The Sevan Podcast - SHUT UP AND SCRIBBLE: Team Quarterfinals programming WITCH HUNT

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

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There was a day of the rhino that's what happened wow day of the rhino no day of the uh uh day of visibility for something else but i will say we're about to review quarterfinals team programming and i could just say right off the bat i'm not super happy i do want to shocking augustus okay shut up dude you aren't happy either if you could elaborate what i don't remember talking about being pressured into making money um let me know like i just yeah blah elaborate before we get started um i'd like to give a huge shout out first off to will for making our sponsor graphics on the screen way cleaner and crisper. They look fantastic. JR's

image quality is insane right now. He's in Disney. He's in the land of obesity and insulin. But that's just all to say... Happiness. Happiness is what he meant to say. Right. Happiness. If you are in Disney and you are from the tri-state, North Carolina, South Carolina,

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If you're realizing that quarterfinals are coming up and you should probably better gymnastics, head over to Reaction Gymnastics on Instagram. Shoot Amy a DM. That is a new sponsor of Shut Up and Scribble. Hold on. Let me pull up her Instagram. Yeah, she is an awesome one-on-one gymnastics coach. You don't even have to go see her in person. She does stuff virtually through video review. She has worked with me in the past, specifically on my handstand positioning.

She's been working with Jason Hopper doing a lot of- On everything, basically? No, no, no, no. Just trying to clean up some small things. Anyone who thinks that they should not be chasing virtuosity, especially the fitter you get, is a fool. And that's exactly what she does. She is an amazing gymnastics coach, awesome person, good friend of mine. And, yeah, she's going to be sponsoring the show moving forward. All right.

Her reaction gymnastics. Let's pull this up on the screen. Present. Share screen. We'll look all of our homies up. Boom. Okay, Reaction Gymnastics. Amy Fritt.

One-on-one sessions, video analysis, workshops, and seminars. Shoot her a DM. Give her a follow. She's a gymnasty freak. And like we said, if you suck at anything bodyweight, she'll fix you.

Then we're going to head on over to our boys, HGR, Homegrown Relief. There we go. Bam. Go to their website. Get you some CBD. Best stuff on the market. This stuff right here in the center this uh recover my favorite stuff favorite stuff and bryson i actually gave him this dropper of uh sleep stuff and he says it

knocks him out like uh like if he were to smoke a fat blizzy or something um which is dope so lastly beefcakes in the house no no no but he's got a state farm page now dude hit up our guy sheesh an athletic stud state farm patrick mitrovich get our guy a follow reach out to him awesome dude and here we go quarterfinals programming oh vindicate WTF WTF mate is going on here yeah my kids just

went to the face painting station here at Animal Kingdom and one of them got a unicorn and the other one got a cat and I said hey do you want me to do a rhino I'll do a rhino and then I'll just come on the show and taylor will just have to deal with it and try to talk serious talk about programming well you don't look that take your tooth out and then it'll be funny that will be funny dude i mean honestly it looks great i just think the funniest part is the old the black lipstick that's probably very sting very sting wow you do look like uh the star child maybe all right so quarterfinals

team program i'm gonna go ahead share the workouts share screen and this is gonna be my monotonous tone for the rest of the show because this is about how i feel about it um but we're actually going to take a scroll down memory lane. We're going to start with 2023. Oh, here we go. Before we start, Augustus, two years ago, apparently in my interview with Sevan, I was asking if it would be possible to make money in CrossFit being yourself, not having to sacrifice your values or beliefs for sponsorships. to sacrifice your values or beliefs for sponsorships? I would say it is possible. It's really hard.

I had to start a programming company and learn how to actually be good at that. And no offense, most athletes probably suck at that and aren't the best coaches. And they don't have to be. It's not their profession. But they do have to sell their soul a little bit for sponsorships. I don't have any sponsorships. And I'm not interested in any. I did today just record a Born Primitive ad with Bryson for free because I actually love their shoes. I have a bit of a man crush on Bear, great-looking guy.

I've heard a story that he started born primitive, then went through buds being a Yale graduate. That's just insane to me. Veteran owned and operated. So I'll stop sucking their meat, but I'm not paid to do that at all. And I haven't sacrificed anything because I fuck with their company. That being said, is it possible? I don't know. Ask Danny Spiegel. being said is it possible i don't know ask danny spiegel okay team quarterfinals programming this is from 2023. okay workout one 15 minute amrap 10 synchro front squats 185 125 handstand walks okay let's go workout two uh shoulder to overheads 185 125 rowing let's go to workout three 2025, rowing. Let's go to workout three.

