Misfit Podcast
Misfit Athletics provides information and programming to competitive Crossfit athletes of all levels.
Misfit Podcast
Unraveling the Open: 25.3 - E.345
The CrossFit Open 25.3 delivered what many coaches are calling one of the best-programmed workouts in recent memory - a beautifully balanced challenge that created meaningful separation between athletes while remaining accessible to the broader community.
This final Open recap dives deep into what made 25.3 exceptional: the perfect blend of loading, metabolic demand, and skill requirements that put the fittest athletes in that brutal 10-12 minute time domain while offering a 20-minute cap for others to chase. The unexpected hero (or villain) of the workout? Wall walks, which proved to be the true separator among competitors.
Beyond just analyzing the workout, we explore a fundamental fitness truth: sticking feathers up your butt doesn't make you a chicken. Many athletes know which weaknesses they should address but avoid doing the necessary work. Whether it's improving shoulder mobility before attempting wall walks or developing proper positioning for deadlifts, addressing these fundamental limitations is crucial before attempting to build strength on a faulty foundation.
Looking at the Open programming as a whole, we break down how CrossFit successfully tested athletes across different time domains and energy systems. While some critics noted the absence of a traditional one-rep max strength test, we explain why the Open's approach to testing strength through sustained output makes perfect sense in identifying well-rounded fitness.
As we celebrate our leaderboard winners receiving exclusive new Misfit Athletics gear, we're also announcing the launch of our Off-Season Block 1 programming and Misfit Affiliate Ulysses Phase on Monday, March 24th. Ready to address the weaknesses the Open exposed? There's no better time to start the consistent, year-long journey that truly moves the needle on your fitness.
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We're all misfits, all right, you big, big bunch of misfits. You're a scrappy little misfit, just like me Biggest bunch of misfits I ever seen either.
Speaker 2:Good morning, misfits. You are tuning in to the 25.3 Open Recap Podcast. We're going to give away some stuff. We're going to do the leaderboards both for 25.3 and for the entire open. Um, for the entire open, those people are going to win the new misfit athletics gear. Um, with the new logo that no one has. So that's fun and exciting.
Speaker 2:Um, and then we're going to talk a little bit about 25.3,. Um, talk a little bit about the open programming in general. Um, and then I'm not going to lie to you guys, we've got a lot of podcasts to shoot this week, so we're going to fuck off and make more content for you. Um, so this one will be on the short side because, um, monday March 24th, six days from now, the misfit affiliate Ulysses phase. If you want to know what that means, tune into that next podcast that we'll be dropping. You can get that in a two-week free trial. You can check it out SugarWad, pushpress, streamfit. Go to teammisfitcom, click sign up now and you will see all your options for getting signed up and for that, that two week free trial.
Speaker 2:Also, monday March 24th is misfit athletics off season, block Number one. This is the time of year where we do the strength bias and conditioning bias, tracks. Um, honestly, the time of year where you get your open scores, you see where you slot, and we get a shitload of remote coaching applications and we get a bunch of people to jump in. And I can tell you right now, in both of those scenarios, the absolute best thing that you can do is just do a manageable amount of work, starting Monday, march 24th, for an entire year with us and you will see a significant change. If you've got any friends that follow the program, have them pull up those open leaderboards.
Speaker 2:Our athletes, we move the needle and it's not. You know, there was a comment in Discord the other day that made me think to say this, asking if we were magicians, and it's really about whether the athlete can show up and execute for that longer period of time. That's what makes what we do special. Everything that we do is based on this concept of delayed gratification and not like how can we sell you something flashy? Because, at the end of the day, like our reputation is going to be based on how people execute out there. So really fantastic time of year to dig into whether you do need to get stronger, you do need to get fitter. Obviously, both of those things will happen. So Monday, march 24th, for both brand new programs, misfit Affiliate and Misfit Athletics. Woo, alright, now you guys say something?
Speaker 1:Are we going to talk about the open workout?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to talk about the open workout. I do want someone to read my shirt. Is it about my driving iron? Yeah, I want someone to read my shirt.
Speaker 1:Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken. I was. This is another custom one-off.
Speaker 2:This is a custom job. I get emails like six times a year from Sticker Mule that I can make one of these shirts for they're normally 19 and maybe I can make it for like $10. And in today's social media age, it's kind of interesting how people just like cook up a narrative for themselves. I am this. I am that I wear these shoes. Therefore, you know what, If you want to be a chicken, I need some fucking cock-a-doodle-doo. I need you laying some eggs. I need you walking across the street when you're not supposed to.
