Misfit Podcast
Misfit Athletics provides information and programming to competitive Crossfit athletes of all levels.
Misfit Podcast
Strength Training in CrossFit - E.331
The MEATHEAD EPISODE! The squad recaps their recent training camp experience, shares their travel stories, and dives deep into the world of strength training and muscle growth. They explore the mindset of continuous improvement in sports, the importance of observation for skill development, and reflect on the passionate sports culture in Philadelphia.
The conversation also delves into their CrossFit camp experience at CrossFit Raid, where they emphasize the value of coaching and athlete engagement. The coaches discuss key aspects of strength training, the dynamics of coaching, and the importance of mobility and stability. They highlight the significance of neuromuscular adaptation versus pure muscle growth, the role of volume, and the impact of positional work on performance.
Finally, they explore the art and science of strength training, covering topics like optimal work-to-rest ratios, the transformative impact of CrossFit on general physical preparedness, and the balance between mobility and stability. Whether you're interested in neuromuscular adaptation or blending strength with metabolic conditioning, this episode offers valuable insights for anyone looking to elevate their performance.
Thanks for listening!
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We're all misfits. Alright, you big, big bunch of misfits. You're a scrappy little misfit, just like me Biggest bunch of misfits I've ever seen either. Good morning misfits. You are tuning in to another episode of the Misfit Podcast. On today's episode we've got a little training camp recap and then we will get into a bit of a deep dive into the world of strength and muscle growth. Before we do so, as always, live chat Hunter. What's going on?
Speaker 2:Well, man, well, we can, and I feel like we got to save the travel story for as part of the training camp recap.
Speaker 1:It's true, it's true, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I can just tell everybody that I spent the entire Friday that I was supposed to be traveling to Philadelphia staring at my apartment from the terminal in Portland, which is a real treat. God damn at that fucking Starbucks. And I can literally see past this poor employee's head through the terminal window out across the runway like 800 meters due East. And that's my balcony, that's, that's where I live. That's more comfortable than this fucking terminal, but here we are yeah, so um yeah, real treat.
Speaker 1:Now golf season's wrapping up, so yeah, I was gonna ask how much more do you get to play or do?
Speaker 2:you. Well, yeah, I mean, fortunately, the club that I'm a member at is the is known for being first to open, last to close, so until we get snow on the ground, I'll I'll be able to continue to play, but I do think the handicap season is done. So there's like actually like a window where the US, like US GA handicap system, like stops's like you, you can no longer record a score and out of the, just for funsies. I did a quick scroll of the year. I was trying to find, uh yeah, my score history now fucking we got a low trajectory to a distant horizon going on there.
Speaker 2:It might have been a slightly higher trajectory due to.
Speaker 1:Beginner.
Speaker 2:A combination of beginner but also just a lot of time. A lot of scores submitted. Fuck, where's the history?
Speaker 1:here. Well, I talked about it in then the lecture sooner is not faster, right? Like yeah, you did more, therefore you benefited more yeah, yep, no for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started. First recorded score was in april 23. That had my handicap at a 20.4 and my low for the year was recorded on October 6th as an 8.3.
Speaker 1:Damn.
Speaker 2:So shave some strokes with a lot of practice.
Speaker 1:Just a few, huh.
Speaker 2:Shave and strokes. Yeah, pretty stoked about that. Three-year goal was a single-digit handicap. To have done that, now I call it meathead mentality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now I call it meathead mentality. Yeah, you might refer to it as something else, as I. I feel like you're. You're a bit more of a sensei in the adaptation realm, out on the gym floor and conditioning pieces, but like did. Is there crossover here when it comes to mentality like, yeah, for sure, I know I can get better if I keep doing it and I keep trying and I keep putting one foot in front of the other?
Speaker 2:yeah, I actually had a couple the last couple times I've played because it's been there's been a longer gap between and it's like it's a perishable skill. Swinging club correctly is, is a perishable skill until you've logged your 10 000 hours. You lose that thing, yeah for sure, and especially for someone newer like me. Uh, like Alex Cardamoni, he can, you know he's.
Speaker 1:He's logged enough time where he can, he can get away with it.
Speaker 2:But, um, I think, yeah, I think one of the reasons that I really progressed quickly, aside from, uh, aside from just spending time practicing, especially when I wasn't playing well, I kind of took the like a bit of the page simenza mindset of like god, this, my swing sucks. I, I have no consistency here, like I'm just gonna practice yeah, like quit or just keep practicing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, keep getting after it. Yeah, um, but I think the biggest thing is like I took the mindset and the approach that I wish that everybody wishes they had as a kid. When their coach tells them, hey, like, focus on the basics, like practice the skills, practice the drills, don't just play. You know every kid wanted to scrimmage and practice more than they wanted to do line drills or puck handling drills and stuff like that. And then, having also the time spent being a CrossFit coach watching athletes either come to the gym from elsewhere who have developed bad habits and, like you, you log enough time with poor movement patterns everybody knows how difficult it is to like retrain yourself to do things that might come up in this conversation today possibly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, what a what a segue. But, um, it was very much. I was very, I've been very deliberate and I'm still working on, like the fundamentals, just like being a really, really kind of a student of the fundamentals, watching the swings on, you know, watching YouTube shorts of golfers who I like, whose swings I want to emulate said about like just watching a weightlifter that you like aspire to look.
Speaker 2:Like watching a golf swing, watching a pitcher and how they throw a ball, watching a quarterback and how they throw a ball, and like just replaying that in your head and I'm like, man, I'm looking at you know some of the some golfers on the pga tour. I'm like that's the swing I want. Like if I get no other compliment then, wow, that's a really smooth swing. Or like great tempo on your swing while I'm out there. Like that makes that means, like to me that's like oh, I'm moving the needle with the quality and like the score will will, the scores will come.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and coaching the idea of the like triple split screen. There's what you think you're doing as an athlete, the way you believe you're moving. We know and I think it's. I think it's great that someone would email both of us, because they get a very practical answer from you and, like I, I'm a lot of times my feet aren't on the ground in life I I flap my way around the world like like and to be nailed down and like going the more traditional route of education is just challenging for my brain, like I've gotten a lot better at it as I've gotten older.
Speaker 1:But just this idea of observation is so powerful, like how did we learn what we learn? Well, there were people who like gymnastics is such a great example. There were people who figured out, like just through being an athlete like CrossFit gymnastics faster than somebody else and it's like we have an example here of someone. This this makes no sense that they can do 16 muscle ups and the next best person's doing a false grip and they can do four. Like like when Camille came into the sport and was doing what she did in a minute.
Speaker 1:It was like what is that? I want to know what that is. And it's like well, we have the technology youtube, like I'm gonna chop this down. I'm gonna put it in slow motion and I'm gonna watch what's going on there oh yeah, man continue to teach and refine.
Speaker 1:And then you get another athlete like we had, you know, throwback joe carney. Like, like, we show him those things and we tell him those things about the concepts, and he's like, well, I'm actually a world-class athlete as well and watch this. And then it's like you continue to progress this thing as you go through. So when I think about people being able to make a change, it's those three views like you need to have those.
Speaker 1:You views Like you need to have those you need to have. You need to see the difference between the way that you're moving and the way you think you're moving. So, taking a video of what you're doing and then you need to see what you're supposed to do. You're trying to match those things up. So many people you know we were at camp and it's like you get down on yourself because you're not doing the thing right. And it's like, if this isn't an indictment on you as a human being, whether your butterfly pull-ups look good, like let's get out of that mindset and take a step back and go these three views, continue to try to get them to look closer and closer and closer to one another. Check, move on to the next thing yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's surprising to how many athletes have never and I guess I can understand, like I can't say I ever saw footage of myself playing hockey, unless it was, like you know, maybe the odd time that the Scarborough High School made the news or something like that. But like now, as, having done CrossFit, like I've got got you know, probably maybe upward up to 100 videos on my phone of either myself lifting to trying to do self-analysis or other athletes lifting and me trying to be like hey see, remember how you thought your setup position was excellent. And now look at, why is your spine pointed in six different directions here. Like, yeah, what you, what you think is happening, might not be. And and they're like I'll do that to athletes in affiliate class. I'll be like, so let me ask you a question Like what do you think you look right now?
Speaker 1:So I'm going to show you a video and then they'd like, it's like, it's like you've experienced it too, from the other side, though, oh yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:And then?
Speaker 1:it's like here you go, I'm not going to argue with you. I'm just going to show you it's easier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then I'll do that. Yeah, I mean I'll do that on a dry on the driving range and I'll be like, oh man, that felt so good. Like what the fuck?
Speaker 1:Especially when it's complex like that, like a golf swing. Yeah, there's my life. Chat is just like getting a little bit of a actual Philadelphia experience. Philadelphia is known for. Philadelphia is known for their like psychotic sports fans, but it's of a different breed. Like Boston is obviously similar in ways. Like Boston is obviously similar in ways. Um, there's a lot of animosity about everything and anything for what seems to be no reason.
