Misfit Podcast
Misfit Athletics provides information and programming to competitive Crossfit athletes of all levels.
Misfit Podcast
Misfit Affiliate Phase 4 - E.337
Unlock the Power of Misfit Affiliate Phase Four Programming!
In this episode, the Misfit Athletics team unveils the transformative potential of Misfit Affiliate Phase Four programming, highlighting its seamless integration with PushPress. Discover how this partnership streamlines gym operations, enabling coaches and gym owners to focus on what they love most—coaching and building a thriving community.
We dive into the details of programming that fits perfectly within a one-hour class, accommodating various gym layouts and equipment constraints. Explore how to balance cardio days, heavy lifting, and skill-based gymnastics workouts to create a well-rounded and effective training plan. With insights on macro and micro programming, the importance of intensity, and strategies for testing and retesting, this episode provides a masterclass in CrossFit methodology.
As the CrossFit Open approaches, we discuss how Phase Four programming not only prepares athletes for competition but also fosters personal growth and benchmarks long-term fitness goals. Learn about the robust engine program crafted by Coach Chris, the art of running a successful heavy lifting day, and the educational philosophy behind each workout design.
We also examine the critical role of community in fitness, emphasizing how camaraderie, shared goals, and supportive environments elevate gym culture. Whether you’re a gym owner, coach, or athlete, this episode is packed with actionable strategies and inspiring perspectives to enhance your fitness journey.
Join us and discover how Misfit Affiliate Phase Four programming can revolutionize your gym experience, delivering world-class workouts while fostering a deeper connection within your fitness community.
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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 ever seen either.
Speaker 2:Special edition Misfit podcast. Today we are going to be taking a deep dive into Misfit Affiliate Phase 4. We have an exciting announcement we have partnered with PushPress, so if you're a gym that uses their software, you can now integrate Misfit Affiliate programming, probably just in an easier way, right, like if right now you're on PushPress and you've been subscribing through our website and you have to enter all of that. If right now you're on PushPress and you've been subscribing through our website and you have to enter all of that information and now you don't have to. So make sure that you head to the Misfit Athletics Instagram. Click that link in bio. You'll get a 14-day free trial Hunter.
Speaker 2:Correct me if I say any of these things wrong, but basically, if you're a potential new customer, you can expect warm-ups, obviously, the daily programming competitor, extra coach's, notes, our engine program. This is a very all-encompassing solution for your affiliate. It's not just here you go. We're known for writing good workouts. Let's slap that bad boy in there. There's a lot of thought that goes into again, warmups and coaches, notes and um, you know the. The extras are great, but just, you know, being able to to walk out into our gym here, um, and see the way that the program is executed, based on a lot of the stuff that we talk about in the programming meeting. I think is a massive benefit in terms of, you know, signing up and subscribing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you, you're part of the, the programming team. So, like you know the level of detail that we try to put into the programming and I think all of us like have different ways that we view the, the best way to provide the program, kyle and I doing a lot of the coaching. So we have a good idea of like, yep, this is correct, or the right amount of work to fit in the hour without it being under or over programmed. I'd say both are an issue. More likely the people try to cram too much into an hour. And then you're, you know, you're on the kind of sanity checking side, making sure that we're not repeating things from a variance perspective weights, rep schemes, that sort of thing. So, um, of all of us kind of fill in the gaps where the other might be, might be thinking something different.
Speaker 1:Um, so yes, your warmups. You get, obviously, the programmed work. Some days it's a lifting only day, a true heavy day. Some days it's a single Metcon, a cardio piece or something like that, and then occasionally you get a little bit of both, maybe a 15 minute gymnastics skill piece and then kind of a short, simple Metcon to finish. But you get your work for the one hour class. You alluded to the competitor extra. So if you have athletes who are looking to crack now, I guess, into that top 25% to move on to the online semifinal, the in-affiliate semifinal and whatnot, you have athletes who can take that competitor extra and do so in open gym and then you also get access to the engine program, which is a three day a week program written by one of our in-house coaches, coach Chris. He's got a shitload of experience writing programming and coaching, specifically rowing, but he's been doing the engine programming for a long time now. Who subscribe and just like providing that, offering a little bit lower skill, lower kind of lots of options for machine alternatives and stuff like that. Low skill, typically lightweight, nothing super complex. Um, we, we run that class. Chris does a an awesome job on the sunday engine uh, the sunday engine class that we run at our affiliate.
Speaker 1:But yeah, and then like the other stuff too for coaches, more specifically, things like the notes. You get the scaling options. You get kind of like the mind of the programmer, so to speak coaches notes that say like, hey, this is what we're thinking, this is how this should go, and then you know, I like, I think about the logistics a lot of like hey, if I got a 15 person class in a 300 square foot gym, how am I going to run this sort of thing? So try to provide options for affiliates who have a shitload of space and other affiliates who have to do partner workouts for a lot of their stuff just because of spatial or equipment limitations. So, very much an all encompassing program for uh, the idea was less than one single membership. You get your entire month of programming taken care of by by people who actually enjoy writing programming, which is not the case for a lot of owners and coaches out there. True, yeah, for sure, um, yes, Uh, make sure.
Speaker 2:So beyond that, um. So let's say you're going through the coach's notes and you still have questions. You have a unique gym set up, all that stuff Discordgg forward, slash Misfit Athletics to get signed up for our free community and we will make sure that if you're a Misfit affiliate that you get into that private coaches group as well. Today's episode is if you listen regularly to these programming episodes, I think will be a little bit unique. I have some ideas on some directions to take it and it will make a whole lot of sense here in a little bit as we talk about how our programming changes when we get a little bit closer to the CrossFit Open and then just the opportunity when there is a double down on variance, to talk through how we coach certain types of classes.
Speaker 2:So, from our perspective, getting to change it up in terms of the topics and talk about macro programming, the when in doubt zoom out kind of the bigger overarching ideas of the program, versus like get your members riled up to work on their handstand pushups or something like that. And then I mean what could be more important than the actual delivery of the programming? You know we are selling a program right now, and we know that your coaching is going to stand above, above that, or if it's the pyramid, it's the base of the pyramid, and then the program's going to sit on top of that. So, um, we always want to make sure that we check in on that. But before we get into all that, we always start the podcast off with life chat hunter. What's going on? You, you cold kid Dude, I'm stiff.
Speaker 1:I cannot believe like not. But a year or two ago, sherb and I were battling it out for who could fucking sit in the tub and turn into an icicle sooner.
Speaker 2:Or later. Sure. Sitting in there for as if he couldn't get any redder. Yeah, he got redder, as if he couldn't get any redder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he got redder, fucking five minutes in the middle of February and I'm like can't wait to get out of that bitch two minutes in. But yeah, I just did the retest the dumbbell squat, clean wall walk. That's, we're in retest week for the current.
Speaker 2:Misfit.
Speaker 1:Affiliate phase it was wall walks and a single dumbbell squat clean and then a rest period and then four minute window for muscle ups. And when I wrote that workout I tried to make it a little bit biased toward the wall walk and the muscle up, without it being 10 minutes of affiliate level athletes yeah face down doing the bernie, the horizontal bernie floor. Um, for better or worse, I turned it into a dumbbell squat clean workout, at least, maybe. Maybe that's a bias, cause I don't mind wall walks, but sure.
