The Sevan Podcast - ✏️ Programming A CrossFit Competition | Shut Up & Scribble Ep 5

Episode Date: June 24, 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/ Explore the podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We're going to talk about programming for competitions today, but we're going to start probably with what we were just talking about, because I kind of want to explore that a little bit, the odds of Sebon going to the games this year. Kind of want to explore that a little bit, the odds of Sevan going to the games this year. And then we'll jump into kind of the big hot news of Dave returning to the game scene as GM of sport. Yeah, and I think it's probably impossible to talk about one without talking about the other, right? Due to the recent events, we know the relationship have on is built with Dave over the years. A lot of people have been trying to push him to get out in the crowds, shake hands,

kiss babies, all that kind of stuff. And he's been really reluctant to since he was removed, but I wouldn't, I would, I would bet more likely that he does go to the games this year. And I don't know, possibly be given access to get around the athletes, which is what we all loved to watch and what some people still go back and watch on the

behind the scenes episodes. Do you think the behind the scenes road to the games and the fittest documentaries, which is kind of in Sevan's podcast with Bergeron, what he was talking about is kind of the heyday or the glory days of the CrossFit games. Do you think how much of a driving factor do you think that bit of media was behind? To me, the year 2017 just seemed like, wow, this is such a huge deal.

And then bam, 2018, all these changes and then bam, 2019, it just seemed to tank. Do you think how much of a part do you think savon played in it being perceived to be as big as it was yeah i think i think a lot of things uh work together to kind of deflate the balloon so to speak but yeah i think when you take away such an integral part

of the experience that the fans don't get that they can look forward to going back and experiencing a month or two down the road kind of in that dead time where there's not anything really going on in the sport. There's some off season, big competitions coming up, but everyone's like, okay, what do we do now? And so the open starts again. Oh, well at least I'll get to watch the documentary that comes out and then it becoming available like on Netflix, I'm sure was like a huge boost, but especially that especially the behind the scenes stuff because you couldn't really consume it in a day like you could binge it but it was going to be something maybe you could watch over the course of a week or two

yeah yeah that and the road to the games insane I think and again they talked about this on the podcast but how he was doing it with Crossfit years before any of these other big sports were doing it like formula one or and the one thought i had was well there's hbo's hard knocks and that's one of my favorite shows ever and that's been around for like fucking 20 years um but aside from that i mean it truly was just puts you in a position to view kind of the culture and what happened that otherwise you wouldn't get a chance to understand as a fan you know what's really cool to me about like shows like hard knocks is kind of like every second counts right like you didn't know unless you followed the games that year you didn't know

that mursky and um john wellborn like you didn't know where those guys were going to finish so you didn't you it was the story it to finish. So you didn't, you, it was the story. It was the backstory of all those guys that you love to hear about. Like one of them came from like a military background. The other one came from just like whatever kind of fitness background you had OPT. And he was already training clients out of his garage. And you didn't know that like, okay, one of these guys has got to win. That really wasn't the point.

The point was getting to know the journey. So now when you have road to the games, everyone knows that these guys are all professionals. You kind of miss out on that now where you're not like following a fringe semifinalist. That's just trying to get into semis and then following someone like Pat who like is trying to win the games and then following someone who's a new up and comer.

Like if they brought back things like that, I think it would be so cool where they followed someone throughout a season and not just in the two months leading up to the games. And, and the biggest part of that, that I think is missing now is you go to all of these athletes, Instagrams, or wherever you're seeing the media from them. And it's all the shine, the flash. And there's none of that behind the scenes hardship or the pieces of adversity, the bumps in the road that happen inevitably

to any professional in any sport. And you see the stuff like that in Hard Knocks. I think that's what makes a show like that so compelling is you see the guys that you get attached to in the first three episodes get cut in episode four. And that's what makes it cool and allows people like us to um relate to it and become emotionally invested and i think that's missing in a big way and i hope sebon goes to

the game so we can get dinner together and maybe get him fucked up and uh have some fun so we'll see yeah so we have dave as gm of sport and a lot of people are speculating what that's actually going to mean um i'm sure you have your your thoughts on what it means from a relationships uh marketing sponsorship perspective and then what it might mean as far as just like the execution of the competition as a whole yeah and then the programming which is what a lot of people will think that okay it's really going to be dave programming now until they see the game's programming they don't like it and then they'll say well no no that probably wasn't dave it was something else so you know that's how people will play it um i actually don't think he's