Speaker 1:I got bad news for you, man. Even you can do all that and you are still not a chicken.
Speaker 2:That is true, that is true, but I at least need to see some chicken-like behavior instead of just shoving feathers up your ass. So I thought it would be necessary for people to just be reminded that your actions speak louder than your words, for people to just be reminded that your actions speak louder than your words, and I think that's honestly a pretty timely thing when we're about to jump into these leaderboards.
Speaker 2:So the way that we're going to do this, we are going to read the top 10 men, women and CrossFit, mf, slash, misfit, gym, portland athletes for 25.3. We're going to do a drawing for all those. Then we will do the same thing for the entire open and those are the people that will win three t-shirts and a hoodie with our brand new logo that no one else can buy. A little bit of fun, you'll be able to buy them eventually. I haven't seen this hoodie.
Speaker 1:No, you haven't. It might be heathered too. You might be about to freak out. Do that to me. Tease me like that with a heather job.
Speaker 2:All right, we're gonna do 25.3. Misfit women first 1307 for Elena Pomerisi. That is two victories for Elena. Congratulations, Elena Pomerisi, Paige Semenza, Leah Murphy, Blair Chaney, Peyton Forsyth, Kelly Clark, Kenzie Christie, Lindsay Hoffman, Ashley Drabicki and Adrian Wenges. Let's get that baby rolling.
Speaker 1:You doing this sub Seb you're muted and you're muted, jesus. What is this? 2020. Okay, can you hear me now? Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't speak much. That's why this happened.
Speaker 2:I'll make up for it. I did this.
Speaker 1:That's the wrong one holy fucking yes dude look at that thing, there we go ready, I'm ready.
Speaker 2:And if the same person wins again, they're sponsored. They're not going to get anything. I'm just going to throw that out there. Seven wins again, or they're sponsored, they're not going to get anything. I'm just going to throw that out there. Seven Kenzie Christie. My email is coach at misfitathleticscom. Shoot me an email, we will get you set up. Not Kenzie Riley, we will get you set up with some gear. All right. 25.3 gentlemen kyle moline with the 1230. Very impressive there, way to go, kyle moline. Austin spencer, brad miller, adam salmani, brandon true, kyle cross. Chris colvin, mike kern oh, mikey kern coming in from the. Uh, I should know this because he's my athlete. Third, you're reading it 13 now, I only put the top one on there when I copied and pasted over um 13 and change, I believe. All right, taylor aiken and steven milanisi, seb.
Speaker 2:What do we got? Look at this fucking thing. You guys better be on YouTube right now. This is a beautiful wheel. We got going oh come on. No, spin it again. Spin it again. What was it Kern? No.
Speaker 1:Was that going to be A four? What?
Speaker 2:a fucking troll wheel. It's a four Adam Selmani, adam, well done. Coach at MisfitAthleticscom. Shoot me an email, we will get you set up. All right, here we go, 25.3. Misfit Jim Portland, paul Stevens, hunter Wood, kyle Pinkham, michael Ione, nick Whitaker, ryan Bernage, lizzie Bell, bruno Nicole Dubois, rachel Rogers and Jack Strum. I'm not sure if Jack's score is with the 92 pounds or with the 95 pounds, so there could be an asterisk next to that name.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he did, he did. Yeah, I don't know. He did tell Kyle in a direct message that he was going to redo it.
Speaker 2:So I like it, I'm just, I'm mostly joking.
Speaker 1:For context, kyle used Kyle and Jack used either the same setup or the same weight plate assignment and kilo. It turns out kilos aren't pounds. So, uh, an 88 or a 90 pound barbell is man I'd I'd. I'd rather snatch that than a 95 pound bar, that's for damn sure.
Speaker 2:So well, someone, I think, thought, thought that three pounds off means you only add three pounds, but that's per plate.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, I mean the entire arithmetic that went into. That was suspect at best, but to Kyle's credit, Kyle did that workout twice in like.
Speaker 2:I don't know how many hours. I think like literally three hours.
Speaker 1:And I was like fuck, I barely, I didn't know what his time was. I I barely eked him out, but I would absolutely not have uh in in fucking round two. That's fucking stupid.
Speaker 2:Yes, he had a he had a killer open. Yes, he did All right. What do we got Seb? Nope, come on, is it me? Don't worry about it.
Speaker 1:I want the new tee, I want the new one? I haven't even seen it yet.
Speaker 2:Give me that Heather it better not be two, because that's fucking Hunter. Yes, come on, give me the hoodie.