Deadlifts, bar muscle-ups. Let's go to workout four. Dumbbell thrusters, shuttle runs. Okay, now let's go to 2024. We already know athletes have been tested on double-unders this year. They've been tested on deadlifts. They've been tested on rowing. They've been tested on muscle-ups.

They've been tested on muscle ups they've been tested on thrusters um in 2023 they were tested on front squats at 185 125 they were tested on shoulder overhead at 185 125 they were tested on heavy deadlifts what do we have so far this year oh gee whiz 10 synchro front squats 185 125 and workout one wow it looks like they erased the other movement from last year and just added two other things in. Yeah, so let's read the workout. Okay. Let's read the workout. So male-female pairs, alternating pairs every two minutes.

So each pair is going to do a two-minute AMRAP five times. They're going to rest while their partners are gone. Correct. Ten synchro lateral burpees over the bar. Ten synchro front squats at 185, 125. And then max ring muscle-ups, one works, one rest, with the remaining time in the two-minute window. If you're looking at this workout, I mean, let's just call it a triplet, right?

You're doing one, two, three, and then you're getting rest, but let's just call it a triplet because we don't want to get into the nuances of that. But for the best teams, you're looking at like one minute, less than one minute of burping squat into a minute of muscle up. Let's say you get two people that can jump up and do a set of 10. That's 20. So like an elite, elite score would probably be 100 per pair. Now, I don't know if there are going to be teams that can do that,

but just looking at it on paper, that's what we got. Taylor, continue. Okay. Workout number two. 50, 30, 20. okay workout number two 50 30 20 first off what kind of uh mathematical dipshit wrote this workout 50 30 20 come on dude the classic crossfit rep scheme is 50 35 20 and the reason it is that is because the reps subtract by 15 uh maybe they are like oh this is kind of a bastardization of fibonacci 20 plus 30 equals 50 or that was what's up that's what you thought oh yeah maybe so i mean i didn't think of that until you just said that i was just also trying to figure out why not yeah 40 30 20 1030-20-10 or the 50-35-20 we see a lot.

That's very OG. 42-30-18 even. That's cool. Come on, guys. What the F? Alternating dumbbell pass. That's very small. I think.

Is it? It shows the lack of attention to detail. I think when you look at a workout like this, you can say like in a descending rep skiing workout, okay, yeah, most of the work's there at the front. There's only three rounds, so you're like, okay, we get done with the first round. We're already halfway done. Cool. What I will say just about the programming of this workout specifically, and this is a question I have for you. It's someone that brought to my attention yesterday.

You're already kind of on it, right? You're already on the repetition of movements from the open into quarterfinals. You've got rowing in both. You've got dumbbell snatch in both. You've got a lateral burpee variation in both. You've got a deadlift in both. Now, we're going to see in a little bit, right? Deadlift really light, deadlift pretty heavy, row very short, row pretty long as far as over the course of the workout. Dumbbell snatch light, dumbbell snatch heavier. Do you think that was done purposefully? Do you think it's like, yeah, we know we, we, you said it didn't matter in the open. So now we want it to matter because we're going to make it like a harder version because I'm with you. I think from a creativity standpoint, there's so many other movements that could be done. And maybe we'll see a lot of those movements in individual

because in the past team and individual hasn't lined up very closely at all, which I think is a good thing. Um, but do you think that came into play at all? Just like, Hey, we're, we're, we know we're doing this and we're doing it on purpose. I, honest, it doesn't matter to me if they are doing it on purpose. I don't know. The answer is I don't know if they're doing it on purpose. I'm absolutely perplexed. But if they are doing it on purpose, to show a more difficult progression of the same movements,

to be hard-headed to say now it matters, is nowhere near as important as showing some modicum of variance across seven workouts it's only seven and you're repeating how many movements and and here's the thing and again back to the previous year 50 30 20 alternating dumbbell snatches toes to bar 2023 workout or i believe it's just ascending like gosh make something different the front squats the shoulder to overheads it's all the same lateral burpees over the bar what it's like uh the 2021 um quarterfinals and the 2022 quarterfinals exactly the same and stupid. It's just crazy.

