Misfit Podcast
Misfit Athletics provides information and programming to competitive Crossfit athletes of all levels.
Misfit Podcast
Rogue Invitational Recap with Paige Semenza - E.328
Paige Semenza, fresh from her impressive showing at the Rogue Invitational, joins us on the Misfit Podcast. Discover how Paige, without prior experience, delivered a stunning 220-yard drive on the golf simulator. We share a glimpse into our personal lives, from tackling the challenges of indoor golf simulators to the joys of strength training—revealing a favorite workout routine that gets the blood pumping.
Get inside the world of competitive fitness as we dissect the Rogue Invitational's athlete-centered approach, noting how streamlined judging and effective tapering can transform performance. We unravel the meticulous balance of training volume and intensity, highlighting the hurdles of maintaining consistency and focus in high-pressure environments. With personal anecdotes, we bring the psychological edge needed for competition, from mastering complex moves to adapting to last-minute changes with resilience.
Our journey continues with a deep dive into competition strategy, where the art of pacing and intelligent execution can make or break outcomes. Tackle travel logistics, the quirks of international flights, and the nuances of strategizing for events like CrossFit challenges. Witness the mental toughness required to endure grueling workouts, and celebrate the personal growth that transcends leaderboard positions. Whether you're a seasoned athlete or a fitness enthusiast, gain insights into the strategic and mental fortitude that drive success in the world of competitive fitness.
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We're all misfits, all right, you big, big bunch of misfits. You're a scrappy little misfit, just like me Biggest bunch of misfits I ever seen either.
Speaker 2:Good morning misfits. You are tuning into another episode of the Misfit Podcast. On today's episode we have a special guest page, simenza. We are going to check in on page and do a little rogue invitational recap. Um, but before we get into that, as always, life chat hunter page. Hello, how are we doing?
Speaker 3:doing well, good, good I got a question for you page listeners um. This is live chat. I did see the video and I recall it. I remember the video. My question for you is what club did you swing and how far did it go when you were checking in at Rogue?
Speaker 2:It was a really good looking swing.
Speaker 3:It was like that's an athlete.
Speaker 2:That's an athlete figure out how to upload uh, another one so we can get a swing analysis.
Speaker 1:But you guys, you guys carry the episode here for a minute yeah, I mean, I don't know, alex, the guy that was there was just try this one, try that one. I tried, uh, I think, an, I don't remember which one, though.
Speaker 3:And then I was like, can I just have a driver? Give me that, just give me that, let me swing it.
Speaker 1:I didn't get it very far. I think like 220, I think was my furthest.
Speaker 3:That's pretty fucking good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, when you watch some of the other girls swing in a club, it wasn't that great. No, yeah. In a club, it wasn't that great. No, yeah, I was like. I was like that was.
Speaker 3:That was a. That was a high level athlete who's never played golf before swinging a club and it was like she's like, she's like 70 of the way to a really good looking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually thought I was better than jake. Jake marconi. We won't tell him that, though probably definitely. I'll tell honestly he's like locked knees and he didn't look like a golfer so his only?
Speaker 2:the only people that have taught him how to golf recently are matt o'keefe, who's a scratch golfer, uh, scott stallings, who is a pga tour golfer. Um. So I was like oh, so, like blank slate. And he's like, oh no, it was bad, I'm terrible. I was like oh shit.
Speaker 1:I should post those videos. Yeah, his knees were locked out. It was pretty bad.
Speaker 3:Yikes yeah.
Speaker 1:That's pretty much the extent of my life. Chat Right Just Scotland this week I said that's like the extent of my live chat right now, hey Hunter. You seeing this? Yeah, I got it.
Speaker 3:Pretty solid setup. Do a little wide for the leg.
Speaker 2:That's the one you told me to.
Speaker 3:Left arm yeah, I'll tell you the guy I work with I feed in quite a bit because it helps with rotation. So but I mean, bring my feet in quite a bit. It helps with rotation.
Speaker 1:I was trying to go slow-mo.
Speaker 2:Try to break this down. That's the one.
Speaker 3:You have a tiny bit over the top, but it looks like you didn't go too far, right it's nice and straight. Right elbow stays close. Paige, you got to.
Speaker 1:I was annoyed that I didn't get to step up. Yeah, I was going to say whenever full competitive Paige retires.
Speaker 3:I don't know she might come back out on a golf course. I feel like you would. You might enjoy it.
Speaker 1:I probably would. I don't know if I have the patience for all the small, like the tedious parts of it, but just I like the driving range I'll go to the driving range often if I have the time nice, how's your gonna chat? I talked about ways to like spend time with my brother and I'm like that would be probably the only way I could spend time with my brother Could you drink as many beers as him, though.
Speaker 3:Definitely not.
Speaker 1:Definitely not.
Speaker 3:I don't have a whole lot of life chat going on.
Speaker 1:It's the end of the golf season, which is sad you go to a simulator?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. I've received a few gift cards from a couple of different folks, so I've slowly stockpiled a few dollars in simulator credit which will carry me through a couple of the winter months.
Speaker 3:simulator credit which will be, which will carry me through a couple of the the winter months. But uh, yeah, I asked for a putting mat for my birthday or christmas from santa claus and mom and brother so, uh, be able to get some short game practice dialed in. But nice, yeah, I had like $230 or some odd in shop credit so that I had to cook through by the end of the before the, before the course closed for the winter. So I've got a, got a 60 degree wedge waiting for me at a at none such. So I got to get a zip on over there at some point today. Might sneak in a couple of holes while I'm there, why not?
Speaker 2:Okay, what do I got? Um, I'll do, I'll do a meathead update and then I have one that's slightly serious, mostly just cute, um so my favorite day on project.
Speaker 2:I'm calling it project lollipops because two blues, two blue Razz blow pops goat candy of the nineties. So project lollipops. My favorite day on it is three by 10 strict press into six by 10 football bar bench. I just looked like someone sticks a needle in me and pumps me full air by strict press into six by 10 football bar bench. Um, I just looked like someone sticks a needle in me and pumps me full of air by the end of it. I fucking love it. Um, and I really thought that this was going to be the week that I had to end my linear progression with three by 10. And lo and behold, that's not the case.
Speaker 1:Had a little bit of candy on the airplane uh. D load last week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I felt fucking fantastic. I will say, though I did not feel conditioned when I switched over to the football bar bench, but that's not like the most surprising thing in the world.
Speaker 3:What was the three by 10 weight you up to 185?.
Speaker 2:No, probably not. What 185. Oh my God, if I could do 185. No god, 145. First of all, you guys don't know me at all. My 10 rep max and one rep max are 100 pounds apart.
Speaker 2:No, I'm up to like maybe 130 as like a top set something like that three by ten, yeah, I mean like the first set is always a joke, but the accumulation with strict press, just like adds up really fast like the. The third set's always challenging. Um, so I'm alive and well. Uh, I've got a. I've got a four by five this weekend. That could get a little iffy. That's probably starting to get up into like the one sixties which again, for my like pressing endurance, is not excellent, but I haven't had to turn around yet.
Speaker 2:And then I got a life lesson from my 18 month old son this morning. He is obsessed with buses, trucks, mail trucks, the mailman, and he has this like book series that he likes called the little blue truck, and my found one where the little blue truck becomes a bus. Um, so this morning I like was getting his breakfast ready. I'm like very regimented with him. Um, like a schedule works really well for a kid. They sleep better, they eat better, like if they sort of can predict what's going to happen. So I'm super regimented with him. But I think you can like overdo it.
Speaker 2:So I'm like making his breakfast running a little bit late this morning and I couldn't really like hear him or see him and I was like what's going on here, like he's at the age now where that's not like the biggest deal. But I peeked around the corner and he was sitting there with the book. So I was like oh, a little blue truck. And he starts laughing but then like clearly wants me to read it to him. So he walks over, hands me the book and if I'm doing something else, I'll just like set the book up on the ground so he can like look at it and whatever. And he looks at me and he goes sit and he walks back into the living room and sits down on this mini couch that he has and it's like padding next to it.
Speaker 2:So I like walked over and sat down and read him the whole book yeah, basically, and it was just like the moment of like you got to fucking take it easy, guy. This is the little blue truck in the bus. We got to read this right now, like you don't need to make my breakfast.
Speaker 1:The breakfast is going to be waiting for five minutes.
Speaker 3:It's this right now, like you don't need to make my breakfast. The breakfast is going to be waiting five minutes.
Speaker 2:It's not a big deal, yeah so lovely little life lesson from a 18 month old child. Wait, so he's. We got first words then, clearly, or was sit his first word? He, uh, speaks like a two and a half or three year old. He's been talking for a while. He's like put together sentences and can fucking count and yeah he, he's a little little, fucking brainiac. His doctor was like holy shit nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what was his first word?