Speaker 1:There's a new tee and hoodie on its way. That's fucking.
Speaker 2:Hunter. Yes, come on, give me the hoodie. There's a new tee and hoodie on its way right now for you, don't you worry, rachel Rogers, congratulations Well done, well done, well done. So we need to get Nick Whitaker, jen Bossy and rachel rogers, some gear hunter, you're also reminded all right now.
Speaker 2:Um, this is riveting, uh, podcasting that's going on right here, especially if you're listening um, but we're going to do this all over again, so we are going to do I'll be more rapid fire this time. So this is for the open. This is across the whole thing. Now, hunter, how do you feel about the leaderboards at some point where you were against each other and now they're just worldwide rankings compared to one another? So, like you don't get a point for first place, like that kind of thing, which is weird, because, like the custom leaderboard for crossfit mf is like you versus kyle, versus mike versus rachel, but the hashtag ones are not. It just sorts their worldwide ranking and there's no way for me to fucking change that. So it is what it is yeah, sorry, what was the question, though I don't think I had one.
Speaker 2:All right, um, here we go lindsey hoffman, elena pomerisi, blair, cheney leah murphy, peyton forsyth, adrian whinges, ashley jabicki, mary wallach, meredith reyes and emma hagstrom. You will notice that I removed all of the sponsored athletes from this list to give more people an opportunity to win. Those are the top 10 athletes from the Open. All right, seb, what do we got? I will allow I will allow a double winner, because this is a different gear pack and because this person came in first place. Um, lindsey hoffman, congratulations once again. Um, I already have your information from the last time. You will be receiving a gear pack, although I'm going to send you some information about the sizing and what the garments actually are. But congratulations on first place and on winning twice. Gentlemen Brandon True, brad Miller, adam Salmani, kyle Moline, taylor Sanders, stephen Milanese, anthony Greco, salvador Reyes, kyle Cross and Taylor Aitken.
Speaker 1:Let her rip.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, again, it's just the fucking winner again.
Speaker 1:Good.
Speaker 2:All right, we'll take it. Seb, did you rig this? You got some fucking coding background. I don't know about what's going on here. I got some DMs, I mean yeah, can you fucking see that?
Speaker 1:You see that wheel.
Speaker 2:I have any idea how to code that bitch into the background. Brandon True, well done. You also won twice. Congratulations.
Speaker 1:You get the new gear. It pays to be a winner. Congratulations. You get the new gear. And you know what, though collected, correct person can we?
Speaker 2:we got to talk about this for a second brandon the, the cool huge back logo. You're gonna cut that thing up to make another one of your bra t-shirts and it's gonna bother me, um, so we're gonna send you three t-shirts. If you could keep one of them intact, um, that would be just gonna say encourage the behavior you want. So listen you're gonna rip all just gonna say miss, I'm actually just gonna give you more things to rip in half.
Speaker 1:Well, I was gonna send them three anyways, I'm just hoping for maybe just cut one.
Speaker 2:I mean cut none. That would be ideal, but I know that's probably not going to happen, because I know last year we had that big back logo with the snake and the 24 and he just hacked that thing right off. Um, all right, well done open. This one's a little, this one's a little. Disappointing. This, um, this first place winner here for CrossFit MF. I thought maybe somebody had you, hunter, but they didn't. Crossfit MF Leaderboard. Hunter Wood, kyle Pinkham, michael Leone, rachel Rogers, lizzie Bell, bruno, paul Stevens, nick Whitaker, luke Ravenel, nicole Dubois and Jennifer Bossy Wait Luke.
Speaker 2:He was higher up too after the first two.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought, barbell, we gotta get him, gotta get him eating some sandwiches in between sets. Yep, very fit dude though.
Speaker 2:Alright, seb, if it says one again. We know you rigged it, you and Hunter together.
Speaker 1:Come on, dude, what the fuck is this?
Speaker 2:Let's just do one more, do one more.
Speaker 1:I need it. No, come on Okay here's a question.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm gonna give it away. Rachel rogers, you won twice. Fuck, rachel rogers. You win the brand new misfit gear that no one has and a little goodie from the gift shop congratulations. Um, in all seriousness, tried to make that somewhat entertaining because we've been spinning wheels for five minutes now. Um, you guys are. Guys are awesome. Really cool to to keep track of people. This is one of my favorite times of year because there actually is a clear, concise place to go to check in on the misfits and how they're doing. Um, and it's just. You know, I take a lot of pride in in checking those scores and seeing how you've improved year after year. Um, and I'm excited for, you know, and a lot of these people qualified for their respective online semifinals, so I'm excited to see how you guys do there. I think that'll be a good measuring stick for people to figure out where they're truly at if they have aspirations of going further. You know, sort of with their journey. All right, hunter, 25.3. What did you think of 25.3?