gonna have that big of a hand in the programming not because i'm sure a lot of it is 90 done but because i do believe that dave will respect the position boss is in and although he'll probably provide feedback and he might he might even provide recommendations on certain things i think he it is his and i think he wants to let him have his shot right like one year and this being the full full the first full year i don't think he's just going to be quick to just take the reins from him at all i don't think he's going to be involved uh that's a strong statement i don't think he's going to meddle in the programming per se um and and i i think more than anything i'm curious about what this means him being gm of

sport because it's totally different from him directing the games but i agree i don't think he's going to have a heavy hand in the programming in any way i do think that 90 might be a little generous to say my gut says they're probably more like 65 70 done with the programming with the big pieces in play and probably a few handfuls of minor tweaks left up in the air. What comes to my mind is how when Dave was director of the games, it seemed like all he cared about was making the games the best possible. The athletes weren't the priority. The fans weren't necessarily priority. He wanted the test, the spectacle, all of that to be as perfect as he could make it in his vision. And you would often see, you know, there are people who are upset by the way he, I don't want to say treated other people, but he just was not highly concerned with other people's feelings or, you know, complaints or feedback from the athletes. He really just had one sole concern that was making the games as best as

possible. I think he did a great job of that. And I'm curious to see how he will approach the role of GM of sport. Cause we could assume that it's quite a different goal. If, if Boz's goal now is to handle all that other stuff, what is Dave's goal now? And is that to grow the sport? And if it's to grow the sport, what kind of face are we going to see from dave now like is he going to you know just just curious i'm just unsure of what it's going to look like i have no idea

it's interesting too i mean this is we could do a whole show on this but uh there's been a lot of talk that you know when dave was put into his most recent position prior to gm of sport that it was like to make sure that all the pieces in training were working together right and what i think that means is what we're putting out on main site what cap is putting out what we're putting out at the open quarterfinals semififinals, games levels, is there a clear direction? Is there some cohesiveness? Is it going to be difficult for a one to two-year affiliate owner to look at what's being provided and say, okay, cool. I think I know what direction we're trying to push the community in. Because whether you want to separate the two or not

methodology from sport, that's a whole can of worms. People are going to try to make it the same thing. Affiliate owners are going to see pair of pirouettes and think, huh, maybe I should start to try to learn some progressions to administer that to my members because it's something that you can do pretty safely. It's something that it's a skill people can learn, all that kind of stuff. From a programming standpoint, I think if you meddle in it too much, then any kind of open quarter semis games,

okay, let's see if we can see the natural progression goes away. So I think you have to just let it be what it's going to be, at least until these games are over. Yeah, and I think he will and i think my where my curiosity broadens is in the realm of like media like will behind the scenes be brought back will he bring seven back will he reach out to someone say hey i think it'd be good for you to come to the games because i think most fans or most people familiar with seven or behind

the scenes or road to the games would really like that um and would agree that I think you know there's a huge part they're missing is that what he's going to be more concerned with like growing the games and increasing the engagement with the fans fixing the mistakes of the Instagram media team whatever um fuck even the standards packets released in the Open and Quarterfinals and the age group online qualifier. Are those the things he's going to be attacking? And do you think he'll just take more of a leadership role over all of them and maybe institute a bit more diligence

in being mistake-free? Because it seems like this past year there's just been mistake after mistake after mistake yeah i'm not sure you can put any of that stuff on any one person but um from what we know about dave his uh communication method his um um seemingly uh reluctant nature to accept anything other than perfection is going to be a good thing. So do you think he'll be more open to feedback as GM of sport than he was as director of the games? Oh, I think the idea that that he hasn't grown and matured, not only in like a leadership position, but just as a person is crazy. So if you, if you're expecting to see the same old everything, I don't think that's, I don't think that's justified at all.

I think in the new position, um, whereas before it was just, I'm worried about the programming. I'm worried about the show I'm putting on. That's it. I'm not worried about what other people think about it. I'm not worried about input from others. i think that he'll take a big step back from that and okay i think it's a i think it's a net positive for sure i think most of the fans see dave coming back is a good thing because they're tired of being they're tired of like the the fucking this is a good example like the press conferences with justin burke where he talks for 45 minutes and says nothing people are tired of that I think not just with CrossFit but in society as a whole people are so fucking sick of just being talked to um and I think for the most part fans me as well see Dave coming back is okay things are going to have some direction now um we're going to see growth we may

even see some excitement um but then you see someone like kotler justin collar with underdogs kind of had his take was it on talking elite fitness yeah um their round table where he talked about him not being sure that this was a step in the right direction um from the athlete side of it and athletes being scared to go today with feedback or to speak out for listed being blacklisted and if you're an athlete or you're a coach and you've only had one specific kind of interaction you've only witnessed one kind of interaction which doesn't which a lot of people have described is not very symbiotic right it's usually just like no maybe i'll think about it but there's not a whole lot of back and forth then i mean is it their fault to assume it's going to be the same

thing all over again no but i think it's it's also um in everyone's best interest to just wait and see and have that mentality until until they see that okay things are just going to be the way they always were then yeah we should wait to jump to those conclusions. Cool. Do we know, is Justin Berg let go from CrossFit, or did he just get transitioned out of that role? I have no clue. Okay, cool.

