Misfit Podcast
Misfit Athletics provides information and programming to competitive Crossfit athletes of all levels.
Misfit Podcast
Ulysses: New Misfit Affiliate Phase - E.346
The Misfit Athletics team unveils "Ulysses," their thoughtfully designed post-Open GPP phase named after Ron Swanson's middle name from Parks and Recreation. This jack-of-all-trades approach to programming serves as the perfect reset button after the intensity and specificity of the CrossFit Open season.
Stepping away from specialized training cycles, Ulysses embraces true CrossFit methodology by delivering constantly varied, functional movements across all time domains and modalities. Athletes will experience everything from heavy lifting days to monostructural conditioning, couplets, triplets, AMRAPs and more - all without bias toward any particular skill or strength domain. The goal is simple yet powerful: be stronger, fitter, more powerful, and more mobile than yesterday.
For coaches, this phase presents both challenges and opportunities. Unlike specialty phases focusing on a single lift pattern, Ulysses requires coaches to be ready with their complete toolkit, prepared to teach and correct varied movements each day. This mental engagement keeps coaching fresh and develops a deeper understanding of how different elements contribute to comprehensive fitness.
A significant addition to this phase is the introduction of "competitor extras" - supplemental programming for those wanting additional training volume. While this serves as an important affiliate retention tool, Matt and Hunter emphasize the need for coaches to have meaningful conversations about who should actually be doing extra work. Often, the barrier to fitness improvement isn't found in more volume but in refining nutrition, recovery, and movement mechanics.
Whether you're a longtime Misfit affiliate or considering trying their programming for the first time, the Ulysses phase offers the perfect entry point with its balanced, methodology-driven approach to fitness. Sign up for the two-week free trial starting March 24th and experience programming that's been field-tested and refined in their Portland "laboratory" gym.
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We're all misfits. Alright, you big, big bunch of misfits, you're a scrappy little misfit, just like me.
Speaker 2:Biggest bunch of misfits I ever said either. Edition misfit podcast. We are going to be taking a deep dive into the upcoming misfit affiliate phase that we have named or at least I have named, ulysses. I'm going to tell you guys why. In this podcast here in a minute. Um, this gets started on monday, march 24th, and you can head to team misfitcom, click on the sign up now button, um, and you're going to have the option of signing up for a two week free trial. Um, we are. We're trying to get on as many programming platforms as you guys request. So right now we are on stream fit, sugar, wad and push press, um, and if we get enough recommendations for something different, um, then we will try to make that happen. So if you are a misfit affiliate or you want to be um and there's a platform that you prefer, please let us know um. So, ulysses, here's how this happened. Um, post open gpp phase really rolls off the tongue and it gives seb a beautiful, concise little snippet to use for marketing purposes.
Speaker 2:Um, obviously that's tongue in cheek. Now, naming these naming things is something that I have enjoyed in the past, um, and there's been a little bit of swagger jacking in my opinion. People decided that they were also going to start naming things. But guess what? There's no pun, there's no joke. They're literally just like name a workout, tecmo, super bowl, or fucking like long john silvers, and it's like that's. That's not what this is.
Speaker 2:You are not good at this game, um, so I stepped away from it for a little while, um, and now I'm back and post-open gpp phase to me is very cross-fitty in the like jack of all trades sort of category master of none. I want you to be pretty damn strong and pretty fit and pretty powerful. You know mobile, all that stuff. And when I think of Jack of all trades, I think of none other than Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec. I don't know if anybody out there is a Parks and Rec fan. Ron Swanson's full name is Ronald Ulysses Swanson, ulysses swanson. Um, so we have a parks and rec easter egg built in here. Um, because I can't just, it can't just be, you know, like, look up a random thing.
Speaker 2:Look at that mustache incredible, that's hard to be man plays the saxophone um, hates the government and does woodworking um. I'd say that's a jack right there right supposedly his character is based on a libertarian bureaucrat from california that the creators of the show knew and it's never been released who that was and there are some like theories and whatnot, but I just love that that there was some guy californian so in some guy in the government that wanted the government to basically stop existing.
Speaker 2:I really just love that, and if you've never watched Parks and Rec, I recommend going and watching it. Between him and Chris Pratt's character, andy Dwyer two of the best sitcom-, sitcom TV characters of all time.