Speaker 2:or his first words that's what we call. That's what we call nice yeah oh, that's so cute yeah, he is. He like bubba, tate, tate and hanky are like like, those were like mostly his first words he did say mama before data, but if you enunciate anything, he will say it back to you any word. It's fucking crazy and it's. It was weird at first because, like he, wasn't walking over here.
Speaker 3:Come here, smart ass, we'll play a game, thank you. Thank you, so smart.
Speaker 2:So yeah he's a big talker, big language guy. All right, let's talk rogue invitational. Um. There's no way that you're listening to this podcast and don't know what that was or the fact that page just went to the rogue invitational um. But I think when we have an experience like that, especially when there's just not man, this sport is just so weird. With the amount of opportunities you get on a year-to-year basis to go do something like that, it's kind of crazy, um. So things that happen there and the way that we prepare for them and execute are really top of mind when we do get the opportunity to go and do an event like that. So I want to kind of break down sort of the way that you execute page, the way that you think about things. But I think the first question is just like how was it? Like, what was your experience like?
Speaker 1:I've been to Rogue this year and last year. Last year I kind of got a last minute opportunity. This year I earned the invite competing at the games and it's just top notch, like they think about almost everything and just all the situations that might occur. Obviously there's some where it's, you know, really unprecedented. You might not really expect. You know the injuries that happen there, but they're always willing to adapt and change on the fly, which most events aren't that ready and prepared to go, and they just spoil you. They spoil the shit out of you and it's just. They make you feel special, they make you feel like an athlete and that's really what you want. Like you, you want to go and compete and that's exactly what you get and it's well delivered there.
Speaker 2:There's also like it's in the rogue way, though, like it's not pomp and circumstance. Their judging standards are so straightforward, like they don't over complicate things, like just the example that comes to mind, um the guy who I think his name is rob yeah um, the guy who sort of runs that side of things for the competition just has a matter of fact way, I think he's Scottish right, didn't he?
Speaker 1:say he's either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's like basically like what we want to say at briefings, like do the movement? That's it. Like that's all I'm asking you to do. Like they did at Hunter, they did a wall walk complex where you would wall walk into two wall facing handstand pushups and then walk back down.
Speaker 2:And that was a single rep and he's just like we want you to have to move through the range of motion and have to come up and down, but like I don't care when your feet come down, I don't care when your hands come down. You're up on the wall and then your hands are in front of the line.
Speaker 2:Done, you can't somersault off the wall you can't cartwheel off the wall like and he's like when you're going, like it's going to be the same amount of work for you. Same concept like I want your hands here and I want to want you to walk yourself up the wall.
Speaker 3:Like and I think that's like that about a few different. That's such a missing like thing from so many competitions, even like the open. Does that remember the year we had, like the the bar facing burpee fiasco of like people screenshotting like?
Speaker 2:one and a half foot off the ground it's like well, like why are?
Speaker 3:why do we have these standards that are just like they're not? Not only are they impossible to objectively measure, but they don't fucking matter.
Speaker 3:Like the person who's gonna do a burpee that they step over the barbell is in no danger of winning the competition. Right, the fittest person is going to jump over the bar. Same thing with, like the wall facing handstand. It's like I'm not trying to see if both of your hands get over the line before a foot touches the ground. Like because that doesn't fucking matter. Like climb up the wall, touch your head to the mat twice, come come back down.
Speaker 1:Like don't don't somersault Like that's so easy, yeah, and there's different ways to do things right, like that allows an athlete to kind of express themselves, um, with hitting specific points of performance and that's all they're looking for, um, so I think that that helps the sport kind of move the needle, because it's letting athletes be athletic in places that having too much of a standard doesn't allow for.
Speaker 2:I think at the high level, to, like the devil's advocate, could be like oh, you're basically putting your job as the event organizer, your responsibility, onto the athlete, and I don't think that's the case. Your responsibility onto the athlete.
Speaker 3:And I don't think that's the case.
Speaker 2:I think it's like respectful to say to you guys, like you know what you're doing better than anyone else in the whole world, like if you're going to do it wrong, we're going to notice, the judges are going to notice, but like you didn't really hear much. Um, I do know that on the wall walk handstand pushup one, wall walk handstand push-up one there was one judge that I won't get into it but made some very uh expensive no reps happen and they actually said to the athlete I'm going to be very strict before the event.
Speaker 3:So they knew and it's like a handstand push-up is a fucking handstand push-up there's nothing that you could do in a handstand.
Speaker 2:Push up, especially wall face. It's so hard to keep your head behind your arms yes impossible right and I saw the athlete do the movement. I didn't watch their whole workout because I was watching page, but like I saw enough of it to know that they never would have had a no rep, so like that there are still some people who can spoil stuff. But overall, just when it gets simplified in that way and it's just like go do your thing, it just like it sets the tone for the whole weekend.
Speaker 3:Yeah it does. It also makes it easier on the judges too, and it's like right. The last thing you want is to be a judge who has like a checklist of 47 things you have to look for to make sure the rep counts.
Speaker 2:And it's like no wonder judges give out bullshit, no reps. And then pressure, and then the judge doesn't want to do that anymore. It's like, um, all right, so we have resources on misfit athletics website for how to taper for a competition. Um, we sort of we let all all of our remote coaches know how we like to do it. But then there's the actual execution at a high level. How do you taper and how do you think about tapering like from a, from kind of an execution and mindset standpoint?
Speaker 1:are we talking like the full week of tapering or like the full weeks of progression? Um, no, I would say Like the up in volume, down in volume.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's definitely a piece of like when we are programming for Paige. As she gets closer, we're intensity over volume for sure, but then that transitions over into a taper and I'm just wondering how you think about that.
Speaker 1:I think for me it's keeping the intensity up in the, in the Metcons and the intervals or the bitch work, um again. But the intensity, I think, starts to shift more into the focus of, like, making sure I'm I'm taking care of the recovery side of it and, um, making sure my routines are well established and consistent. And a taper week is just. I really want to feel good that week and I'm going to take the extra time that I'm not training and put it in towards recovery. Or maybe I have time to go to physical therapy an extra day or go for a massage, things like that. So it's more about making sure that I'm in tune with my body and feeling good, um and same with my headspace.
Speaker 2:You swap out movements at all, Like if you were looking at a triplet and it had skiing in it and you were like eh. I'm going to do echo bike, or is it just like still just execute on what's in the sheet?
Speaker 1:Usually it's communicating with your game.
Speaker 2:Sure yeah yeah, because I know some athletes like I want you to like what you're doing this week, so if there's anything you want to swap, go for it. But most athletes that I work with are the type who will be like can I row? It's like, yes, you can fucking row.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like more of like a collaborative thought with it. I think I didn't used to be like that, but I think now, especially with having been through enough injuries where I've had to make so many adjustments, it's making sure that I'm on the same page with who I'm working with and communicating from there. So, um, like you had said, uh, when I was doing like my primer day, you know, make sure movements just feel good. If it's not something that you want, you can swap it out for a different machine. Um, but typically, um, I'll stick with what's in there, because I know that what's in there has the right intention of what I'm like, what we're trying to get. Um, so I usually don't have a problem there, but I would still prefer the collaborative approach, even if it's the week in advance, like a couple of days beforehand, um, so there's not like a tie up in time and not being able to communicate, especially with the time difference especially with the time difference.
Speaker 3:Do you, um, have you ever felt bad in a taper week? Have you ever felt bad like like, oh, I just, like you know, I'm coming kind of back down the volume mountain where you're not maybe feeling so great but like hey, we're getting kind of close to game day and I'm still not feeling great. Have have you ever experienced that? And how do you handle? Like you kind of trust, like, okay, my body will feel better by game day. You know, how do you kind of mentally deal with that when your body maybe is like, am I fucking ready to compete or am I, am I still in the, in the danger zone here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually, um, the week before the games, before getting out there, I had really really bad training and like I was crying about it and I was, I was mostly just kind of being in my own head about it. And then I was talking to Drew and I was like I just don't feel good. He's like I don't think you remember that this happens every time. This is how you guys always feel and it's just the recovery and and more of the anticipation of the competition that's about to begin, um, and then, honestly, it just takes a lot of trust in his word and trust in my training to go out and execute. You know, whether it's the week of a competition and it's Monday, or it's primer day the day before Um, I think it's more of just having faith in your training and trusting the process of of feeling a little beat up but at the same time, feeling prepared. Um, I don't think I've ever been at a point where I feel so wrecked that I'm not going to be able to perform.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the, the understanding your process is one of the most important parts of being a high level competitor. Um, you, just you don't want to be taken aback by something like that.
Speaker 3:um, you also?
Speaker 2:don't want to fight it like if you're gonna.
