Misfit Podcast
Misfit Athletics provides information and programming to competitive Crossfit athletes of all levels.
Misfit Podcast
Phase 1: 2026 Programming Begins - E.365
The Misfit Athletics team unveils their vision for Year 14 of their renowned CrossFit programming with Phase One launching September 1st. Under the powerful theme "Rain or Shine," they explore what truly separates elite competitors from the rest: unwavering consistency regardless of circumstances.
Drawing from real-world examples including Justin LaFala's fourth podium finish and Kelly's impressive improvement to 9th place at the Masters CrossFit Games despite reduced training volume, the coaches break down how showing up consistently trumps sporadic intensity. This philosophy anchors their entire programming approach.
The podcast delivers a comprehensive breakdown of Phase One's structure across all program tiers—Pro, Hatchet, Masters, and GPP—with specific guidance on how to select the right program based on competition goals rather than ego. Each component receives detailed attention: the volume back squat program as the primary strength focus, distinct monostructural conditioning approaches (running for Pro athletes, rowing for Hatchet), and their innovative pairing of skill development with related conditioning work.
Beyond simply explaining what to do, the coaches articulate why each element matters within the larger 27-week progression. They emphasize the variable training system that allows athletes to personalize their approach based on individual weaknesses while maintaining the core principle that "more is not better; better is better."
Ready to experience the Misfit difference? Free trials return for a limited time across all programs. Whether you're aiming for the CrossFit Games or simply seeking structured training within a supportive community, discover how the right approach can transform your fitness journey when you commit to showing up, rain or shine.
------------------------------
Misfits! We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did and you're feeling generous throw us a review and let us know how we're doing, we'd really appreciate it.
If you'd like to join the Misfit family and get fit head to the link in our Instagram bio to get started today.
Misfit Athletics Programming:
https://strivee.app/marketplace/p/misfit
https://misfitathletics.fitr.training/t/misfitathletics/
Misfit Affiliate Programming:
https://teammisfit.com/subscribe/
Misfit Apparel at sharpentheaxeco.com
Instagram: http://instagram.com/misfitathletics
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/misfitathletics
Thanks for clicking like and don’t forget to subscribe!
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 said either. Good morning misfits. You are tuning into a special edition misfit podcast Hunter. It is year 14 of the artist formerly known as Cycle One. Phase one begins for the 14th time of the 2013 season through the 2026 season.
Speaker 1:So Monday, september 1st, you're going to be able to dig into year number 14 of phase one, which is pretty crazy to say. Dig into year number 14 of phase one, which is pretty crazy to say. We are going to turn the free trials back on for one week only. So when this podcast drops through people basically being able to sign up for phase one, we'll turn that back on for all programs. So even if you want to check out GPP, you can, and, as always, you get a two week free trial on on Misfit Affiliate. We'll have a podcast for the Arkham phase coming next week. A lot of stuff happening all at once here. So we're going to do a deep dive into the programming for phase one, maybe touch on some FAQs for anybody that's new how to follow the program, what's going to be different, what you should expect, how to personalize it. All that good stuff Before we get started a little bit of housekeeping, a little bit of catching you guys up on what's been going on and, obviously, a little bit of life chat.
Speaker 1:The leftover 2025 jerseys I'm wearing my Justin Lasala jersey here. The leftover jerseys are up in the store now. We always print a few extra just in case. So you can head to sharpentheaxecorecom and that money will still go to the athletes. And yeah, hunter, why don't we do? We'll do live chat first. So you guys haven't heard from us in a little while.
Speaker 1:Two weeks ago I got the flu from my son and had a fever the day of, and we were going to do a deep dive into what's changed about the gears and I just didn't think I had it in me to bring the effort with a fever. So there was that. And then last week Hunter was at the Masters CrossFit Games and I took my two-year-old son up to see his grandparents up at the lake in northern Maine. This won't come as a shocker and it's incredibly unrealistic, but it's cool information to have.
Speaker 1:As a parent, it's actually pretty easy to parent a toddler if you give them your sole attention all the time. Because, like the, like the times that I can think of when it is frustrating, I'm like trying to do something else and that something else could be the dishes, cooking a meal, taking care of the dogs, trying to get work done, whatever it is, if you take the to like, like, level with the kid and be like, wow, yes, this Paw Patrol story is hilarious. Or that is the coolest truck I've ever seen. Or, yes, we can go back outside again and see the Winnebago or go on a boat ride or see the windmills Kids fucking all in Winnebago. Dude, yeah, he calls it a bagel. It's great nice. There were two there as well. Were you the one? Were you?
Speaker 2:the one giving the attention, or was this the implication that grandma and grandpa are?
Speaker 1:the. No, it was me, it was me. He hung out with them one-on-one for 20 minutes, 30 minutes before we left at the end of the week Aside from that dad had to be there, so like we were all together the whole time, but dad leaving was like I basically got the mom treatment.