Yeah. All right. Well, you think good thing or bad thing overall, Dave, coming back? Oh, I think it's going to be a net positive for sure. Yeah, me too. Yeah, and what's cool is that today we're talking about programming I think it's going to be a net positive for sure. Yeah. And what's cool is that, you know,

today we're talking about programming for competitions with that kind of being on, on the cusp of, of everyone's thought process, thinking about the games where we talked about affiliate programming and we talked about programming for, for competitive athletes previously, it'll be kind of good to go from the opposite end of the spectrum

from affiliate to competition, the kind of things we're looking to do, the kind of things that we're making sure that we don't do. I think there's a lot to talk about here. So first of all, I think it's important for people that maybe are going to be programming for competitions or interested in it. You have to know who you're programming for. That's maybe the biggest thing, right? You're doing a in-house competition. You don't need to need to have or else it's really hard to create separation and workouts and we can we can get into stuff like that i think it's also important to note that unless you're the crossfit games it's highly unlikely you're going to find the hole in everyone's weakness you know whether even if it's eight events there are people that are going to be able to sneak through.

It's just impossible to test everything in eight workouts. And it's fuck, it's almost impossible to test everything in 13 workouts. And that's why you have the open and quarterfinals and semifinals before it. But I guess my question and leading us to where we would start is, where do you begin with programming for a competition? Crucible, per se, or where does it start? Do you just have an idea? Does it pop into your head for me it's pretty creative it's it's based in creativity and i'm just curious to hear how the ball gets rolling for you yeah so i

think outside of this year where i'm kind of choosing to take a small risk and and reprogram some old crossfit games and semifinals workouts to create a whole test. Usually it's, it's really impulsive. I could be driving down the road and think about something. I could just be hanging out with the kids and just think about something and then quickly get it into my phone, like into my notes. I don't say,

Hey, I'm going to take two hours and program crucible because it, what I come up with won't be good. And I'll just end up changing it a lot. So it is really impulsive. dave's talked about this before and i'm sure adrian does the same thing where there are these kind of like um there are these pillar type workouts throughout a competition at the games obviously you have a lot more but i would say in crucible i usually try to do seven score tests generally i'll do a back-to-back.

But there's usually two workouts that I'm really set in stone on. Those are the ones that are really important to me. The year you won, it was the belt and run, which was a play on the bird and run. It was a lot of sled work, a weighted run, a non-weighted run, and then flip sled. And so that was like a workout that I knew I needed to make the rest of the competition around. Right. Likewise, that year I programmed the finale really early. So I had those two workouts, the shortest of the weekend. Really? The finale was one of the pillars that year. Yeah, it was one, it was one of the workouts that I decided I wanted

to do that I wanted to do like right off the bat. And we can we can deep dive into that stuff. But if you have a couple workouts that you know, you're really firm about, it kind of shapes the rest of the workouts without sitting down and trying. I mean, sitting down and just saying, Hey, I'm gonna write seven workouts and hoping that they all go together is really difficult. Yeah, I'm similar. I think the creative processes start very similar for me, I'll have ideas or movement combinations or movement variations that are like stuck in my head that I really love and that are unique. And then I feel like people don't do a lot of I really like that aspect of Dave's programming. And I like to feel like I surprise people with something that they don't do a ton of like I think last year we did. something that they don't do a ton of like i think last year we did like um it was oh it's kind of like a man it was the 13 11 9 7 5 or maybe 5 7 9 11 13 of burpee pull-ups and squat snatches before people were doing a lot of burpee pull-ups it was basically like

you know oh you see a hero workout with burpee pull-ups or do some burpee pulls but competitors weren't really doing them um and then the year that, like the burden run that we had done in a partner workout with the road ballistic block on your back and making people run with that, like the minimum with the same weight. Like I have an idea like that stuck in my head and I'll write down some movements that I really like going with it. And then I, from there I can build around it. And I feel like I build around it much easier when I have one or two of those like pillar workouts the other one was the first year I think it was the 21 15 9 devil's press dumbbell thruster um that workout just yeah I remember that being one of the early ones you