Speaker 2:I think one of the reasons that I wanted to talk about this like going down the list is like when you think about tapering and traveling, you guys are so regimented and your schedule is what it is and you know your rest days are like you've, kind you've done a lot by the time you get to a rest day so you can handle one of them. But if it feels like you have like six of them or seven of them and you're like the way that you have control over what you're doing is being physical and you're being told to not do that and to do all of these other things and to show up at this place at this time and do this briefing and do whatever, like you can sense a lot of athletes that feel that they're like this is different for me. This is outside of my comfort zone. So knowing how you react as you get closer to a competition, um, and, of course, working on it, but like there's a part of it where you just got to let it happen.
Speaker 2:Cause if you're feeling like really shitty and then you're judging that as well, like you're adding all of this extra pressure on top of it and it's like I'm going to feel shitty but I'm going to like, let myself feel that way, like that can be really helpful for athletes.
Speaker 2:So anytime I'm at a competition with an athlete especially for the first time, even if it's, you know, a misfit athletes that that's coached by another athlete I want to like peek in on that and be like what's your process? Like, where's your headspace at right now? Are you overthinking things? Are you too analytical about it? Like I'm going to go at 57 RPMs in this workout and it just is what it is, even if I'm in last place, like there's there's so many different places that an athlete's mind will go Um and like. Learning to lean into that stuff, I think, is incredibly important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you know, and obviously I have someone like McKenna to kind of, you know, watch her process as well and see like we're very different, and I think a lot of that comes with the experience as well. But the anticipation of like, oh my God, the first workout is in two days, like the first, like the start of the competitions in three days, and two days in one day, Um, if you kind of let that build each day by the time you get to oh shit, the competition is in 12 hours. I need to go to bed, Um, then, yeah, it can really have a negative impact, Um, and I think a lot of it just has to do with always being open, open-minded and willing to adjust to whatever the schedule is, because we can't control that. Um, if we're told to be somewhere at 1130, okay, well, I'm going to plan around that with if I'm going to do primer day and get that done two hours beforehand or or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:So, uh, I think a lot of it comes with experience, Um, and like we had a lot of downtime in Scotland, so that kind of helps, but at the same time you're in Scotland and you want to go explore and see things. So it's kind of a double edged sword of like. I want to go do things but I know it's not in my best interest to be out on my feet for eight hours of the day, two days before the competition, Um, but there are some things on your bucket list and you kind of make some sacrifices there, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Uh, what kind of traveler are you? I've I've traveled with enough CrossFit athletes to know that some just fucking go with the flow and like don't have anything to eat or like a cup of water on the airplane, and then other people have more fucking pillows and gadgets and like schedules. So I'm interested to hear how you travel.
Speaker 1:I think I'm kind of in between I you obviously know that I'm super organized, um, and everything is planned out, uh, from what I need, like that standpoint. Um, I actually traveled with food so I was like I don't know what I'm going to have when I'm out there. So I made a bunch of ground turkey and white rice and I put it in the freezer. And then my travel day it was kind of like it thawed out in my cooler and I put it in the fridge when I got there. So I definitely had meals as I needed, and then I always have snacks. So I definitely am prepared. As far as like having electrolytes and having my sleep mask for the long flight, I feel mostly prepared. I don't feel prepared for when I'm told that it's a hundred dollars to ship one bag. That was just not the fun part. Yeah, I didn't. I haven't traveled enough internationally but I spent a lot of money on bags and I just wasn't ready for that did you fly british airways?
Speaker 2:yeah I went british, then delta I wasn't a fan of british airways. That was like everything about it was antiquated and like normally, like american, any american us based airline is typically rated pretty low. I would rate british airways below delta, below american, below united like oh, I didn't know that it just felt British. You know, I don't know. They just got that vibe like castles and shit, like they made that when they made the planes that I flew on when they made the fucking castles still better.
Speaker 3:They lost the war could be. I exclusively travel two to 48 hours later than I'm supposed to when it's for a crossfit related thing. So in case you were gonna ask me that next, no, we're not gonna ask ahead of time no, I'm saying I'm almost exclusively delayed, anywhere between two and two hours and two days, depending on where we're going yeah out of that main airport we don't want to talk about that.
Speaker 3:Spent an entire goddamn friday work day. It was just. I was just gonna work from the airport. Today I can see my apartment, not fucking, I can literally see my apartment from the terminal. I sat in for eight hours.
Speaker 2:Let's do some events. Event one 10 rounds, one sandbag carry one 400 meter run. The first four 400 meter runs were with a rucksack. Was the women's weight 30? 20. 20 pounds? Um, how did you think about this workout from an execution standpoint? And then, was there anything special about like warming up or cooling down for it?
Speaker 1:um, no, usually we always know that the first event is usually going to be pretty long. As far as the time domain goes, I'm always prepared to do a slightly longer warm-up than usual. If I'm doing a 15-minute sweat check, I'll typically extend that out to 20, 25. I think I actually did 25. When we were there, you had actually said, like this is one of those workouts where each round, like the RPE, is going to go up a little bit. And that was like the perfect kind of mindset to have about it, cause it was like I know that the running is going to get harder and harder, but it's not going to be something that I can't sustain.
Speaker 1:And the sandbags I think, if you know, really the only strategy there was don't leave the heaviest bag for last, or like one of the last. Uh, you know, rounds, um, I actually did the one 50 on like my fifth round. The first time I took the rucksack off, um, and then from there it's just being efficient of getting the bag up on your shoulder and getting moving. So, um, it's just a nonstop workout. I thought it was fun.
Speaker 1:I liked that it was different bags. Um, I think it would have been a little bit better if it was like the drag bags had to be dragged across, cause like I just think that that would change it a little bit Like they were too light that you can just pick it up and throw it on your shoulder, um you think that that was so, there, hunter, the original idea was 10 unmarked sandbags of different sizes, and they tried to trick you they ended up marking them um yeah, and one thing that was interesting is if you watch the early heats, it didn't even cross a lot of athletes minds to to pick up the ones with the drag handle on them.
Speaker 3:Um, so like, I just like could you carry more than one at once?
Speaker 2:no, no no, you had to take one. You had to take one per round um. So it was just interesting, like you, we just saw how slow it was and I was like do not drag that thing, pick that thing out, yeah, so like a little bit of like it's cool in theory, but if we notice that, then we.
Speaker 1:I just get to tell you that that sort of thing right yeah I think if they had kept it so at the standard was like the drag bags you have to drag them, the the, uh, jerry cans you have to carry it, like a Jerry can, like I don't know. I just think that would have different, differentiated the workout a little bit more than that, just being a straight running workout, cause that's really what it was.
Speaker 3:Did you do the um? Were you at the games the year they did the sandbag?
Speaker 1:The Capitol.
Speaker 3:Yeah no, no no, no, the um. I think they were still in. They were still in California. It was the. It was the sandbag, the capital. Yeah, no, no, no, the um. I think they were still in.
Speaker 1:They were still in california it was the, it was the sandbag, it was the, it was the old old, the wheelbarrow. Yeah, the wheelbarrow yeah, uh, no, I wasn't there okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was just curious if, if there have you, have you done an event, other events where, like because we, for the most part, like you, don't get to kind of choose how you complete the work, right? So like in this instance, you could, like you know, you got to be a little bit strategic about what sandbags you pick when yeah.
Speaker 3:Do you like workouts like that? Do you like where there's like a little bit of the like? I think that's like another step in like the strategic element versus just like how am I going to break up these muscle ups?
Speaker 3:like oh it's the like there's a little bit more strategy to in my mind with something like that than just like a a workout where you got to break things up yeah, I mean it also like you know you're in the back and you're corralled and you're getting ready to go and someone's like, so what's your?
Speaker 1:And I'm like I don't want to tell you, like what if my strategy is wrong versus your strategy? Like I don't want to tell you, um, but yeah, I think it again kind of speaks to the athlete knowing themselves enough to to know how to break it up, and then it leaves room for that creativity of being an athlete and having to use what we call our athlete IQ. There was an open workout that was like that.
Speaker 1:The row muscle up and wall ball, yeah, which I thought was cool. We've only done that, like once, which I don't know. I think it speaks to how you know, find the right strategy for you.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't yeah, one thing that page does well that we talked about before the event is don't second guess yourself while you're doing the workout, because obviously these like it was cool to watch because when they came back from the run route they ran through ze.
Speaker 2:They had to run down the lane, get the bag, bring it back and drop it in Zeus before going out for another lap.
Speaker 2:So you got this really cool visual of where everyone was at in relation to one another and whether you could go execute on this thing and then pop back out in front of someone that you were behind or vice versa, and it would add up a lot. You would have to make up a ton of ground on running If you went out there and tried to figure out what bag you were going to pick up and how you were going to pick it up. Like you could have that moment of like Whoa, I just picked up the one 50. Like I saw multiple athletes like pick it up and like get like kind of tossed around a little bit, but then they went and you know they just moved it and dropped it and it's like, well, that's, you know, checked off. So we talked about like, yeah, we want to. We don't want to pick up the heaviest ones with the ruck. We also don't want to leave it late.