Yeah, while you're pulling that up, while I saw a lot of really, really good teams get exposed last year on the four-person synchro front squat workout because it's not typically a movement that we see come up a lot in online or in-person competition. It really wasn't the handstand walk. It was just a lot of people couldn't hang on in the front squat. It was cool. Yeah, I'm curious why the thought process of, okay, we tested the teams on that last year,

so we're going to do it again this year. Some people may push back and say, hey, no one's breaking up those squats. It's 10 squats every two minutes for five rounds. It's a muscle-up workout. You're not wrong. I get that. But then also, I wonder what the thought process was. Hey, why don't we do an overhead squat here?

Why don't we do a squat clean here? Why don't we do a hang squat clean? Again, one year to the next, we've seen this over the last four years. There's a lot of movement combinations that the programming team seems to really like and i'm just curious on a year that we're doing one less test than we've done over the last three why do those same movements again he watches our show guys if you didn't know always sheesh i cannot believe that guy's calling me right now he doesn't even know he doesn't watch our show here's the thing uh i just don't understand if you're ever going to make the argument to anyone about the unknown and unknowable and about constantly buried shit like this is an absolute, just spit in the face to that,

to me. Um, and I don't know whether it's a lack of feedback internally, a lack of, uh, critical self-assessment, oversight, laziness, inability to do your job. But to me, it's just, you know, yeah, I'm a little heated right now. Thankfully, in the past, I always look at team workouts and I'm like, yeah, those don't look fun.

Those look dumb. Those don't look like I want to do them. So these are the same. So let's go to workout three. So let's do that. Okay. Workout three. Male, male, female, female pairs.

Four time. Pair one. Male, male. 500 meter row. 50 handstand pushups. 50 synchro wall ball shots. Then pair one. Followed by pair two.

So then pair two goes. 50 synchro wall ball shots. 50 handstand pushups, 500 meter row. You're doing the synchro wall balls, I guess, each partner's rowing the 500 meters, but the handstand pushups are switched as needed. Yeah, so in total here, you've got 1K of rowing. You've got 100 synchro wall balls per pair.

And you've got, for the best teams, probably being able to split that in half, 50 handstand push-ups total were you surprised to see this version of handstand push-ups at this level or do you think that making it a little bit more accessible even for the teams is a smart move like i'm in the camp that i think we should only be doing strict unless there's a deficit um for the teams and for the individuals and i'm curious if that if that's going to roll over sorry the wind is picking up if that rolls over to the individuals and you guys do some kind of progression where it's like keeping handstand push-ups straight handstand push-ups or if it's just a bunch of tipping handstand push-ups here's

the thing uh mason only six teams registered in North America East. You have no reason at all to make team programming accessible to anyone other than teams who want to make the games. No one's signing up as a team for quarterfinals or shits and giggles. Do you know what I mean? The people who are doing team quarterfinals are the people that want to go to semifinals and go to the games. None of it should be accessible. It should all be who are the right teams at semifinals,

what kind of athletes do we want to see at the games. This is kind of, to me, just another, like, bleh, teams don't matter. Like, why would they be this lazy with it? Just crazy. All right, last workout. Wow, we only got one more left, you guys. More deadlifts and more 185-sh shoulder to overheads, just like last year. As many reps as possible in 15.

Oh, another 15-minute AMRAP, too. 30 deadlifts, female, female. 30 shoulder to overhead, male, male. 30 shoulder overhead, female, female. 30 shoulder overhead, male, male. 315 for guys on the deadlift, 185 on the shoulder overhead, 205 for ladies on the deadlift, which is an absurd weight, and 125 on the shoulder overhead. You mentioned it earlier that the women were just going to absolutely obliterate the men in this workout.

No, females should bury them. And I'm wondering, because I always try to think about stuff like this. Like when I see a workout like this, and then at the semifinal level last year, when they did the clean ladder, they gave the females crazy heavy loads and they still moved it well, but it looked like that with the steps that they were going to start taking. Hey, these, these, uh, these loads, um, are very arbitrary and they should be changed based on the workout in a lot of ways. Maybe they look at workout one and they're like, hey, a dense ring muscle-up workout, that's probably going to really favor the men.

So for this, let's make it the other way around so the females are the ones kind of pulling the males along. This is a thing. They know no one watches the team, so they let someone from F45 write the workouts. That's probably, honestly, the most accurate take so far. Gosh. I don't know. We got these workouts.