sent to me that year to look at yeah I just not that that was anything revolutionary but I people don't want that's a workout where somebody looks at and they just you know it's going to hurt really bad right and set the tone yeah so i think in our case we're both of us generally and i mean we're we're open to programming for for competitions that want the help at any level but for the things we normally do i mean i have a big team competition every year and programming team stuff is a lot different than programming individual. And then one individual, um, well, let's just assume for this conversation that we're programming for fringe semifinalists, annual semifinalists, and maybe the fringe games athlete that's going to break through in the next year or two. So when we program in that way, while some competitions will just say, Hey,

this is just something fun for the weekend. We're not really worried about the fittest winning. That would not be the case for us. If we programmed a competition and it was pretty clear that someone who finished in fifth or sixth was the fittest one there, we would probably have to take a look at the programming ourselves and just say, okay, something just wasn't balanced at all. Yeah. and just say, okay, something just wasn't balanced at all. Yeah, I mean, as far as time domains and stuff go, how do you see a, let's just call it a seven scored event competition shaking out? Because I think a lot of people want to know not just about movement selection because you can come up with a lot of different movements to make good tests.

But as far as time domain goes, when you only have a semifinals type number of workouts, what's appropriate? I think the margins need to be one workout at each, in my opinion. So like really, really short time domain, two to four minutes, one workout, and then one long time domain, which in my opinion needs to be over 20 minutes needs to be tested. And it frustrates me when I don't see the 20-minute time domain tested because it's so – it's, again, another separator. And when you don't test that, and it doesn't even matter as much the movements or pairings that you have within that time domain, but just the intensity of work for that duration of time,

when you don't test that, it's a massive piece of fitness that you're missing. So I think – but on both ends as well. it's just typical in crossfit that you always see the sprint workout but you don't always see the 20 minute time domain um so i think both of those margins are really important i think then i similar to you like to have a back-to-back workout or something that's interval based with some built-in rest um probably within like the 12 to 15 minute time domain with the rest in there um maybe two seven or six to nine minute workouts maybe two 12 to 16 minute workouts so that's two four six eight scores. Did I put there eight time domains?

That sounds right. The one thing that jumped out at me is that you are pretty partial to long. Like you're pretty biased to if we talk about most competitions that we see, I would say you're going to find maybe two over 12 minutes winning times. And it seems like you think that maybe three in that time domain is better if you have one that's more of a sprint and then you have one that's whatever, somewhere between five and nine minutes maybe. Yeah.

So I think you have one that's a super short sprint and I think two that are between six and nine or maybe five and nine. That's okay too. Um, winning times. And then I think definitely one over 20, I think one right around the 15 minute mark. And I think one between the 10 to 12 minute time mark. And where does the, where does the test of strength fix fit into all that?

I like to test strength either in like the sprint type time domain with really heavy weights in a sprint type setting or. Well, last year I tested it in that interval workout with the heavy deadlifts, and that was like an 11, 10 minute time domain. Yeah, we'll talk about that, like describe that workout and then describe the snatch clean and jerk the year before so people can get an idea of like and then i'll do the same how we test strength in our competitions for for two years so last year the interval was shuttle runs um and not like indoor shuttle runs we hadn't we had a uh course behind our gym this huge parking lot where it was like maybe was it a 50 meter length i can't quite it was about 50 meters down and back for i think four runs um and then max rep deadlifts until you hit 30 and i think the weight was like 365 for men and wherever you're going you better believe american express will

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That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamX. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. 275 or 285 for women? I think 275. That sounds right. And so that clearly, the person who is the best deadlifter and can also run and that is really strong is going to win that workout. And I think it's important to test strength.

really strong is going to win that workout. I, and I think it's important to test strength, but I don't think in an event with seven to eight scores, it's important to test strength in a single modality setting because then you're, you're just, that's so far away from the CrossFit methodology. I'm shocked that it's ever even been done in regionals because if you're going to test strength, single modality, that means strength is more important than all these other tests. Then you don't have a gymnastic single modality or a monostructural single modality. So I'm very partial to everything being pretty balanced across modalities, like monostructural being as important as gymnastics being as important as

weightlifting and strength. So we had that workout with an interval. And then the year before it was like a two minute workout and it was 12, nine, six or nine. I think it was like a two-minute workout, and it was 12.96. I think it was 12.96. Wow, the fact that I can't remember this is annoying. It was 12.96 of snatches and clean and jerks at 185.