Speaker 1:Oh my Lanta. My legs were so fucked for like four days after that workout and test week. So when I came back today I was like I have to get time to get my lower half in the fucking ice tub so that I can be ambulatory tomorrow. Yeah, and TBD on whether that'll be the case or not.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I'll be your original version had even more of those too, so you're lucky that we talked you out of that. I know Well yeah, fuck, but that's like a blessing and a curse situation. You get to do more squat cleans due to your fitness, so like sure Like congratulations, but also fuck you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, I did it. So anybody who complains I've, I'm complaining too, so you know you have no one to complain to but yourself. Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 2:Sebastian, you'll know what I'm talking about here. I've always since been listening to Pardon my Take. I've always wanted, like they call their listeners, awls. I've always wanted the podcast listeners to have a moniker. So if the podcast listeners want to name themselves, go for it. But I just want to shout them out. We did the podcast last week and talked, I talked, about the coffee situation, um that I'm going through, and, um, like clockwork, immediately got DMS about like this is the. I did fuck it up. I think I was saying four pound bag over and over, that's not a thing. Um. So five pound bags of coffee, um, that are good and within a decent range price wise. And I got like five solid recommendations. So, um, again, though, old drew would have 25 pounds of coffee on the way based on those recommendations. I'm going to slow roll this. Okay, I'm going to take it nice and easy.
Speaker 1:My wife's like Give it another week, maybe a five-pound bag will arrive here magically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's the easiest way to test it right. Just magic coffee showing up. So shout out there, so shout out there. And then I told you way back. I told you guys that one of my three football situations was going to pan out and I jinxed myself in second place. Second place and then the pittsburgh steelers uh, suck um is this the guillotine league?
Speaker 2:I came in second in the guillotine league. I came in second in the the like our like big money league is what we call it. Um, so yeah, I mean I won money, but like I don't, I would much rather tell my friends they're a bunch of fucking losers than win money. So first place is is so much different than second place and they've turned into a bunch of socialists. They're like ninth place should get prize money. I think first place should take it all and everyone else should have to do a penalty as far as I'm concerned, but, um, I did get prize money. I I just I don't want to spend too much time on this. We got, you know, affiliates that are like would you fucking tell me about cardio day please? Um, and potential new, new listeners, new subscribers to, to misfit affiliate programming. The russell wilson experiment better be Wilson experiment. Better be over it. Better be over.
Speaker 1:okay, Are they in the playoffs? Sorry?
Speaker 2:They got their fucking asses handed to them by who I actually think is potentially the best team Now the Chiefs don't count, including Kansas City.
Speaker 2:They don't count, they're not the best team they have, patrick, they're the best team Like, patrick, they're the best team like. However, you want to fucking explain that, um, and andy reed coming off a buy is like 10 million and oh, when he has time to prepare for another team, he's just like this is too easy. Could you guys, you know, maybe move the schedule up, make this challenging for me? Um, so it will be interesting, though, because houston's defense is really good. Um, so it'll at least be a game, but the Steelers got their asses handed to them and it's tough because the Ravens are the rival, so like that sucks, but they're so good Like Lamar and Derrick Henry on the same team when it gets cold out is terrifying. Like I'll predict right now that they're going to go to Buffalo and win. I'll just say that. Put my prediction down.
Speaker 1:Anyways, it's not going to be a warm up there.
Speaker 2:Like I don't. A lot of people want Tomlin fired. I'm not quite there yet. I've been there a bunch of times in the last two decades. I used to tweet fire Tomlin back when tweeting was a thing.
Speaker 2:But until they have a top tier quarterback, I don't know, you cannot, I don't think you can blame basically anyone other than the general manager or the universe, and I don't know how they're going to get one, because they keep getting the fucking 20th draft pick because they're mediocre. Okay, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right. This is the Misfit.
Speaker 2:Affiliate Phase 4 program bit more fun for us because it gives us an opportunity to dip into what you can expect from a more macro standpoint. So micro programming would be like a specific thing that's happening in a specific workout on a specific day, and then the macro is more these overarching ideas of things that we're trying to accomplish within the programming. And there are still a few sort of biases that we have, but they're very light and they rotate. So I think the easiest segue to this would be talking about our heavy days and we're leading into the open and we will spend a little bit of time talking about the open, I think, in this podcast.
Speaker 2:But when we're leading into the open, there's just this idea of getting a little bit more sports specific with certain things. So maybe the rower pops up a little bit more, or maybe some of the like pulling gymnastics, like your, your, you know, your toe to bar or your kipping handstand pushup, whatever it is will pop up. And then when we look at the strength department, um, this is we're like halfway between choosing a bias, like we would other times of the year, and then getting into this what I would call a sport specific rotation. Um, so all of the lifts that are going to be on our heavy days, um, are going to be basically front rack strength, right, so we've got split jerk, we've got front squats, we've got clean and jerk and we've got squat cleans.
Speaker 2:Um, you'd normally see us go, um, you know one of those or a combination of two of them, but having that full rotation there, um, I think you get a really. I think you get a really good opportunity as a coach to teach um like this, this, like continuing education week to week, like the barbells in the front rack. Let's talk about the difference between like what has to happen in the squat clean versus the front squat versus the split jerk, and talk a ton about like if you can truly stabilize your trunk and like really become strong in the middle, all of a sudden you feel like 20 or 30% stronger and realize that it wasn't necessarily your legs, that sort of thing. So I really like the idea of a movement family where, week to week, the athletes can learn a bit more and a bit more and become more and more comfortable in these positions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean, if we, we just we're just finishing up a phase now, the only phase of the year where the lifting day is the same every week, which is the back squat, and so for the last seven weeks athletes have been doing sets of five back squat same thing from a variance perspective, like there's a reason we only do that once per year where there's an entire phase where that's the only lift day, like it's the only, uh, only lift we'll do in for for seven weeks. But you do get the benefit of kind of week to week, especially for athletes who are consistent and coaches who see the same athletes in their classes regularly. They can really spend time working with that athlete on the movement, knowing that like hey, we're going to come back to this next week and we can see progress from week to week, whereas the constant changing of the lifting awesome for GPP, but it doesn't always provide that opportunity to check in. When you're saying, like you know, all of these movements are from the same family. There's one week where there's a deadlift lift only day, but other than that it's all front rack, whether it's a clean, clean and jerk split, jerk front squat, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:And you're right, we can emphasize certain, you know, aspects of those lifts that do translate over, and then the benefit to this lift, specifically at this time of year, that front rack position. That's just. We're we're gonna we're gonna see that in some capacity in the open. Um, like you said, we can talk about, you know, the importance of the open at the affiliate level. Uh, you know, regardless of what your thoughts on CrossFit HQ are, but the fact is that, like, those things are going to show up in the open, I don't necessarily care that we're preparing specifically for the open. Uh, you know, in that regard, but it is good to like, this is kind of the culmination of the training year and there's a reason that this, these lifts are showing up at the time that they are because there has been a progression over the last, you know, 50 weeks to to bring us right around to this point, a little bit less.
Speaker 2:But and there's just like, if we use the open, we have this opportunity to compare ourselves to. Basically, however you want to bracket it, it could just be the hundred athletes that are nearest to you, the thousand athletes that are nearest to you to track your longevity. You could do that. So we don't need to talk about giving your $20 to this person or that person.