All right, so we got these workouts. Biggest thing I want to say is not even looking at the workouts themselves. Everyone's thinking about quarters for individual. Sure, this is just something to kind of sink our teeth into, get excited about. Hey, they didn't use any 25 foot segments for teams. So they did no lunging for distance. They did no carries. They did no shuttle runs. They did no handstand walk.

Then they also didn't have the GHD in the climbing rope. And we thought that that might be the case. So that's just something good to take note of. The biggest thing for me, other than the movement selection is the fact that there are only four scores. Dave came out and said, hey, there's going to be four workouts. We all thought, okay, there's probably going to be a two-parter. Over the last three years, you've always had five.

This year, teams at least, 20% less tests, right, and taking fewer teams. On the individual side, if this holds suit, 20% less test, 20 less athletes qualify. While I think it's really, really possible to make an amazingly well-rounded workout competition off of four scores. I definitely think it's doable. And while I'll double down and say I do not think there needs to be a one rep max or a two rep or a three rep or a four rep tested when there's only five, six, seven events in a competition because I think it skews the leaderboard too much, I am just shocked, and I will will be shocked if the individuals don't

have at least five scores. I'm not saying one of them needs to be a max lift. I think that deadlift shoulder to overhead workout holding as the heavy workout for teams is going to hold up and it's going to expose the teams that have a weak link. Likewise, I think if they did a 21-15-9 deadlift at 315, shoulder to overhead at 185 per time, that would do the same thing for the individuals. It would expose the guys that are just weak and the females that are just weak. I think it would do that. But that's the biggest concern for me is, okay, foot in the ground, four scores. If it's that for individuals, what are the tests going

to look like? And is it possible going from such a big number, such a variety of athletes to only 40, is it going to be well-rounded enough? Or are we just going to have a ton of people that because they're not the cream of the crop don't qualify? And it's just going to be like, yep, they don't matter anyway. So here's my question to you are based off of the three open workouts and these four team workouts for the teams that are qualifying or for the team athletes in general, was this a well-balanced test to this point? When I look at the, when I look at the seven, I think there are a lot of things that haven't been tested yet. And I'm just going off of what was told to us by those people who are in charge. Hey, the quarterfinals is kind of just an extension of the open.

And that's kind of what we're doing it as, right? And okay, I get that. Cool. So if it's an extension and you're using the same movements while they're served up differently, that's kind of hard for me to get on board with. So you't think it's well-rounded i don't at all if we're saying that the quarterfinals is an extension of the open which i'm totally okay with geez louise don't program the same movements twice would you ever program thrusters uh would you ever program whatever lateral burpees in week one of the open and then in week five of the open do it again? That's just crazy. Uh

Yeah, and the pushback to us is going to be well you guys are looking at individual workouts versus team workouts Everything is different. Sure. There's some synchro stuff But like I I look at a workout just like the dumbbell snatch toaster bar And I think the movement combinations is great. And I think the heavy dumbbell is the right move. I think you're making everybody do a hundred synchro dumbbell snatches, but you're only making some people do 50 synchro toaster bar. Why not just have it four person synchro snatch,

four person synchro toaster bar. If you really want to expose someone, expose them. Like make, make it clear that, hey, this team isn't moving on because they've got a weak link and it's obvious. We can't hide them and just one pair do 20 and the other pair do 80. That's when I look at it more so from a framing standpoint. I think because of what it's supposed to be, there's too much redundancy.

There's too much repetition going from the open into quarters. I think with so many movements, and hey, we're looking at this now, maybe it's because when the individual workouts come out, there's going to be no overlap, and there's only going to be like rowing, and that's the only movement that's going to be repeated. Everything else is going to be a new movement. We're going to see some movement variety. We're going to see some movement variety. We're going to see some creativity.

I mean, that's all I can really hope for. Yeah. And do you really think that that's going to be the case? I mean, let's be honest. Well, in the past, they haven't repeated movements very often. So in that regard, yes, I do. Like, I think there's going to be lunging. I think there's going to be a box used.

It's been Burpee Box Jump over every single year, quarterfinals so far. Maybe they use it for like a step up or a step over with dumbbells. I still think there's going to be muscle ups in teams and individuals for sure. I think there's going to be toes to bar in individuals and teams. So I think there'll be a few movements that overlap, but all in all, I think there's going to be a lot more movement variety and a lot more... Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you.