Speaker 1:All right, um, enough of that.
Speaker 2:So, post open GPP phase.
Speaker 2:Um, here's the idea Open season happens, big hubbub and a lot of our our misfit affiliates, and it's kind of a lot.
Speaker 2:Um, it's a lot from the coaching side, it's a lot from the athlete side, and we like to have a phase right after that where it's very much just like back to basics or anything like that. It's like what will move the needle for athletes in a potentially less stressful, overly structured environment. And that's where this sort of concept comes from and it's like, okay, if that's the case, then what are we doing? Like, hey, coach, I want to squat heavy and I want to go overhead, I want to do some deadlifts. Maybe we throw some clean and jerks in there, some monostructural conditioning, some couplets, some triplets, some AMRAPs, some rounds for time, some chippers, all of these different things. We just really lean into the idea that we can get a great mix and, like it's an affiliate setting, so whatever day you show up, you're going to get a really fantastic workout. Um, I don't know if you think about it from a different perspective, hunter, but for me, I think the timing of something like this post-open is perfect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think about it a little more just from like the how do we make this fit into the calendar, sort of thing, but I think it's the right move. With the end of the open. We're just doing retest week right now, which kind of right on the end of the open. We were just doing retest week right now, which like kind of right on the heels of the open. May or may not be ideal, we may adjust that in the future, but yeah, I think it's just like a good time to. You can either think of it as like a transitional period where we're kind of ending this current training year and getting ready to start the next, or we can think of it as like here's a phase where you're going to get to see where, like, kind of all of your hard work over the last year has put you. Um, you know, it's like we we have had a lot of there's.
Speaker 1:There's always a little bit of structure in the phases that we have. It's not that there's no structure in this phase. We're just not biasing anything in particular. And you're still going to get to see your benchmarks. We got a couple classic CrossFit benchmarks good old 10-minute MaxCal bike test. That'll be a real hoot for folks. Lovely, yeah, you're going to be sick that day, but yeah, I think of it just more as kind of like a reminder that the the affiliate programming in particular is meant to be a GPP program, to be done four to six days per week in accordance with the CrossFit methodology, forever. And what that means is sometimes that like we're just focusing on fitness rather than like biasing the back squat or the deadlift or a clean and jerk or something like that.
Speaker 2:And you're just going to get all that stuff in the program already in terms of like when we are doing a lot of those other things.
Speaker 2:Part of it is it's stimulating physically, intellectually, to the programmer, to the coach, to the gym member, when we are throwing these small little biases into the program.
Speaker 2:There's a member retention, coaches, development, programming, development aspect that goes into that. But on the other side of the coin is like this type of program that's being written here is how we peak the fittest people on earth to become like we do the off season type stuff. And then it's like, hey, we're going to, we're going to jump into this and we're going to get you as fit as we possibly can now that we've laid the foundation. So, while someone might look at this and go like, oh, am I gonna like not get as fit as one of the other phases, it's actually not, not like the opposite, but it's like that's not the case, like when we do roll through these different things, your body is going to be able to react to the, to all these different stimuli to come together to create the type of athlete that you can be. So, um, I think, I just think it's. It's interesting to see it from potentially different perspectives like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and as a coach you have to be able to have that conversation with a member when they're like well, what are we? Why aren't we focusing on a lift this phase? Why aren't we focusing on a gymnastics movement this phase? And the answer is it's like well, like you, you're, you're doing CrossFit. Like 10 general physical skills across all three of your energy systems and just the general capacity to then having the ammunition to say well, what does it mean to be fit? And then you know whether it's rattling off the definition of fitness or probably a more kind of less, less esoteric version of that conversation for an athlete where it just says like hey, I want you to be strong, I want you just to be stronger than you were yesterday. I don't know Like you get an athlete who says like I just want to get strong. It's like well, what does that mean? And then they're like come to the right place.
Speaker 2:We're either lifting really heavy weights or weights 10 trillion times yeah.
Speaker 1:The answer is easy. Right, it's like, well, do you want? You want to get stronger than you were yesterday, like that's what you act, that's what the athlete actually means. Right, it's like I want to get stronger relative to what I am right now. And it's like, excellent, you want to know how you do that. You get fitter. It's like you come in, you show up four to six days a week, you take rest days when you're appropriate. You make sure that you have good mechanics, consistency and then intent. Like know, sometimes I'm just regurgitating the l1 manual, but let's keep you in check, don't worry, it's a good book.