Speaker 2:We take this scoreboard and we go in and say I'm going to get a year older and it's very doable to get fitter. So I'm literally every single year up through when I'm comparing myself to the right cohort and comparing myself to myself the previous year. I'm going to get this opportunity to go in and check in on that, because we know that if your strength and skill and metabolic conditioning improve, hey, go take a blood test. I guarantee you you're gonna like the results there, like that kind of thing and I don't know, like just the idea that that is available to us and we have the test retest models that are built into it. But it's just not the same as let's take, you know whatever, you know six to 10 movements and we've got some mixed modality. We've got all these different things. It's a very good system to measure with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's. I think there's like for at least for us and people who follow our program, there's three ways that we test and retest. One is the, the built-in test retest that we do at the beginning and the end of the phase and that exists equal parts for like the purpose of progress, but it's also to keep athletes like engaged. For that seven week, hey, we're going to focus on, we're going to slightly bias a couple of things and you're going to test something at the beginning, you're going to test something at the end and, assuming that you were consistent over those six to seven weeks, like you're going to be able to see that you're making progress in the short term, which is great, that keeps the buy-in high. And from a coach and ownership perspective, like like you know how many of your athletes are going to say, like they're going to send an email that says, hey, I've been making too much progress, I'm going to cancel.
Speaker 1:It's like that doesn't happen, like if they cancel, there's another reason. You know that sort of thing. The other one is like we still do our benchmarks. We still get the crop, the traditional CrossFit benchmarks, the girl workouts, occasional hero workouts, whatever the ones that get sprinkled in, you know, not even yearly, maybe even like we've got, god damn it. There's a one K row coming up and that.
Speaker 1:I'm already. I already know I'm going to be sick that day, that I'm already. I already know I'm going to be sick that day. But the last time I've got that in my benchmark tracker is let's see if I can find it real quick October 11th 2021. So, lord knows, we've done plenty of rowing between then and now, but to have that benchmark that we reassess not even on a yearly basis, just like one random day, you walk in and it's like well, there it is, let's see if I've gotten fitter over that period of time. The open is that third thing where we can do kind of the annual check-in.
Speaker 1:The benefit there is like maybe we do get an open workout retest where we get to retest from a few years ago. But I think what the open brings that those other two don't is the larger community. And again, say what you want about HQ, say what you want about the open and what it's supposed to do. There is still no larger like competitive, competitive event, like worldwide, like it is the, I think, the single biggest like thing where anybody around the world who wants to can compete against each other. And I mean I don't I don't think I have to tell you or anybody who's done a friday night lights type thing at their affiliate like there's a reason people are laid out on the floor on their back for 10 minutes after an open workout because the intensity that you get in those workouts is just just does not get matched on with your Tuesday 9am class, not because of any other reason.
Speaker 1:Then it's just got a little bit different of a vibe and that is where you can get your athletes to push themselves beyond what they're capable of and what they would do on a daily basis and maybe they learn something. That's like, hey, it turns out if you really focus on something or if you really actually just try, like you get yourself over the rings, you get your chin over the bar, you do something. You hit that PR lift that you've been seeking for a long time and you thought it would never happen. But the stars align, the vibe was right and you hit that big squat, clean or whatever the lift is, and those opportunities don't come around enough to skip over the open, just for you know, for a reason that isn't doesn't have to do with your athletes yeah, and if I, you know in this office with all the fucking shit all over my whiteboards here, um, the open is about a sport and then I go walk 20 feet out onto the rubber mats out there and it's about individual athletes and the community.
Speaker 2:So this is we are talking about misfit affiliate programming. Make it about your athletes in your community, like it doesn't need to be about the sport, it does not need to be about the C-suite at CrossFit HQ. That wasn't the fucking point to begin with. Um, and like I've said, I've said this on a few different podcasts and I don't want to, you know, get into politicizing any of this, but it's not, it's not theirs, it's yours. You and your community, or should be able to have a fantastic time digging into this.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely All right. So talked a little bit about the idea of a bias that we've had in previous phases and then what could be sort of in between that with the sports specific, you know we call it the front rack rotation or just, you know, front squats, cleans, heavy split jerk. When we get into the gymnastics focus, the cardio day, focus, intensity day, um, gpp lifting day, that's when we get into this rotation Um, and we get into this ode to like the OG style of CrossFit but brought into um, like maybe kind of a cleaned up affiliate situation. And one of the things that popped into my head as you were talking is it's like when we are making adaptations to the original dot-com programming, the intention there was not. It didn't have anything to do with an affiliate. Dot com programming was for self-motivated one, gym memberships that were in your garage. That's not who we're writing programming for. We're not worried about. Am I worried about retention of myself from a free program that I'm following? You know what I mean. So, like a lot of these changes, it's like this is what we're after and if we got to throw a bone out there every once in a while to get people excited and get them, to get them to stick around, to get our coaches to buy into something larger like this style of programming makes sense, but at the same time, we've always used variance as a guiding principle.
Speaker 2:Um, and when I look at this, it's exciting because, again at the macro level, week to week we have a cardio day, a GPP lifting day, a heavy day, a gymnastics focus day and an intensity day, and that's every single week.
Speaker 2:And that's where we're checking all of these boxes of these different styles of days and styles of programming. And then, as we break it down more and more into the micro, it's like, okay, cardio day is once a week, but if our combinations of like is this machine only? Is this CrossFit cardio, which would be like wall balls and double unders and burpees and things of that nature, is it long, is it medium, is it short, is it a couplet, is it an AMRAP? Is it long, is it medium, is it short, is it a couplet, is it an AMRAP, is it timed? That's where we get to again lean on that variance. So one of the things that I wanted to do is to maybe we could define things, we could sort of put out there why we would want them weekly, but I did want to go sort of category by category. So the very first is this idea of cardio day. What comes to mind for you as a programmer and a coach when you hear that Something that everybody can do so flat out.
Speaker 1:It's probably hopefully the most accessible day Most of either most of the year. It's like either machine intervals or a combination like CrossFit light. I would say like. If there was a like, if you were thinking like light on my fucking heart rate, bro yeah. Something like that, where it's like low skill weights are light.
Speaker 1:Again, there's still might be some scaling required, but for the most part we we see the most number of RX scores, for example. We don't even keep track of RX or scale, but it's one of those days where, for the most part, everybody can participate and the way that you get to the top of the leaderboard is being the fittest person there. So cardio day is typically either it's kind of a, it's again something that everybody can do and it also it's the best way that we have to specifically target an athlete's energy system. So on a cardio day where it is just bike sprints like, we can target a very specific energy system because we can put athletes in a specific time domain and effort level and again train that energy system.
Speaker 1:If we want to go in that medium or the long time domain, things open up a little bit as far as mixing up what sort of machines we can use, what implements we can use, and then the idea of crossfit cardio you alluded to. So we have a handful of movements again. Just think like kind of CrossFit light, your burpees, your kettlebell swings, wall balls, fairly low skill, just kind of grunt work type things. We see those type of workouts pop up in the open because they're awesome tests of overall fitness where an athlete is not limited by a heavy barbell, a mobility limitation, a high skill movement or capacity to just straight up perform a movement. We want athletes to only be encumbered by their own fitness. So these days, provide the coach with the opportunity to get everybody kind of participating together, suffering together while doing either the exact same thing or a similar thing, and then, from a programming perspective, we get that ability to manipulate energy systems exactly how we want it, because it's a lot easier to control.