Speaker 2:Is Philly the city of brotherly love. Is that the tagline for Philadelphia? Yeah, yes, yeah, is it? Yeah, I was gonna say Boston is like brotherly hate. Yeah, Brotherly hey. I was trying to think of like the two brothers that hate each other and just beat the shit out of each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, yeah, there's probably a lot of those in boston, um, but in boston, if you boo the team and it's not warranted, one of those people that I'm referencing is going to punch you in the face at the stadium like literally In Philly you can have who seems to be like one of the five best quarterbacks in the entire NFL.
Speaker 1:You go to the Super Bowl. You lose to Patrick Mahomes by you know one point, one second left, like basically just as good as the other team you just lost. And then, like you throw an incomplete pass, like on Monday night football to open the season, and the link is whatever it is 50 000 strong booing you. It's crazy how fast they and it's across the board, it's all of their sports. They do it to the phillies, like, if you're not performing the way that we want you to in the moment, even if you're the best team in the entire league, fuck you. Yeah. So I like one of the things that surprised me we were walking around, we had some extra time on sunday night before a flight after camp is I've never seen so many women in in football jerseys in my entire life. Yeah, like in boston, you'd see, like maybe like a pink Patriots shirt or something it's like. Oh, it's Sunday, you know I want to support the team, but I don't have a fucking Teddy Brewski jersey on. Yeah, every woman I passed was wearing an Eagles jersey.
Speaker 2:It was crazy, I told my classes yesterday I was like I've I can't say I've ever actually been in a major city on like a football Sunday, or you know at a big. You know I've been to Bruins games a few times, but we were there hours after their game ended.
Speaker 2:We were there hours after their games and you could not swing a fucking dead cat in the streets of Philadelphia without hitting an Eagles jersey on any human and of any jersey of any era, any human and of any jersey of any era. I was like I hadn't seen that. I'm not a big football guy, but I know that jersey is not today's Philadelphia Eagles jersey.
Speaker 1:Sure, it was fucking Well they. So their. Their jerseys are still those like dark green ones, and they're kind of ugly, like the NFL swung from like, like, right on the money, like primary colors, hues, to darker stuff and it always swings back and forth. So people always want the jersey that the league doesn't have anymore. So those Kelly green ones, the like bright ones, that's what everybody there wears, because they wear them every once in a while as alternates and they look way cooler than the other ones.
Speaker 2:They're super cool. They're way better. It's like when the ducks go with the old school ducks logo.
Speaker 1:Exactly Like fuck, yeah, so we didn't like I was wearing a Steelers t-shirt. Honestly, being in downtown Philly, that wasn't the plan. It was more wear it at camp to, you know, rile up some football conversations. We're walking around and there was a bar that had the Steelers game on, but it was for college kids I would say it was Drew's vibe.
Speaker 2:It was Drew's vibe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was my vibe, like they were playing like loud, like what I would refer to as techno. Someone would probably make fun of me with something else, but like it just Techno-ha-boomer. Try to watch football for three hours in that, like I. Just that didn't seem like I could have gone in there and had a couple of drinks and laughed it up with everybody. But yeah, I'm not sitting there for three hours in that, like yeah, especially considering everyone in there had been drinking since noon or 11 or 10 or earlier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly whenever the fuck they got there. So we were looking for a place to go and I walked past a group of eagles fans and a girl goes. Oh, I didn't want to watch it there. I was like this is perfect.
Speaker 2:Fuck, I didn't hear that, I just needed a little.
Speaker 1:I just needed a little bit of that. Yeah, like, like I I used to be one of the people that would say something like that or like like argue back and now it's fun to be like, like it pays homage to my adolescent young male. Maybe prefrontal cortex not quite where it's supposed.
Speaker 2:I should have walked like 50 feet behind you at some point. Just I was kind of hoping like someone was going to say something sassy and I was going to be able to like yo, what's up. Not actually, but you know, like, and then we watch the steelers game at.
Speaker 1:I don't know what you guys are doing in Pennsylvania. I thought this was just a Pittsburgh thing, but apparently it's the whole state that the bar that we went to was a half convenience store, half bar and you had to get your drink from the drink cooler and then walk up to the counter, which was also a bar, and pay for your drink and pay for your drink. The guy behind me in line was like the fuck is going on. I asked for a vodka soda and he told me to get in line. I was like I don't know, there's there's weird rules there. I don't know what's going on?
Speaker 2:I'd never seen a facility like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very odd. And we went upstairs and we got some pretty solid interactions with uh, drunk Eagles fans on the way to the bathroom, people on the way to the bathroom, um, and I mean, I asked like I don't, I didn't think that there was a real rivalry because they're not in the same league so they don't play each other that often. But again, like it's one of those things where if you live in pennsylvania, you have to declare. You must say I am a steelers fan or an eagles fan. Of course, if someone's drunk and and very excited about their eagles, they might not think that the steelers are the greatest team in the world. Yeah, um, but very entertaining, nice little slice of of that's. That's enough time for me in a setting like that yes, we got four.
Speaker 2:We got four or five hours yeah, there, we got pretty lucky too. It was a beautiful afternoon, it was nice, like that was the ideal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was like 70 some degrees forced city interaction. Yeah, yeah yeah, people asked us at camp if we were city folk. We're like no, no. And then we, we put that to the test and hung out in a city for four hours and we're like that's enough. Yeah, yeah, there were a city for four hours and we're like that's enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there were a lot of pretty girls in Philadelphia Eagles. Sure, you don't have to agree with that, but I'll make the statement.
Speaker 1:There may or may not have been a lot of pretty girls.
Speaker 2:I'd stick around for like one or two more hours maybe, but that still exceeds my limit.
Speaker 1:That's a young man's game, exceeds my, exceeds my limit. That's a. That's a young man's game. Um. So, camp recap we, we are just coming home from CrossFit raid. Uh, like 20, 30 minutes north of Philadelphia, Fantastic camp. Um, one of the ways that we can say that it was a sort of coachable, curious, enthusiastic group is we got um ringing reviews from them after we missed friday night of camp. Um, caroline had to teach the olympic weightlifting. You know, sort of we'll do that on a friday night as an icebreaker. People have fun, get to know each other, get to know the coaching staff and you can really hit the ground running on Saturday morning when we get started. Um, we got on an airplane in the morning, uh, to head to Philadelphia. It's like our flight nice and easy, get the rental car, drive 20 minutes to CrossFit raid and we're done off to the races. Um, uh, we were pushing back from the gate and there was, I don't. This is kind of a jolt, kind of a loud noise like whatever.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't know like a manual transmission car stalled.
Speaker 1:It's just kind of like a bump so that stuff happens like like pilots like you hear them like, rev the engine and then nothing happens. Or like you like they jam on the brakes like it's not that out of the ordinary take it out of neutral Captain, it wasn't crazy.
Speaker 1:And then we sat there for a while which is also not crazy, happens all the time and then the pilots, like they, didn't detach something from the nose when we pushed off. We got to make sure that it's OK, just be a few minutes. A few minutes turned into three hours of sitting on an airplane, and that was only because they didn't have anyone to pull us back to the gate. They finally had someone pull us back to the gate. We got off the plane and then we did. Everyone's favorite game of your flight is at three, your flight's at 3.30. Your flight's at four, your flight's at 4.30. Your flight's at six. So we were at the airport from whatever nine something to like 630. They didn't even try to fix the plane at any point and then no point.
Speaker 1:And then they twisted the knife at the end by telling us, for whatever fucking reason they're like the plane's taking off, you're just not going to be on it. Like the crew is going to be fine, it might be unsafe if you get on it.
Speaker 2:It's like that makes absolutely no fucking sense we will sacrifice the captains, the crew and this multi-million dollar aircraft.
Speaker 1:But I mean, I guess thanks for not the fun of the three-hour wait is we couldn't then just get in a car and drive to pennsylvania, like if we had left in the morning, we would have been there with plenty of time. It's whatever six, seven hour drive. It's not ideal, um. But then it's like how the hell are we gonna get here? Um.
Speaker 2:So your choices are to drive at no point could we leave the airport either, because we didn't know which. 30 minute, increment the plane could have taken off within true, so, yeah, um.
Speaker 1:So our plan turned into get up at 4 AM and fly to Newark, new Jersey, get a rental car, drive hour, hour and 15 minutes. I don't know if you're here A lot of you are listening and not watching on YouTube right now but Hunter did a pretty good impression of what he looked like in the passenger seat of that Um running on fumes. But we got there. We got there in time. We had a good day. I was actually glad that I had the lecture because I didn't want to pause. I knew that if I decided to like rest during the lunch break or do whatever, that's why I jumped in with you guys on, uh, some version of your pull-ups and push-ups. I was yeah, I was gonna be done like absolutely done, so blasted through from what was essentially 4 am to 6 pm ish, 5 36 pm, and then uh had a lovely time at the sleep-in check out the wawa.
Speaker 2:First drew's. First we did check out the wawa yeah, I'm not gonna lie guys.
Speaker 1:I did lie to caroline, although I think she could tell I was exaggerating. That is a gas station.
Speaker 2:That is a gas station the key I'm telling you man the key is the breakfast. It's the sure. That's fine.