Speaker 1:But if you pick something up, that's your fucking sandbag yeah, like, like that sort of thing um, so I think, yeah, you almost had to be, yeah, yeah, you almost had to be. Um, a little proactive of like okay, I'm picking this one up, but what is the one next to it, so I can look at that for next round. Is that an ideal one to pick up, or should I take another step and pick up the one that's behind it? Um, so it's kind of like I'm on round four, but I'm already thinking of what round five is, so that I'm mentally ready to to pick up that next weight.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:All right. Individual event Number two 26 calorie echo bike. 16 ring muscle ups, eight squat snatch at 160 pounds, six shuttle sprints. Let's tell the listeners how many muscleups did you do in September?
Speaker 1:and.
Speaker 2:October Paige.
Speaker 1:Zero, none. How many squat?
Speaker 2:snatches did you do in September and October? Paige.
Speaker 1:None.
Speaker 2:Maybe an empty bar. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Maybe an empty bar.
Speaker 2:This was for me. I could tell in the back that you were ready to do this workout, but me that I don't get to go out there, I don't get to be like, no, no no you're good You're, you're doing great Like, like.
Speaker 2:that's where the coach, you have these moments of like. Just let me have an earpiece. Come on, just let me you know just a couple of notes here, an earpiece. Come on, just let me just you know just a couple of notes here. Um, for me this was a pivotal moment in the way that the rest of the weekend was going to go right. This is like I haven't done these things, but I've got my 10 000 hours. How's my shoulder gonna hold up Like? This was a pretty big moment in the competition, so how'd it go?
Speaker 1:So I finished ninth, which was a surprise. We had snatched. I had done I snatched twice the week of because I hadn't done it before, like prior to that week of going into the competition. So I snatched twice that week, both times building up to like right around 165. So I was like I at least know I can do it, Can I do it after going pretty hard on an echo bike and then fatiguing my, my pulling and my pressing in the ring muscle up, Um so, but I think a lot of girls also were, um, not sure how it was going to go, a little uncertain, uh, after the ring muscle ups.
Speaker 1:But I was the last off the bike, probably out of both heats, Um, just casual. It wasn't like a slow bike but it wasn't a fast one either. I was like 60 to I was like 63 to 65 RPMs, Um, so we had finished right around the time domain that you had even like predicted. So we had finished right around the time domain that you had even like predicted and I get off that I broke my muscle ups into three sets, um, three or four actually four and then yeah, it's four long and wide.
Speaker 1:Ring straps are a different yeah, yeah, um, yeah, they really do throw you off. And then from there it was just. I think I had two fails on the snatches to start. First one just went way behind me, so I like overshot that one. But then from there it was like all right, if it's going behind me, I know that I have the pulling and I'm going to be fast to get under the bar. So it was more of just making sure I can stabilize at the bottom, which I did struggle with, but I didn't have any more misses from there on out. And then the shuttle runs. You just felt like molasses, like that.
Speaker 2:Those are so funny. It was like time warp. You guys were all so slow. It was amazing to watch you guys just run laps.
Speaker 1:You didn't feel slow, but yeah, that was a great event. I was really happy about that. You didn't feel slow, but yeah, that was a great event, I was really happy about that. And you had said too like you know, fitness will prevail in places where fitness can, and that one definitely spoke to that a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if they go in and they write these tests and the test is testing how good are you at ring muscle-ups in a vacuum? How good are you at 160-pound snatches? It's not a good workout, right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And the magnifying glass would be put on those workouts so fast. The amount of fucking YouTube channels now that would just sit there and be like you guys suck at programming. This is no good. This was a good test and if it's a good test then it's it's testing fitness. Of course, if you're better at one of the things, then you know you have some play on another. You know element or whatever it is, but it has to be part of this like overarching thing which is biking, gymnastics, heavy weight lifting and running. I mean, come on, that's like beautiful.
Speaker 2:Love it, um, and I thought that this would be a good one to explain to people the I call it the know your enemy exercise.
Speaker 2:So when you're going into a workout, knowing how long does it take to do 26 calories on the echo bike at this, how long does it take you to do this many muscle ups Are we shooting for every five seconds on the snatch, every 10 seconds on the snatch? Um, that sort of thing, and what that can do for you, not just in this workout specifically, but in general, is just say, hey, this is the time domain, like, how hard can you push if a workout's four minutes long? How hard can you push if a workout's 14 minutes long? And no offense to the listeners, you guys don't fucking know the difference between a four-minute and a 14-minute workout half the time. That's our job, that's where we come in. So that changes things for an athlete, and you and I talked about the bike and I was just like you've talked to me about the bike before, about your gears. This bike's going to take you a minute and 44 seconds. It was like a minute 42.
Speaker 3:You revved it up.
Speaker 1:A little bit.
Speaker 2:But what does that do for you psychologically, as people are leaving the bike and you are just looking down at your screen and you're kind of just waiting for 144 to like happen, right? Is it different for you when you know how long it's supposed to take, versus Because that sucks in the beginning of a workout, especially early in a competition. Everyone's just leaving the bike and you're like well, here we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, it just gives you like a level of acceptance that allows you to you come up with a plan. It's like I accept this plan but, like now you're just adding another layer to being specific of this is going to take this long, these should take this long, um. So, yeah, that definitely helped a ton for me, because I am usually like I'm probably maybe the smallest athlete. That was there, um, and not to say that I can't be powerful on a bike, but, like there, when it comes to something like an echo bike, I really have to be mindful of how I approach any kind of workout. So, um, same thing with rowing or you know, any of those machines. So, yeah, I was really happy with that. Um, I think the person that came off first finished in the back five of the workout person that came off the bike first, yeah, which makes sense, right.
Speaker 2:Dude, the bike isn't where you win that workout. She was sprinting, she was sprinting the bike and I was just like what kind of fucking muscle up, snatch freak is this? And it's like, oh, that workout took a very long time.
Speaker 3:And the funny. Thing is.
Speaker 2:you know who got off the bike in the 130s Tia? You know, what I mean, like if she got off in the 130s then most other people should not.
Speaker 3:You know what?
Speaker 2:I mean Go any faster than that, Like maybe Laura, whatever. But yeah, I was amused by that.
Speaker 3:I had the camera right on her. When did you know that the workout, this workout page?
Speaker 1:when did we like know they were announced what that work, yeah, when did?
Speaker 3:was that ahead of time, like before you traveled, or like?
Speaker 1:no workout.
Speaker 3:You known when you got there uh, yeah, that one we knew.
Speaker 1:The only two we didn't know before we went were event six and event nine.
Speaker 3:So the duel and the final okay yeah, reason everything else we knew like knowing that you hadn't done either of those two movements in the last couple months because of a shoulder injury. What is like the initial reaction to that sort of like workout announcement and then like what is yeah, what, what, what's like the what's the process?
Speaker 3:from that place to the place of like, fitness will prevail. Um, or is it just a conversation with coach? Is it just some mental gymnastics in your head Like what, what do you do when you get dumped a fucking shit sandwich? Like how do you overcome that?
Speaker 1:I just go and execute Like you're going to. If I think about how bad I'm gonna do, it's only gonna be even a worse placement. So I just have to come up with a plan and stick to my plan as best as I can. If there's like points within that I can do better than what my plan is asking for, I'll reach for it. That I can do better than what my plan is asking for, I'll reach for it. But I try to stick to it as best as I can.
Speaker 1:And usually plan A's never go like as plan A should go. So yeah, I mean it comes down to being kind of it is what it is for me. I try not to let it get too too in my head, Because I did that too with and I know we'll kind of talk about it later, but I did that with the handstand walk workout too. I'm like I haven't spent time upside down, I haven't spent time pressing the handstand push up event, Like I can only do what I'm able to do in that moment. So I can't be mad at the fact that I haven't done ring muscle ups in two months If the event goes poorly.
Speaker 2:All right, the individual event three brave heart eight, six, four, two wall walk, complex, 260 pound back squat. This was your most challenging event. For sure we could sort of the writing was on the wall a little bit, with some potential damage control. We've said it a million times at camps on this podcast to press, you must press, to not press, you must not press but I have not curious. I'm very curious what your takeaway is from this. Workout.
Speaker 2:Came in 18th, I believe yeah, yeah, I finished just under the cap five seconds under the cap you have not experienced moments like that very often in your career, like no, there are workouts where you just can't go as fast as other people and the funny thing is like it looks like there are these huge gaps in the competition. And then if listeners of this podcast went and did the workout themselves, like they would realize like oh, they lost by 45 seconds and I lost by 45 minutes, like there's you know sort of levels to this, but when you have a workout like this where you're just kind of stuck in place, um, it's got to be a different feeling for you specifically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's definitely points where it's like you, a different feeling for you specifically. Yeah, there's definitely points where it's like you know, you can kind of feel like your throat closes up a little bit. You almost want to let some tears out. Um, it gets a little overwhelming. It's like why am I failing so many reps? I'm somersaulting off the wall cause I can't press out, Um.