Speaker 2:Um, and you know, once we start throwing muscle ups or thrusters and stuff like that, we have to be a little bit more careful with how we program that to make sure that everybody gets the right workout where things can be challenging and sometimes you have to ask a member to go above and beyond with their time and their schedule is the idea of warming up, which is very much performance-based, and then cooling down, which is very much recovery-based.
Speaker 2:It's not that easy to teach and whiteboard brief and get everybody back to the whiteboard to give their scores and do all of these things.
Speaker 2:And then my mind, as the like, a bit more on the competitive side, from a coaching standpoint, is like I need 30 minutes of dedicated warmup and cool down time. That has nothing to do with mobility or any of this other stuff. So on these days, being able to show people you know how you can really get your body to a place where it can perform at its best and not feel like I'm maybe warming up in the workout, sort of a thing, hitting your stride at some point, um, and then from that recovery standpoint of of getting athletes again to sort of understand how to cool down, because the cardio day is always going to be a like conditioning only day, um and the. We've talked about this. I don't know if we've talked about it in the affiliate sense because members I don't know if they don't know or they don't care as much, but the idea of what does actually stomp on your central nervous system and your heart rate being high for a longer period of time is like a number one of.
Speaker 2:That's why you do a 20 minute amrap and you fucking sleep like a baby kind of a situation like a good 20 minute amrap, that kind of deal. So, um, if a member is worried about that, uh, and they like to nerd out a little bit that that whole like if I don't pull 100% deadlift today, my central nervous system is not going to get like any action.
Speaker 1:That's not a thing, that is very much, not a thing.
Speaker 2:Gpp lifting day, so this could potentially be lifting only, but in most instances it is a like shorter version of a lift into a conditioning piece.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So this, this day was kind of born out of. You know, we've, as a, as a, as you know, as the programming company we have gone from, we've adjusted our view on how to best program, especially for the affiliate, because there are a lot more constraints, especially with the time available, logistics, number of athletes, equipment, all that sort of stuff. Initially it was like, well, let's try to get two things in one class, right, a lift and a conditioning piece. And then it was like this is just, this is too fucking tight. We're sacrificing something that we don't want to sacrifice in order to do more work. And a lot of people like the idea of seeing multiple things on the whiteboard. It's like, yeah, I'm going to do, I'm going to get strong and I'm going to get fit, all in one class and it's like there is a place for that. But it's not, it doesn't exist. Every single week, the GPP lift, this kind of. Basically, instead of having a dedicated day where it's like we're going to, we have to do two things in this class, it effectively became a like hey, what are we missing? Sort of day. Like GPP day is like what have we not done? So we've got a cardio day where we have to go short and fast. We also have a lifting day, which is effectively kind of short and fast, and then we got gymnastics. So what am I missing in this week to create a well-rounded program?
Speaker 1:Some days it is doing a lift and then a conditioning piece, and some days it's not, and some days it's doing your traditional kind of like one workout within that one hour, but we just kind of pay attention to the movement that get plugged into there. So, as an example, we talked about this lifting phase being the front rack sort of thing. Well, we've got a week where we want to make sure that athletes get the opportunity to pull a heavy deadlift at some frequency. We think about the deadlift, the squat and like pressing movements as things that we have to keep that in the rotation because they have the most opportunity to get athletes stronger. So in that week we have a deadlift day. That is our lift only day. That's the one week in this phase. That's not a front rack thing. So what we do is take that GPP day and say like, okay, but we're going to make sure we get that front rack work in there somewhere. Gpp day and say like, okay, but we're going to make sure we get that front rack work in there somewhere. So now we have a heavy front squat inside of a conditioning piece. We don't do that very often.
Speaker 1:It's, you know, a lot of times in conditioning pieces.
Speaker 1:We don't want athletes to get slowed down by, say, a overly heavy barbell or an excessively high skill movement or whatnot.
Speaker 1:But there are days where we do that and that GPP day serves that purpose.
Speaker 1:So it just allows us flexibility as programmers to make sure that athletes are getting what we need in the program for it to be well-rounded and varied in a true GPP format. But some days there is going to be like, hey, you're going to spend 15 minutes working on a lift with the intention of getting better at the lift, not necessarily going as heavy as possible, and then the conditioning piece that follows is going to be something that doesn't require any extra warmup. Maybe we're going to snatch for 15 minutes and then do burpees and snatches in the short conditioning piece. So the lift has warmed us up for the conditioning piece. It's not going to detract from the conditioning piece, but it provides us with a slightly different format that is also easy to run. As a coach, who's responsible for making sure that you program's well-rounded and then also giving athletes kind of a different class feel where it's yeah, some days it is okay to do two different things, as long as they are programmed correctly and then coached well.
Speaker 2:We alluded to the sort of the hierarchy between what matters more, between coaching and programming, and this is a way for us to help you out with that. So there's this idea of like I'm thinking you know, we just have gone through our year end survey and when we're looking at it, if you're going to ask, if you're going to run programming like this and you're going to ask members what they think of the programming you will get some feedback of I wish there were more days with a lift and a mechcon, yeah. But then you slide on over to them rating your coaching and it's very high um. And again, there's like there's a thing where whoever's listening to this podcast that either subscribes to our programming or is thinking about doing it, you are asking us to bring a level of expertise, and that's obviously no different when you walk out into the gym, right, the members might think they want X, Y and Z, but at the end of the day, they're paying a premium price for you to tell them what to do and you get the feedback on a year end survey or something like that because you fucking ask for it, right.
Speaker 2:But I love the idea that we can find a balance between all of this stuff and say we promise we know what we're doing and we've done a ton of iterating and we've done it the way that this is suggesting.
Speaker 2:But at the end of the day we believe that that coaching and class experience is so incredibly important as the entire foundation of what we do at the gym that we need to write the programming to prioritize that and then we can think about the programming sort of afterwards. So that's where my mind goes when I think about the idea of like there are two, sometimes three, but almost always two days a week where there's two pieces versus three, that kind of thing, or two pieces versus one in the class. And I guarantee you that if you've been writing your own programming and you do in the two days that you will get some feedback on I just don't like change. Please let me back squat nine times a week and then if you're asking them how the coaching experience went, that will improve. If you are thinking about things like coaches development.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think to add on to that, that's an education thing from the coach to membership, from coaches to membership on why is it that we're only doing one piece in class per day? Because an athlete is thinking about their experience in a microscope. They're like today I want to go into the gym and I want to do these two things and it's like that's fine. I understand that you come into a CrossFit gym. The purpose is not to get you fitter, like today. It's not to do what you want today, it's to like over a long period of time?
Speaker 2:I don't know, Hunter, it's January. I would like to. Let's go Snap the fingers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, athletes are not paying you to come in and do whatever they want. They are paying you for your expertise and they're putting trust in you that your program is going to move the needle for them in the long run. And if athletes don't understand that the purpose of CrossFit is that low trajectory to a distant horizon, right, it's the like. A little tiny bit of progress every day, because you are coming in, you're being consistent, you're coming to the gym. A hundred words of fitness right, you're, you've got the nutrition dialed in. We're improving our conditioning. We're working on the things that we need to. If you can't squat below parallel, we're working on our mobility. If your diet sucks, you're improving that. And all of those things combined together over a long enough period of time of four to six days per week in the CrossFit gym and then learning and playing new sports outside of the gym that is going to move the needle on your fitness over the long term. I'm not here to provide you with what you want every single day, exclusively what you want. I'm here to provide you with a well-rounded program that's going to make you fit for life. And what that means is some days we're going to squat heavy, some days I'm going to bury you with cardio, and some days we're going to squat heavy. Some days I'm going to bury you with cardio, and some days we're going to practice a skill that you might think of as like. This is stupid. This isn't like I don't want to do this, but we're teaching you something. We're developing certain skills that are applicable to your fitness in the long run.