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it's free. Yes, you heard that right. From the crispest lettuce to the juiciest apples, Loblaws is committed to fresh. So you get the best fruits and veggies look for new value programs when you shop at loblaws in-store and online conditions may apply see in-store for details different format and let me explain that in this competition for teams there are some same-sex work there's some co-ed work there's some all four doing something there's not a relay which i don't think is a bad thing so there's not

a true relay of person one person two person three person four and they all have to do the work you know the same workout individually but i'm talking about formats as in hey there is a four time then there is a interval then there is an amrap then there is a uh gate stop type workout then there is a progression workout like i think we're gonna see probably hopefully um some more variety and creativity when it comes to individual stuff and you're not and you're not optimistic i uh it's hard to be optimistic brother just gotta be honest um i don't want to have my expectations set at a level where i think they would be reasonably to be set at and just be completely let down and have any sort of drive and motivation to perform well, pitter out as the workouts become released.

What I said a few minutes ago when I was going kind of on and on and trying to get through that whole thought of just the implications over the set of workouts, you said it a couple weeks ago. Hey, I don't think they care who the 40 are that get there. There are some that have never made it before that get through based on the test. Cool. And those ones that didn't, that have made it through a couple years in a row, they've just got some chinks in their armor,

and they're not really relevant anyway at the semis. The top 10 are just going to be a top 10. Do you think that that's – have you accepted that's just kind of how it is? Like, hey, they just care about getting to the next stage. They know the best is going to move on. It doesn't matter if it's the open and it's super accessible workouts or if it's quarterfinals and it's super accessible workouts. The best of the best, it's not going to matter what you give them.

They're just going to move on. I think that's an excuse as to them not doing a good job. I think that's their excuse. If they really do believe that, and that's the approach they take to programming the Open and quarterfinals, good God, they should be fired, and new people need to be put into those positions who actually give a solid fuck and are willing to work their butt off to give the best absolute

workout every single time they're given the opportunity to. But if you're just like, ah, it doesn't really matter anyways. The best will get to the games. Like, why are you even doing it? I just don't,

I don't understand why, what is going on that you could not feel like you have to put your absolute best foot forward, both creativity, simplicity, elegance, getting people fired up to do the workouts, um, in every single workout that you put out to the world. Um, so I just am, I'm shocked. Not really that shocked because it's kind of been going this way for a couple of years. It's so boring. Nobody looks at these workouts and is like,

ooh, I want to do that. It's like, geez, we just did 100 dumbbell snatches three weeks ago in the open, dude. Should I just be doing dumbbell snatches and toes to bar every day? How about this? I'm going to write you a great program for you to do great at the Open and quarterfinals.

It's going to be toes-to-bar every day, deadlifts every day, burpees every day, front squats and shoulder-to-overheads at 185, 125 every single day. And you're going to finish every day with meter rowing intervals. And there, you've done all five movements that they could possibly even imagine programming. You win. When you look at the deadlift in the open for week two, and I would say that's the most accessible, easiest to program with 185. And then they're like, all right, cool. I crushed the deadlift workout with 185. Now I've got to front squat it. Now I've got to go shoulder to overhead with it. Do you think that jump in complexity, ability, hardness, whatever you want to call it,

is appropriate for the athletes going from the open 16 quarters? Dude. Do you see how hard I'm getting you? I'm trying to get you to be positive about it. Dude. Do you see how hard I'm getting you? I'm trying to get you to be positive about it. Yeah. And it's not working because what I also know is that it's gotta be, it's gotta be the same workouts for age groups and individuals in a couple of weeks.

It's gotta be able to be running an affiliate. So it's really hard for you to look at these workouts and not just think, okay, there it is. This is how individual is going to be. Yeah, it's just I think it's going to be bad. Sorry, I just keep looking over in the comments and deleting a particular person's comments. I'm not going to mention them by name. They're irrelevant.

Why do you think I don't look at the comments, so I don't know what you're talking about. This is why do you think um i don't look at the comments so i don't know what you're talking about uh this is a this is kind of like in the weeds programming type question for you so the last two years and i actually actually been was very glad to see it last year they did uh alternating pairs rowing shoulder overhead synchro at 185 max rope climb that was one of their workouts this year they're doing the shoulder to overhead synchro work with the deadlifts why do you think like heavier for reps like a 185 so let's just say 225 why do you think shoulder overhead was programmed so much back in the day in

like online competitions and and in some in-person competitions, but we never see it individually programmed. Like for me, I can give you a set of 50 handstand pushups. I don't care. Make them strict, make them, make them, make them six inch deficit. Let's just do that for the sake of the movement pattern. And you can strategically break that up and get through it really fast and probably hang with some people that are doing bigger chunks. If I give you 185 and say you have 50 reps of it, if you're planning breaks to get through that, you are getting dusted in that workout. So that's a movement I really, really hope does carry over.