Speaker 1:We weren't there at breakfast time and I shit my pants when I walked in there, let alone eating the breakfast the hunter was referencing. So I'm just not the target client here, that's part of the experience. Rewind me back a decade and actually, God, I'm fucking old. Remind me back two decades. Rewind me back two decades. Fuck. And I would have loved Wawa.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the sleep in that has some, it is nice in there. Yeah, that's fine sleep in.
Speaker 1:That has. It is nice in there. Yeah, it's a, that's fine. Yeah, like a seven. It's kind of like a 7-eleven if it was bigger and nicer. Yeah, it's a souped up 7-eleven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's what it is the sleep in was not a souped up anything. It was a, it was just soup the.
Speaker 1:I really want to know how many stars the scale is for that to be a three-star hotel.
Speaker 2:It's a 46-star scale three-star hotel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. That was very nice. Camp itself, super fun, really cool crew there we were able to get like when you host a camp, you get a free coach ticket per five signups and we had a good crew, so we were able to have like five to seven coaches from raid, which is really fun for us, something that it's not a coach's camp but it is a coach's camp If you look at all of the instruction from a different perspective, like I think, and because we are coaches, like I think there's just an element of that for sure Of like if you come into it thinking like I want to take this information and give it to someone else, um, I think it would really like you'd be able to absorb that stuff like super well, just because of the way that we teach in terms of like progressions and whatnot yeah, I think it was nice to see feedback from athletes.
Speaker 2:We had feet got feedback from athletes who were in, whose injury status was was very prohibitive for them you know from a movement perspective, having to do a lot of repeated movements and stuff like that, but are still learning something. Um, really cool to see all of the coaches that came that came out there and their crossfit raid. Has also been following the affiliate programming for for a little while now and, um, it's always good, like great, like kind of team whether it's team building, coach development, whatever you want to call it, it's definitely a combination of all of those things. To uh, to get some feedback both from a coach and athlete perspective is, I can't imagine, going to do anything but positive things for their community, and it connects the dots in a lot of ways For sure, right, it's like like one example of this from a totally different perspective would be there was a husband and wife.
Speaker 1:Their wife is follows the programming, listens to the podcast. Husband was like, yeah, I kind of got like brought here and I didn't have high expectations and he might have been the most enthusiastic like like thumbs up of, like that was awesome, that was amazing. And I think I think there's like it's almost like us showing up for a job interview with the other coaches. Like Justin obviously knows a lot about what we do. Um has been to a lot of camps, that sort of thing but his coaching staff and a handful of his members like, uh, okay, these guys do know what they're talking about. Guys do know what they're talking about. They do know what they're doing. Like it's not just from Justin. Like, hey, trust me, these guys know. Like they get an opportunity to to lean into it a little bit more and I think that, um, we'll probably have a pretty positive effect on her community and just the way that they execute the programming. Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:All right, all right, um, this is sort of uh, part two of a series that we'll do, um, that we'll do, honestly, probably most, most off seasons. Um, we don't. We don't have as much to talk about relating to like, oh my goodness, can you believe that the open is now 67 weeks? Um, and you have to do it with lights off. Like, we don't have a lot of information on the sport currently. It feels like it's in limbo. But we do have a lot of information on is how to get fitter, how to get stronger, how to get more skilled, how to work on Systems podcast that has already dropped, probably, I would say, the most dense episode that we'll do in this entire series. Dense, yeah, there's a lot to it.
Speaker 1:I think it's getting dense on that one. Yeah, I had to cut you out of some of the clips because I'm the only one talking and you're like this fucking guy and honestly I don't blame him, just making sure you were getting through that snipping correctly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, um. So we're going to talk about strength today and you know the episode will be titled something like how to get stronger. That's the easiest way to to kind of pull people in. But there's an element of like this isn't this. This episode is not for, um, you know, someone going to the gym and seeing how big they can get their quads? Um, this is a sort of functional strength. Uh, I feel dumb saying that, but like there's, there's's when, when we are asking someone to do something very technical under fatigue CrossFit strength yeah, it's super, like really intense fatigue Um, a lot of shit changes.
Speaker 1:Like a lot, a lot, a lot changes, yeah, um. So I want to start with the, the two things that have the most bang for their buck of the people that get started with us. What is different is from athlete to athlete. We might make a absurd amount of progress in three months, um, just by them buying into, you know, these certain, certain things, or like this is a fucking project and we're going to lean into them for 12 months, 18 months, two years, et cetera. So topic number one is access to strength.
Speaker 1:Um, mobility and stability required for full access to your strength.
Speaker 1:So, like you have the neural adaptations, you have the muscle tissues, you cannot get into the position or you cannot stabilize in the position, um, and like you basically just can't show what you're capable of without those things.
Speaker 1:And my mind goes to someone is super stiff. They don't have the ankle range, they don't have the hip range, they don't have the shoulder range to do the things that we need them to be able to do. That is very much like a mobility problem, like we need to get them into positions, we need to get them stretching, we needed to get them to do squat holds and dead hangs and handstand holds and we need you know there's a lot of different things that can happen there. And then sort of the other side would be someone more like how I was as a lifter, like very comfortable, not under fatigue, with heavyweights, but then you ask me to bring along posterior chain, midline bracing, things like that, to do a larger set or to do it under fatigue with a high heart rate, and there's a problem there. So the stability side, um is very similar but different, kind of in the same way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think of the stability side too We've we occasionally work with athletes with actual, like diagnosed hypermobility um just athletes who have access have not not necessarily too much access, but they're just joints or tendons and ligaments are.
Speaker 2:You know, not only do we not need additional range of motion, but we need to stabilize at the extremes, I think, the mobility, and I would also say the mobility and stability. It's mobility, then stability. If you have the mobility, work on the stability. If you do not have the access to those ranges of motion, like you're not doing yourself any good by working stability or working strength in you know, a limited range of motion. It's probably the one of my biggest pet peeves and it's just, I think it's you know, again, athlete comes into CrossFit. Maybe they have an athletic background and therefore have some athleticism, some fitness, they acquire skills quickly or whatever.
Speaker 2:But you know, quote good scores, reasonable, reasonably good lifts, reasonably good Metcon scores, and they never work on their mobility. And then they, they finally find the ceiling. It's like, why isn't my snatcher clean going up? It's like your mobility sucks, like you, you, you, it doesn't matter, you can smash your head into the wall continuously with drills and skills and and improving your this positions in your snatch, but if you don't have access to the ranges of motion that we need. Like your, your ceiling is higher. Your risk for injury is high. I'm sorry, your ceiling's lower, your risk for injury is higher. We need to gain access to that. I would say that's even even bigger factor at like the affiliate level with you know, people are just working desk jobs and it's like.
Speaker 2:It's like, yeah, that kipping pull-up will injure you because you can't put your arms over your head, so like, let's prioritize things here yeah, and I would to use the squat hold as an example to explain those two things.
Speaker 1:It's like I can crumple up down into the bottom of hips way squat hold. Um, that's one of the ways that I actually have and can improve my stability. So it's almost like the same, some sort of the same prescription. You're doing separate things while you're in there. It's like I know a lot of people who are very tight that you know could hold a wall sit for a very long period of time, right, so you're trying to find, um, the, the things that sort of help both, I think, in a lot of categories is one way to look at it.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, the, the within the CrossFit space, if you don't have access to your strength and like there used to be the whole like, like you never see a, like a jacked Yogi or something like that. It's like have you ever seen an Olympic weightlifter that is the strongest and most flexible person? Yeah, exactly Like. What are we talking about? So I don't really hear that as much as I used to. That was definitely kind of an early days sort of thing. Um, but like, those people have ultimate access to their strength and that's why they show it off I think too.
Speaker 2:One other small aside, the like when we're crossfit I love. One of the things I really like about crossfit is the like in order to make crossfit a sport and make it comparable, we have have movement standards, and the movement standards is not necessarily just intended for fairness when it comes to ensuring two people are adhering to the same ranges of motion and movement standards, but they also serve as like. It's like, hey, like the lockout position overhead with your bicep next to your ear, your wrist, your elbow all stacked in the same position over the middle of your foot. It's not only a movement standard, but that's like that should be the goal of what your body is capable of doing.
Speaker 2:From a range of motion perspective. You can go as far into the weeds as looking up the physical like a physical therapist book for what constitutes quote, normal range of motion versus. You know like whether it's an angle of. You know the angle of your hips when itcriptions that CrossFit puts out from a standards perspective is like that's a good place to be Like if you can't look like Julie Foucher as the you know the image on the movement standards graphic or in the CrossFit you know on the YouTube page where CrossFit's demonstrating movements it's like. Those are good examples of like what your range of motion should look like, if you know if it's, if it's a healthy range of motion.