Speaker 1:So, um, don't be as a coach or an owner. Don't be. You can't be afraid to. You have. You have to educate your. You have to educate your coaches. First, you have to communicate like hey, what is it that we're doing here? And then filter that down to members like hey, guys, this is the purpose of CrossFit, this is what we're shooting for. This is the reason the programming looks like it does. This is why some days we do two things, some days we do one thing. This is why some days we do two things, some days we do one thing. This is why some days, we're only going to lift you're not going to breathe hard. And then there's other days where we are going to just you know, make you breathe hard for an extended period of time or make you sprint on a bike, because, in the interest of your overall fitness over a long period of time, this is how we get there and we don't.
Speaker 2:We're crossfit is so different than everything else in terms of what we're like. It's not a, it's not like a fitness challenge. It's not whatever 75 hard or any of these other things. The business model is literally this is a lifestyle for you and we expect you to come here and stay here for a really long period of time.
Speaker 2:Um and when we mix things up and we mix up the modalities and we don't, you know, just hammer you with volume. You stay healthy, you get fitter over a longer period of time, your biomarkers improve. We're not trying to build something for you where you come in and you go as hard as you possibly can on multiple things for a month or two and then quit because you're burnt out and your body's smart enough to tell you, hey, you should probably stop this shit, or it does it because you pulled your hamstring or you did X, Y or Z and that, like again, that longer time horizon is huge. And then the other thing that comes to mind and I definitely don't want to call out any of our customers, but when we get these few and far between, but we get some instances where coaches or owners, whoever's sort of in charge of signing up for the program comes to us and says will you please tell my members, give me the reason to my members, why we are doing this or we're not doing that as often, and it starts to like it's a question that gets asked by the same affiliate owners or coaches three or four different times and it becomes clear that we are selling and it becomes clear that we are selling words on a paper to those specific gyms and not this buy-in of the overall idea.
Speaker 2:And listening to the podcast and furthering your education and culture is top-down. So, like you said, it's not just about educating your members, it's your coaches. Every single one of your coaches should be able to answer that question and if you're new to all this and we need to help you answer it the first time, we're, we're totally in for that and we provide that as part of the service. But, like, over a long enough time horizon, you need to be able to answer those questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's like to go a step further. That's that's what you learned in your L one, that's what's in the level one manual. Like we we have we have certain like ways that we program that are, you know, outside of the confines of like the M, the G, the W, in that you know the programming manual, but it's still based on the CrossFit methodology. Like we teach CrossFit at our gym on the CrossFit methodology, like we teach CrossFit at our gym, we don't teach, you know, team Misfit, some proprietary blend of herbs and spices. Like we have nuance to how we teach things and because we've like developed an understanding of both the CrossFit methodology but also, like human physiology and biomechanics and all that stuff and all the resources and subject matter experts that have been in the CrossFit space for a long period of time.
Speaker 1:But, like, crossfit is that proprietary program you alluded to, like you know other programs. It's like the reason CrossFit will continue to like be around for a long period of time is the methodology. And it's because, like you, if I go to a commercial fitness a commercial gym, even if I go see a personal trainer, they're going to ask me what my specific goals are. And I'm like, unless I have that specific thing. What I actually just want is to be generally fit and generally healthy.
Speaker 1:No-transcript baseline, which is having an understanding of what is in the L1 manual, what's in the L2 guide, what's in the articles that CrossFit and Glassman wrote, you know two decades ago, and stuff like that. If we don't have an understanding of that, then like that's a that's an education problem and no amount of conversations that I have with you is going to effectively communicate that to your members. Like you have to have that understanding, we're happy to help, but like I'm putting this on you coaches, yeah, and, and what you're trying to do when you're helping is not a game of fucking telephone it's not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm not trying to be the middleman of life, right well, they become the middleman I mean, yeah, I'm not trying to create, yeah we're educating you to be the source, like that's the goal. Yeah, so if it's like, what the fuck did he just say to me, say that back, be like I don't fully, I'm not on, i't grasp, I'm not understanding this. We have a deeper conversation. Can it be a podcast topic, whatever? Like that sort of thing. You don't want to feel like it's a game of telephone, but the guy said so.
Speaker 1:So it is what it is. Listen to them.
Speaker 2:Um, all right, so somewhere between, depending on your hopefully four to six days a week, somewhere between that, um, your 15 to 25% of your programming is going to be heavy day lifting. Um. I think that's a. I think that's a great split. We hit the, we hit the. You know low rep, high weight, medium rep, medium weight. You know low weight, crazy reps. We hit all of those different things. When it comes to the weightlifting Um and I don't think you need to explain what heavy day is I want you to give me. I'm an affiliate owner and I've been the middleman this whole time and I'm coming back to you again Can you give me some tips on heavy day and how to run it and how to sell it, so that I don't so people aren't just like I didn't fucking cash out with a 90 cal sprint at the end, bro yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot from an education perspective. We have to be able to communicate to athletes what the importance of being strong are from a longevity perspective. So we know like you might be able to relay this better than I can, but if you've been served any Peter Attia information in the last like year, that man is on a tear of improve your VO2 max and get as strong as you possibly can, and those two things will-.
Speaker 2:Should that link to misfitjamportlandcom or?
Speaker 1:tbisfitcom. Yeah to longevity. So we can talk about things like improving bone density. And then let's think about your membership and who this applies to. So if you're over 50 or 60 years old and you fall and break a hip, the odds that you are going to you know what fact I'm trying to get at here, dude, all cause mortality all yes, okay, go for it is absolutely like the.
Speaker 2:the numbers are staggering. For essentially, what we need is a level of muscle mass and bone density and maybe downstream, a little bit of mobility, cause you can be fucking jacked to the tits, as they say, and, uh you know, you might still tear something if you fall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, but the all cause mortality from. That is is just absolutely staggering. Like, like, just getting your you know your grandmother to do the like. You know the air squats to the box, squats to the couch with some dumbbells or something like any of that stuff is is absolutely life-changing.
Speaker 2:So when we, when we take care of this stuff here and, like you, get the members get too wrapped up in Look at Billy over there fucking doing 405 for five in the back squat You're all jumbled in to this fucking point one percent of the population in terms of how strong you are and your muscle mass and your bone density Every single person out in that gym, right. So your version of this in terms of creating loading, you know, so that you get the bone density, and then you know manipulating muscle tissue so that you get a little bit stronger that shit is going to happen, I promise you. I guarantee you. And if you've got a coach like Hunter or Mark or anybody else and you're lollygagging over in the corner on five by five day, it's going to get fixed fairly quickly. So that would be one tip that I'd have in there.
Speaker 2:Like this is not. I know you think you know what five by five is. You don't Like that's not what this is. Let's fucking. I'm going to turn the music up so loud that you're going to understand what a five by five is.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So again, kind of going information. Information, I think, is the tool that you, you, hey, guys. This is why being strong is important. Athletes can choose to take that or leave it, but the fact remains that the stronger you are, as Mark Ripito said, the harder you are to, the more useful and the harder you are to kill and like that's in jest, but it is true, like we need to be strong in order to increase our longevity, reduce the instance of injury.