Speaker 1:So it was really frustrating, but at the same time, like probably at least 30 times throughout that workout, I was like you haven't been doing this, like you haven't been doing this, but you're gonna just keep trying. I think the thing that I walk away with the most out of that one is I never stopped trying, Um, and I never let like the emotional, like emotional stress kind of impact me in that workout. Um, I think I had two workouts here where, like the most important thing for me to remind myself that you had even said too was to just stay in it, Um, so stay in it mentally, Um, and so that's kind of the the proud moment of walking away from that workout is definitely wasn't my best, but, um, I didn't quit my back squat.
Speaker 2:You were far from quitting, though Like that's just the. I think I, the post that I made about it was something to the effect of not all victories are measured on a leaderboard. You can have an event where you go out and you take top five and it's just an expression of the work that you've done over a long period of time. You go on autopilot, you crush it, you're done. You go cool down. It's fun. You know what I mean. But when you are like standing toe to toe with, like one of the hardest things that you could possibly do. You watched a lot of athletes go through that and back away from it and I don't know if that's just sort of generally how they feel about doing that or if it's because it's in front of a bunch of people and they think that there's expectations put on them. But to be like again toe-to-toe with like honestly, I don't know what they could have thrown at you.
Speaker 2:That would have been worse than that for you just in terms of you being able to execute right and you failed a lot of reps. You failed reps early. You kind of found your groove a little bit. You just kept fighting through the workout, still had the transition, still jogging and putting your belt on at the same time and going and doing, you know, unbroken sets of of super heavy back squat. So that's just one of those things where, like, that's something that you can hang your hat on, that lives even outside of the realm of fitness, like when I'm faced with like really heavy shit. I'm going to push back and I'm going to try.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think too, like with that workout specifically. I've always been an athlete where if I see something that I know I'm not great at, I want to be more conservative, where this was actually like a workout that I wanted to go sooner than I knew my body was ready to go, like you know what I mean. Like I know the goal was to go when you are ready, like when you can do the two strict handstand pushups, but like I wanted to go faster than that, like mentally I want it to go faster. So I had to kind of keep bringing myself back to earth a little bit in my head. Um, whereas normally a workout like that, regardless, I would be like as conservative as I can be, so, um, I just want to press, I just want to press me to just want to press.
Speaker 1:I just want to press Me too, just want to do it.
Speaker 2:All right Event. Four 1K row 30 thrusters, 135 slash 95, 30 slash 20. Log muscle ups, 30 more thrusters at 135.95, and another 1K row. This is a spicy meatball.
Speaker 1:Very.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is not a. And this is the start to day two, after 4K of running and sandbag carries and 20 back squats at 275 slash 260 and the echo bike and the shuttle sprints and the whatever. It was very clear there was an athlete who stood up on one of the ballistic blocks to like grab the pull-up bar and their leg buckled and I was like yeah, you guys can fucking back squat 260 and you can't walk.
Speaker 1:There we go I thought monday going home that I had rhabdo in my legs. That's how bad they felt. I couldn't walk down steps you had that moment.
Speaker 2:You had that fucking moment of like like everything was totally kept together and then the final was over and you were like my body doesn't work like you. Just you knew you had to keep your shit together for nine events total and that you didn't have to anymore and you let yourself realize like I need to go get like dry needling done to be able to just go home.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, I was so glad they were there too, the physio people yep that was a good event for me, I thought.
Speaker 1:I thought the execution was was pretty on point. Um, you had me walk you through my plan from the very beginning, so kind of visualizing how I'm going to break up the thrusters, like what is plan a, what would plan B be if that starts to slow down cycle rate? Um, so I felt like I really executed pretty well on that Um. And then I think body language was probably the most like biggest difference for me, especially ending on the rower. Um, I rode faster, I got faster in my second row than my first, obviously, um, trying to strategize early on with the first row, um, but in years past I wouldn't be able to do that, like I wouldn't be able to push the pace in the second row and maintain really good body language about it and kind of keep my technique, um. So I kinda, you know, leaned on my inner McKenna when it comes to rowing Um. So I thought that was that's kind of the proud moment in that workout was was the end ending on the row, and I knew I'd be ending on the row regardless.
Speaker 2:So, um, to be able to maintain a better pace.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was a rowing wrap for most athletes, hunter to finish with the turn cap, which is just just like yeah yeah, you don't know what it's like to go back to a rower in that time domain.
Speaker 2:I suggest you try it so bad.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I was happy with that did you get to?
Speaker 3:did you get to mess around on a log before going?
Speaker 1:yeah, they had. They had two logs in the back. Um, I didn't have issues with the log last year or this year. Um, it's just a matter of like finding the right pace to jump up and come down off singles. Um, like some girls, I think, like maybe alex kazan tried stringing some together but they eventually fell back into singles towards the end. Anyway, um, did it help her get ahead? Yeah, probably a little bit, um, but uh, it wasn't worth the risk, I don't think yeah, how big was the log?
Speaker 3:is it like telephone pole, like honestly?
Speaker 1:like four inch probably like a 36 ounce. Uh, yeti is probably like a good yeah, okay uh, but you do have to you.
Speaker 2:You do to. It's not like a true false grip, but it's close.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You really got to like muckle on there for sure. Yeah, I found out that there were two coaches who were having a conversation about what coaches could or couldn't do a log muscle up, Like they were just bored. So someone from HWPO walks up to me and goes, could you do that? And I was like, yeah, probably why. It was like yeah, probably why. It's like OK, we thought so and I was like what are you talking about? He's like, yeah, me and Justin were just over there, we were bored, so we went around the room and guessed who could do what and I was like parlor tricks are my thing. Like if we had to race burpees, a pretty good chance, I'm your guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the thing with the log muscle up that was fascinating and frustrating from a coaching standpoint is like when I see world-class athletes unable to do something like that, I'm like twitchy. I'm like if Paige wasn't competing and I was just here, I think I could go over there and fix all of those. And I was just here, I think I could go over there and fix all of those, Because it's like you would, in your hollow position, keep your arms straight and get up to somewhere near eye level, like you would in a bar, muscle up right. We don't have that hip extension until we travel back up and behind the bar. And you just did that every rep.
Speaker 1:And I told you, I was like I have no notes for these.
Speaker 2:You're doing a bar muscle muscle up. You're doing a bar muscle up that you would see someone do when they're really fatigued and they know that they need to be efficient, like that's what it is. That's what that movement is. So when you see athletes a lot of people doing the chicken wing, a lot of people trying to rush and do more of kind of the uprise and push down into it it's like you need impeccable bar muscle-up form to get up over that thing. You don't need to invent some new way to get up over there. The same thing with trying to teach people how to do the rock muscle-up.
Speaker 2:A couple of years ago at semifinals, you already know how to do this, but it's got to be really good. You got to be really patient. You got to get yourself into good positions. To be really good. You got to be really patient. You got to get yourself into good positions. Um. So, yeah, that was that was. That was a really cool workout to watch, because I think there's a narrative within the sport that honestly, unfortunately, is correct for a lot of athletes like you shouldn't be able to go push on the row at the end compared to your opponents because of size. But you went in and you executed and you've worked on it, um, and you got to the rower at the same time as an athlete who's man five, six inches taller than you and you rode faster than her the entire time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And like yeah there'd be too many words that we could say and how that's possible and how you've made that happen, but having the visual, visual representation of it's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah. That was definitely a mental win for me to like keeping the body language I did. We had in 2022 semifinals at syndicate. It was like Jackie 2.0 or Jackie pro or whatever they called it, and it ended with a one K row and I finished it Like I was holding like a two 13 and then here I was holding a sub two, like a two sub two, and I'm like that's a huge difference. Um and it still felt very much the same. Yeah, that's the bad part, right.
Speaker 2:Does not get get easier, you should get a little bit faster all right, uh, this next one is the one that we were talking about before the podcast started, of a swing and a miss in terms of the time cap, which didn't make any sense, especially the having the men's and women's time cap be the same. Um, but uh, three rope climbs, 21. Uh, they started with your left arm, I believe. 21 left arm, uh, single arm. Devil's press with the hundred slash 70. And it was the seer dumbbell, so a little bit harder to hold onto. Three more rope climbs, 21 devil's press on the other side. And then three rope climbs, sort of, um, I don't know, there were three finishers, I think yeah finishers were probably tia, gabby, laura two actually.