Speaker 2:It is a good book, I agree, um, okay. So I want to talk about the coaching side of this a little bit, because I referenced it being professionally, intellectually stimulating to have those those pieces that we latch on to um at a certain point in the year because it's like okay in terms of my coaches, coaching development, like I need to to be ready to like have skill progressions in there and like, okay, this person's at this point in their journey with this gymnastics movement or lift, I gotta be ready for them, I gotta be ready for this person. The idea of needing to be ready for more modalities should also be very stimulating for a coach.
Speaker 2:Like I'm not going to be teaching the lift only day isn't going to be back, squat, back, squat, back, squat, back, squat yeah, it's going to be back, squat, overhead, squat, push, press, clean and jerk, like making sure that, like I'm thinking of a chef rolling out their knives, um, and, you know, choosing the right one to use within that moment. Like that's the way that I think about this stuff. Um, and honestly, is a lot of people ask us like, how did you guys get to this point in your career? And it's like the obsession with those kinds of things, the passion for those kinds of things, came before we ever knew what the fuck we were doing. So when I see a program like that, I love it because it's like okay, I got to dig back in, I got to be ready for every single one of these lifts on any of these given days, and they're going to have different styles of warmups in potentially different cues and all of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is more. It is more engaging. As a coach, for sure, I've found it's like there's there is a nice part to being able to see, like hey, doing the same lift or a similar lift every week or every other week, because you get to see the progress of athletes from from a week on a kind of week to week basis, which has which obviously has its perks. And then there's the positive of being able to, like, improve your ability to teach, see and correct in a specific movement when you can get a certain number of reps of it. It's same with an athlete. It's like if I do pull ups once a month, like am I actually going to get better at pull ups once a month? Like, am I actually going to get better at pull-ups? Well, maybe, maybe not.
Speaker 1:But from a coaching perspective, it's nice to have kind of that GPP phase where it's like, okay, I do need to be ready to teach the overhead squat this week and then thrusters on Thursday.
Speaker 1:And then, like, what am I going to do when the workout of the day is AMRAP, 10 minutes air bike, calories? Like, how do I create a fun and engaging class that isn't just either 20 minutes of boring machine warmup, as effective as that might be, versus like, or do I swing too far in the opposite direction and just play games for 15 minutes and then stick the athletes on a bike, and you know? So how do I blend the right idea of fun? You know something that's valuable for athletes aside from just the? You know the workout of the day, so to speak. So yeah, I think it gives it opens up opportunities for coaches to think differently about how they might structure a class, how they might educate athletes, how, how they might, you know, do work through the teach see correct sort of cycle within a class that like AMRAP, 10 minutes, um, air by calories.
Speaker 2:Like when I think of the different coaches here at our gym, the different coaches that I've experienced, my personal journey as a coach, the same warmups that you're referencing in in different environments and explained in different ways in more or less time, of the coach talking versus you doing, like those that completely changes the environment in the class. Um, yeah, and that's another thing that you would have to think about. Going into the class itself is like it's not just that, sometimes like we're gonna put it on a platter for you, like we're gonna put it out there. It's gonna be like there's kind of a bunch of stuff to do in this class, but the movements are simple. So we got a really beautiful cue for the front squats. You know, build up to your heavy front squat and then we're going to focus on this portion of the total bar and the classes. You know sort of full of stuff.
Speaker 2:Um, that's one thing. But then when you see these other days, it's not just what's the cue, it's like is it being delivered? How is it being received? If I'm coaching multiple classes in a day, am I like sort of refining that? Like that's one thing that's cool to see here, something that kyle does really well, where he's like. I had this idea and I thought it was x, but it ended up being y, so like, and he'll relay to the other coaches maybe try this instead, like that sort of thing. So thinking about the like, how you are viewing what's in the day and what you're going to do about it as a coach, changes with all of these different styles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it changes depending on who's in your class too. The way that I, the way that I for me, like a good example is I coach a lot of the 5 PM classes here, which are usually really busy, so between 16 and 20 people.