Speaker 1:We also know again let's go back to the L1 manual we use those functional movements that allow multi-joint compound. You know, multi-joint compound lifts that have the ability to impact you at the cellular level, literally can change your cellular makeup when we are lifting heavy enough, and then obviously doing so safely. So communicating the importance of why we dedicate days to lifting only and then like the actual format of the day means that you're going to do a set of three deadlifts or a set of 11 deadlifts and then you need to rest three to five minutes because your energy system says like, hey, I, I can't lift heavy again for another three to five minutes unless you know you need to give me enough time to recover in order to do this again the tough part for an athlete is like, well, that three to five minutes is just. The tough part for an athlete is like, well, that three to five minutes is just me sitting on a bench doing nothing, like hopefully talking and yucking it up with some friends, with some music going, but like we need to communicate, like, hey, it's okay that not every day is just a lung punch, you know, and a punch to the heart rate, like there is value in these days. And then, when it comes to the actual like structure and execution like we are still doing a warmup that elevates athletes heart rates I think that's a huge problem.
Speaker 1:And to all call out CrossFit on this one, the number of classes that I've seen like the one hour class on YouTube of a lifting day or something like that, where it's like we're going to do some jumping jacks and then get barbells in a hand of an athlete I'm like I would be so fucking annoyed if that was my class, because I'm like I need to get a little bit of my. I need to get my heart rate up a little bit. I need to get a little bit of muscular activation going. I need to make sure that my midline is ready to support I don't know 225 pounds in the front rack position, some a little bit of mobility, that sort of thing. That's how we structure those days and we still get a solid 30 plus minute lifting session in and teaching of the movement right.
Speaker 1:So on those days we're still we're still doing a kind of an abbreviated heart rate spike to make sure athletes are awake, their body temperatures are warm. We do some muscular activation stuff to make sure that, like the correct muscles you know, make it especially like posterior chain stuff, making sure glutes and hamstrings are ready, because those are the things that protect our low back, especially when we're doing things like a squat or a pull, making sure those things are activated. And then we get barbells in an athlete's hand and we're drilling the shit out of positions, doing a lot of reps, and that's how we make sure athletes are warm of what's on the paper, what's on the document, what's on the teleprompter and how the coach is actually going about making sure athletes are ready to execute this heavy day properly. So that's kind of the way that I think about structuring that day and then also communicating the importance of hey, there's a reason your heart rate's not going to get over 150 today.
Speaker 1:We're going to lift heavy because there is value in this, in your overall fitness and longevity, and if you're upset that the one day per week that you came to the gym happened to be a day that your heart rate didn't get up, I'm going to turn around and I'm going to put that on you, athlete, I'm going to have a conversation as to why you only came to the gym twice this week. One of those days was the lifting day and the other was gymnastics, and you feel like you're not getting the most bang for your buck. It's like I'll tell you why. Cause you're not like come to the gym four to six days a week and then we'll, we can talk. So that's how I think about that heavy day.
Speaker 2:And there's a performative aspect to it too, and I bet that if there there's a, if you got a meathead coach in your gym, uh, go take his class and see the like, because you could educate someone. But like I'm thinking like I might be aging myself here, but ben stein, the like clear eyes guy and the guy from ferris bueller, like that dude's not selling me on squat, clean and split jerk. But Mark Kubik probably is Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the, the from a stimulus standpoint to, let's say, we go Metcon first and then lift, I'm just not going to be able to ask you to bring the level of intensity within a one-hour class that I want for you to truly get a heavy day for over a long time horizon just make yourself again harder to kill kind of a situation. If I put the conditioning afterwards, there's some pretty good science there that says we're kind of washing away some of the adaptations, um, that you do have to to do the things that Hunter reference in terms of selling it. You know, getting that good warmup Like I, just you, you definitely got me riled up when you were talking about that. The videos of the hour long class situation, yeah I, you start to age and you start to learn more about warming up because you fucking have to, right, and then your mind goes. Mind goes to well, how much longer could I have staved all of these things off had I warmed up properly, like that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:So I literally ask myself every time I'm about to do a workout whether it's a lift, conditioning piece, monostructural, crossfit, is my body ready for what I'm about to ask it to do? And if I want to be intense. In a lift, I still need my body to be warm and my tissues to be warm and the blood to be oxygenated. It's still a very fitness-related thing, right? Heavy, clean and jerks. My heart rate's probably going to get over 150, over 160, just from lifting weights.
Speaker 2:And if that spikes and happens immediately, my body might be asking what the fuck are you doing? Versus, like, okay, you prepared me for this. We did warm up the clean and jerk, but we also warmed up our bodies. Yeah, all right. Um, gymnastics day? I don't.
Speaker 2:That's kind of a straightforward thing.
Speaker 2:It's just this ode to the fact that we have these mixed modalities and we're going to make sure that we're giving each of them the attention that they deserve. So if we have a day where you're doing a medium duration workout, um, that has, um, you're doing a medium duration workout that has a hand, like a, a handstand walk, for instance, in week one, um, as the coach, you get that opportunity to make that your focus Cause, like we've got, let's say, we've got rowing in the workout, whatever it is, you have the opportunity again to like it's not necessarily going to be like three rounds of walk, 50 feet and then rest, it's, let's take extra time, let's get hands on, let's show people that there is a step-by-step way to. You know it's, it's the, the handstand hold, and then it's the, you know, walking off the wall or walking into the wall. There's all these different things that we can do, um, and that makes sure that we lean into the modality of gymnastics and skill as being one of the most important elements of a well-rounded program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the and to, to dedicate a, even just half a class, or I mean in some instances it's an entire class, or where there's, you know, maybe there's two movements or three movements across the entire class and one or two of them are gymnastics. That gives coaches the opportunity to. I would argue that gymnastics movements are the most difficult to create a class plan that enables every single person to participate in some way. Right, because weightlifting movements, it's like scaled by reducing the weight, like squat, snatch, great. Use a toothpick. Like scaled perfect. I can get somebody snatching 135 for skill work. I can get somebody snatching with a PVC pipe for skill work, it's the same thing. Get somebody snatching with a PVC pipe for skill work, it's the same thing. Muscle ups, like I can't just say do do fewer muscle ups or lighten your body weight.
Speaker 2:and zero gravity machines.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So I need to have kind of a plan as to like, well, what about the person who can't do? What about the person who can't do a strict pull up? Like what's the what is the way that I can give them a skill based movement and still enable them to to kind of achieve? The way that I can give them a skill-based movement and still enable them to to kind of achieve the stimulus that we're after, um, and hopefully learn something, improve their coordination, improve their athleticism, even if maybe they're in no danger of ever getting a muscle up. Like everybody's got those athletes who are just like I, just this person's probably just never going to get over the rings. Some people don't give a fuck either.
Speaker 2:Like there are plenty of members that are like cool yeah.
Speaker 1:Great, cool, awesome, and that's that's. That's fine. I could make the argument why that's not fine, but we'll leave that for now. But the idea being that I can we have a session that is dedicated specifically to improving the skill for your athletes who have the skill great, they can practice it or attempt to increase their capacity by just going hard in it. Or you give athletes the opportunity, maybe they're in that middle ground. It's like use the muscle up. For example, some days I can get one, some days maybe I've gotten two before, but some days I'm not even getting over the rings Again.