Speaker 1:Well, gabby had, I think, just the run to the finish line, right yes, um, and no offense to anyone present, company included.
Speaker 2:The time cap should not be based on tia, gabby and laura.
Speaker 1:If you want the spectators to go out there and watch, yeah, it was basically how many devil's press you can get done exactly yeah, so if the workout wasn't intended to have nine rope climbs in it?
Speaker 2:that's a place where you know, from a program design standpoint, that's a place where you can have an athlete who's gonna do well with the, the dumbbell, but then lose time and you know you kind of have a little bit of a back and forth there. So, um, most athletes didn't even get back to the rope, which was just kind of unfortunate to watch.
Speaker 1:Yeah how, yeah, that one was beefy with those. They were hard like if I, I, if I couldn't hook, grip it, I would like that thing would probably fly out of my hand on the way up.
Speaker 2:So looking at it, you actually thought you couldn't there for a little while yeah you, I can hook grip it.
Speaker 1:it's like very little of a hook grip, like if I didn't have tape on my hand, on my thumb, I would not be able to make the Texas bar Hunter.
Speaker 2:You know those power lifting bars.
Speaker 3:It looks like it.
Speaker 1:I didn't know what it was, I assume they say the diameter is the same on those as it is. Yeah, but still like that's.
Speaker 2:I have small hands, like's closer to a barbell, though, than a dumbbell, because a lot of dumbbells.
Speaker 1:Like a men's bar.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. That thing looks more like Fuck. It looks like it's got a fat grip on it.
Speaker 1:to be honest, yeah, I mean they said it was the same diameter.
Speaker 3:Could you do a? I don't do enough with set balls Like a clean and jerk, or does that have?
Speaker 1:we weren't allowed like yeah, so it had to be straight from the floor.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, it wasn't as bad like we did the 70 pound dumbbell at the game I got four reps in that workout, the three rope climbs and one of those fucks yeah, that was one where it was interesting because, like we were talking about, you have to pace those to a certain extent, like if you went out there and literally tried to sprint through them but there isn't a place to rest in the movement. That's efficient because, like part of the movement and part of being good at it is it's momentum based. The way that you move through the whole thing carries you through that dumbbell snatch every time.
Speaker 1:Um especially if you're going to go on one side yeah, we talked about like doing it was move the dumbbell every seven. So you and I had talked about, okay, do your seven and then move it to the next spot and like let that be where you get your breath. Um, but even seven at a 70 pound dumbbell is very gassy. It's such a gas field. Um, like the rope climb didn't even matter in that workout, it was just can you do the devil's press efficiently enough to just get back to the rope?
Speaker 2:Really, yeah, and you guys almost all of that threshold. You could tell when you had when you got to about 10 devil's press in that next round. It was like a how bad do you want it? Kind of a workout.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I had looking dumb.
Speaker 2:I won't say who, but just maybe a little taller. Uh, you know, bless their heart, but whoa like, like thoracic spine parallel with the ground, backwards, like leaning all the way back yes, with the dumbbell here, real good, yep, good stuff but hey, get it done point a to point. Just got there grinding.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:All right. This one was fun for the most part. Obviously, the injuries were kind of overshadowed a little bit of it. So the duel, the sort of tournament-style workout with your little sprint interval in it, and then they go from 20 athletes to 15 to 10, etc. Five up and over a hay bale, 50 foot sled, push four power stair steps. Um, think of like, uh, an infomercial kettlebell where you have just a handle and then you can add plates to it. That's kind of what the the, what is it called? Power bell, I think, is what they call it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't even know it's a strongman implement where you basically like it looks like the TNT thing from Warner Brothers, you pick up on those two handles and you set it up onto something, so they went up the stairs with it and then hit the buzzer. So very rogue kind of event, both with the format of it and then like what the actual movements were. Um, I thought they crushed the like. How many of each thing, how far you had to run, Like it was border. All of it was borderline too much, but not too much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it honestly felt like by the end of it, what did we do? Four heats or five heats? I felt like I did like five echo bike sprints, you know, like our bitch work piece of like hit a hard sprint and then rest as long as you need to. That's what it felt like, and each one got harder and harder.
Speaker 2:It was fun though.
Speaker 1:I definitely liked the dual. Yeah, I did until the very last one which really messed me up. Um, you had to get the sled completely past the line and each round before I'd push, and then I would get like a nice little note like push off of the sled so that I can start turning and going running towards the power stairs. And the last one, I just didn't have it in me in my sled move like that far. I was like shit, I had to go back and push it across. So, but that was fun and that again that's one of those where, like, here's the standard of the get overs get as creative or get as athletic as you need to. Um, and obviously I think Danielle Brandon kind of set the tone of that, especially for the men men.
Speaker 1:Um, I was not able to do a rebound at the ground to be able to go right back up. I tried for like one rep and I just couldn't get my knee up high enough. So, um, I stuck with like a little double bounce at the bottom, which was still pretty fast, just I think if you had that leg up and you were really good on the sled and then just able to run down to those power stairs, um, that's, that's how you won. Like emma tall was moving on the sled, it was wild to see how much ground she'd make up.
Speaker 2:Just it was nuts, um, but it's fun that's another one where, like you, the way that you execute in those workouts is very much like a signature page thing, like all they talked about with the. You know, when you listen to the commentaries basically like if you're small, you're screwed, and it was so fun to talk with you about how you could maybe go faster on that each round, like here's what I saw. Let's look at a video of what this other person is doing. We're like strategizing the whole time, but the most page part of it is I'm going to land on the other side of this thing and I'm going to fucking catch you. Other people don't allow themselves, don't give themselves the opportunity to do that. It's. I got to the other side and fuck, I'm already behind.
Speaker 2:I'm already behind this workout and you're like better run, better fucking run, I'm coming, I'm coming and it's just like clear that you see things and challenges that way and other people could learn from it for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you can really underestimate those small transitions of running to the sled and running to the stairs, like that's. That could be a second on your time and with how little time differentiated, first and second or second and third, like you need those, you need those, those seconds.
Speaker 3:Did you see people get injured?
Speaker 1:I didn't see it happen.
Speaker 3:But did you, did you know at any point that somebody got hurt, like mid, like in between, like before?
Speaker 1:yeah, I was in. I was in the same heat with gabby did that?
Speaker 3:did that impact you psychologically at all, or is it just? Kind of like that's a bummer kind of no, yeah, I was.
Speaker 1:I was pretty devastated for for gabby when I heard that that might've been a Achilles tear. Um, like that's just so upsetting. Like such a great athlete, you know, I still think very bright future ahead with competing. Like she's so young, um, but the good thing of being young is you can bounce back and get right back to it. Um, but yeah, I, no, I was just more devastated for her. I don't think twice about if I'm gonna do a re, if I'm gonna rebound a box jump or whatever. Like I'm still gonna go and rebound a box jump yeah it's just that's competing.
Speaker 1:It's a risk that you take. Um, I don't think it was a miss on rogue's part. I think they did the right thing and adjusted the workout when they needed to.
Speaker 3:I don't know I you know it doesn't strike me as a movement, that that I don't think that would enter my, like you know, thought process as far as like hey, how can things go wrong? What? What's like the you know I don't yeah what are we missing here?
Speaker 1:it's like that's a that just sucks, it's just yeah unfortunate especially for the men, like they are bringing a lot of body weight back down onto their legs from a high box. But I don't think they anticipated it being a rebound movement, so seeing that they then changed the workout, changed when danielle did that the first time yeah, people saw it and they were like holy shit like she looked like a gymnast.
Speaker 2:She was doing almost nothing on top of the hay bale and just right down and back up and it was like, oh, holy shit, so that's how you do it. Um kind of crazy to watch, uh super fun event, though, I I heard complaints again. Apparently it was frustrating watching because, like you, literally sat there for like six minutes and stared at your computer with nothing on the screen but it was great in person.
Speaker 3:The timing was great in person.
Speaker 1:Just gave us an opportunity to like, recap and re-strategize and all that yeah, yeah, and sit on a bike and recover because, wow, like after doing the get overs, like you would turn and run to the sled and you're like, oh my god, I already feel my legs and all I did was jump up on a, on a box, on an object. So, yeah, that's. That was pretty insane hunter.
Speaker 2:You know the snail, the thing that they like, push that rolls. You seen that at the games, yeah, yeah. So everyone was like so you guys are just going to put the snail on its side, right. And they were like no, that's not what it is, that's not the implement. And they put the snail on its side, but they covered it in a bag to make it look like it was something else it was just like you fuckers.
Speaker 3:That's exactly what it is. There's no way you have multiple versions like there's hay in there, giant cushy snail.
Speaker 1:No, it's the hay bale, no look over there guys no, that was so funny, like it's real hay in there, is it?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. Uh, all right, so that was the end of day two. We're moving into day three. Um another, I would say probably the second most mentally challenging workout. Maybe is the first, I don't know um?