So that's a movement I really, really hope does carry over. Like give people 185 and a chipper for 50 reps and let there be some separation. Why do you think it's never programmed for individuals? It was programmed in individual quarterfinals year one, not with a heavy bar, but with dumbbells. Yeah, that's like 115. Yeah, that's like 115. I'm saying something substantial that, hey, if you have to break, boom, that's 10 people that just beat you. Oh, you have to break again?

Cool, that's 20 people that just beat you. They did it with the dumbbell chipper in the online semifinals 2021. I know, again, with 50s, but it was way more volume. I'm just curious. Because we don't see a lot of that carryover between individual quarterfinals and team quarterfinals. Do you think it's a perceived judging difficulty? Locking out the knees, reaching extension before you... I mean, do you think maybe there's someone in that team of people

that's too hard to judge? That can't be the case because you've done it for teams and you're doing it synchro. So you've got to watch double. But you've got to slow it down for synchro. Okay, maybe. Maybe so. I'm saying maybe there's a person there who just has it in their brain

that somehow judging a 185 shorted overhead is harder than judging a pistol squad in online competition. And that's just their opinion and perspective. Just like I don't have a tough time tolerating a lot of shoulder volume in my training. And you probably don't have a tough time tolerating a lot of pulling volume in your training and their own personal biases causing the program to serve away. I bet they don't even talk about that type of shit in these meetings. They don't even realize that thing. Well, let's look at the programming for these four team workouts, and let's kind of break

down a little bit of the movement patterns, right? So you got a row handstand push-up wall ball workout. So in the end, that's going to become like whose arms just get tired first, right? This is facts, by the way. Then this is the only hope I'm holding out is that I've always felt this way. Sorry. No, you're good. Let's just say that there's a, let's just call it pressing stamina, right?

And that's what the workout is going to be, you know, is going to come down to. Cool. Well, on the muscle up workout with the burpees, there's only going to be 50 of the burpees. That's going to come down to pressing stamina, right? A ring muscle up is usually not failed because of the pull. It's failed because of the press in the deadlift shoulder overhead workout I think there's gonna be more separation in the shoulder overhead than the deadlift you can pull singles on the deadlifts all day and still not be too

far behind in a 15 minute AMRAP you start breaking the shoulder overheads into like sets of one and two you're're done. It's finished. So another overhead pressing stamina workout. I'm seeing a lot of overhead here. In the past, we've seen at least one really, really dense handstand pushup workout for individual quarterfinals. Do you think we see more of the same because we really didn't do anything overhead other than the thruster in the open and I'm kind of thinking now that I'm talking through it way more pressing than pulling right okay fine if you want to say a ream up up as a push and a pull that's great but they took rope climbs out there are no chest to bars I don't think of a toes to bar as a pulling movement at all I'm sure there's going to be some grip fatigue there,

but it's probably going to be more midline integrity than anything else. Do you think it's just going to be kind of set like without a rope, simply without rope climbs, do you think it's going to be skewed to the pressing side, even for individuals? I think you mentioned like a burpee pull-up type test um last week uh i think that would be the only way and it would have to be a substantial amount of volume for them to get a lot of pulling in but even if they did that burpees are so much press anyways that

i think still it's going to be press dominant which i'm okay with i think it just really needs to be balanced well. I don't know. Again, I don't think they think of people with, you know, I don't think they consider the size thing. But if you make it 185. It doesn't like the athlete build. Yeah, but if you make it 185 shoulder to overheads and handstand pushups that really matter,

you've just skewed the programming to people with short limbs so much and someone like Brent going to struggle. Yeah. Um, I mean, obviously this is like, it's the coolest time of the year, right? We, we get on here and we critique and we try to break down and we nitpick and we get very snobbish with the way that we think workouts should be written. But it's the coolest time of year to see the workout that everyone's going to have to do, regardless of if they like them or don't like them, or they favor them or don't favor them, to move on to semis. Likewise at semis, same thing. Games, same thing.