Or no, it was just – sorry, it wasn't 12.96. It was 12 clean and jerks, nine snatches, 185, 135. Um, so just a complete sprint of a workout. And I got the idea from, it was kind of an idea that came from the Dubai sevens workout. It was like seven hand snatch, seven, et cetera, et cetera. I got the idea there. And I'm, you know, in my mind, again, the person who wins that workout is going to be the most efficient barbell cycler, but also more than likely the strongest. You're not going to win that workout if you're not strong. So you're testing strength, but you're also testing fitness because you've got to move a barbell really fast in like a minute and a half to a two-minute time domain. I think the guy that won it was like a minute 55 or something, which is – that's fast.

Yeah. And likewise with me, this is one of the things we do think really similarly on that when you test strength in a rested non-fatigue setting, if you only have seven or eight workouts, it's really difficult. It can be done, but it's really difficult programming wise to program to its opposite end of the spectrum and find a way to balance that out. One year at Crucible, we had a snatch ladder and it was gated similarly to like some of people's favorite workouts, right? The 16.2, 19.2 type workouts where you had an eight minute time domain. You had to buy in with a, with a row and then burpees over a pad. And then you had snatches at one weight and you went back

to the rower. And if you finished in a certain amount of time, your snatch weight kept increasing and it ended at one rep at two 75. So it started at one 85 and ended at two 75. And it was a pretty long workout, right? If you finish that workout like 17 minutes you were in the you were in the high teen so there was a lot of burpee volume there was a good bit of rowing so you really dug pretty deep into some people's capacity and then their ability to perform a high technical lift under fatigue was there the workout was 20 can i say it sure people i'm sure people i was 21 calorie row for men 15 burpees over a crash pad so like a bar facing burpee but over a longer um obstacle and then was it nine seven five three one

snatches ascending weight um and it finished at 275 for men and i think jacob faff on the workout it was like 16 30 or something and then mark hutchinson and then i was right after yep and it was and there was a ton of guys in the field that finished i mean so it was a really strong field for sure and then last year um clean ladder i did a clean ladder with a drag rope and handstand walk obstacle so you had drag rope and then you went down and back ramp stairs and then stairs ramp and then it was just one clean so it was one clean and then start went down and back ramp stairs and then stairs ramp and then it was just one clean so it was one clean and then start the next round one clean start the next round someone loaded the barbells for everybody and the last weights were um 340 240 um if i remember correctly which is heavy yeah which is heavy yeah and it was a it was a step in the right direction. I think for the female loading, um, you know, went 300, 200, 320, 220. Uh, so it wasn't as beefy as the clean weights

this year for the semifinals. But the, what I learned a lot about that workout is when you put something, uh, that dense in the shoulders with the drag rope and the obstacle for the females, usually that front rack position is just a little bit more compromised. And that was just a learning thing. Um, some of the females got to the last bar, but no one hit it. And then Luke Parker finished the workout, won the workout, won the competition. Um, so that was pretty cool to see him do so well in that because just that workout alone, um, there's a lot of strength involved, but also just a lot of skill execution and high skill. So from there, how we test strength, skill movements. And I know now a lot of people are saying the sport is moving

into the direction of more high skill, high execution, and not as much engine or enduring hundreds and hundreds of reps, volume, volume, volume. Where do you fall on that? I disagree with people. And when they say they think the sport is moving in that direction, I think you can look back to even like 2012 or 2011 at the Games, and the skill has always been there at the Games.

I think what people are noticing now and what is happening now is that skill is trickling down to the semifinal level and to the quarterfinal level and to the open level, which I think it needs to. So I don't think it's this, oh. I think it's more so this. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry who played high school football can deadlift 400 pounds. So when they see the 400 pound deadlift at the games,

like, Oh, I can do that. But then you see 30 unbroken ring muscle ups and there's not a fucking prayers chance in hell that that person ever going to do that. But you're waiting one thing as more important than the other in terms of, okay, they'll put a 400 pound deadlift in semifinals,

but never whatever this particular gymnastic skill and i think they've seen and i think everyone has seen these instances of the games where you have these athletes get there and they just are standing there and staring at a particular implement or exercise that they can't do and the time for that is passed so i think they're probably screening more for these higher skills at the earlier stage because it's just as important to possess that skill as it is to be strong and be able to move a barbell. And I don't think it's off balance in any way. I don't think anyone who says the sport is more skill-based now is correct at all.