Speaker 1:Well, and people early on in the in the development of the sport were obsessed with things like the functional movement screening and exactly what you're talking about. Like let me get my protractor out you are run through a functional movement screening after taking, like six days of class. Like, we have our movement tracker that shows the movements that we do over the course of a phase or a week or a month, whether it's at the affiliate level or at the MFT level. There's a functional movement screening built into every single one of those. What does your air squat look like? And then what does your back squat, and then your front squat and then your overhead squat. What is your you know handstand look like. You know when you're in a dead hang, can you like really relax and let the shoulder joint completely open and not have your you know deltoid and lat feel like they're going to rip off your body? The screening's done. It's already there. Like you're going to know what things that you need to work on. So, if you want to take yourself through a screening, do all of the movements. Like you can take yourself through a strength screening, do deadlifts and cleans and snatches and overhead press, and you are going to find the areas that are lacking and you need to put yourself into positions that increase that range of motion. It's not complicated. It requires a lot of patience and dedication, but it's definitely not complicated at all.
Speaker 1:All right, um, now we're going to talk about sort of that second piece of this, and obviously there's a ton of connection between access to strength and then your movement patterns, your bracing and your tension. Um, like you can put in your hours, especially in a like globo gym setting, you can put in your 10 000 hours and you can get strong, you can get developed musculature. But the more fatigue and complexity that that is presented, um, you're going to have that magnifying glass on the way that you move and that's sort of like the crossfit strength versus strength concept. Um, so that could just be because you've skipped step one. Like I can't do that and that should be a very obvious problem. But reversing a lot of the damage that is caused by not having access to strength can take a while like and.
Speaker 1:And that goes back to the like why this is what I'm doing, what you're saying that I'm doing, like that I'm not doing, or whatever, and it's like let's, let's go to the tape let's not argue with one another.
Speaker 1:Let's go to the tape and look at it and it's like you developed compensation for all of these different problems. Now that we're addressing the problems, we have to figure out how to remap the way that you move um and again, crossfit is the space where it's like it is really hard to do these movements, especially if they load the weight up a little bit, um, under fatigue, if you don't move well and have access yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 2:Last night we had deadlift day and like one of the things people will, it's. It's amazing to me. It's like you were doing empty bar, very, very light, lightweight deadlifts, like 65, 75 pounds as part of skill work and obviously people are moving extreme, like not obviously, but people are moving very well, like we're taking people through setup, position, the correct sequencing, all that stuff and therefore people are moving very well and they're moving well because the weight is light enough for them to do so. It's like we add a little percent of their lifts and are wondering why, like, things are starting to fall apart and it's like I'll tell you why like 60 pounds ago this wasn't a problem like at there is a line at which, at some point at which the intensity is exceeding your mechanics and your consistency, because ultimately and we can think of intensity as, like you're saying, metabolic fatigue I'm in the middle of a fucking shitty workout and I got to go to wall balls and they're starting to fall apart or intensity in the form of just loading a barbell onto, or loading weight onto a barbell in a for the range of motion and the access to the strength that you currently have.
Speaker 2:Then we start to see athletes compensate and it's like again athlete I had in the evening yesterday, strong deadlifter, particularly for like an affiliate level athlete, like upper 400 pound deadlift. But like once we get past a certain point, he is he. He trained for so long with a deadlift. That was like like holy shit, if you, if you pull that deadlift in an l1 seminar, like glassman's gonna come through the roof like the kool-aid man and like push, kick every single participant for like the most atrocious deadlift he's ever seen.
Speaker 2:And it's like the. It's almost like they don't understand. It's like like I don't know, like this is just how I've deadlift he's ever seen. And it's like the. It's almost like they don't understand. It's like like I don't know, like this is just how I've deadlifted for so long. And it's like okay, well, I hear that your ceiling is low and your injury risk is like rapidly increasing and if it's not today or tomorrow, like the chickens will come home to roost and the same thing applies you know, whether it's in a conditioning piece or a lifting session, like it. Just it doesn't happen overnight. Like you can't snap your fingers and like expect the weight to just increase and you to move as well as you need to in order for those strength gains to be realized.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the and the like. When we get ourselves away from just talking about a strength session or the like 10 of any competition programming where you're testing your one rep max, we start to talk about what is the movement cost of? This is the way that I move, this is the way that my opponent moves, and whether I'm stronger than them or not, in a traditional sense, much energy expenditure is it taking for me to low bar back squat, essentially, and like my midline is getting torched, my posterior chain is getting torched, or like my overhead squat, like the amount of like bracing and trembling and shaking it's taking me to do this if I send the bar out away from myself in all of my lifts. So I, you know, extend the hips and not the knees and like throw the bar out and around, like do you think it's easier for somebody else to just drop straight under a bar and then stand up versus you, like having to use all of your strength to pull the bar back in line with your body, that sort of thing. So, um, again there it continues to you alluded to like the whole like why does this happen under intensity? There can be different versions of that and the most common one is I think I have this shit figured out and then, at 170 beats per minute, you do not. You absolutely do not, um, or if you do, it is at a much less of a degree as your competitor.
Speaker 1:The next two things that we're going to talk about are very intentional in terms of the order of them and both of them being present. We're going to talk about the different sort of things that are happening inside of your body, and then we're going to tell you not to worry about it too much afterwards. So just this idea of neuromuscular adaptation versus muscle tissue growth like, am I trying to get stronger or am I trying to break down tissue and have it grow back larger? This, probably the easiest way to explain it would be how can someone be jacked and not that strong? And how can someone have like a like a double body weight, um, squat, um, I don't know, oh yeah, um. How can someone have like a double body weight squat? Or like, oh man, what was the power clean that I saw the other day? The dude was like 65 kilos and he power cleaned like 400. I don't know, it was absolutely absurd. So just this idea of like, how can someone be skinny and small?
Speaker 2:It was me you were watching me.
Speaker 1:Yes, that was definitely you. How can you be skinny and small and strong? How can you be big and jacked and not all that strong? That be the easiest way for for me to sort of put that out there. So, um, when we are chasing strength adaptation, truly just hunter. How much weight can you lift, regardless of your size? We are looking for, like intense muscle activation and force production. Um, that is what's going to make you actually stronger.
Speaker 1:Um, tension in the muscles, the muscle being under stress, is the thing that is going to cause muscle tissue growth. You just basically beating the shit out of your muscle tissue would be a non-scientific way to put that out there. You get into the higher rep ranges, you get closer to failure. You're really grinding. That's when you're going to be able to really make a difference in your size versus. I have a, you know, usually a kind of heavy weight, enough of a heavy weight to like push back against me and say, hey, you need to bring it, and you move with some speed. You activate your muscle groups. That is how you're going to make those neuromuscular changes. Um, and again, another way to look at it would be training with velocity and activation versus going to failure, like when I'm doing a strength session. What is happening there? Um, anything you want to add to that, hunter?
Speaker 2:before I move on, Uh, yeah, I mean I think that just the like act. When you said activation of force production, I think for people like activation meaning like loading, so like the more um, the the, the the greater the load, the the heavy, the more activation we get. And we not only are talking about like pure muscular activation but there's also a neurological component to it. You I don't remember if you said neuromuscular at the top here, but it's in the it's in the header and that's one also like.
Speaker 2:Again, thinking about crossfit methodology, one of the reasons that we go heavy and especially, you know, at the affiliate level, where we go heavy really often is like or at least we allow athletes to go as heavy as possible when we are going heavy is that biological change that occurs when we are lifting heavy with, you know, a movement like a back squat, like a deadlift, that recruits so many different muscle tissues and muscle fibers and like actually fires neurons that like that and those, those pathways get strengthened. By performing extremely heavy lifting the force production thing, just meaning like speed, we can get athletes really really fucking strong, and this is a great way, one tool that we use to to help athletes who are either injured, uh, or just aren't to, for whatever reason, aren't able to lift as heavy as, maybe, as is prescribed or whatever. We just tell them to fucking move the weight as fast as you possibly can under the parameters of good mechanics, and you can get really fucking strong by moving lighter weight really fast. Very true.
Speaker 1:Okay, so neurons and neuromuscular and you know drew's wearing his glasses again. We go down now to don't overthink it. Um, in the energy systems episode we addressed the sort of intensity multiplied by time concept. Like how hard are you going? If it's really hard, you don't have to go very long, um, to sort of make a change there, and then if you are not going very hard, you need to do it for a much longer period of time to make the adaptation.
Speaker 1:That was sort of stolen from the concept where they continue to try to figure out the best ways to lift weights in science. And what do they come up with to lift weights in science? And what do they come up with? Uh, the amount of weight multiplied by the amount of reps that you do gets you stronger and bigger. Like, so you, you can decide you want to go out into the gym and fucking lift an empty barbell 6 000 times, you're gonna get eventually get stronger and bigger. There are better ways to do it, there are ideal settings for certain things, but, like, the amount that you lift multiplied by the amount of times that you do it is what gets you stronger, I think. I just think that's necessary pretense for getting into all of these subcategories, like it should either be really hard to lift the weight or it should be really hard to continue lifting the weight for more reps, like not as complicated as you can make it seem lift weights, get strong yes, all right.
Speaker 1:So how do we define these things? How does misfit athletics get people better? Um, at the affiliate level for the sport, etc. Um, we for a while had some terminology that was um in terms of like public facing terminology, that was a bit more nerdy. Um, now, just trying to think of it from the standpoint of like, let the people know what they're working on.