Speaker 2:It's the only class I can hear through my noise canceling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a, it's a loud, it's a loud, it's a rowdy, it's a fun, very social bunch way. That I have to work through that class is like almost the polar opposite of how I have to work through a 9 am class or a 6 30 pm class, where there's it's a smaller group of athletes. It's a different vibe and because of just because of the number of athletes in class, the pace of the class is very different, like that big class is. You know, I like to think that I never get into a like just kind of group management stage where I'm just blowing the whistle making sure that the things run on time, but there is a greater element of being mindful.
Speaker 1:Scaling questions is actually five minutes in my head, because it's like this is just going to take longer, this is going to like. It's just the nature of the beast with a, with a larger class, and like, again, am I doing? Do I have 20 people? So it's like hey, half of the class you're going to do your Kip swings, let me see them. Ok, now the other half of the class versus like, if I only have six people, well, I can watch all of those people at once for the most part and it's just a challenges you in a different way.
Speaker 1:So don't you know when you're, when you are thinking about coaching your classes, it's important to think about, like, like we we talked about, I guess, in the last podcast, which we shot 20 minutes ago was like who who's this workout for, and like who is so and from the coach perspective it's who's in this class and what do these people need from a coaching perspective? Do they need more warm up time? Do they need more mobility time? Do we need to make sure that there's cool down time? Because I got a whole bunch of fire breathers who are going to light themselves on fire and without time in class to cool down, they will just get in their car and leave and turn into tin men later on that night. It's just like you have to think about the people that you're getting ready to coach as much as you're thinking about, like just kind of, the general layout of the class layout of the class and being prepared to coach a class is like it seems like a crazy thing to say, but I know that some people don't do.
Speaker 2:It is such a game changer for how people speak about your gym retention, all of that stuff. Like you're gonna have all the stuff hunter is referencing, like. As you work through it it becomes a little bit more innate. But when you're not prepared for it, there are some days where you nail it and a bunch of days where you don't, where you're like those things add up and then the class gets away from you, whether it's time or whether it's the attention that's there, and it's like hey, let's do a week review on the weekend and then a review, you know, sort of in the morning before you coach classes, and it changes everything because you can think about those things, especially if your gym has the like sign up for classes and you know who's who's on the roster. Um, I do want to talk about something that is a big change to the program but potentially not a change at all for certain people. Um, and I want, before I even say what it is, I want to frame it as a retention tool. This is what I believe this is what I am trying to accomplish when I am writing these things for your gym, because, like a story as old as time, in a CrossFit gym, since the open started, I follow X program during open gym. I'm in open gym and maybe a couple people train with me and it turns into zero people and then I'm either burnt out or want to do, you know, do X, y and Z, and then that member is not, you know, really actually a member at a CrossFit gym anymore. They just have access to equipment and the community aspect is lost, which we know is so huge in today's day and it's going to continue to be more and more important, right? People aren't at your gym. They're scrolling on their fucking phone. That's what they're doing. So we want them to be a human, we want them to come in and interact and move and be social creatures, right? So what we want here is to give you guys a competitor extra that is well-rounded enough for listen. I know hunter wants and we will address it.
Speaker 2:Hunter wants to talk about who this is appropriate for. I I hope that it's appropriate for almost everyone that wants to do it. I don't think that they should do it, but like if you need to retain that member by them staying 30 minutes after class and doing some deadlifts or some rope climb practice or whatever, I think that's okay. It's just your job as an affiliate owner or coach to kind of keep an eye on those people. And then there are the people that it is very appropriate for and the retention tool very appropriate for, and the retention tool.
Speaker 2:The concept here is I can give you what essentially amounts to one step below a like professional competitor program, fittest on earth. One step below that. Like we can check that box. We're going to do strength, we're going to do conditioning. If there's strength and conditioning, there's going to be a skill like. This is a very well-rounded program and it all fits together so I can show up to your class and I can execute and I can be social. Maybe I can even yank a few people with me like, hey, are we staying extra today to do the front squats or are we going to do zone two on our rest day or whatever it is. So it's not that we believe your members need to be competitors, it's that we believe that you need the option to have that retention tool to say, hey, do you want more and you know, maybe you have the trust built with them or you can tell them if they don't need more.
Speaker 1:Like do you want more? Here it is and it fits within the programming. It doesn argue both sides of the coin as to whether or not a competitor extra should even be like provided in a GPP style program.
