterday? What are you doing tomorrow? Am I hitting the various time domains? And am I being conscious of volume and movement patterns? patterns. And then from there, it takes just a lot of time doing it to feel really comfortable doing it and a lot of creativity. And I think for me, where I get most of my creativity, or I have gotten most of it, is I look at all these other workouts or programs or programmers, and I look at things that I like and don't like that give me ideas. And I try to be unique in my own way. But everybody is influenced by someone. So look around and then give it a twist

of your own. All right. Next question. Dope. Thanks, dude. All right. This is, will be an interesting one. What are the top three things you take into consideration or look for when seeing if a competition is a well-programmed test? I think it's key in this question. That's from Shane Estrada. I think it's key to highlight these three things we're taking into consideration are determining if it's a well programmed test um so part of me thought for a second i'll just leave that up when we talk about it part of me thought for a second i was like well one thing i look at in a competition is are

they doing anything that's fucking stupid that i think is dangerous or just dumb and does that really take away from it being well-programmed? Do you have an answer to that question? I didn't really think about that at all because I was just kind of under the assumption that there's not going to be any big things like that that pop out. But the longer we go in the sport, people are going to want to take chances and people are going to want to try to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes those things are really cool and sometimes they end up just being

really dangerous. So yeah, I mean, I, I guess if, if I saw like back in the day, wasn't there a competition where the ring straps were being hung by the necks of the, their teammates and they were like doing ring rows while their teammates no way dude no you're no way so it may be chase chase and bill put it up one day there was something like that um i remember that kind of yoke that was more like a like a safety squat bar didn't they use that as like a yoke

with like straps i think so and it was just like taking taking people out one after the other yeah things like atlanta yeah there there's gonna be some things like that every now and then but i think i think for the most part i wouldn't really if i saw something like that it probably wouldn't make me say the whole competition was poorly programmed. It would just make me say, I love the, I love the programming outside of this one movement. They, they kind of took a swing and it was a mess. Unfortunately. What about backwards running on a treadmill? Yeah. Like backwards running backwards, uh, carries like carrying something backwards on a on a air runner or something like that i don't i don't i think that falls into the category of just like dangerous yeah okay so

we're not talking about grid league we're talking about crossfit and crossfit yeah i think we i think let's just assume that you're talking about a exercise fitness race that is more like the crossfit games or like a crossfit semiifinal. So what are your top three? I don't. So typically I am not looking at for a well-programmed test. I'm not necessarily looking at. When your celebration of life is prepaid in advance, it becomes a gift from you to your family later because no one should have to plan for a loss while they're experiencing one. Paying in advance protects your loved ones and gives you the peace of mind you deserve. Let us help you plan every detail with professionalism and compassion.

We are your local Dignity Memorial provider. Find us at DignityMemorial.ca. Memorial provider. Find us at dignitymemorial.ca. Well, Mason Mitchell posted the comment, and this is what I thought about when he posted that. He said, programmed for who? And that's probably a question that is not the same as this one. We can assume that in this sense, a well-programmed test for the demographic that they're targeting to have registered right so if we're looking at the crossfit games is it a well-programmed test for the fittest on earth if we're talking about festivus games is this a well-programmed test for someone who's never done a competition before um is is the programming appropriate

for who the test is for yeah absolutely so i. So I think that's, let's assume that that the question is, yes, the programming is appropriate for who the test is for. I look at a balance of modalities, loads, time domains, and repetitions. So explain, explain a balance of modalities. Okay, so a relatively even balance across the field of monostructural weightlifting and gymnastics movements. So like running or rowing would be monostructural weightlifting would be like, you know, heavy cleans or squat snatches or front squats or wall balls or even dumbbell snatch, whatever. And then gymnastics would be anything that you're using your body just moving your body through space to pull up handstand, push up, etc. handstand walk. your body just moving your body through space so pull up handstand push-up etc handstand walk i look at time under tension for those exercises typically monostructural there's going to be a lot smaller of an occurrence of each monostructural element within a competition so let's say if you're looking at a competition with six events and you have 13 gymnastics and 13

weightlifting and three monostructural that that doesn't mean it's not balanced, but the time under tension and the monostructural is typically so much higher. Like you're running for 15 minutes at one point, or as in any of the other workouts, you're not doing anything for 15 minutes. So is there a balance of those modalities, time under tension wise, repetition wise, are the loads, is there a balance between light, moderate, heavy, body weight relative to the field? Is there high skill? Is there high skill? Meaning like, okay, do we have not just in the sense of gymnastics, but I like gymnastics, high skill. I like heavy squats, snatches and workouts because they're very high skill and they test athletes technique and efficiency on the barbell really well. Is there a long time domain, a short time domain moderate?