I don't think it's more skill-based. I think it's as balanced as it's ever been. I think it's as balanced as it's ever been. Yeah. I think from a programming standpoint, if you're programming for the caliber of athlete that we typically are at our two big competitions, what I want to do is one, give the fringe people that maybe barely missed that on semifinals, but are really, really fit, give them that environment. And that includes the type of workouts. So not

only are the lanes line and there's pylons to move and there's, you know, really, really good judging and there's, um, uh, all that kind of stuff, but the types of workouts that they're getting is something that maybe they would have been exposed to and they will be exposed to as they mature, as they get fitter. Likewise for the perennial semifinalists, what can I also put in there that is very like individual to crash? Because once you program a few years, there are things about your competition that you know people look forward to or don't look forward to that are kind of staples in your programming, right? I would say for both of us, people know they're going to do a high volume GHD workout when they come to either competition. They know that they're

probably going to have to be out of breath when they test their strength. And those are good, right? Those are things that every programmer has some biases like that. But also too, what can I put in for an athlete that's about to make the games? What can i put in there that maybe they're not going to get at a semi-final but that maybe i believe they should or likewise what there should get at the games for sure like the year you won there was flip sled right and it's not the exact same but it's very similar to a pig there was parallel full depth parallette handstand push-ups not a crazy amount of volume but it was dense enough in that workout to really expose some people they were 777 888 oh 777 yeah um handstand walk obstacle some pegboard here and there um some things that like hey uh there was a workout last year with running and carrying and it was run with three different kinds of carry, right?

Farmers carry with handles, like a duck walk with a power pin and then a heavy sandbag, right? So it was a little bit more of like, yeah, you're not, we're probably not ever going to see this at a semifinal because of equipment. Well, that's cool. But some of these people are going to feel something similar to this at the games. Yeah. And if you have the

means to why not expose them and see who can adapt just like you did the year with the ballistic block um uh you did last year you had a really cool workout with handstand walking ghd's and squats with a squats with a rucksack right and then the jerry can carry yeah it was like a rucksack squat jerry can carry and met ball ghd yeah so i mean i i think that kind of stuff is really cool yeah and it does take on somewhat of a financial burden too because a lot of times you're not going to have those kind of things laying around in your gym to use for class workouts but i think the athletes really appreciate getting pushed in that way where it's not just like, Oh, you could have made us do 30 thrusters, but you made us do a hundred. It's more about like, Hey, I've never had my hands on

that thing before. I need to, I need to go back home and buy something like that so that I can the one 25 sandbags for women last year too. We did that death by rope climb sandbag to shoulder workout, which was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. a lot and i think that goes i think you know the way you're describing it is you think more in the realm of what can i expose these athletes to to give them an environment that's similar to the semifinals in the games i think we're accomplishing a similar thing but for me it comes from almost this like fanboy type of like giddiness of what were the coolest workouts i saw at the games and things that i love the most and how can i recreate something that like is like oh shit i've never seen that before or i haven't been able to touch

that and now it's here and i have to be good with it i i love that i love that aspect of the sport and in previous years the cross CrossFit game. So I just like, yeah, it's a big, it's a big thing for me. So what about workout structures, right? Or formats? Is it something that you're careful about? Do you like AMRAPs? Do you think AMRAPs have a place in competition? Do you like things to always be for time? Do you like intervals? Do you think more than one interval based workout and a seven to eight workout competition is too many? Like all those things. I think the only workout format, in my opinion, and this is a very, it's like a, it's like an umbrella format that should be repeated more than once. I think unless you have like a back-to-back

workout, I I'm not a fan of AMRAPs, but I did really like the AMRAP in 2021 crucible, the back-to-back AMRAPs. That was, I think probably my favorite two events of the competition. They were just really cool the way they paired off of one another, but the workout was a seven minute AMRAP. The first one was a seven minute AMRAP of seven dumbbell stepovers with the seventies and 14 toes to bar or 21 toes to bar 21, seven and 21. And then the next AMRAP, you got like three minute rest. And then the next AMRAP was 14 dumbbell stepovers with the fifties and 21 GHDs. And I just love love that combination and it was really freaking cool um but you are you are unique in the fact that not many people can program amraps in a way that i

would like them well here's the deal with that too and i've given that a lot of thought listening to some other people in the space that i really respect as far as programming goes unless it's done at the end of the competition, there is a really legitimate argument. One that I would be on the side of now, looking back on saying, why are you going to penalize me for being fitter and doing more work? Right.

So that workout that you're describing, but at the end of the day, yeah, it, there was grip for sure, but it was, it was just attacking everyone's midline. But can I make an argument on the athlete?