Speaker 1:You have that opportunity for those athletes to work on that skill and then on the other end of the spectrum, it's the.
Speaker 1:You know I'm a ring row and box assisted dip sort of person and we can still put together a plan. Give that person the opportunity to improve their whether it's coordination or their baseline body weight, strength, body awareness and where their body's moving through space, that sort of thing, and keeping that sometimes separate from a conditioning piece where we can ask the athlete to treat it almost like a lifting session, where the heart rate's not getting high, we can really focus on the task at hand rest. There's no score component to it. There's no, as fast as you can component to it. We're just working on improving the skill. Those are days that we can move the needle for athletes in a certain area of fitness and then we can still scale them for the conditioning piece. If there's a conditioning piece with a high skill movement, we just use our scaling toolkit to make sure that they're getting their, their metabolic conditioning Cause that's theoretically higher, lower, but higher on the pyramid, the hierarchy of development of an athlete.
Speaker 2:Sure, um. Last, but definitely not least, we have intensity day. Um, we have intensity day, um, you know, it might be a specialty of ours. Um, we've developed a reputation over the last decade, um, whether it's disguised as a cardio workout, um, maybe, on some of the weeks where we, for our cardio day, we go monostructural conditioning, um, or you know, the gas tank workouts, um, we know how to, uh, you know, put your heart in your throat, kind of a situation, um, and man, it's, it works the best. But it's also this mental adaptation and it's also this rite of passage of being part of a community that suffers together. Like, we could do an entire episode on, like, if you bring intensity, true intensity, on those four to six days a week, what you could do to your quality of life and longevity and all that stuff. But, um, I don't know if there's anything that you want to add to it.
Speaker 1:Um, it almost seems like too too good of a topic and too big of a topic no, yeah, I mean, I think it's again from an education perspective, like this is the day and there are other, honestly, to be honest, like so, looking at phase four, monday is a conditioning test. That's our cardio day. Friday is labeled as intensity day, like hey, both of those workouts have some intensity to them, right? So it's more about the idea that we're communicating to coaches and athletes like hey, there's this one thing in class, it's one workout, it's probably a Metcon and it looks and smells an awful lot like your classic CrossFit couplet or triplet, because that is the bread and butter of CrossFit. And the intensity aspect is what separates CrossFit from other programs. And again, referencing level one manuals and Glassman circa 2000,.
Speaker 1:That is the variable that we want to manipulate if you want to see progress, like the single most important variable, whether you're trying to lose weight, improve your blood markers, improve your overall performance, shed body weight, gain, body mass, gain strength, whatever it is, intensity is the avenue that you do.
Speaker 1:That, more often than not, it's in a conditioning piece. Obviously, intensity can be applied to a lifting session, can be applied to gymnastics. Work is the avenue that you do? That, more often than not, it's in a conditioning piece. Obviously, intensity can be applied to a lifting session, can be applied to gymnastics work, but when it comes to CrossFit again thinking about the importance and where metabolic conditioning sits in the hierarchy of fitness it is only second to your nutrition when it comes to improving your overall fitness and work capacity. So those are the days where it's like, yep, this is what you think of when you think CrossFit. It's like that's the day, that's what it should feel like. That's how you get members excited to you know, to bury themselves for a 15-minute AMRAP, that sort of thing, and they get fitter because of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean honestly, really the main difference between the idea of a cardio day versus an intensity day is you now enter as a coach needing to be really good at maneuvering your way through the class and your thruster is 75 pounds and we're not doing chest to bar.
Speaker 2:Today we're going to do chin over bar, where we're crafting the correct version of intensity day for a lot of different people, um, whereas cardio day, again, the barrier to entry is and once again, like, what are all the benefits that you could think of for a cardio day? Everyone in class is doing the exact same workout is really fun, it's really cool, but then you know you, you move on later into the week and it's cool to be able to like pass someone who always kicks your ass every day Cause you can fly over the rings a little bit better than them, that kind of thing. So I sort of see these as the barrier to entry is a little bit different, um, and you, just on the intensity day like this is when someone like Kyle would do like really well in the class.
Speaker 2:He he'd have 19 variations of the workout in his back pocket you know that he that he cooked up at 3 AM the night before Like he's ready to go. And looking at these days, and that maybe is one cool exercise that you could do, like as a coach, what do you bring to these five different styles of classes?
Speaker 2:Because it's going to be different, like your prep for a heavy day is like I'm gonna go grab like an anecdote, a science, you know, science-y kind of thing. And I'm gonna go grab like a, an anecdote, a science, you know, sciencey kind of thing and I'm gonna fucking choose the right playlist, like that kind of thing. Um, cardio day, it's like gotta have that amazing warm-up. Like there's all these different things and elements on a different day that you can bring to a class. Um, and on intensity day, just looking at these workouts, being ready to talk through the different variations of scaling with your athletes, I think is really important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the kind of thing that's easier if you're ready for it versus like I don't know what the workout is three minutes before class.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and on those, those workouts too, like those are the ones that athletes look at on the whiteboard and are just like I can do that, or I can, you know I can. A lot of times athletes think about their movements in a vacuum. It's like well, I can do eight lunges, I can do 10 chest to bar pull-ups. Therefore, I'm qualified to do this workout as written. And there's some instances where that may be the case.
Speaker 1:But that's where the coach's kind of brain comes into play and says, like hey, I know that these individual things in a vacuum are doable on whiteboard.
Speaker 1:Let's think about what this means like in actual execution. So you're going to do your lunges and then you need to do something that elevates your heart rate and then you're going to go back to those lunges and now it's not actually a set of eight, it's two sets of eight, with 30 seconds of heart rate elevating work in between. Do you still think that you can do that? And then, oh, by the way, then can you do your chest to bar pull-ups, and so reminding athletes that like, hey, there's a, there's a cumulative effect to these workouts, that for the most part, athletes don't think too far past the single set or rep scheme that's written up on the whiteboard. They're not thinking two, three, four rounds into the workout. They're not thinking about what the workout feels like when their heart rate's at a comfortable 60 BPM when they're at the whiteboard, versus 164 minutes into this Metcon that they are now in the danger zone with.
Speaker 2:And it's so nuanced too. As a coach, you really want to pay attention to the different styles um of athlete and the scaling Cause. Like for me specifically, there's every single movement in a vacuum. Looks fun and like can be heavy, can be, you know, higher set gymnastics, like in a vacuum. That's great. But like if I was coached really well, most workouts, most CrossFit couplets and triplets would be scaled in a pretty big way to prioritize intensity because my strength and skill like far outweighs my you know aerobic capacity.
Speaker 2:So, it's not always just like again, you know, I look at a farmer's lunch chest to bar. Pull up, get over and like my heart rates at 90 right now just saying those movements.
Speaker 1:I had a conversation. Let's see, I think I coached. I think I coached week one. We did Ellenen uh, the new girl version of helen dumbbell thruster, double dumbbell thrusters, burpees and dumbbell snatches. That was such a kick in the nuts. But I coached. I coached a class that I don't usually coach. One of the members, he um is, bless his heart, fucking strong as an ox, like 220. He's strict press 226 the other week for, for his, for I'm coming for you, steve yes, god damn it.