I think that's the number one thing I look for. So that's probably 12 things in one answer. That's my number one thing. The second thing I look for in a well- test is I don't know, you go you do your first and I'm gonna have to play off you because I was like 12. I don't know if that counts. Okay, well, I mean, yeah, we kind of overlapped a little bit. So the first thing that I look for is, is there something long? And what I mean by that just a blanket statement is, is there just a lot of workouts that are under 10 minutes?

Normally, people don't live in the 10 to 15 minute range. Normally, people live in like the three to eight minute range when they program. And making sure that I wouldn't consider really any programming good unless there's something like 20 minutes or over so that's the first thing i look for is if there's six tests if there's five if there's seven if there's eight or if there's 15 like at the games which you're never going to find something not long is there something long i think that's a tough you know i i like that one that's huge for me and i feel like just so many competitions don't do it because it's so hard logistically to make work except a lot of time to do uh 20 heats of a

20 minute workout yeah but you if you really truly care about having a balanced array of programming um it's you have to right yeah i agree. So yeah, that's my that's my number one, my number two, and then you go with your number two is, is there high skill? And then if there's high skill, is the volume appropriate to the point where separation can be seen? So I don't think it's enough to just say, well, I put some legless rope climbs in there. Well, I had some parallel handstand pushups in there. Well, I had, you know, whatever else gymnastics high school you want to you want to say at this point, you know, well, I did some pirouettes, or I did some whatever. That's cool. But was there enough of them in that workout or in those workouts to actually matter?

I think that is where people really like the next level of it goes from a seven out of 10 competition programming to an eight or a nine is not just, oh, yeah, had a little bit of everything mixed in there but more so did you have enough of whatever was in there to really let good athletes separate themselves from the great athletes yeah that what brings what that brings to mind for me is like gymnastics density which i'm huge on like i really appreciate seeing gymnastics density obviously not in a stupid way um and then the workout that came to mind was the 2013 repeat from last year's semifinals, the 10 rounds for time legless run. Fucking dumb workout. There's like, I don't know, I just don't like it minimal room for separation. My second I would say is, is there any single modality? Meaning it's more of like a okay okay, this isn't, this isn't a question I'm asking for the event to have a positive note. It's more of like a screening I'm look for.

If it has this, I don't like it. Um, I would say, I would say nine times out of 10, if an event that has less than 15 workouts for 13 workouts has single modality, I'm not a fan of it. And there are some very few exceptions. Yeah, we touched on this last time. And I think it's important to touch on it again, because it is a really big idea. And it's one that I think a lot of people are confused by. Let's just take the weightlifting test because it's the easiest one. And it's the one most people will use as that right okay so you do a weight lifting event and you do a barbell complex like the semifinals did last year yep okay so you did that and you only get six or seven workouts while i'm not a fan in general of rested one rep or complex feats of strength, if you choose to do that, is there another workout that is very easily discernible to be its opposite, to balance that out?

So is there a clear, okay, cool. so is there a clear okay cool they they chose to do this workout but this workout over here was written specifically to to flip the leaderboard after the barbell complex did so it is risky and i don't recommend a lot of people doing it unless they're really confident with their programming but you normally see a weightlifting only test and you don't see any more gymnastics only tests or you don't see a monostructural only test, whether it's a single movement, like a, um, a long swim, or it's like a GGG type movement where it's like um 21 ring muscle ups 15 rope climbs nine pegboard i just made something up you normally are not going to see that you are going to see mostly the weightlifting one and then a bunch of just classic crossfit after that and a lot of people will see

that and say hey you know you need to be strong to be fit i agree but when you're taking one thing and prioritizing it more than any one other thing you immediately are biasing it toward that in my opinion yeah that's that's the challenge i think it's everyone loves the heavy day or a lot of people love the heavy day a lot of people love the max lift um but they fail to consider how much they're weighing the test or the overall winner potentially um to that one workout that is just one thing for 100 points um i had a thought while you were saying that what what would you think about a way to test strength in a competition i think hwpo did this at the canada west games they did a death by imam did they ascend weight in that imam it was like it was like macho man ascending weight essentially

or something similar i think it i think it kept going up yeah but it was it was an awesome strength workout yeah what would you think about like a death by complex at the same weight at a challenging weight with a cap on it. Yeah. I like that. I like that a lot. All right. I think third thing. What's your third? My third.