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Okay. So that happened, right? That workout happened. Do you remember what the other workout was that day? So that was the obstacle legless level workout. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the obstacle legless level workout. So if you have someone who did really, really well in the dumbbell stepover, toes-to-bar GHD workout, and they just smoked their grip,

and they win the workout, but they did 14 more stepovers on the first one, and they did 21 more toes-to-bar, whatever, and they get to the legless workout, you are essentially penalizing them for being fitter and making them do more work to win only to get to the legless workout and not have done all the work if there's someone else and potentially beat you as the person that did so well.

So I think that AMRAPs in competition, their only place for them at this point in the game, because people are so good and they're able to strategize to take hits on some workouts to capitalize on others. It really only belongs in a finale. I that's interesting because I never think about workouts like that. I have never entered a competition and been like, I'm going to go easy on this one so I can smash this one. Yeah. And I despise kind of anyone who does that. No offense. I think there's events where you know that you're not going to do as well, but you have to maximize your points. But I think anyone that pulls back an effort to be able to swing big somewhere else. I just don't like that. I won both of those back-to-back

workouts. I know that's why you liked them so much. No, but I didn't think it had affected me that much for, I, I, when you, when you speak of it that way, I did do worse on the legless workout than I did in testing, but it still was like a fifth or whatever. And I wasn't concerned. Like, you know, I felt like I did my best. Maybe that played a role. Um, yeah, it's just, I mean, it's just something mean it's just something to think about like yeah those other guys are pussies for pulling back in that other workout it's something to think about from a programming standpoint though if um if you're if you're gonna say hey like this time cap is really tight right it's a really tight time cap

okay well the repercussions of that is someone who knows they're not going to do well on the parallette handstand pushup workout. And they'll take a cap because that night they have to snatch heavy and they know that they need to save their overhead. But if you make the time cap three or four minutes longer, then you make everyone do all the work, right? You did the same amount of work I did. So to finish the snatch ladder, we both got to do the same amount of work again. And for some people, we're programming competitions where maybe they're not that serious. There's not that much money on the line. It isn't something you need to stress out about.

But we're trying to give everyone a glimpse into how we think about programming competitions. And if you're programming for people that are traveling, that are trying to win a decent chunk of money, that are competing against guys that they'll probably compete against on the floor at semifinals, you need to be thinking about all these small things. Because athletes are really smart. And if they see a workout where they know they can mitigate damage only to excel on another one, a lot of them are not like you and they're going to do it. Yeah. And I like to, similar to you, I like to minimize the opportunities for athletes to do that. I don't like to give athletes the opportunity to say, Oh, I don't have to do this much so I can do more here.

I like to make sure that they all feel the correct stimulus each workout as best as I can. And I go ahead. I was going to say, and I, I don't, I necessarily don't think that I wasn't thinking in terms of AMRAPs that way. Although I'm glad you mentioned that I think AMRAPs and more of a way of, I just don't like the idea of, well, I guess it's the same way. I wasn't thinking of it as effort, but I want everybody to do about the same amount of work. And I don't want there to be an area where people are confused as to where others are at. Yeah. And like a good example of something like this, that isn't just like a classic AMRAP seven minutes is the semifinals workout this year,

right? It was written for max reps, burpee box, which is an AMRAP and not written as your workouts over at 50, whether it takes you three rounds or two rounds, whatever. So that's, that's another way that you can program it. So a max rep interval workout is still an AMRAP for those of you that are maybe trying to distinguish between the two. It's, it's still, um, you'll have someone that wins doing more work than the person who got second. Yeah. Or last, or it didn't do even a fucking muscle up. Correct. Which is crazy. Um, like five. So we got like five more minutes. One thing I want to make sure that we talk about is weightlifting movements. So anything loaded. Do you think you are more biased to a specific implement? Like, are you a barbell guy at the end of the day? Are you really old school in that way?

Are you are you biased to odd objects? Are you biased to only programming one horizontal displacement workout in a competition where it's only one carry or would you program a workout that had multiple moving objects? Like how do you feel about weightlifting as far as testing that level of athlete? I think the way I program it may seem biased, but I think that's because generally in CrossFit, the gold standard for weightlifting is the barbell. And I don't like to make the barbell the gold standard. I like it to be again, relatively balanced with dumbbells or sandbags or a medicine ball or any odd object farmer implement. I think moving an external load in a functional manner is far more applicable to things that are like

unilateral, like dumbbells or a sandbag or kettlebells, um, rather than the barbell. I do love the barbell and I use it a lot for sure. Um, I don't think I would consider myself biased. I think I'm pretty balanced and I like all of them a lot. And I like them for different reasons. I like a barbell for testing for the most part, more of a skill strength, like a squat snatch or a clean and jerk, um, or a snatch, even the last year I didn't do that. Um, and I like, and maybe dumbbells to a similar degree, but I think dumbbells kind of give an athlete with more raw athleticism and ability to shine, um, or mobility or whatever. And then I like to test like just pure grunt strength with more strong man type stuff, sandbags or carrying something and whatever it may be.