I look back to the year after you made last-chance qualifier to those four. There was the 185 thruster bar muscle up back to back that was one of the coolest program workouts i've ever seen in an online competition for total reps you started with bar muscle up on one of them and you started with um thrusters on the other there was 55 clean and jerks and shuttle runs and just from those two events i was like cool you don't need a lift like that's going to going to show you right there at least who's weak. And, yes, I know the field's different since last chance qualifier. Then you had the burpee box jump over wall ball double under workout.

That was just nasty, and it was just all gas. Didn't Boz program that? Yeah, he did, and that's kind of where I'm going with this. Is that Dave's outdated? I'll say it. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. And then for the last workout of that competition, help me out.

I just lost it. You interrupted me. It was row handstand walk or the clean and jerk start run? Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, row handstand walk. So you have to take a chance on the row. You have to have time if you want time. And then can you handstand walk under a lot of the refs fast i thought those four tests like if that was this year's quarterfinals

for individual stamp of approval yeah it would have scared the fuck out of me too awesome workouts i'm not even gonna i'm not even gonna say well i mean most people can't even do the shuttle run one because 225 yes that was a different. All these athletes were like games caliber doing that test. But I said in the beginning of the show, and a lot of people probably didn't hear it, I don't think that you have to have more than four to make it a good test. Correct. But I think it's too risky not to have more than four. And I think there are people out there, if there are four, they have a hole,

and it is not going to be exposed. And they're just going to kind of grin and be like, well, thank God there's not a really dense midline test like last year's VFGHD workout or I'd be toast. Okay, cool. I guess you're going to do GHDs at semifinals. Like there are going to be people that get through. And then on the other side of it, there are going to be people that are like, good for them. If that's a lifelong accomplishment, that's great. And for those that didn't get in, maybe you need to just make sure you don't have any holes moving forward. But I say all that to come back to your point that you just made. We've seen it be done. I think Bob's has really, really, really good programmed workouts. I've

actually thought the team workouts of the last couple of years have been some of the coolest workouts I've seen quarterfinals level, semifinals level and teams level. I've really, really enjoyed them. Do you think Boz wrote these? Do you think Dave wrote them? Do you think it was a combination? I think these workouts were not written by Boz. I think they probably weren't written by Dave, but they got Dave's stamp of approval.

Um, and I think the team that's writing programming that isn't boss, that is Dave's team that he stamps his approval upon. They write workouts that they know Dave is going to like if they're a team under him and they're looking for his approval and they're looking to write a test that's going to pass his test and say, yep, this is good, you're naturally going to write in a particular way. I think when Dave left and we got to see Boz's expression, especially in the last chance qualifier workouts, gosh, those were so freaking cool. Yeah, it was just I just don't know where things have gone wrong. I also look at the 2021 CrossFit semifinals, online semifinal workouts. Did Boz have a hand in those?

Yeah, so Boz's first year, and he said it on a podcast, was actually 2021 was the first time he had kind of been given the responsibility of some online competitions. So as far back as 2021 you look at the 2021 semi-final online programming and those workouts are no freaking joke and i love them the gymnastics one that had like 60 ring muscle ups in it i like that one but what i more like what i think was one of the coolest workouts was that dumbbell chipper the dumbbell deadlifts dumbbell shoulder to overhead single arm overhead squats crazy awesome workout yeah um the uh what do they do ingrid um and i think yeah in person did gretel i believe they did gretel or in person to gretel something along those lines um the legless workout it was just a thing of beauty um i think that whether they're trying to appease this idea of what don or the board wants programming wise like these office monkeys have any idea

what they're looking at to begin with i hope that's not the case well that's a really good point dude like they're if they're like hey we want a lot of people to do the Open. We want to leave a good taste in their mouth after the first two weeks. But you know what? I know week three I'm probably not going to be able to perform the way that I have on weeks one and two. But that's fine. It's the last week. I'm definitely going to sign up next year.

You got me. Retain. Cool. We know that they've broadened the net. We want to give more people the opportunity to sign up for quarterfinals, whether it is, um, whether it's a money grab or not,

it's kind of on us, right? It's like, Hey, if you don't want to do it, don't sign up. If you want to do it, sign up.