Speaker 1:I think it might have been the best programmed open workout in the last five years, maybe, maybe all time. I haven't done like a full sweep of the uh, all the open workouts, but just from a I think it hit all the boxes. You get workouts that you know hit two out of the three boxes. You know it's it's kind of it's heavy and high skill, but that that kind of removes a segment of the community from being able to really get after it. You get something that's just like pure, pure engine that doesn't have either a skill or a heavy component and that you know that obviously lets everybody play. But you you see a kind of weird shuffling of the leaderboard with with people who will, you know, at the top, who won't be after another workout. That that swings back in the other direction. But I just think it was. It was the a really nice blend of loading kind of the metabolic demand that puts the fittest in that really shitty 10 to 12 minute kind of time domain. A 20 minute cap allows even some athletes who, like we had a few athletes at our gym who were like yeah, I finished it and it was like 1958. And it was just like awesome, like you give, you put that carrot out there for that level athlete to reach for and they try to finish it. I think there was enough skill within the wall walk. You know that obviously for a high level athlete that's not exactly a skill, although I have seen some very unique ways to do wall walks out of even the fittest people on the planet and then just like having the barbell, the barbell movements that still require a a a level of skill and a level of strength, but not like the highest level of skill or the highest level of strength. So I think it just blended together the right amount of skill, work capacity, loading all the things you kind of want to see in like a final event of the Open and obviously anytime you talk about an individual workout you're ignoring how it fits into the rest of the.
Speaker 1:You know the other three tests or the other five tests, however many it happened to be, but I thought this one was cool. I thought the format was really unique and cool and how we you know you kind of bounce back and forth between a pretty manageable set of wall walks for most, but even athletes who struggle with that movement, it's not so overwhelming that it just completely crushes their workout. So you know, and I even said it when we talked about the workout, like 25 deadlifts, like 10, 10, 5 in my head and I, you know that's just the initial reaction, but you know, in practice, even you know, the fittest are doing small sets like that. The fittest are doing quick singles on the cleans and small sets on the barbell and it just like goes to show that, like the, you know, it's not about loading the barbell as heavy as possible to make it a good test or just blasting athletes with something that has like a wow factor. It's like very manageable sets, very manageable loading, even for your you know, your average affiliate athlete.
Speaker 2:I just thought it was a really well written test on, context is everything, and even we need to be reminded of that because of the endless combinations that are possible.
Speaker 2:So in a 12 to 16 minute workout for for the masses, we know what 21 at 21, deadlifts at two, 25 feels like, but we know it in the context of a two, three, four, five minute workout where we are using, you know, energy systems that can be tapped out, where we're using, you're using, musculature that's sort of different than what we'd be using in this context.
Speaker 2:So if you were to make yourself feel that way in this workout after that row, it would very clearly be a mistake to do that to yourself, right? You're going to buy yourself a few extra seconds and then you're going to go lose them pretty quickly, maybe even just in the transition plus wall walks that are there. So I really enjoy that. Um, we already talked about it last week, so I won't like, like, continue to to talk about it too much, but seeing I don't know if they chose those guys on purpose for this workout, but seeing them do it and seeing the slight nuance in their strategy in the workout and then once again, like making were like top 10 in the world in that workout and it was literally just he looked more controlled, he knew when it was time for singles.
Speaker 2:He knew right off the bat that again pushing himself to 25 deadlifts like he could have done that, but it probably would have added 30 to 45 seconds to his workout, um. So I liked that, just because that gives again people more context of the way that you can attack a workout, because it's so rare that athletes of that level are doing the same workouts as everybody else. So I really did enjoy that part of it. And then I think part of this and we talk about it year after year is just a nod to if you're going to do a local throwdown, if you're going to be in charge of programming something big.
Speaker 2:Testing workouts is so incredibly important because these slight changes are what create the style of workout where Hunter says something like this was like, so well programmed, right. Like we don't know how many wall walks that originally had or what the weights were, what the reps were, um, and like. There's usually a board somewhere around me where we're programming for a competition and even though we've been doing this for 15 years and we write workout after workout after workout after workout all year long again, there's so many combinations. You're really trying to nail who are the people that are actually going to do this workout. If the athlete IQ is lower, then the workout can't be as hard because people just make it hard for themselves. So there's so many factors that go into this and I think it's just a nod to hey.