Yeah, you go. Dude, I fucked myself because I gave like 12 in my first answer. Third thing I looked for in a well programmed test. I think this, and this is subjective, but it's important to me. And I look for creativity. And it's gonna sound dumb, but sensical or logical rep schemes and aesthetically pleasing workout formats and rep schemes and that may or may not make it well programmed or not but i like creativity and i like the reps looking good and i like the numbers looking good and i like reading it and thinking oh that looks pretty and i want to try it i don't like reading like like go ahead that's cool i'm i'm you know i'm a big numbers guy and

i it really bothers me when numbers don't look clean i'm not like i think that probably holds me back from programming sometimes because i want the numbers to look so good um but yeah i didn't put that in my top three, but like from a OCD like standpoint, I think that's probably number one. My number three is, are there at least two other weightlifting movements that are not barbell? Yeah. That's big for me. i think especially with smaller competitions and and i get it from the from an equipment standpoint but a lot of times and this is not so much of a problem now because i mean the sport has grown and brought a lot more attention to other iron game right

sports like strongman um influence and all that kind of stuff but if i look at a competition there's six workouts and three of them have barbell and then one of them maybe has like a single dumbbell movement i already am just kind of like that's not really going to do it for me like i think that a lot of people pigeonhole weightlifting movements as having to be barbell and not using dumbbells, not using sandbags, not using sleds, not doing carries, just anything other than just stand in one spot and doing compound movements for weightlifting or having wall balls and saying, well, that's another weightlifting. Yeah. All right. This is the third question. And then then if we have time we'll go to yours and this one's probably going to take up the rest of the show

if you could make your own single event that would correlate to the winners of the crossfit games what would it be first cut is the the example that comes to mind for me of like the perfectly programmed almost workout that correlates to the winners of the CrossFit games. And that workout was four rounds for time of 400 meter run, three legless rope climbs. And they were like the 18 feet. So that like really mattered. And then seven squat snatches at 185, 135 or 185, 125.

I can't remember. You have something that's a, you just have class. It's the CrossFit Games. So you have classic CrossFit. It's a four-time triplet MWG, monostructural weightlifting gymnastics. You have a run, which is arguably, to me, the most important monostructural element. A weightlifting movement that's high skill and moderately heavy and enough reps to make sure that you're good at it and performed at a pace and under a level of fatigue that

you have to be good at it. Um, and then 12 reps of a super difficult gymnastic skill, a legless rope climb to a really, to a high target. Um, and the way they play off of one another, like those three legless rope climbs really make a squat snatch hard. Yeah. and the way they play off of one another like those three legless rope climbs really make a squat snatch hard yeah it's a really well-written uh well-written workout um if there could only be one event like depending on how this question is being asked yeah right it's like well can it can it be a multi-part event like One workout? No. No, dude. Can I do something at zero, something at 10, and something at 20 and say, hey, in those 30 minutes, I think we have an idea of who the fittest person is.

No, let's do one workout. I think that's hard. Yeah, it is. But how I would construct that, I don't have a specific workout written, but this is what I would do. I think you have to make it MWG. Yeah. And that's why the first cut works so well. You have to make it MWG because if you don't, let's say you don't put a monostructural movement in there, then the fittest person there, we, we have no idea if they can run, row, bike, swim. I think it's running. I think you probably just

need to run. I agree. It's the most primal of like any movement that has to do with fitness. And in this case, I think using an odd object would be unwise. So I think that in this case, one workout, it needs to be a barbell and it needs to be heavy. I would probably push back on first cut and say, hey, if we just did this workout and we saw who's the fittest, not knowing, of course, like that Matt and Tia want it. If we if we just said this is the workout, I would actually make the barbell heavier and leave the legless there. So I would probably make that like 225 and make it a snatch and legless and leave yeah yeah i mean leave it a snatch yeah yeah you can leave it a squat snatch too um because i do think that like it does test some flexibility some a lot of mobility things

like that but someone brutally strong could just power snatch and get away with it um but it needs to be heavy it needs to have running and it needs to have a a dense high level skill yeah so to me like putting a putting a toes to bar in there is probably not wise putting a regular even putting a strict handstand push up there unless it's a substantial deficit is probably not wise but having a pegboard having a legless rope climb having a high rep ring muscle up per round yeah making a workout that has a penalty would be really really cool so you do a workout like first cut but let's just say you put um ring muscle ups after uh before the squat snatch hey there's 15 ring muscle ups around. If you break the 15, you have to add a 200 meter to your next 400 meter run. So maybe putting some kind of a caveat on a workout like that

could even more so tell you, hey, I'm not sure if these three rounds of 15 ring muscle ups are impossible, or I'm not sure that everyone's going to be able to do them. So what do I do instead? Well, I'm going to see the ones that can really do them. The ones that can really do them are going to do them unbroken. The ones that can are going to have a penalty to do it. If you have one workout aside the fittest, I think there maybe needs to be some kind of a caveat in there to keep everyone honest.