Speaker 1:are my arms gonna hang on?
Speaker 2:abs, my arms sideways pegboard 48 calories ski 60 ghd sit-ups. Another pegboard in the other direction 32 calories. 40 ghd's pegboard 16 20 pegboard. Um, this was definitely one of those ones where it was like not only did you need to figure out the movement as an athlete to just be able to do it, to get down the first time or, you know, if you're super fit, get down the second time. But then it was when is it appropriate for me to try to do this again? And that was a huge part. You guys don't really face those kind of things that often way back in the day you face it with.
Speaker 2:You know super heavy barbells like that sort of thing, but now the the strength has risen to a point where that doesn't really happen as much anymore.
Speaker 1:So, um, how'd you feel about this one? I was nervous, um, I've done a lot of grip work leading up to it, but it wasn't a lot of hanging from a pull-up bar, so I was like I felt prepared, but also just not prepared, I don't know. Holding my own body weight feels way worse than holding a pair of dumbbells. Um, does that make sense to you?
Speaker 1:say it again holding like holding my body weight from a pull-up bar feels harder than holding like farmers carry dumbbells like heavy yeah I don't get the same like grip fatigue, so I was a lot of grip fatigue and a lot of not knowing hanging is exclusively like your it's hard to put more tension, like tendons and ligaments, you can you can like farmers carry, you can turn into slump mode and make it like a little bit of a trap exercise and like that's fair, I think you can transfer some of the the loading into other muscles.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, so I was. I wasn't sure how my arms, like how my shoulder, was going to hold up. Was I going to be able to just like kind of maintain that scap, pull up position? Um, so I was very uncertain about this going in and we only had like 30 minutes of practicing, like all 40 athletes, two days before the competition. So if you didn't figure it out at that time, your only time to figure it out was on the field. And I felt like I got an idea of how to do it prior to the competition, but I wasn't confident in it at all and I just didn't trust myself. So that was like a. That workout showed me how important it is to kind of to trust myself, because once I figured out the pegboard, I was like, wow, this would be a really fun event to actually be able like to be able to do. It would be way more fun than just taking 12 minutes to get the first pegboard and then having to climb my way back.
Speaker 2:So it took me what over 10 minutes to get my first pegboard and I walked over to your side to see if I could like make eye contact with you about five minutes in somewhere, yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 1:I was hanging out for a while and then I had, like I was on the end of, I was in the, the last lane, so like I was able to see you, I was like there were people there like spectators cheering for me, um, so like that actually helped a lot.
Speaker 1:And before the first event, before that event, that day you had said, said you know, this is the day where people come, they're tired, they let their brains kind of absorb that physical fatigue, um, and let that hinder their performance, where the most important thing is to just stay in it today, um. So again, that was just another one of those workouts where it was fail after fail after fail, and that helped a lot. So once I got the first pegboard down, I got to the ski, I settled in, hit the GHDs, came back to the pegboard, got through that one with a lot more ease and then try to hit the second ski as hard as I could because I was coming up on the cap and then just get as many GHDs in as I can. I was close to getting back to the pegboard, I just needed a few more reps.
Speaker 2:And you had. One of the things that we talked about before the workout was there's it's going to whether you start off really well or start off really poorly. That's not going to be end up being the entire narrative of the workout If you don't stay focused Right.
Speaker 2:We saw a lot of athletes get across easy and then get stuck when they got back because again they weren't taking the time to make sure, like I can hold on again for that period of time. And then you get in that doom loop of like continue to try to do something before you're ready and you just can't.
Speaker 2:Like that's just how the upper body is so you know the writing was on the wall early that you were going to come in dead last in this entire workout and then you passed like five people because you committed to like staying with it, staying within the workout, and there were just other athletes where you know, that work that you got to do, that mental work that you got to do, no one can take your physical capacity away from you. A judge can't take it away from you, a pegboard can't take it away from you. You are going to face these moments where it does feel like something is trying to rob you of your experience and you have to take ownership. In that moment the woe is me. What the fuck I got that final peg in or whatever. Can't go back in time, can't argue your way out of it.
Speaker 1:So it's like, once I'm ready, I just gotta do it, get back after it yeah, and like I tried doing like every hole, like making my way one hole at a time and I would get to like where the red line was halfway and I would get to the last two and I'm like I can't move my like I couldn't pull the peg out.
Speaker 3:My grip was so fried, it's like it's crazy five minutes I fried my grip it's so fried my grip yep it's nuts.
Speaker 1:Surprisingly enough, though, it wasn't as fatiguing like we. We had next event heavy double unders. You didn't feel your grip as much on that workout as I would have anticipated from the pegboard, so that was kind of a. That was interesting, because that doesn't that's not usually the case.
Speaker 2:Right, uh, all right. Event eight three rounds, 100 row grope, double unders, unders, 50 foot single arm overhead walking lunge with that same 170, 100, 70 pound, uh, seer bell. And then 100 foot handstand walk. Um, this one was interesting in terms of like how you felt about it and then how you execute it, round to round, for sure.
Speaker 1:What did I have? Negative splits.
Speaker 2:I think you might have Like you just decided to walk past the line and do two chunks at once and I was like what's going on out here? Like I didn't expect that to happen.
Speaker 1:I didn't either. And then it was like I felt good, I felt like I could trust myself. I've done a lot of Maffetone on the ski.
Speaker 2:I wanted you to say it, yeah.
Speaker 1:I definitely know that that played a factor in just being able to stay on a jump rope, have smart sets on the jump rope. I don't think I spent too much time of like resting. I'm like, all right, I'm going to get a chunk done, stop reset, do another chunk, um. So I felt like I executed that workout really, really well. Um, I would have liked to have maybe seen what doing bigger sets on the handstand walk could have done. Um, just because I felt confident going bigger Um. So that would have been the only change I would have tried to make is is less breaking up the the handstand walk right. So yeah, that was a.
Speaker 3:That event was fun bodies up and then fucked your upper bodies up, yeah yeah, they did all this.
Speaker 2:It's like fuck your legs up all right those don't work here we go, we'll make these don't work yep yeah, listening to the athletes afterwards they were like this it wasn't too much, but I don't know if I could have done any more. Like it was right on that line for sure, and like I don't know that there's a way that you can do testing and nail it. So I don't know. Like like congratulations for for guessing right, but I don't think much more. Like congratulations for for guessing Right, but I don't think much more would have been appropriate in those three days. Like at all.
Speaker 1:No, and we had talked about it, but they were very quick turnovers from like event two to event three, event five to event six, like they were very very tight windows of time. Yeah, we went, we finished and I got pushed into of time. Yeah, we went, we finished and I got pushed into the the next heat. But we finished the event eight and I was like what time do we need to start warming up? He's like this is while I'm cooling down. He's like you are warming up right now yes so it was literally my cool down, luckily.
Speaker 2:Luckily, a warmup and a cool down are basically the same thing. Yeah, that's actually a good segue. So, event nine 15 sandbag cleans these are the women's weights 125 pounds, 10 sandbag cleans 150,. Five sandbag cleans 175 pounds. You were warming up and cooling down simultaneously, as we said, um, and it was interesting to watch. It was this one in the duel I would say were the most interesting to watch people warm up for um. The duel was kind of funny because like warming up is warming up and you can be ready for things, but like trying to fake the up and over on like a 20 inch box was funny to watch. And then people pushing a sled nine feet, um, instead of just riding an echo bike was also funny to watch. It's like I'm, I got this, I'm totally gonna figure this out, um and page, and I got a little little bit of a giggle and maybe made some narp comments um during that period of time, um, but the, the sandbag one.
Speaker 2:It's like, after all, this time, ninth event, like they're jamming all these together. Like you said they, they receded and you had dropped a little bit. Um, it's like, how do you think about warming up for something like that? How do you warm up for something like that?
Speaker 1:honestly, like trust my training, that I've done these movements a million times. Um, like I thought that was actually very different, like I had never for the duel, I had never not tested a movement, like we played around with the power stairs, but it was literally you put it up one step and that was it.
Speaker 2:Um, but it was like you just trust your training Crazy heavy or that you needed a weird technique.
Speaker 1:It was a dent, yeah Right. But like the, you know, instead of going out there three, two, one, go, making that first heart rate spike be the actual workout, we would just do a 15 second echo bike sprint and then go corral and be ready to go. I haven't always done things like that before, so that was like a mental shift for me of I don't need to practice this specific movement to go out on the floor and be ready for it. So that was kind of cool. And then same thing for the sandbags. It. So that was kind of cool. And then same thing for the sandbags.