Speaker 2:It's very clear that they do a good job of testing these workouts.
Speaker 2:It's so rare like we did the preview podcast and we talked shit about two workouts over the course of 14 years that they didn't do the best job of programming right.
Speaker 2:So, like it's funny and that could have just been another, like an athlete iq thing or the level of athlete that tested, it was just slotted into the right spot. So I think this workout was probably tested and tweaked like they should be to elicit the type of response. And then, holy shit, do I love a four to five minute spread on a workout between really fit people, like really, really, really fit people, like, really, really, really fit people. I like, I like, like seeing that someone that you would be lined up next to at semi-finals like beat them by 45 seconds in a 10 minute, 12 minute workout. I love that, because so often the open is this race of like eking out an extra rep or two, and I like a little little bit of a like a workout, that's a separator, that's like cause, you know, beating somebody by a minute, that's a beat down, and and like actual competition terms you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as that that athlete, you have to go think to yourself like did I? Like I'm not, I'm not a minute less fit than that person, but I might be a minute less smart than that person um, yeah, and this kind of workout, that that really enhances it.
Speaker 1:And I think like the nice thing too is like again, thinking more on the like affiliate side. It's like it's oh, there's, it's there. I think most athletes are smart enough to know that, hey, this is not a short workout, don't sprint the rowing and as long as you don't do that, the rest of the workout is going to take care of itself. From a pacing perspective, it kind of paces the athlete for you. You can make a mistake early on, but a 225 deadlift for 25 reps for the affiliate athlete like there aren't that many who are going to try to like I'm just going to try to hang on to this thing, and I think that that's good too because it like for the fittest, there does have to be a lot of like.
Speaker 1:There should be some kind of computational power between the years that goes on to to make sure you get the right workout or the right score. But for the for the, you know the rest of us. Basically it's like the workout kind of does that for you, and I think that's really. I think that's important for athletes who are not trying to be competitive in the sport, where it's like I don't, it's. It's nice to have that information, to know, like, hey, you can kind of math your way through this workout, but it requires not only like a level of you know, intuition about yourself, but also like a level of fitness, like you have to have a certain level of fitness to be able to pace workouts. Um, because without it, like you, you, just like your, your conditioning is going to be what slows you down versus like your approach to the workout, and that's the case for the most of the athletes that we coach at the high level. It becomes a little bit more of a of a math problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. I had a tangent and I lost it. I had a thought floating around tangent and I lost it. I had a thought it was floating around, um, yeah, so I think I think the only thing that I, before we talk about the, the open in general and the programming as a whole that I want to talk about is the. For almost everyone, the wall walks were actually the separator in this workout. After watching it and seeing what it took for someone, because the intensity in between the wall walks looked fairly similar for a lot of people, like a lot of people a lot of similar times on barbells exactly, and the rowing at the highest level mattered.
Speaker 2:It was at the highest level, was the rowing right? It was just you know, you're at 1200, I'm at 1300, I that sort of thing. But in the middle and honestly, on the fringe of the high level, the wall walks were so incredibly important and I don't think that people always understand how they could improve something like that, because what you need is shoulder mobility, technique and upper body endurance. Like, for instance, if you listen to the podcast regularly, you know that I do a lot of strict press, bench press, things of that nature. I want to strict press 225 pounds in the year 2025. I have pretty good wall walk technique. I have excellent shoulder mobility. I didn't touch them. I didn't touch wall walks for I don't even know how long, a very long time.
Speaker 2:We did an affiliate workout with wall walks in it and old shoulder press drew loved some wall walks. I was fucking flying. They did not hurt. There was not. You know what I mean. So I had access to my strength through mobility. I had the strength and the endurance because I struggle with muscle endurance. So I work a lot of volume in my programs and I also like that's one cool thing about being a coach, like there's some osmosis that goes down.
Speaker 2:You get so obsessed with human movement that, like you really, unless you like, sort of fall apart in the workout. You usually move pretty do versus addressing. How do I do them? Do I have access to the range of motion that I need so that they are easy? And do I work on the fact, if I don't have upper body endurance, if I don't have that pressing endurance, if I don't have that stability like that's what's going to help you of that stability like that's what's going to help you, that's what's going to change there.
Speaker 2:We have to attack these problems from a bunch of different angles and when you find out which part of it is the biggest problem, you put more eggs into that basket. That's how we figure out these things. That's how we solve in a remote coaching setting. That's how we solve when an affiliate member walks up to us and says I'm sick of this shit and it's like okay, come see me in open gym, show you how to get your shoulders opened up, get you in a better position. This is what we're looking for in the movement.