I agree to a part. I think the interesting part about watching first cut was how simple it looked on paper and how fast that forced people to go and the intensity at which they were pushed to hit that workout. I mean, Pat's a great example. Somebody put in the comments of Pat failing 185 squat snatches. And that's because he went out so fucking hot with Matt, who's, you know, the best snatcher and one of the best legless rope climbers and one of the best runners and the best at everything in the sport. I like simplicity in its ability to create intensity. I, the other thing I think about is these movements,

like the snatch and the gymnastic movement of choice should be total body like, like I think about is these movements, like the snatch and the gymnastic movement of choice should be total body like, like I think a legless rope climb and a muscle up are far more total body. Like if you perform a legless rope climb correctly, you can use your lower body quite a bit. As opposed to a strict handstand push up. Thoughts there like I wouldn't include a strict handstand push up, I wouldn't even include a kipping handstand push-up in the test to decide the fittest with three potential movements a triplet an mwg workout you don't think a legless rope climb falls in line with like a strict handstand push-up you just think there's more there's more what midline there's i think there's more midline and more opportunity for you to allow your athleticism to benefit you. Think about guys who swing their legs on a legless rope climb or kit. Yes, it's strict, but I don't know. I just look at the functionality of a movement, like total body. How total body is it? Like a squat snatch is so total body, and I think you have to be overhead with the weightlifting movement in this particular workout because you can't –

I mean, I'm thinking also about testing midline strength, and a great way to test midline strength is overhead stability with weight. You're picking three movements. You're not going to have a GHG or a total bar in there. I don't know. I just don't like the idea of pinholing the gymnastic movements to something that's so dominant to one muscle group, I guess. But I guess the legless rope climb is that. I don't know. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a tough thing to do to program just one of the easy answers to just do like a kick like a kitchen sink chipper. Yeah, that's what I thought. Make

make sure that you have but I don't like that two or three monostructural movements two or three gymnastics movements two or three um weightlifting movements and just say hey we need to make sure it's like I would say probably in that like 12 to 16 minutes that is a big consideration like doing something less than 10 minutes is a lot more risky to me than doing something a little too long. Because if you don't program something at least into the like mid teens, then someone really, really, really, really good, but not super fit can skate by without having to do something at least a little bit long. Yeah, I, I think probably the gymnastic movement of choice for me is a muscle-up, ring muscle-up.

You just get a bit of hanging. You get a bit of pressing in it as well. Or like these days, dude, like a burpee chest-to-bar pull-up, like a burpee pull-up. Or a burpee ring muscle-up or a burpee bar muscle-up. Yeah, something like that. I mean, something that has a push and a pull is probably what I think you want to do on that. Yeah, a burpee bar muscle-up. Yeah, something like that. I mean – I like a burpee bar muscle-up. Something that has a push and a pull is probably what I think you want to do on that.

Yeah, a burpee bar muscle-up would be great. Yeah. Okay. And then barbell movements. Yeah, I mean, the only other – if the gymnastics movement was high skill enough, you could probably get away with a thruster or a squat clean thruster. I think a squat clean jerk is probably your best bet there or a heavy yeah i i was thinking the same after i thought squat snatch i thought about overhead squat would work but i also think a

squat clean and jerk works like that stipulation that open workout that was a seven minute amrap of squat clean and jerks 165 115 five minute. 5-minute AMRAP. 5-minute AMRAP, yeah, yeah, yeah. Beautiful. I mean, that's, again, I think that really benefits people who move the barbell efficiently, and you could potentially get quite a bit heavier there. Like a 245, 165 squat clean and jerk? Nasty. Okay. If you're reprogramming first cut for the only event at the crossfit

games do you think the run needs to be longer than 400 meters i would probably no i was thinking i was thinking it would be should be more like six or eight i was thinking 600 for a second but then i thought i would like 400 better if it had hills or like a stair to climb that'd be cool so i would like a 400 meter run with a hill like a fuck a burn run yeah like a 400 meter burn run um and then i would probably like burpee bar muscle ups and i don't know i'd probably do like four rounds for time, 400 meter berm run. I don't think eight burpee bar muscle ups is enough. Eight to 32, maybe. Eight burpee bar muscle ups and four squat clean and jerks at 275, 185. I don't know if that's fast enough.

Yeah. No, I think it's cool. I think if you, if you wrote a workout like that, like for me, I would want the weightlifting plus the gymnastics to equal time-wise about the amount of time spent on the run, which I think that probably for squat cleaning jerks at two 75, one 85, that's probably likely a minute to a minute and a half for a lot of athletes. Eight burpee bar muscle ups is under fatigue. A little less than a minute. Yeah. A little less than a minute under fatigue. You're looking at about two minutes for the run and two minutes for the

weightlifting and gymnastics. And you're looking at about a 16 or whatever, 15 to 17 minute time domain. So yeah, I think, I think something like that is really cool. I'll for the next show, I'll write a workout and you write a workout. And that's what

we'll do when we first get on. Okay, well, we'll talk about that. All right. Do you want to talk? Do you want to address that one question you had? No, no. All right. That's it for today, guys. Please submit your questions. If you have them, we want to talk about them. And then next week, we're going to think about something funny and fucked up to talk about. We'll probably pull some on for topics and then we'll come back at you guys. See you.