Speaker 1:The reason I say that is because the number of people who need to do, who quote, need or would benefit from more than the one kind of workout a day is is small in my opinion and the the this is under the under 10 members per gym, something like yeah, some, a very small fraction of members and like need is not, it's a, that's a very subjective term right, it's like if, if the goal of that individual is to to get to a place where they are competing in the in the sport of fitness at a high level or have very specific fitness related goals, then like got it is that when it gets provided to athletes one, it's either the mindset of the athlete that's like if it's there, I need to do it, which is a problem, and that's a very common kind of trope that an affiliate athlete might fall into and then it's just like, again, if members have an understanding of how the CrossFit methodology is supposed to be executed, which is like you find it in the hundred words of fitness train, you know, regularly, train for train four to six days a week, regularly learn and play new sports. It's like four to six days a week with that one workout a day is all you need, assuming the program is well-rounded, which ours is like bar none when we start to add additional work. The question, I think, and this is where I think the retention tool or just from my perspective, it opens up the conversation for the athlete, opens up the conversation for the athlete, someone who comes to me and says like, hey, what's the weight on? What should I do about this competitor extra? What's the stimulus here? And it's like well, the stimulus is I need you to show me your macros. That's the stimulus, you know. So it's what it does for me as a coach is provide an opportunity to ask the athlete well, what are you like? Why is it that you feel the need to do more work? And is it? And if it is, if the answer is because you want to get fitter, then I'm going to go. It's like OK, well, so like, let's remember kind of the hierarchy here of how we obtain fitness, which like how's the nutrition, how's the sleep, how's the hydration? We just finished up a nutrition challenge where, like athletes made, with so many examples of athletes getting fitter in the gym despite changing nothing about their training and only changing their diet to meet what was pretty close to a 40, 30, 30, like traditional kind of CrossFit recommendation, fit recommendation, and it's just. It's just like the.
Speaker 1:It doesn't take long for you to poke holes in the athlete's plan and in a lot of ways, the athlete just wants to do more work and it's like OK, like maybe, maybe that's just it, but making sure that, like there's a level of accountability as a coach to say like hey, like here you want to do extra deadlift work, I got it, but here's the reality. Like you don't deadlift very well to begin with, so like let's not add, let's not do a thing that you don't do particularly well, more and worse. Like, if we're going to do this, like let's, let's, let's spend 10 minutes like actually learning how to hinge properly, so you use your posterior chain. I think that that conversation doesn't happen. I don't think the conversation about nutrition, about the other stuff that's actually going to move, that's the actual low hanging fruit for an athlete. I don't think those conversations happen. And it's just so much easier, it's so much more exciting for an athlete to just say like I'm just going to, let me just do another workout. It's like this has to work Right and it's like it'll work for a period of time and then it won't and then we'll be back in the same place that we are.
Speaker 1:And it's like again, if you're tell this to competitors, like if, if we're talking about moving on to like the competitive, like into the competitive realm, you, it's like there's not a single high level competitor that doesn't know exactly what's going into their body, that isn't sleeping the requisite amount to like to recover fully isn't doing, who warm up and cool down properly and do mobility that they need to do.
Speaker 1:It's like I can count on zero fingers the number of people like who fit that that requirement.
Speaker 1:So using the competitor extra.
Speaker 1:I just spent a whole lot of time talking shit about it and that's not the point. The point is to use it as an avenue to have conversations about with athletes about, like what it is that they're trying to get out of doing additional work and then helping them kind of come to the realization that, like, yep, this actually is appropriate for me and my goals, or oh, wow, there's a lot of other just super basic things that are going to move the needle way more for my overall fitness and health than doing some additional power cleans. So I think it's important as a gym to have the option to provide athletes with to say, like you know, we do have this as an option and it makes sense with the rest of the program from people who have written affiliate and competitive programs for over a decade. It is on you, as the coach, to make sure that the right athlete is doing this at the right, you know in the right time and is also just doing the other things that are necessary to actually move the needle for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think about it in terms of who is the person and then how are they actually executing it? So, at the very base level, if someone wants extra work, I'm going to that zone to sell. Every single Thursday is written as a makeup day because we don't want more than five competitor extras. Five is the you know the amount of days in a week that we would want somebody training. So we have a makeup day where you can let people know what is coming up in the future, if you want to like, if people have access to that in your gym or, hopefully, a zone two session. So that would be the very start and I would be okay because it's moderated so well. There are parameters set around it.