Speaker 1:Um, category number one is heavy that is the name of it. Um, and it forces that neuromuscular adaptation that we talked about here all the time. How do I get stronger? Three to five sets of three to five reps? That is a really like, elegant and simple way. Um, like less is more, with your explanation, um, to tell people how to get stronger. Um, and there's a reason why. When you go into a strength program, that's typically the rep ranges and the sets that you're going to see when someone talks about trying to get you a better one rep max, to get you know, sort of stronger within that category.
Speaker 1:Because now we blur the lines just enough to be like this is very clearly making neuromuscular adaptation. Like you need a nap afterwards, but it's also not that far away from lifting towards fatigue at certain weights. Right, like you'll have those moments in Texas method where you know maybe it's set one, cause you didn't warm up that well, uh, or it's set four or five where you're really, you know, digging for something. So it is possible to make both of those adaptations simultaneously. Um, the good thing is, if you're on a good program, both of those things are going to happen on a very regular basis. Like why are CrossFitters so jackeded? They do bodybuilding and cardio simultaneously, like, like that's you know the in terms of lifting to failure or going to failure.
Speaker 1:Like we got that on lock, we get that figured out, um, and the sweet spot here is very athlete dependent in terms of, like I could take the same strength program and tweak the percentages up or down just a little two and a half percent, five percent and make it much more efficacious for a large, for the specific athlete um.
Speaker 1:So, like the weight needs to be light enough to move it. Of course, like if I unrack 500 pounds and drop to the bottom, I can't stand up, probably not going to get that much stronger um, but it needs to be heavy enough for you to push back and to create some of that activation and speed that we're talking about. So, like, if a slow twitch athlete um is given kind of the wrong percentage there and they can't move it with any velocity whatsoever, there could be an issue. We can take a fast twitch athlete and knock the percentage down a little bit, um, so that they're not just like absolutely trashing themselves every time they lift because you know that they're going to be bit too much on your mobility or the bounce Um and you're not, you know, bracing and having tension and being active throughout your lift Um, you might not get as strong.
Speaker 2:I think the five by five as well, like not to get overly specific with that rep scheme, but from a especially for the slow lifts, like I don't think there is a better rep scheme and I think part of that is the there isn't the fact that the fact that five reps at a time puts a ceiling on how much you can lift.
Speaker 2:We I don't remember if someone asked you the question or where it came about in camp, but we talked about, like, like, getting strong, like, yes, we want you to be able, we want you to lift 90 or heavier of your one rep max.
Speaker 2:And, yes, we, we want you to be able to.
Speaker 2:We want you to lift 90% or heavier of your one rep max. And, yes, we, we want you to be able to do sets of 15 or 20 of certain movements. But, like, the sweet spot for a lot of athletes for that strength development is where, you know, weight and speed cross paths in that like 75 to 80% of their one rep max range and again, a bit athlete dependent, so plus or minus a few percentage points there. But it not only enables the right combination of speed and actual resistance but it also happens to be kind of a loading that athletes can typically move like pretty well. Uh, from like a movement quality perspective, it's not so heavy that we need to compensate for uh, you know, for when it starts to get difficult, and it's not so light that we don't have to think about it. It's heavy, we have to think about it, but it is very movable, uh, from a from a speed and quality perspective and moving weights in those middle kind of percentage ranges with good quality and speed, like that's the moneymaker, in my opinion for sure.
Speaker 1:And from the athlete's point of view, the science behind all of it isn't as necessary as it passing the sniff test. Hunter and I are very different athletes. When Hunter goes in and does a five by five, you feel like you're getting stronger. Does someone else watch you? It looks like you're getting stronger. Yes, you watch me do that and it's like, do you think his muscle endurance is going to go up? He just like died, like getting 25 reps of this done. So it passes the sniff test on both sides. And that's one of the ways where it's like we only have, you know, so many sessions um that we can get in and we only have so much energy that we can put out there. That's why the whole five by five thing can be so powerful.
Speaker 1:The next topic here, or the next category, is volume weightlifting. That's going to be your 12s, your 10s, your eights, maybe at the end of a progression or getting down into the sets of six, uh category um. This does a lot for muscle endurance. This does a lot for um, actually, you know, developing muscle growth. But it also has a very sport specific application here of like you know, last year it's it's become more and more common in the sport to see, you know, a weightlifting event, take two to five minutes, because you're being asked to do maybe 30 reps, um of you know an ascending ladder or something like that, um, and we talk all the time about athlete iq and putting yourself into the situations that you need to.
Speaker 1:So there's like we are getting stronger Um, we are, you know, we have muscle growth. But we're also removing this and looking at it from the standpoint of what am I going to do? When I got to do 10 cleans at two, 25? Like what does that feel? Like how long does it take? What happens if I drop the bar and pick it back up, versus taking a step back and taking a deep breath, like that sort of thing? So there's there's the actual strength and rep accumulation that we're looking at, and then we're looking at it from the standpoint of, like I, I never want my athlete to go into a competition feeling like I have no clue what's about to happen, even if the workout's announced.
Speaker 2:Like you have 10 minutes until the workout happens yeah, and this category, I think, is where it starts to blend a little bit into that kind of crossfit rep scheme realm where we ask an athlete to do I don't know 3x12, clean and jerk. You were telling me about that the other day, uh for a poor athlete, Brandon.
Speaker 1:A poor athlete had to do that.
Speaker 2:Or you know a power clean and jerk or maybe it's like hey it's. You know it's 30 or 40 front squats in the 50 to 60 percent range. It's way shittier from a metabolic perspective but all of a sudden it puts your mind at ease when you're asked to do a set of you know 15 thrusters at 135 and we can actually feel comfortable and confident in the in kind of that like middle weight ranges, where you know the opener quarterfinals might ask you to do a lot of reps there and and people following the program are doing this right now.
Speaker 1:Um. So an example for someone listening that doesn't follow the program yet um snatch volume. You've got squat snatch singles 12, 12, 12 at 55, 60, 65, um. Drop and reset all reps, flirt with fatigue without taking any chances on missing a rep. This is not for time. So like you do 12s and you do 10s, and you do 8s, and then we're back and you do eights, and then we're back around to the 12s at a higher percentage later on. So it's you know still so many of these strength principles of percentages, of um. You know like it looks and it sounds like a strength session. We're not doing it for time, but also like that's fucking 36 squat snatches at a heavy weight and ends up feeling and sounding a little bit more like crossfit as you get yourself into it.
Speaker 1:Um, next on the list is positional work, and this can be applied to just about every lift. There are ways for us to. You know, even a lift as simple as a back squat, we make it positional by asking you to do a tempo, by asking you to do a pause. We can have positional even with the dead lift, again by doing tempo, you know, by a dead lift to the knee and a pause and then back up to the hip, that sort of thing. We talked a lot about the movement patterns and the bracing and the tension. If we only lift at high volume or as fast as we can or as heavy as we can, um, it's going to be really challenging for us to make changes in the way, in our actual movement patterns, right.
Speaker 1:So so at the beginning there's a lot of like me typing into a remote client sheet, like barbell therapy, and I'll send them a video of the, you know, the whole empty bar. We're doing muscle snatches, we're doing position one, two, three, four and so on. But like we don't bridge the gap by oh wow, your barbell therapy is great. One rep max next week. Like, we need things in between. We need the positional work to prove to ourselves that at the lower percentages that we can get stuff done. And then we can move into your traditional linear progression or volume or whatever. But, um, positional is a way to for every single athlete to make their way back around, to leaning into. Am I doing this in the most efficient way possible? Um, um, and you're doing a bunch of reps. You're getting practice.
Speaker 2:You're probably getting a little bit stronger, you're probably getting a little bit of like muscle activation, that sort of thing, but a category that I think is extremely useful at all levels yeah, and it's also sprinkled into the programming frequently enough to be able to practice lifts, but not like so frequently that you're not, that you're like missing opportunities to get stronger, like these days, are not intended to develop strength. They are intended to give you, you know, hopefully allow you to express your strength the next time that lift comes around as a maximal effort or you know, whatever that happens to be. But the positional work I think is is super important to your progress and that's it's almost like a license to hey, let's pump the brakes a little bit on the percentage and the, the loading and actually really prioritize movement quality and, lo and behold, you're going to get stronger and if you are.
Speaker 1:So the full spectrum here would be if you're strength biasing, our program, it's 10 of your strength sessions, like I'm here to get stronger. The other nine sessions are these other categories that we're referencing. And then if you're already strong and you're doing five lifts a week, it's going to be 20 of your program and and obviously comes up a lot more in the off season, like in the times where we need to practice that sort of thing. Um, the next is going to be speed, and this is, uh, I'm interested in your take on a on a few different concepts here. But basically we are taking a weight that we don't have to activate and create force production, but we're going to do it anyways because we want to get stronger.