Right. sandbags or carrying something and whatever it may be. Right. Yeah. And I would say I'm, I would say I am biased toward odd objects over barbell. So odd objects is anything other than a barbell to me. Yeah. Okay. And there's just so many more options.

Um, I love carries in a workout. I love sled. Right. So you, you know that there's, I'm going to use the sled when you come to crucible and chances chances are you're going to have to pick something up and move it. And other than that, I really still like the barbell to test strength.

And I like the barbell when placed in the right workout to create a certain metabolic stimulus, right? The first year of crucible, the strength workout was basically like a DT workout with two 25 with regular rope climbs. So yeah, maybe for a few people, it was grip only the people that could go the fastest, but for a lot of people just going, just, just going shoulder to overhead with two 25 that many times just, just crushed them. I was like drooling into my pants that year on that workout. Yeah, and for those of you that are wondering, was there another workout to kind of balance it out? I mean, there was a back-to-back that was dumbbell Randy,

so 75 snatches at 75 pounds. And then right after that was a 300-foot handstand walk for time. So there was uh this is god this is already getting long but if you're gonna program a single modality workout in a competition you better do it right like it is it is a big risk for a lot of people to program a gymnastics only a barbell only and when i mean single modality i'm saying like mw or g not i know there are people out there saying no no single modality is just one movement of one modality fine just running that's even worse just handstand walk or harder workout right like

the dumbbell snatch into the handstand walk those are both single modality but they offset beautifully so it is it is tough to do but i think you can really show your creativity if you don't only program couplets triplets and a chipper so the last thing do you have a workout combination that you love more than any other? It's one, I don't think I'll ever be able to test. And it's not one that I love maybe more than any other, but it's one that I, that I've done a couple of times at our gym. And it's an idea from Andy and it's a's a 21 15 9 of heavy thrusters at 130 heavy i guess at this point in the game not that heavy thrusters at 135 and an increasing distance sled push with an empty prowler so 21 thrusters 135 50 meter sled push 15 thrusters 75 meter nine thrusters 100 meter sled push and it's one of the nastiest workouts

I've ever done. It's fucking horrible. That's interesting. So a weightlifting, weightlifting couplet. Yeah, I don't shy away from redundancy in that aspect. And I think it can be cool to test in competition. But again, you have to balance it out properly. I did want to mention that me and you both are very partial to high skills and gymnastics and making sure people don't escape without having that piece of fitness exposed nor do we shy away from engines and i don't think either of us are under the misconception that you have to have a machine to test an engine yeah you yeah i would say movement combination wise i i looking back on i tend to program um um, with couplets, weightlifting and gymnastics couples, right.

But movement specific. Right. And then from a, um, movement specific standpoint, um, I think I'll in every competition I've programmed, there's at least been two workouts that I'm going to come after midline for sure to see where it's at. Right. Last year there was a swim GHD. And I know for a lot of people that was a lot of different things. It was just, I don't feel comfortable swimming out of breath. I don't feel comfortable. My, my hip flexors are on fire. Right. Uh, because I'm actually swimming hard. Um, I can't breathe doing the GHDs because my abs are hurting so bad. Um, you know, but there's

in my competitions, you can, you can bank on at least twice that there's, it's going to be a heavy midline test. Yeah. I like that. And I think for use, I would say squat volume. Yeah. I like squat volume. I, when I think about a movement pairing that I'm really partial to, I go back to old school regional days and like Dave's affinity for the thruster rope climb in any pairing I've I love that pairing of thruster rope climb Tommy V's one of my favorite workouts love that workout um or even squat rope climb like a squat squat snatch rope climb or a squat snatch burpee pull-up which I did last year I I really like a squat pull combination which is you know gym for the most part gymnastic weightlifting yeah cool that's it that's 47 minutes and 40 seconds we ran over yeah we'll

try to cut it off you didn't guys let us know uh other topics you want to hear us talk about comment it send it to the uh suess Sue us Instagram handle. Please questions. Yeah. We want, we want more ideas to do shows about boom. All right. Well, can you punch us off? We're at your mercy.