Speaker 2:Um, honestly, it's probably going to be more recovery based than anything for most of your athletes. They have not learned how to clear waste. They're not going to be able to go very hard. Like like an unconditioned athlete's going to be doing 80, 90 Watts on a bike at a one damper, like hell, yeah, like that just sounds like someone who doesn't get the steps in that they should are going to come in and move. So that'd be the very first place that I would send people. Um, and there's no argument here about what's you know missing from crossfit or anything like that. Um, it's just again. Some people are parked in a chair all day and this might be the opportunity for them, one day a week, to really flush the waste From there. I would think about it. From someone like me, I would like to look at this in cherry pick like I'm going to fucking bench press today, or I'm going to push jerk or I'm going to do a monostructural piece on my favorite machine.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's anything wrong with an athlete doing a competitor extra every once in a while, just to just to be like, hey, that, like I haven't done this in a little while and that's what I want to do. I don't think any huge interventions need to take place in those scenarios. Who I think of after listening to Hunter is I do two to three pieces a day, five days a week, and no one is talking to me about my intensity or my body weight to strength ratio or things of this nature. Body weight to strength ratio or things of this nature. Um, and it's honestly, it's a fascinating topic because most of our fittest people hammer themselves to a point where they don't want to do anything extra. It's often this weird middle gray area where athletes don't push themselves to that place. Don't know, maybe don't know how to do it yet, and that's totally okay.
Speaker 2:Um, we have athletes that come from other gyms where it's just that their norm is so much different than what we're putting out there and it takes a while for the culture to kind of take over, and it's like if that was the case, how do we find a way? You know? Another thing that's a retention tool is that you fucking speak to your members Like you got a new person. That's a retention tool is that you fucking speak to your members like you got a new person that's coming in, wants to do the extra, but doesn't go hard like if you scare them away. That's not going to help anybody, right? Um? So that gray area of I need more because I'm not like putting enough into the single pieces, um is where so much of what Hunter was talking about comes into play. And you're just there's going to be a couple of people who are really into the sport, that are fit enough, that are going to do the competitor extra three to five days a week. Eye on them.
Speaker 2:You know when they're doing certain things, um, especially if they're coming from other gyms we have, you know, people show up that are competitors and it's like shit, man, I could probably add 30 pounds to your split jerk, just by telling you how to do it, versus you doing a competitor extra, like that sort of thing. So, um, that's where my mind goes when I think about it. I think there's there's unique circumstances for a bunch of it. So I think, encourage a zone two session, make that part of the culture. Um, which isn't honestly isn't hard to do. When your members see a coach outside on a machine, um, you know, getting their tan on with a, with a Bluetooth strap, they're going to want to know what it is and they're potentially going to join in once a week, which is super cool. And then, you know, let your meatheads or cardio heads cherry pick a little bit. But from there, if it is going to be truly adding extra volume regularly, you should pay attention as a coach and, you know, do your due diligence there no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Like, and I and I don't also don't think like there, I don't know of any gyms that follow our program that also had that 90 minute class and we're doing it the same way that we were, which, which for us it also just made sense to like we, we are no longer running that class for a variety of reasons, no longer running that class for a variety of reasons, and it's been overall positive. But now we can provide like, hey, now we actually have training pieces that we believe, for the right person, are actually going to really move the needle for them. If they want to jump into, you know, they really want to move up in the open. They are doing the right things with their fitness and their recovery and their nutrition and stuff like that. They are doing the right things.
Speaker 1:It's like now we have training pieces that I don't want to say were. You know, the old, previous version was not good, but it certainly didn't. What we have now is a provides that for the athlete, it might take longer than 30 more minutes to execute, versus you know, you're actually going to have to come into open gym and take a little bit longer and it might mean you're in the gym for two hours, you know in a one hour class, and then doing the competitor extra before or after, and that's OK and I think that's necessary if you are somebody who's serious about competing, but kind of a barrier to entry right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it has to be right. There has to be a jumping off point into what you were saying about the zone to work. Like if you do have athlete, if you're a coach and you have athletes in this camp, it's like it's add one of the competitor extras a week for for a couple of weeks and then add a second competitor extra for a couple of weeks for that person and just linearly progress in that manner. But again, I think that now that these pieces are are unrest, unconstrained by our class schedule at Misfit Gym Portland, we can now see like some pieces that will that will really help move the needle for athletes who are qualified to do additional work and really want to want to improve in that regard.