Speaker 1:So, like if I put 60 or 70% of my one rep max on a barbell, regardless of the movement, I do not need to, you know, move as if it's a one rep max, as if it's a one rep max, but if I do, I will get stronger, um, and there is less tension, less fatigue, less cns demand, so it's a tool that we can use, almost akin to, you know, like the zone two stuff where it's like every lift can't be the volume and the heavy like. So if we're bringing speed to the equation here, um, the difference is the resistance is not creating the, the adaptation the athlete is. This is the way that I like to explain it anyways. Like, if the bar is pushing back against you and it's 90, you're gonna have to do the things we're talking about to get it to move. Um, if the bar is lower, but we're looking for force production, the athlete needs to understand how to do that. Um, the only asterisk that I'll put in here, that I'm almost hesitant to say. But one of the things that's unfair about speed work is it's more efficacious the faster you already are. Yeah, so like for me, um, I've referenced it on the podcast five or six times now, but I'm I'm on a quest to shoulder press 225 and like the speed work is one of the like. I think it might be the greatest adaptation that I make when I go out into the gym. You know every third session that I do and, and I have volume work and I have the heavy stuff, but because I'm more of a fast twitch than an endurance athlete, I can move that percentage of a weight much faster, the percentage that the actual weight itself is probably a little bit heavier than someone on the other side of this spectrum.
Speaker 1:I don't say that to say it doesn't work for the other people, but the level of focus that it takes like I want to put a ton of responsibility on the athlete. It's like we see it in affiliate class. Every once in a while we do a speed day and the person who's not fast that probably honestly doesn't even really care that much what their own max shoulder press is. It's just like and like it's basically a warm-up um for whatever's next. And that athlete needs to like truly create mechanical tension through like a tempo eccentric and then like coil themselves up and snap the bar up in whatever lift it is as fast as they possibly can.
Speaker 1:And you know, a rep scheme could look something like eight by three, that's 24 times of being like just locked the fuck in. Like yeah, and that's how you make that adaptation there for a faster athlete. You know you don't give it everything you got for all 24 reps Like I still do, because I understand how well that it works for me, but like if you don't, you're probably still going to get a decent stimulus from it. Um and one of the. I'll stop rambling here in a second, but one of the biggest issues that I see on social media of people following our program is thinking that speed means up down as fast as possible. Like you really see that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the speed work. There's a lot of nuance to it. You either need a coach who knows exactly what they're talking about, like one of us, or you know the actual execution is super, super important to this. You know the actual execution is is super, super important to this. Yeah, I, I don't know, like it, I'm not. Yeah, like I'll, I'm kind, I think I'm probably in your camp. I don't know where the question was or what my take was, but I'll talk anyway and it'll probably answer now it's really just like like, should I, should I say that it's easier for the speed person?
Speaker 1:Like, is it still efficacious for the slow athlete? Like that sort of thing. Like that's yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I mean like, if just you can, I mean literally everything's on a spectrum, right, some things will work extraordinarily well for somebody and it will work moderately well for another person and it will work not very well at all for for another person. So like everything very well at all for for another person. So like everything's going to be on a spectrum. I do think, with the speed work, like you can you maybe can get creative with how you work on speed work with somebody who is a little bit slower, twitch, uh, or you know, more endurance oriented, but I, I do like to me this we've talked a little bit about it, fuck. Neuromuscular, uh, fuck, what's the last word in that? It basically is the way that you determine whether you're a fast or a slow twitch athlete. The slower twitch athlete, you know, may actually need a higher percentage of their, of their one rep max in order to get a strength adaptation. When it comes to speed work, um, neuromuscular efficiency that's the word that I was looking for, um, but when it comes to speed work, it's, it's just, it just takes. It just takes so much more effort to make a slow person fast than a fast person slow. I think you can, you can. It's easier to to rein the fast athlete in in a in a lot of ways than it is to just like you're going to tell that person to slow down or, you know, not move as quickly, and that's a lot easier than telling an athlete to go faster when they're like I'm literally going as fast as I can, I'm literally pushing as hard as I can on the assault bike and 1000 Watts is the peak, like I can't do anything about it. I get off the bike and I'm not that tired because I just can't push hard enough to induce the fatigue that's required. I do think that there's plenty of benefit in being in doing speed work. I think that the manner in which that athlete executes it's really important. Um, things like we're doing right now in the gym post-activation potentiation stuff, where, like after a set of squats, you do some jumping, uh, or or something along those lines I think that can probably be beneficial. Like jumping, I think is a really good way for those athletes to get faster, because you just you can't jump slowly. Um, but it, it's definitely on a spectrum if you're, for I mean I'm, I'm on that, I'm in that category too, I think for me like.
Speaker 2:The five by five is that sweet spot. I'm not a fast twitch athlete, I'm not exclusively like a slow twitch. If I got tested I would. I imagine I would be some. You know a relatively even split of both. But the speed work works Okay. Five by five works extremely well. Six by ten works fine. So like you are probably on the spectrum of speed work works exceptionally well, you know, you might get buried by a really heavy five by five, just neurologically, just because of how much force production you can put into that. Or or a seven by by one, maybe like 90% that would. That would be way more difficult for you than it probably would be for me, right?
Speaker 1:So yeah, I don't think you're wrong, it's just a spectrum, the script, I think, and explain this give each type of athlete the opposite point of view. If I, if you wanted to get me to a point where I could hold 300 watts on a rower for 20 minutes, what does that timeline look like? It's possible you can get me there, but like, what's that timeline look like? And then you take someone like you, someone who has, you know, a bit more endurance, and it's like, like, like that's what makes the sport so cool. Is is, and especially the sort of the programming and coaching side. Um, it's always very like mentally stimulating and challenging, um to to sort of figure these things out. But the the timeline for make a slow person fast and make a fast person moderately fast for a long period of time, um, yeah, lines up pretty well. Last but not least, final category here is in wide lifting, um, and a lot of that is teaching the activation and force production under fatigue. So we'll have a workout where I'll pull one up right now. We will have a workout that looks like a sort of a traditional interval but is actually based on like a one rep max percentage, that sort of thing. So three rounds for time. This part doesn't matter, but I'll say it anyways 25 GHD sit-ups, run 200 meters, rest four minutes and then your next three rounds. For time? This part doesn't matter, but I'll say it anyways 25 GHG sit-ups, run 200 meters, rest four minutes and then your next three rounds run 200 meters. Five power snatches at 85% of your one rep max.
Speaker 1:So do you have the ability under fatigue? You are intentionally running hard so that you can come back in and figure out whether your access to strength has gotten good enough, your movement patterns have gotten good enough. Can you brace? Can you get yourself set in the right position to be able to do that? Because, again, in the sport, all of these things that we go work on and it's very useful in a bubble, bringing them back into, yeah, but can you do this under fatigue? Can you do this when you either have no grip or you had to push a sled and you have no posterior chain, or, most likely in the sport, they just annihilated your quads? Can you still go lift the weight and do that?
Speaker 1:So, um, we find it very useful to ask for, um you kind of take a traditional sets and reps in any of the categories that we've talked about already. Knock them down five, 10% and put them into a conditioning piece, be like okay, we've been working on it, but can you do it under fatigue? And fatigue could be musculature, it could be heart rates through the absolute roof, it could just be a combination of both, because the total volume of the workout was crazy. Um, so something that is a very specific to CrossFit but very important, um, and I like the percentages, just because that spectrum that we're referencing is all over the place, like it's not going to do anybody any good to. You know, program a like a a games level workout where it's just like you all need to do sets of six at four, oh, five on deadlift, and it's like. That's not the like. What are we doing here? That can't? That could be in a remote coaching sheet. You can decide for your athlete, but you can't decide for hundreds of people to go in and do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's value in the doing that closer to the season when you have to be able to move.
Speaker 2:You know a three 15, competition prep, a lot of reps or competition prep, uh you know. But from a training perspective the percentage stuff is gets get, lets everybody play.
Speaker 1:Anything else on the categories, before we jump into some kind of practical advice, nah, send right. Uh, let's talk about things that maybe sort of happen outside of the realm of what we're talking about here. Body weight and nutrition is huge, like mass, moves mass. You're not going to be able to rely on that neuromuscular adaptation, um cause, one of the things that happens again is the workouts just going to kick your ass. And if you're small, um, and there's a heavy deadlift bar and you've somehow figured out how to, you know, stand whatever 475 pounds up, um, when you're fresh, because you're, you know, again more efficient from a neuromuscular standpoint, that ain't going to help you in this sport. It's really not. That barbell is really going to be like oh, you need six sandwiches before you can complete this workout. So, eating the amount that you need to and we'll get into. We're sort of stacking practical application here on top of each other as we go down through this.
Speaker 1:But, um, your body weight and your nutrition related to your strength is incredibly important accessory work. Um, we can round out the categories that we talked about, um, with a higher frequency. So if we just talked about one, two, three, four, three, four, five categories, maybe in the off season that's. Each one of them is presented once a day. If I'm really trying to get stronger, I need those categories to come up more often, and one of the ways that we can do that without kicking you in the face is through accessory work.