Speaker 1:But uh, when it came to ellen two. So a 226 strict presser, like math says like 250 pound dumbbells should be no problem for Steve in his in three sets of was it nine thrusters, 10 thrusters, whatever it is, in Allen he ate 12 thrusters. He came up to me afterward after the class he finished last. His metabolic conditioning is low relative to his strength level A 500 pounds, near 500, 500 pound squat or 500 pound plus deadlift or 226 strict press metabolic conditioning, not the highest. He came up to me and he's just like what? Like where did I go wrong? I was like, well, man, like here's the problem, like those dumbbells, like you look at those 250 pound dumbbells and they look like jelly beans to you because you're strong as fuck. The problem is is that the problem is the 21 burpees right, or the 12 burpees that you have to do that jack your heart rate up and you don't quite have the aerobic capacity to make those burpees easy enough and then enable yourself to do those dumbbell thrusters more easily. Because now he's doing sets of two and three dumbbell thrusters, not because he's not strong enough, but because his fitness doesn't support the ability to continue working to do five, six, 10, 12 thrusters at a time, because it's not about his strength, it's about his conditioning. So I was like hey, man, here's the.
Speaker 1:The key to success is to scale. Like I would challenge you, like to come back a week later, do this workout with 20 pound dumbbells and see what happens. You know, like and lo and behold, like last week when we had that goddamn rope climb, thruster, air bike workout that you wrote, uh, I, I was in. I actually coincidentally coached class. He was in class. He could certainly do 95 pound barbell thruster. He pulls out a 75 pound barbell. He's not the last one to finish the workout, he's fucking on his back, flat on his back, and he's like yeah, I'm taking the advice, I'm scaling it back a little bit for more intensity and like that's awesome, that's, that's what we're after. But it's talking to athletes about like hey, it's not about the movements in a vacuum, it's like let's think about how this workout should be executed in order to maximize your fitness and therefore your personal progress.
Speaker 2:It's confusing to experience too, because the fact that you can do the movements unbroken easily is the problem. You feel terrible after. Yeah, but you're like, this is easy, am I gonna? I'm gonna put these down and just like hang out like I'm trying to remember what it was. We had a. It was like row, single dumbbell overhead, lunge and double under.
Speaker 1:Yes, no, it was toes to bar for me.
Speaker 2:I did, oh, you rode I did row instead of toes to bar um, but I didn't. I wasn't like rowing at a pace that would have made it like really different yeah but that first round is just like. I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. It's so easy. Yeah, should I stop like no I need a 30 pound dumbbell yeah and it's like, but the 50s easy, but then I can't do you know it's it's, it's, it's, it's confusing.
Speaker 2:So it's just I don't want to go on like a like a full tangent here, but in terms of that toolkit and knowing what you're, what you're trying, what point you're trying to get across it, it's like let's do some guessing and checking together as coach and athlete and let's try to get your score to be similar, closer to the group on those days.
Speaker 1:The coach is the bridge. Right, you said it's like the program. It's like anybody can any Tom, dick or Harry can write a program on paper, maybe like if we analyzed it, maybe it's a good program, but if it's not executed well, then it doesn't matter. And left to their own, left to your own device the athlete is going to see what's on the board say I can do that and I did it and now I'm going to do it. What they're missing is that, the bridge, the coach, to say like, hey, man, I know what you're seeing on the whiteboard and I know what your capacity is. I have the knowledge and the experience to say that this workout is going to get very hard, very quickly. Therefore, I think we should scale, we should modify or something somewhere.
Speaker 1:The coach is the bridge that makes sure the athlete is getting. Therefore, I think you should, we should scale, we should modify or something somewhere. You, the coach, is the bridge that makes sure the athlete is getting what was intended by whoever wrote that workout and is up on that's up on the screen. You have to know that. You have to be, have the experience, you have to have the, the foresight, you have to know the athlete as an individual, to say like, hey, man, I know you can strict press that 95 pound barbell and Fran if you wanted to. It doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I honestly think that you saying that towards the end of the podcast is is basically the perfect, like a way to explain why we're doing this podcast. What's the point Like we're doing this podcast? Because, again, this could just be words on a page, um, and then there's the other part of the like audition that we have, or retention tool that we have of, like Hunter and I could do this about these topics for like three or four hours and not notice.
Speaker 2:Like um, I pay attention to the time for the opposite reason. Make sure we don't go too long and fucking bore people um, but this is what we do, this is what we're passionate about, um and like. We have this incredible laboratory like 10, 15 feet away where we go out, and I think it'd be crazy for someone to write one of these programs and not, like, execute it.
Speaker 1:I think that would be wild.
Speaker 2:And maybe there are some companies out there that do that I actually think there might be a few because it's like you don't have an affiliate, that kind of thing. But to be able to like, we have to. This is what we run here. We have to be able to put our money where our mouth is, or walk the walk, talk the talk, all that stuff. So I don't know when is this dropping? This is going to be dropping this week. Right, we're going to drop it, okay, cool.
Speaker 2:So Monday, january 20th, is the beginning of Misfit Affiliate Phase 4. Like we said at the top of the podcast, really excited to be partnering with PushPress so you can get signed up for your 14-day free trial there. If you prefer SugarWad, you can also get signed up there for a 14-day free trial, and you can still head to teammisfitcom and get signed up on our website. The final thing and StreamFit yes, you can get signed up on stream fit as well. Is there a free trial and stream fit? Yes, there is a free trial and stream fit. The last thing that I will say related to that, if you've, if you've made it this far with us is we are committed to finding the correct partner programs for the gyms. So if you're like, where's beyond the whiteboard, where's Wattify, where's X, y and Z, we are willing to continue to explore those things to make sure that we can get this programming and coaching into as many hands as possible. Hunter. Any final thoughts beyond?
Speaker 1:that One, one logistical item. So this, this phase will take you through week two of the open Every year. What we basically do is we program, we give you your Monday through Saturday programming. Friday is typically when we do it and, in our experience, when most affiliates are doing the open workout. It gets released on Thursday. The Thursday programming is already written and it's written in such a way that, even if the movements in the open are actually duplicated on Thursday, the volume of movements that you're doing on Thursday in class is hopefully not going to negatively impact your open workout on Friday. We don't have a programmed workout on Friday because it's the open workout On Saturday.
Speaker 1:Typically, once those workout gets announced, we will release any updates to the programming. Let's say, there's pull-ups in the open workout on Friday and then we've got a bunch of pull-ups programmed for Saturday. We will put it in Discord, put it on the website and whatnot. Make sure you guys know that. Like hey, the suggested movement modification is to get people on a rower instead of doing pull-ups. So if you're wondering how that kind of works during the open, basically, once the open workout gets announced, among other things that we do is just make sure that we provide any modifications to the programming to you all. That just to make sure that things don't get doubled up on. But you guys are also obviously welcome to just make some modifications on your own based on your affiliate. But that's kind of how we do things for those three weeks in the open.
Speaker 2:All right, discordgg forward slash Misfit Athletics to get signed up for our free community to get signed up for our free community, pushpress, sugarwad, streamfit or teammisfitcom to get signed up for the programming. I'm super excited about this phase. I think there's just a little bit of buzz that gets added this time of year and the idea of being able to sell the true GPP rotating movements and everything like that is important because the efficacy of it like it really working um is pretty cut and dry.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I feel like.
Speaker 2:I did my outro sort of a thing and tied all that together. So we'll see you next week.