Speaker 2:Doesn't mean you can do it yet, but like you need to know all of those things versus okay, it's EMOM time and I'm going to move like shit and it's like hey, guess what? You start to deadlift, you start to deadlift, you start to row, you start to clean, you start to snatch. It's not going to feel good again, right? So like that was something that popped into my head while watching this. It's like very clear that some people weren't able to express their fitness in that place yeah, uh, it's man, I'll just, I'm just gonna sound like a broken record.
Speaker 1:This is just like it to me. It's just such. It's like a broken record. This is just like it to me. It's just such. It's such fundamental, like first principles thinking. It's like you're a mechanic, you want to make the fuck, this fucking sick car and you're like OK, we're going to like, we're going to work on the engine, we're going to get a sick paint job, we're going to get the right tires, we're going to get the right window tint. It's like this thing is sick. It's like you didn't put any gas in the car. It's like that. And it's like you like it doesn't fucking matter how much work you've done to improve your stamina, your, you know your positioning or whatever. Um, if you don't the the gas.
Speaker 1:In my metaphor here is your range of motion, your access to the positions that you need to get in, like the number of people I heard just like, oh my, my back is wrecked after twenty five, point three. It's like like I know why your back is wrecked. It's because every single time we have a deadlift day or a pull day from the floor coach tells you to get on your positioning and your setup, whether that's a mobility limitation, a positional awareness thing or whatever. And it's like here's the answers to the test. Like are you going to study? No, I'm not. Why did I do poorly on the test? Like, and it's just one of the most frustrating things as a coach because it's like I see the problem and this is a bit of my own, the way that I think about things. It's like I see the problem and this is a bit of my own, the way that I I think about things. It's like I see the problem. Here's the solution. Like if you do it, this will get better. You didn't do it, it didn't get better. You're still complaining that your back hurts. You're, the shoulder stamina is not there.
Speaker 1:It's like, why would it be if you didn't address, like the first principle, the underlying problem, which is that you do not have access to the ranges of motion that you need to get into positions to do things safely? And it's like go ahead, work around it. And if you're at a competition and you're trying to work around, that got it. You got to do what you got to do to collect points. But if you're an affiliate athlete or you're an affiliate coach, listening, and it's like you got athletes who are complaining about that, or you're an athlete who frequently complains about the same fucking thing all the time, like have you actually done what you need to do to improve that? Whether it's learning how to hinge properly, learning how to squat and control your midline, improving your shoulder range of motion and then slowly progressing to develop strength through it, it's like the best case scenario. You just get a bad score. Worst case scenario the chickens will come home to roost with an injury at some point and it's really just a nod to like why do we need coaches?
Speaker 2:Why do we need accountability? Why do we need coaches? These things that we might already kind of know the answer to, maybe, you know, buried in our subconscious or something like that. Like, some of the stuff we're talking about is more nuanced and complicated, but in so many instances, what we're talking about is quite simple. Like the overarching thing that we're talking about is general physical preparedness, which is short, medium, long. Lift some weights, you know stretch take, you know rest days when you're supposed to shit like that. So, um, yeah, just to just a reminder. And it's that time of year where, like, either you saw enough hope in what you're doing or, the opposite, you're finally you're sick of your own shit, of like I'm excited now but I won't be Hunter is definitely sick of your shit.
Speaker 2:Or maybe I'm excited now, but I'm never excited in August or October or September Like that. Making some sort of change related to that and buying into delayed gratification to bring us all the way back to the beginning is that's it? That's really where it's at. Um thoughts on overall open programming. And it's kind of tough. I'll set this up. It's a little tough because for the average person, all of these workouts were medium to long, but for the best, they weren't. They were. They were definitely different, right, they were like five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, which is is a spread at least. So I'm intrigued to hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've, I do have thoughts on it because and this goes to a bit of how I've shifted my mentality for programming at the affiliate level when it comes to short workouts. Short workouts are tough to make accessible for everybody because they rely on a certain degree of output that an athlete has to inherently have, fleet has to inherently have, and, like the ability to do fran fast, relies on like a certain degree of strength, power output and just ability to overall move fast with like or or to be scaled so phenomenally well that we can still get that person into that like three to six minute time domain and feel like death with two like medium skill, low to medium skill movements. Right, it's difficult to do that and make it a really good test for that person, which is why something like last year's open workout burpees and dumbbell snatches I thought was really good because it's like this this is something that is accessible to athletes in kind of that short ish time frame, short, shorter than that and you just have to, it just has to be programmed so well and and then but, but then it. But then it isolates the, the other end, the fittest athletes who, like I, like we saw Colton Mertens do. Colton Mertens did twenty five. Point two, the way that I do, fran, and like it's taken me a long time to be able to get to a place where I can do my barbell set directly under the pull up bar, I do twenty one thrusters before that bar hits the ground. I hop up, I'm trying to cycle these things and maybe even if I'm feeling good on the set of nine, I'm like pulling the bar down Right, and it's like Colton Mertens did that with 50. What is it? Fifty four, you know, barbell reps, 54 gymnastics reps, double unders, and like he went as like borderline, as fast as gravity allowed him to go, and like he finished the workout hands on the knees for a handful of seconds and walked over to the camera.