Speaker 2:So I'm looking at week one right now and I really want I want some feedback. I want some like spies um, from people that listen to this podcast on their members. Who says they want extra work? But does the aerobic mixed machine on day one versus? The bench press and the power clean on days two and three.
Speaker 1:Right, I can, I got to. Ooh, oh, it's overhead squat. I was going to say if that was squat snatch, that might be the first one I see, yeah, I see, I see power clean volume singles finding their way into uh the first position.
Speaker 2:But that's a trick, because that's fucking cardio. You'll find out. Yeah, that is a trick, those are fun.
Speaker 1:But power cleans man.
Speaker 2:Who can fucking?
Speaker 1:resist a power clean.
Speaker 2:Nobody can resist a power clean and how to trick a meathead.
Speaker 1:Tell you what I can resist is seven minutes for rowing calories. That's what I'm allergic to it. All of a sudden I'm allergic to the competitor extra on Monday, but Interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting. So, yeah, you guys are going to notice. You know, if this is something that you use, you're going to notice a fairly big difference. And one thing that's fun is a lot of these changes need some like testing ground. And there are remote coaching clients who, because of the gym that they go to or the gym that they work at, do actually follow the affiliate programming versus something like Hatchet or MFT, if you're familiar with our competitor programs, and then this style of programming is added to it in a bit more of a personalized way, but it's the same concept.
Speaker 2:It's okay. We're going to need a little bit of monostructural conditioning. We're going to need to get those muscle upsets and a little bit of handstand walking, a bunch of lifting. On the days where it's conditioning only, um, and guess what it works Like, the buy-in is there because those people are continuing to go to class in that environment. Um, like your success rate is just going to go through the roof as a competitor because month after month after month of training by yourself and digging into this is for the absolute tip of the spear, um, and that's just a totally different context. It doesn't really have a whole lot to do, honestly, of the spear and that's just a totally different context. It doesn't really have a whole lot to do honestly with the affiliate.
Speaker 1:Ciao.
Speaker 2:So you know it's. Here's what's interesting. I'll I'll preface this by saying we have Hunter on the podcast, who we announce a trying to sell you something before making sure that it's the best that it can possibly be. But when I think about the affiliate programming based on numbers, is the the like diamond in the rough at Misfit Athletics 100%. Like the people that follow the programming and listen to the podcast and communicate with us like the testimonials are incredible and like we should do a better job of reading those to you guys, but people get bitter and the community buys into it and it's just, it's a very special program and getting the feedback from the coaches, um, you know, and the affiliate owners and all that stuff is incredibly helpful for us. But I would say, like, in terms of, again, use just just numbers based like this is a very special thing. That we do that on like by comparison, is followed by significantly less people than it probably should be.
Speaker 2:Um, and yeah, I just I think. I think it's a like, a very well-rounded program and it's something where we like, really like, truly dig in Um, and we have our laboratory here, like, maybe that's maybe that's the one of the reasons why it's like I am viewing mft athletes and hatchet athletes, typically through a remote setting, and that's different than it is to have this like. We have this like um laboratory out here for us to test and like make sure that these things, like we're doing them, we're coaching them, um, and if it didn't work then we'd be screwed on multiple levels.
Speaker 1:basically yeah, that's 100 how I view it, because I, you know, I do have athletes who follow the competitor programs but, you know, short of it's different seeing scores in a spreadsheet and the occasional video than it is literally watching coaching and watching the workout that you wrote get executed in maybe the way that you expected or maybe the way you didn't expect, and it's so much easier to audit, kind of assess, reengage the you know, reengage a little bit and just and just make those, those changes to make the program what it is and, um, yeah, I think I think that's that's, that's a huge part of the reason. The other and the other thing too is like, ultimately, like we can talk about how exceptional the program is and like, damn, look at those, look at those weights and those rep schemes and those amraps, it's like that's fantastic. It's like it's only fantastic if the coach is executing the, the intent, properly, and that comes through. That comes through experience. That comes through, you know, using leveraging, like the discord, where you can ask us like, hey, what the fuck were you guys thinking when you wrote this? Like, how should we do this? Um, and just experience of like, you know, practicing the CrossFit methodology, because that that's. That is where I like.