We're just giving you the opportunity to do it. Dude. Do you, do you, do you see that coming into the, the Fred, just like, Hey,

from a programming standpoint too. Yes. Not necessarily have to start a workout with 225 front squat doesn't need to be that hard but but do you think there is a con going to be when we see the workouts like these are here a conscious decision of like we want to make sure three of the four you could pretty much do them you might not be able to do them fast but you're going to be able to do them this is the thing uh greg Glassman said it very well on yesterday's live calling with Sevan, or maybe the day before, but he said, if you think that the games or the open is what's

making CrossFit money or what made CrossFit money in the past, you are a freaking idiot. And I'll pull up this comment as well. The goal is participation. Greg Glassman in the comment says, DEI programming. I would 100% agree. When you look at the open, you think, oh, everyone can do it. Everyone's going to be happy about it. They're all going to do the workout. So they're going to sign up next year. And this is how we're going to make CrossFit rich. Well, you're a stupid, big, dumb idiot. Because if you go back to 2001, when the first workout on main site ever got dropped, fast and heavy, run and dumbbell thrusters. They put something into the world that people had never experienced.

Something hard. Something that made you look at it and say, oh, fuck. And that's what exploded CrossFit. One, it's the greatest methodology on earth. It's observable. It's measurable. It's repeatable. It's fun.

But they're slowly and slowly painting it different shades of gray and taking the fun out of it and turning it into this ugly Russian gulag. And it's not this beautiful, creative expression of fitness anymore. And you're not putting things out that people look at and say, oh shit, that looks fun. That looks super hard. It makes me nervous. I want to do it. I'm going to stay awake at night thinking about this workout.

No, instead, you put them to sleep in math class with a 20-frickin'-minute AMRAP of 300-meter rows, 10 deadlifts of 185 and double unders. Come on, what are you doing? Jeez. You remember in the old frickin' dot-com workouts, you used to say, climb a rope.

Use your foot if you must. Handstand push-ups are to be done without assistance of a wall, but if you need to scale, use a wall. Jeez. I don't know. I'm just fired up because it's everything. He's fired up, everybody, because the clock is ticking. In about two weeks, he's going to be going head to head against three other savages. And he wants to know that the workouts are well-written.

That's all he's saying. That's what he's really thinking about. Yeah. It's, uh, let me just tell you, they're just not going to do anything cool. So I don't have my hopes up.

Hey, if it's burpees and dumbbell snatches again, thanks for the dub guys. I appreciate it. Um, especially if it's burpee pull-ups, Colton, you're freaking going down. Hey, if it's burpees and dumbbell snatches again, thanks for the dub, guys. I appreciate it. Especially if it's burpee pull-ups, Colton. You're freaking going down. Hey, we probably need to talk to Sevan about this, but the workouts come out next Wednesday.

The competition starts Thursday. We can keep Shut Up and Scribble on Thursday. Next? Sorry, two weeks from today. Chill, dude. I'm not ready yet. We could do like a first takes, shut up and scribble show. You can go ahead and get in good and get all your emotions out next Wednesday instead of waiting until Thursday,

or we can just do a Thursday. Um, but I was thinking about it more so from a standpoint of when Thursday rolls around, you might not be doing any of them, but you want to, you want to be getting your mind right. You don't want to be going into it with the mindset of it's a good workout or

it's a bad workout. It's just a workout you have to do. And that's all. Yeah. We're going to do that show Wednesday because I'm pretty sure we start our workouts Thursday. We're doing them Thursday and Friday. I'm not, I'm not waiting two days to do shit. Yeah. Thursday, Friday. So yeah, we should probably do that show in two Wednesdays, like a first takes type show. Um, yeah, well here guys, this honestly, seven minutes of burpee pull-ups

would have been cooler than this stupid synchro workout because at least it's like an homage to old school crossfit this is nothing but a big vegan beyond meat burger of a workout and that's all it is and i just can't help myself but it's speaking of speaking of homages crash crucible or crash crescendo team workouts for the girls all based on old benchmark workouts those will be trickling out here pretty soon. I'm interested to see what you think about those as a competitor, but also just as a programming snob. All right. Well, I'm excited to see him drop everybody. Thank you for tuning in as always.

Just remember I am this upset and butthurt because I care a ton and because in some aspects of life that's just the way I am which you know take it or leave it but at the end of the day I love CrossFit I absolutely am obsessed with CrossFit just like JR is

we love you guys we love programming and be on the lookout for more cool shiz from both of us. Deuces.