Speaker 1:And it's like for the fittest athletes on the planet to get them to get into that extremely short time domain requires that the opposite end of the spectrum the average to below below average, quote, unquote CrossFitter is by nature going to be in that like five to eight to 10 minute time domain. And when we're talking about writing a test for hundreds of thousands of people, like that's just. I think that's just kind of the nature of the beast as far as. As far as doing that and and you know you could do seven minutes of burpees like that sucks balls, that that does the trick. You could do max calorie row in five minutes. But like there's also the showmanship element and the and the like, wow, that's a really cool workout. It's like we could, we can make something simple that's short and kills everybody. But you know we want to do, we want to make sure it's a well-rounded test, we want to make sure the workout provides athletes with the opportunity to showcase their skills and their fitness.
Speaker 1:And the thought is that we can write workouts that put our fittest athletes in that two to five minute time domain. That is just pure pain and misery and misery. But unless we scale the rest of the athletes exceptionally well, we have to be willing to accept that like a short workout for them has to be long enough for them to just like experience. The metabolic demand athletes in a lot of ways that they need a slightly longer workout to get the right stimulus.
Speaker 1:But we see it often enough where it's like we can do a 30 second bike sprint day, but athletes who can't, who don't have the either the body mass or the power output to put a hurting on the bike, for example. It's like it's just physically, mechanically impossible for that athlete to go hard enough in a fixed time domain. It has to be variable to some degree and a lot of times that just means the less fit athletes workout. I think had that, the, the power output element that was required, even if it took somebody 12 minutes to do the workout. Like we're seeing athletes doing five, ten sets of thrusters at 135, which is like kind of by nature of the workout, puts people in that like you know atp, you know kind of pathway, like a little pathway where it still requires like that sort of gas tank power output, sort of vibe it. Just they just happen to be doing it for 12 minutes.
Speaker 2:Um so, yeah, yeah, I was, I was thinking about it and I think it's okay. The is who's doing this, right, like, and that's, you know, writing a competition and doing the. You know the team version and the scaled version. That's all of our programs that we do. It's incredibly important. So where my mind went was how much work was there, and there was about five minutes, 10 minutes and 15 minutes of actual work in all of those, and those are very different time domains and, like I don't know if the first one was truly long enough but, like, as an affiliate owner, like thanks for not making it too much longer, like that's definitely a consideration and I don't know if that 16, 17, 18, 19 minutes long, how much different is the leaderboard? So, like are we? Are we, you know, sort of checking that box anyways, cause that was, there was a lot of work getting done in that workout, which is what we're looking for in that style this time of year in that time domain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean the, the fittest. Again, there's like there is a consideration of like, well, like, how many reps is the fittest athlete going to do in this workout? It's like, do we need the fittest? If does the? Do we have to have the fittest athlete on the planet do 200 clean and jerks and 200 burpees in order to make that an effective workout in so that, so that the affiliate athlete can do 70 reps of each? It's like I would argue, not, it's like 15, the difference of 15 and 20 minute and what you.
Speaker 1:What is interesting is like the for the fittest athletes on the planet, so your top fifties, you know it's a, it's a 15 minute workout, so we can classify that as long for at least the purpose of the open.
Speaker 1:It's a four to, we'll say, five to eight minute workout for the second event and then similar like a 10 to 12 minute for the third.
Speaker 1:So I think you get exactly what you want from the fittest as far as testing, kind of like a variety of energy systems, a little bit of skill, a little bit of, you know, ability to handle some weight not so much for the very fittest is from the loading perspective, but like you get that kind of short, medium, long time domain for your fittest athletes and then like, kind of remind the rest of the community that, like you know, this is a GPP program and it's like it is very possible to make this a short workout, but we have to have a lot of components of your fitness dialed in in order to make that so.