Speaker 1:When I build the template and think about these workouts, I'm like thinking of it in terms of like the, the, the CrossFit methodology, and how it's supposed to be executed by a coach. And, like you know, we want, we need our coaches to be communicating how these workouts are supposed to go, and you get that through experience. You get that through doing these workouts with your members. Like fuck, if you coach these workouts and you don't do them like, you're doing a bad job, straight up, not good, yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, yeah, we've talked about this before. This will be. I'll get started on final thoughts. We talked about this before. You made me think of it again.
Speaker 2:We have the idea on the competitor side of, like we believe it's thoughtful and checks all of these boxes, but it literally is numbers and letters typed into a computer which cannot make you fitter. It's not possible, right? So the execution on the athlete's part, there's this level of responsibility, and the type of coach that we want to try to transform would be, like the program hopper on the competitor side, it's someone else's responsibility to make me fitter, stronger, more skilled, have a better athlete IQ, tougher between the ears, etc. When a member the coach equivalent or the affiliate owner equivalent of that is a member comes to you and says I have zero credentials, but I'm going to tell you why the program should be different. And you go hey guys, could you, could you talk to this person for me? Like I don't, I don't know, maybe they're right, maybe you're right. Like, could you take care of this? Um, and listen, if you're early in your journey, we would be happy to help you, but as you progress and you take steps forward as a coach, there's a level of responsibility. You should not sign up for our program if you don't understand it and believe in it, like that's not going to help you.
Speaker 2:Again, like Hunter said, with that execution piece there's so much onus on the head coach, the affiliate owner, down to the coaches and then that permeates into the culture of the athletes. So we do try our best and we really dig into the nitty-gritty details and we update as we go and things that work stay and things that don't work get modified. All of that. But it can't change the fact that it's numbers and letters on a page and that your specific affiliate and coaching staff and members and culture is what is going to make or break how that works yeah, I think, uh, I'll take, take my final thoughts in a little bit more of a marketing direction.
Speaker 1:If you're somebody who is not subscribed to the affiliate programming and not following it and maybe you're a member, maybe you're just a regular listener of the podcast, someone who's a competitor or just goes to an affiliate that does a different program this is a perfect phase to kind of get a feel for and you can really jump in at any time.
Speaker 1:I'd love for you to obviously do the entire phase, but because there is no like particular bias, like it makes jumping into really any week totally fine and it just gives you a feel for how the programming goes. Get people comfortable with the idea, the, the, the style of workouts that we write, get your coaches comfortable with the style you know how they need to coach classes, uh, and then, once we get into kind of the next, the next training phase, which will will cycle back to kind of the top, so to speak, as far as our progression towards kind of the open, which is ultimately our, like, the culmination of our programming season, like you'll be able to, you'll have a good understanding of how the program goes and then, once we get back into that slight, slightly more structured, the occasional bias here and there, your members or members and coaches are hopefully already bought in. And then, like then, like man, that first retest week in week seven of of a new training phase, and all of a sudden fucking deadlift numbers go through the roof.
Speaker 2:It's like, oh boy, like we can, we can move the needle here and the funny thing is we always say this, but it's 80, 20, like what we just talked about, is 80 of the program year round and the other 20% is this little bias to like again dangles the carrot it. You know it works. That's also helpful. But, like um, when you listen to the next podcast we'll dig into to to why we do those certain things. But luckily, for the sake of you know, people's fitness, this is, this is what we do year-round.
Speaker 1:We do it we do it.
Speaker 2:Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Misfit Podcast. Make sure you head to teammisfitcom. Click sign up now and you will get three options for a two-week free trial StreamFit, sugarwad, pushpress so you can check this out. No obligation, no, you can cancel whatever. All that good stuff. So, um, you know, if you've made it this far in the podcast, I think you're sort of open to that sales pitch. It's a very special program and you can get those two weeks for free. Um, also, discordgg forward slash Misfit Athletics. Get in there, talk to us, let us know what you think, yuck it up with the coaches. All that good stuff. See you next week Later.