Speaker 1:So we can do one of the scientifically backed sets and rep schemes you know, with rest is six by 10, rest two minutes. That is something that is definitely going to get you stronger but also have that, you know add some mass. There's 60 reps at work there, that sort of thing. And then we can go all the way up to sets of 20, 30, 40, 50, depending on what the specific movement is, that sort of thing, um, and then we can go all the way up to sets of 20, 30, 40, 50, depending on what the specific movement is, that sort of thing. But accessory work is a way to continue to make neurological change, continue to you know, you know break down muscle tissue, have it grow back, that sort of thing, without just absolutely obliterating you. And it probably takes us all the way back to the beginning of the conversation and bring some stability to the party, which a lot of people who aren't strong are missing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it can also does the added benefit of improving things like tendon and ligament strength and stuff like that. Allowing you to lift injury prevention. So that you know, odds are, if you're doing a lot of the accessory work, you're trying to get stronger. Getting stronger is a fucking tiring business. It is fatigue and you know, fatigue inducing and just like there's a really high likelihood of just beating you up, the accessory work can be a bit of bulletproofing in a way.
Speaker 1:It's kind of a GPP for strength sort of situation. Yeah, um, work to rest ratios are super important here. So we had a question during the q a at camp about the volume monster, about the person who's just all in on what they're doing. They want more stuff to do.
Speaker 1:Um, I can normally deal with an athlete like that if they're willing to do things like accessory work or mobility work or stability work.
Speaker 1:And if you really want to get the most out of it like an accessory program, a lot of times is like our primary accessory is six sets, our secondary accessory is five sets and then our like stability accessory is four sets and the rest periods are supposed to go up. So, like he was talking about two minutes, then three minutes, then four minutes, like what does four rest periods of four minutes and five of three and six, like that shit adds up. So if you want to get stronger and you want more volume and that sort of thing, you want to spend more time in the gym? Um, you can, but it takes a lot of patience, um, and and, honestly, one of the reasons why I I do so much of the like zone one, zone two machine in between kind of keeps me locked in, like when I'm when I'm injured and I'm doing like rehab exercises and shit like that. I gotta rest four minutes like I'm gonna lose my mind if I'm standing there in the gym doing absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1:Sure that sort of thing. Um, but go ahead uh, no, I was.
Speaker 2:It was kind of a separate topic. So if you want to finish, no, go for it. Yeah, no, it was just the.
Speaker 2:The work to rest ratio thing is, I think, is important on both ends of that spectrum. You were alluding to more, like you know, two, three and four minutes for, like, accessory work, the accessory work stuff, but when it comes to getting strong, well, I mean, you have to be, in a way, a student of the game as far as understanding how your energy systems work and therefore, what sort of rest is needed in order to perform optimally. The rest period that you need between you know a five by five back squat or you know a seven by one, seven by one heavy deadlift, like that rest period is different than eight by three speed work with you know, you know at 50 or 60 percent, and understanding how your energy systems work. The fact that you know for the ultra maximal loading, like it's going to, it takes at least three, four minutes and you know upwards of closer to 15 minutes to regenerate the energy from the energy system that you just depleted in order to be able to exert a similar amount of force.
Speaker 2:And one of the biggest, one of the things that I always have to rein athletes in more at the affiliate level than anywhere else is like, hey, if you, if, if the program is five by three, deadlift at 80 or heavier and you're ready to go 90 seconds later like congratulations on doing another warm-up set, like that weight is nowhere near heavy enough, like it should not only necessitate greater rest, but you need to take it understanding that just because your muscles aren't burning, just because your heart rate's not at 170, doesn't mean that your body doesn't need rest in order to be able to create force production. In order to be able to create force production, in order to be able to fire you know the neuromuscular elements that allow you to complete a lift successfully. So, especially when it comes to building strength, understanding how long you should be resting between set working sets is really important yeah, and that's.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of information that we can get on a remote coaching you, you know sort of side of things and can work on it and be like, hey, we know what type of athlete you are and I'm really good. I know it's going to be boring but I need you to rest for like three or four minutes. Um, the way that we try to force that and I know not everyone follows this, but um, our machine flushes in between um sort of again keep you locked in, flush some of the waste and they take, if you're doing them properly, they take a little while. Um, I think for the community, if you a lot of people you know and had a lot of views, if you watched the video that Hiller did with Haley Adams last year and her like new coach at the time forced her to wait in between sets, you know your two to four minutes, that sort of thing and she was confused.
Speaker 1:She was like I mean, you do back squat session. You just, you know, do your five, you go grab a sip of water and then you do another set of five, like if your head didn't fall off and roll down a hill when you heard that about someone who could like win the cricket games if they got stronger, then that's a red flag, um, you know as something that, like, a million people sent to me. Um, so those work to rest ratios are incredibly important and can be adjusted athlete to athlete. But, um, if you're trying to get stronger, you gotta wait until, like, your body's ready to basically repeat the exact same effort.
Speaker 1:I think that's probably part of it. Like a crossfitter is like oh, I've got a hundred percent and then I got 90, and then I got 80, and then I got 70. We can't treat strength work like that. We got to charge all the way back up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the, the. It's like well, I can again, again. A lot of it comes down to like the effort and the intent. Like sure, I can do the eight by three speed squat session in like two minutes. I can just re-rack it, then step back out, squat three more reps, but like my people do all 24 there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can do, I just do all 24 right there and I'm done.
Speaker 2:Right, it it's like no, it's like and part of it too is like, assuming that you have the right, you know a strength program written correctly, when it's like five by five, at 70 to 80%, like you should need that rest period. And if it's like, if you find that, like after a minute, you're like, no, I'm ready to go again at the same effort level, at with the same speed, with the same force production, with the same movement quality, it's like it's probably not heavy enough to create that adaptation or it's not being executed properly in the room in the CrossFit community.
Speaker 1:Related to this whole topic is the additional reps and intensity through Metcons, interval bitch work, skill work etc. That you accumulate as what probably feels like an effort to chase GPP but might actually be opposing forces, especially if you're in the offseason. I want to get bigger, I want to get stronger. No-transcript class and the you know, air fran, that sort of thing like like that does happen. Gpp. This is a this is very much a like conditioning sport and unless you are at a world-class level with your conditioning, you need to continue to do it. But if you're going to do two lifts and two accessories in a day, that's pretty good chance, unless you're at the highest levels, that you should not be doing more than one conditioning piece you know to, to sort of add on top of that and you need to get further into the weeds with, like, the timing of those things.
Speaker 2:We we talked about it on a podcast a long time ago. It's like if strength is the primary goal it's either correct me if I'm wrong it's done after conditioning is more optimal than doing it before conditioning. Yeah, I mean, if we're talking about ideal is like, full separation is fantastic.
Speaker 1:So, like I'm doing my strength Right, I'm going to fucking eat and recover and lower my core temperature and whatnot. What happens with musculature when you so I'm fresh, I did the thing, it's fantastic. And then I did my conditioning. There's a bit of like a washing away effect of what's happening with your body. Yeah, like you're not, you're not saying okay, like massively catabolic thing that just happened inside my body. What does it want? It wants my heart rate to go down, my core temperature to go down and to be fed nutrients, and that's what's going to make me stronger.
Speaker 1:If I was to then do that and was focusing on strength and then when and did, like you know, an aerobic type bitch work piece, my body's gonna be like oh, this is what we're doing, this is what we want to get better at, this is what we want to improve on. You get a high level of gpp. You will not achieve the strength gains that you need to. Like strength is break it down, build it back up, like that's kind of the, the 101 of it. So completely separating those things is is very useful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's like six hours is kind of the optimal like time frame again if you're really trying to get deep into the weeds separating those two things. But we also talk to athletes a lot of times, who you know, when they do lift after a conditioning piece kind of the a weird part about crossfit. It's like athletes who are in good enough shape to do a high intensity Metcon and then be not fine but like yeah, I could do, I could do my next training piece 30, 30 minutes later and people are like wow, my lifting session went great. It's like yeah, congratulations, you warmed up properly. Like your nervous system is actually firing after that high intensity Metcon and like I don't, I don't see anything wrong with that.
Speaker 1:But again like no, especially if you're smart and you cool down right like I could do a metcon and sit around and talk with my friends and then go to stand up and be like what just happened to me yeah, try to do a back squat, snaps in half like an icicle and feel like I basically can't do anything and it's like a just a fight mentally to get through your session.
Speaker 1:Or I do a conditioning piece and we go yuck it up while I'm on the c2 bike for 15 minutes of like crazy low intensity and they're like oh wow, I can actually go and do that. So there's definitely some like tricks of the trade when it comes to that. But make sure that if you have a goal that you're feeling like you're either biasing it or specializing it, that there aren't opposing forces at work like I'm also putting way too many eggs into this basket. Um, yeah, that will usually get called out like you're you're. You'll crash and burn a little bit and probably figure out what's going on, um, but, but definitely important. So once we've understood all of this um, we have to think about it from like what am I supposed to do as an athlete or a coach? And as with all programming, coaching goals, etc. You have to identify your strengths and weaknesses and coordinate a plan of attack accordingly, like and that can be like if we, if we're at the affiliate level, it's like you having like a like lock eyes with an athlete on a speed day and be like, listen, like you. You're the person. You are the exact person that I'm referencing. We're going to give it hell today and that could be the lightest version of what I'm talking about, all the way to personalizing a program for someone and making sure that all of this stuff is at play.