Speaker 1:I knew, like I knew the 125s needed to be done fast, but to an extent of like I need to be prepared for that 150. So while I'm on the 125s, I'm kind of thinking already about the 150. But then when I'm at the 150, I'm thinking about the 150. When I get to the 175, I'm gonna trust that my body knows how to pick the sandbag up really efficiently and put it on my shoulder. And I actually thought that the 175 was the most fun to do because it took the most technique to get it up efficiently and then get across the finish line and you liked that.
Speaker 2:It was well packed and larger.
Speaker 1:Right felt more natural to like lap it and then put it up on your shoulder versus sometimes, yeah, loose and shitty and sands flying in your face or they're too small to really get like a good hold on right, yeah, like I thought it was like you can get it right up on your knees and then from there you can really use it like a power clean, get that full extension and then drop underneath to get it on the shoulder the way other people were doing it. I'm like my back would be broken. My spine would be split in half.
Speaker 2:So Ooh, that was another one. T spine might've been parallel with the ground in the opposite direction. There's some weird shit going on, yeah, Right opposite direction.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's some weird shit going on. Yeah, right did they make? That was a fun of the arm out to show like control every rep.
Speaker 1:It wasn't like a yeah, they weren't. Like you didn't have to wait for a good, like you had to just put it out, let it drop, like you just had to show the control.
Speaker 3:Throw it over your shoulder, with your back parallel to the ground, and count it Right Yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Overall, I really like the events.
Speaker 2:Would that be the one where you probably use the most gamesmanship out of the whole weekend? Because I'm just looking back through and like on event eight you were like five seconds away from two or three people, but it was a little hard to tell where people were at in that workout.
Speaker 2:Even if you had like if you're at whatever 170 heart rate, like knowing where someone is at, that can be really challenging. But then you go into event nine and I told you the three women that were right there with you and you did kind of the like, like it's like drafting off them, basically like you kept them within sight but didn't stomp the gas pedal until the end and it was like a very sneaky move to like make. I mean, they're not watching you, but like everything looked heavy. And then you had three reps left and you were like one, two, three right across the finish line, I win, yeah, yeah, I like.
Speaker 1:Once I did the first one, I was like, okay, that's not bad. All right, a little bit more rest and then I'll do the second. And then I was like no, I need to just get these done and cross the finish line. I see Haley's right in my sights, but I know people are right here with me. Um, and they were just allowing themselves to take that extra two seconds to collect themselves before they went and picked it up and I was like just go pick it up, pick it up and go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, I think, kind of the final thing that I I want to bring up that you just mentioned in terms of like being able to see ahead in the workout. Um, we really dug into that on event four. So, like when you have a hundred meters left on the row, I want you to ask yourself can you go put your hands onto the um barbell to do the thrusters?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like because a lot of athletes like you were one of the last people off of the rower and then were one of the first people with 10 thrusters, and it's just like your energy systems don't work in the other way. Like there were a few people who led the beginning of the run workout that it's like hey, these are like basically the 20 fittest men and women on earth Pretty close anyways. Yeah, Should you be in first. Should you Just look around?
Speaker 1:Right, this doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2:So just in terms of the way that our energy systems work, and if I feel like I didn't go hard enough in a workout, I can go harder, I can make up time. If I go too hard at the beginning of a workout, that's a problem. So it's just like it's almost like the first thing in the workout is one K row, 10 thrusters, and then at that point, like when you go to do your final 10, is it 10 again? Or is it six and four, knowing that you want to go do one log muscle up immediately over and do do that and I think a lot of athletes low athlete iq, high capability fitness level see that as 1k row.
Speaker 2:Okay, now it's 30 thrusters. Those were tough, now it's this many log muscle ups and you have to be so fucking strong and fit for that kind of strategy to work out. You're just basically tricking yourself into thinking your strategy is good, when it's like nah, you're just a freak, yeah I and I think um having a lot more insight like that too.
Speaker 1:Uh, I think like there are a lot of things. I learned a lot this weekend or last weekend as far as strategy and, uh, knowing that I don't have to overreach early on to still have a really fit time on the leaderboard, uh, if that makes sense. So, uh, eye-opening and a confidence booster. So, knowing that, like I've done the last two major competitions right now and not feeling like at my best physically, um, like peak shape and having training be really consistent and and working towards it, like towards the games or towards rogue um, to still come in and show up and finish 13th and have some pretty high you know finishes on the leaderboard, that's pretty cool. That's a big confidence boost.
Speaker 2:And as a coach, you have to know which athletes that you can go into that level of detail with um and which athletes like the the too much information is too much information. Um, some athletes like are very um, not at, they're not as cerebral, and they want to just go out and sort of feel out the workout. Um, some athletes like are very um, not at, they're not as cerebral, and they want to just go out and sort of feel out the workout.
Speaker 2:Um, so, knowing that you like the details and then also knowing that you're interested in coaching high level athletes, once you're done, like that sort of opened up the gate a little bit for me to speak to you in a way where it's like when we have this downtime, if it doesn't seem stressful to you, I'm going to tell you why I said what I said, or why I think about things the way that I do that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I definitely find it helpful. Again, that's why I like listening to our phase structure podcast so much. It's because you guys give the why behind what we're doing, and then you can go and execute better based off knowing why. This is in there, right, it's not? Oh, he's putting thrusters in, because I'm bad at thrusters. It's like no, there is a a reason that you're doing this and it's towards the season that's coming up. So, um, I find it super helpful, definitely hunter.
Speaker 3:Any question, go ahead yeah, um, would you classify yourself as someone who? So I had a conversation with justin lasala the other day. Um, he's given me some scores, um, and I was like what was your, what was your goal pace here? I was like I don't know, it was just to not die. I was like, okay, thank you, fantastic, um. And I kind of went back and forth with him and he was like I'm a.
Speaker 3:He alluded to the fact that he's like a kind of a game time athlete, like I rise to the occasion.
Speaker 3:And then I asked him I was like you know what the other half of that idiom is? And it's like you, you rise to the occasion or you fall to the level of your training. And I'm curious, like I think the best athletes have both in their pocket, but a lot of folks fall into one category or the other. Right, it's like I'm gonna go out and perform, uh, at the level of training that I know that I can, based on the training that I've done, and then you've got, maybe on the other end of the spectrum, the athlete who I don't want to say and and this is also not to say that Justin doesn't care about his training, but it's like that we put in a certain level of effort in training, knowing that when it comes time to perform like I'm going to do better than what I've done in training. Yeah, I'm just kind of curious what your thoughts are on maybe where you fall out, shake out in that and maybe just general like thoughts on that kind of concept.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I still think I have more to learn as far as like getting into the weeds on strategy and being even more cerebral. But I think definitely both ends of the spectrum, I definitely think I have a little bit of both. I do put a lot of detail into training Me and McKenna will debrief on workouts. A lot bit of both. I do put a lot of detail into training Me and McKenna will debrief on workouts a lot of the time. We'll even like talk prior, like, hey, what kind of what's your goal pacing that you're trying to hold in this workout? What's your main goal? So I think part of that helps to have a training partner too, of having someone to just communicate back and forth with, like in the present moment, um and I don't think wasala really gets that. So, um, I definitely think there's that side to it, and then there's partner side.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, um. And then there's just all also being a gamer and knowing that like you're going out to compete, so like do you have that extra level in you to kind of rise to the occasion. And I think having both is what makes the fittest on earth the fittest on earth right? You can't, you can't lack in one area but be so good in another, and that's all part of being well-rounded, all part of being well-rounded.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's an interesting topic, especially with Justin because his final at the CrossFit games this year to win the CrossFit games. His execution was flawless, not only in the workout, but in the circumstance of this athletes over here, this athletes over there, um. So it'd be interesting to ask him like how did you do that? If it's like grip and rip?
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, I do hate to do this, but I do need to go.
Speaker 2:I have to go coach. You're good.
Speaker 1:Cool, we did it, awesome, we did it.
Speaker 2:Um, you, can, you can you have one second for your final thoughts? What are your final thoughts? Paige?
Speaker 1:I'm excited to take some time off, and time off is very important. A healthy body is a happy body, and have fun when you compete, because that is what we do it for is to love what we do and do it really well. Um, so, yeah, I'm excited to take some time off, circle back and see what 2025 has in store.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Thank you, paige, appreciate the time.
Speaker 1:Thank you guys Appreciate you too. I'll see you later.
Speaker 3:Bye.
Speaker 1:Hunter you got any final thoughts?
Speaker 3:I was going to say I didn't. I don't think I could top that. I thought we were going to close it out right now. Me either.
Speaker 2:Me either. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Um, thank you for tuning in. Yeah, that's, that's a different style of ending for our podcast, but I think it's good, all right Team. Misfitcom. Yeah, team Misfitcom for your individual programming needs Misfitathleticscom. Nope, teammisfitcom for your affiliate programming needs Misfitathleticscom for your individual programming needs. Go to both. Check them both out. They're fantastic. We'll see you next week Later.