Speaker 1:And it's not, you know, the second workout people didn't take 12 minutes to do because there just wasn't enough time. It's because it's like you, just you're missing a skill, we're missing an element of fitness that needs to be addressed, and it's like you, just you're missing a skill, we're missing an element of fitness that needs to be addressed, and it's not. This wasn't a 12-minute workout, it was just a like how much of the work can you get done? How much does your skill and strength limit you in this workout?
Speaker 2:so yeah, yeah, I think for sure a lot of different ways to look at that the question that everyone keeps asking and there's the memes about, and I understand um is the like not testing strength? Um, they didn't not test strength, that's for sure how many sets did it take you to do that last barbell in 23.25.2 to me it's only a problem if they never do right like, and there needs to be a part a ora part b at some point they need to be next year, like like every single year, we don't have an opportunity in the open um, because that's what I've always liked, just in the open.
Speaker 2:You mean not in like yeah, I wanted to come back at some point. I want it to be lingering, the way that we sort of felt about the regionals programming back in the day. What is a problem to me is if they don't weed those people out at the top of the leader, and I mean the top. There are people at the top of the leaderboard that are I don't want to throw any shade, I mean they're mid of bear down and do you know, simple, simple programming in the gym, like they're going to? They're going to make them either lift moderately heavy weights a bunch, which I love or, you know, potentially see a one round max or a ladder or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think the the easy argument there is like well, the open it's three workouts. We're trying to test, like your broad general physical preparedness. If you're going to argue that there's no strength again, I'm going to ask you how many sets it took you to do your last set of thrusters. If it was one set, if your answer is, I did 15 unbroken thrusters at 95 or 135, 85, it's like fantastic. You have another opportunity here in a couple of short weeks to showcase. Undoubtedly you'll get to test your strength, whether it's in a traditional one rep max or X rep max fashion, or you can be damn sure you're going to see a 275 clean and jerk or 225 snatch or something like that, and it's like you'll get that opportunity. You can't again if you're, if you, because it didn't happen in the first three weeks of the competitive season.
Speaker 1:it's like that sounds like a you problem more so than a program exactly, yeah, I do absolutely agree that, like if we never see a one a, part b or the opportunity to go heavy, like that's a fun experience for the affiliate and the affiliate level athletes, so we don't want to get rid of that, but to say it's going to happen every year, it's like, well then we just kind of get into a redundant pattern of like well, that's, that's one of the three workouts, so, and that doesn't make sense either. And if it's.
Speaker 2:So it's. Let's say it's 2000 people. The person that's in fifth gets the lift and they drop to 45th changes nothing. I would rather see the person that was in 1750th place through their gpp than them being kicked out and mr strong person with the shitty scores being jumped in. You know what I mean. Like, this is the sport of fitness, so it's pretty easy for me to justify that with that asterisk of I agree with nothing. I'm saying if they never do a max lift, you give me three, a decade, four, decade, whatever it is. Then you are holding true to the definition of fitness and I think that's important.
Speaker 1:So hopefully we see it again. Like you know, a time hack and the weight gets heavier and like eventually those are. Those are beautiful because, yeah, you don't, you can't, you can't get there without the strength and the gp like, like the fitness yeah, those are perfect, those are amazing.
Speaker 2:I would be I would be very happy with with one of those, because everyone's basically doing the same workout even though the workouts are entirely different. All right, well, we said we were going to go short and we did not. Um, we have, uh, some, some programming podcast to record, so keep your eyes out for, um, the upcoming Misfit affiliate phase. Again, you can head to team Misfitcom click sign up now and you'll have a choice between a two-week free trial at stream fit, sugar, wad or push press um, misfit athleticscom or the link in bio honestly, link in bio on instagram for all this stuff. Um. And you can head to fitter um to get two weeks for free, going into off-season block one. Um.
Speaker 2:Make sure you head to discordgg forward slash misfit athletics. Get signed up for our free communities. You can communicate with us and your fellow misfits on the program that you follow. I'm looking forward to some old misfits coming back, a bunch of new misfits, all of the remote coaching applications that are going to be coming through. That list isn't very long, by the way, in terms of openings for coaches, so make sure you fill out that application at misfitathleticscom. The sooner you do that, the higher you are up on the list to get matched with a coach. Um and yeah, we'll. Uh, we'll get you those programming podcasts and get back to your regularly scheduled random rants from us next week.