Speaker 1:They're good with the volume. They don't need quite as much of it. You know they have the musculature but not the neural adaptation or vice versa. You know that's when you double down on something to sort of get them through it. But you have to know what you're good at, you have to know what you're not good at and you have to tweak a pretty conventional plan um to to get yourself to that point. Like all of this information isn't really all that useful. If someone can't either have a coach assess their strengths and weaknesses or they can't do a self-assessment, it's not really going to help you very much to sort of have this knowledge and not use it properly.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:Understanding what is being asked and the intent is super important, especially without a coach.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. So we're going to end here with a little bit of an example of a remote client, a little bit of story time. I wanted to bring the episode full circle here. So what we're going to do is show you, we'll, we'll explain. Hunter, you can narrate as you watch for the listener and the. You know, the people on YouTube can see this and you know, maybe we'll clip it and put it on social media or something, but let's take a peek here. So this video and maybe we'll clip it and put it on social media or something, but let's take a peek here. So this video is my remote client. You can still hear me? Yeah, I can. They're my remote client McKenna approaching a 250 pound barbell.
Speaker 2:Let's go and relax. Approaching a 250 pound.
Speaker 1:So that's McKenna 250 pounds after less than a year of remote coaching. That was actually during a mock games ladder with Paige and McKenna. Important to note here was training super low volume, post semifinals, not quite as much intensity, lower percentages, etc. So that probably will. Both of us will have something to say about that reality right there. But, um, this video here is 200 pounds on the barbell, um, and during phase zero. So again after a summer of lower intensity, lower volume, lower percentage work, that's a 200 pound snatch right there. Ken is very excited in this video. So how did a remote so like? I almost had? There's a video of her failing a 220 pound clean 9 months prior to that and a bunch of videos of the snatch not being anywhere near 200 pounds and not going super well, um, but I don't want to show those for what I'm about to say.
Speaker 1:So how do we do this? How was it possible? Uh, number one, we kind of worked our ass off. Um, we don't like to. You know sort of say like we fucking wrote this magic into a spreadsheet and actually, if you print it out, crumple it up and eat it. Strongest person in the sport, right? No, like we don't take responsibility or credit, or I should. Yeah, we don't take credit for for what our athletes go in and actually execute on, but, um, we did a ton of heavy lifting right, like that's how you get stronger. No, that's not what we did. That's not even remotely close to what we did. We did an absurd amount of squat holds. We did an absurd amount of technique work and a lot of accessory work where the goal wasn't to, you know, go super heavy, but to learn some of again these bracing techniques, these ideas of, of stability, and then both prs again after a bout of low volume, low percentages, post her competing at semi-finals.
Speaker 1:Um, so the the path to where you're going, what you need to achieve, is not going to be the same for every single person. Like someone's going to show up with fantastic mobility, and it's like, here we go, we're on that long journey. It's going to show up with fantastic mobility and it's like, here we go, we're on that long journey. It's going to be a lot of sets of three to five uh reps. Um, over the course of period of time. We're going to do a bunch of accessory work, like that sort of thing. Um, there's a lot of different avenues to get um to where you're trying to go.
Speaker 1:And you know, I, I, I credit her with the sort of trusting and and patience when it comes to this stuff. Um, the amount of people that could completely change their placement on leaderboards with my prescription for a day without heavy squatting is seven minutes of squat holds. Um, you know, take your shoes off, drop to the bottom of the squat, stand up when you have to and once you've accumulated seven minutes in the bottom, you're done. And then if you are back squatting overhead, squatting front, squatting in a session, a five minute hold before that. So that's six, seven days a week of doing that. You do it over a long enough period of time and you can completely change your access to strength your access to strength.
Speaker 2:I think the only thing that's not a bullet point here that probably should be is that she continued to do constantly varied functional movement at high intensity. Like her, gpp didn't drop off.
Speaker 1:Now, we didn't do one Metcon last year.
Speaker 2:I had an athlete last night during our deadlift day who was pleasantly surprised at how close she was to her, like her previous one rep max for a deadlift, and she was like postpartum, hadn't been lifting, her lifts weren't particularly strong, but she'd continue to come to class and stayed fit and like that's the the the, not the the. I want to improve my lift. Oh, I actually went through six, seven weeks, multiple months, whatever, without actually lifting all that heavy, but instead focusing on the things that you did. The squat holds a lot of technique work, a lot of accessory work and then, outside of that, stayed in good shape and lo and behold, like a one rep max, you know, a massive pr comes. It's like that's surprising to them, it's not surprising to us anymore, but like the power of staying in good shape via gpp is like that's the other 75 of the time that she spent working to you know, in order to get there. So like I think crossfit is the greatest strength accessory program ever created.
Speaker 1:That is a fact and that includes something like dot com, old school programming, affiliate programming, where you're quote-unquote lifting, like in its a standalone form, you know, know, once, twice a week, something like that. Um, it's. It's really incredible that the and I think that applies so much to people who sort of haven't hit their stride as a strength athlete yet, like I think they get wrapped up too much and trying to figure out how to do that and they be bought from program to program and maybe they do the whole like like I'm going to do you know this catalyst athletics, like strength program and everything, and that's fantastic if you want to be like a weightlifter, um, but man, what happens to someone's like muscular development and like just ability to push? There's, there's so many different things and could even be its own episode. But like I, I added I added a 105 pounds to my back squat and, like the first year of CrossFit and I don't know how much back squatting I did, how much, yeah, like, not much at all.
Speaker 1:Like, like first time I did CrossFit, total squatted 300 pounds on the dot I don't know if it was below parallel, I'm not really sure. I'm not going to lie, um, and then it's just like, like, because I was a bit more of a fast twitch athlete. What my body was asking for was to get in way fucking better shape. It's like, let's get this machine running here, let's get you some mobility, like that kind of thing thing, and then you will actually probably be able to lift weights. So, yeah, that's a, that's a the. The correct like sort of period to put on the end of all of this is, if you lift weights and vary the stimulus of that and do crossfit, you're going to be in really good shape, and then we like get into the weeds when your goals get beyond that. Yep. Final thoughts how to get stronger in CrossFit.
Speaker 2:Um, um. I'll always go back to the beginning of if you're like you have no business doing the six by 10 with two minute rest accessory program, you have no business doing. You know the, you know a strength specific program If you do not have the requisite mobility to do the lift as it's intended to be done, like period, end of story. I don't care Like if your hip mobility sucks and your definition of below parallel is making your judge pull out a fucking micrometer every time you do a wall ball like no stop that you're, you're, you are.
Speaker 2:Your ceiling is so low you can. You're gonna do so much more for your fitness overall. When you improve your mobility to a point where you have full access to all of that range of motion, then you develop strength through that full range of motion and, holy shit, like you're, you'll be blown away by just how much like how many different corners of the CrossFit fitness realm that that goes to. So like, go ahead, keep beating your head into the wall with like as many reps or as heavy as possible, with like horrible mechanics or through a range of motion that is like less than you know, that is a smaller range of motion. Or spend some time improving your mobility, get access to those positions and then get strong as fuck yeah, and you referenced before the like at the affiliate level.
Speaker 1:There's just so many people who park their ass in a seat and then come in and try to get after it, and you see that so often for me, yeah, like I see more often on the remote coaching side and people you know sending me their videos and discord. They're trying to be a competitor, just like woof.
Speaker 2:You do not move well and they're going to ask you to do a hundred of those and it's going to get real hard, real fast.
Speaker 1:Um, so my final thoughts are definitely just um, there's there's a, an ideal way for each body type, um, and and muscle fiber type and level of access to strength. Um, there's a. There's an ideal way for each of you to move.
Speaker 1:Um, and so many people who have a good attitude, that put in their 10 000 hours, that just grind and grind and grind, never get the proper education, um, into how you're supposed to move and the idea of skill transfer, of like, why are you low bar squatting and then hoping that your squat clean is going to improve, like that sort of thing? So it's sort of just a lot to it. Um, you know, why are you doing a standing bench press on your strict press when you want your split jerk to get better? Um, so, you know, you've got two coaches here who see on a regular basis, athletes who can't even get into the positions that they're trying to add weight to, which sounds insane. And then people who just, I don't want to say move like shit, as it's like your responsibility, like there are a lot of.
Speaker 1:There are just a lot of people who have never been properly educated or have have truly been educated wrong. Like like the like over queuing of, like you have to be in your heels all the time, or like try to rip as much skin off your shin as you can in a deadlift, like shit like that, um, so that sort of thing. So, uh, before you pay any attention to any of the shit that we talked about for the majority of this episode, go pay any attention to any of the shit that we talked about for the majority of this episode. Go back to the beginning.
Speaker 2:Get yourself into some fantastic positions, um, because you know how to move and because your body allows you to get into those positions.
Speaker 1:All right, bye, yep. Thank you for tuning into another episode of the misfit podcast. Uhmisfitcom is the Sugarwad marketplace for your affiliate programming needs. Misfitathleticscom for your individual programming needs. See you next week.