Speaker 1:He treated me the way he treats Maya because she wasn't there. Yeah. So, yeah, it was, it was. It was a good time, and when I was a kid and I went up there, I thought it was boring. Now, as an adult, it's like fuck, this is the way it's got to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like I did some star photography, the stars at night, because there's nothing out there, just absolutely nuts. The sunset every single day on the lake. The lake at 8 pm the lake is orange, nice, so it's a great place to be, great place to go relax, and even though I was kind of one-on-one with a toddler, it was actually pretty relaxing pretty good time, nice, yeah, yeah, man.
Speaker 2:I feel like my life chat is almost exclusively centered around being in Columbus Ohio, ohio, for the last six days, so I can wrap that into, uh, the little bit of the recap, but I will say I had the best ice cream I've ever had in my entire life. What the fuck? In columbus, ohio, and I'm not like ice cream's not probably my preferred dessert, I'm like a baked goods sort of guy. That's my preferred dessert. And then just like, yeah, like I would, I would, I would go to like an ice cream place. That's like homemade, you know, versus like libs around the corner from us is like that's just giffords in a container. But, holy fuck, what was it called?
Speaker 1:jenny's, jenny's splendid ice cream. Like what? What is the vibe?
Speaker 2:it's a hard serve, it's like homemade flavors. It comes in a like homemade I. I want to. I believe it was like a honey crisp waffle bowl. You could get a waffle bowl or a waffle cone or obviously just get it in a dish and then, yeah, I mean like it's. It's just it's. It's an ice cream place, like there's nothing like remarkable. You know it's not this crazy fucking place, but it's just it's. It was insane, it's so good.
Speaker 2:I don't know what they did like. I don't even know how to describe it other than to say it was like it was just exceptional ice cream and they do like. They do like half scoops, so you don't need to like get like a 2000 calorie ice cream cone to try like a couple different flavors. So it was like, yeah, three, three, one half scoops was still like a good, good size portion. But holy fuck, and every time, every, every night that I like I walked up and down High Street, which was kind of like seemed to be the main drag through Columbus Ohio. I don't know if it's like people know High Street or if it's just like a lot of things are on high street, but there was always a line out the door and it was just like you snake in, you go like through and then you exit out like a back door. So it was a highly efficient operation which made sense, considering there was literally just like a line of 20 or 30 people out the door, like at all times while they were open.
Speaker 1:So is it like? Is it like hipster vibes? Is it? Is it like that, like like some of the small shops in portland now?
Speaker 2:just now, like it was yeah, I mean, I haven't even been in like a small shop. It's very. It's similar to like a beals, like you walk in, you okay, like, yeah, you've got like the, just like the glass windows that you're looking through and or you know, just choose your flavors. They probably had like eight or ten flavors, which was kind of nice. It's not like they had 78 flavors to choose from, probably because you'd be waiting for four hours while everybody tries like every flavor. But man, it was like I had cookie cookie butter, cookie like double dough cookie butter and like cake batter, like a cake cookie cake bad. They were all very similar like cake and cookie vibes.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's, but I don't, I don't really know how to describe it or distinguish it from another ice cream place other than to say it was far and away the best ice cream I've ever had.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it tasted so good. Yes, you know, sometimes it's just the alchemy of, like it's, simple ingredients, but like the ratios change and it changes. Yeah, I mean, I think that's what it was. It was just like the sugar, the cream.
Speaker 2:I feel like maybe they used like it was just like probably high quality ingredients or just completely like chemically altered deliciousness.
Speaker 1:But either way, I feel like it was more the former, because it was like super like thick and but creamy, it wasn't like a I don't borderline hard, soft serve, but most of the time when I eat ice cream, like halfway into the pint, I'm like, damn, this is, this is pretty fucking good yeah, yeah. But yeah, I agree, like, like, probably like a donut or a cinnamon roll or like things like that would be something, yeah and I, honestly, I wouldn't, I would not have gone.
Speaker 2:I had the good fortune of having dinner with uh on sunday night, kelly, her friend natalie, and I, and then uh, sean woodland, joined us for dinner because he's good, he's a friend, friend of kelly, and they're they live in the same area in norcal. But um, he, he was like. He asked if we had been. He was like it's life-changing, I don't know how to describe it, and I was like okay, so asked if we had been. He was like it's life changing, I don't know how to describe it, and I was like OK. So after we had dinner, I went over there. He and Bob Jennings were still chatting at the same restaurant that we were at and I like literally walked back in with my ice cream. I tapped him on the shoulder and I was like dude, you were right, this is the. I don't know. I don't even know what to tell you. This is insane.
Speaker 1:That's great, oh fuck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right. Well, that's a perfect segue into a little recap. How was it? Yeah, it was good. I would say that also I had low expectations for Columbus, ohio. No offense to Ohioans or whatever the name is. I just assume Ohio is the same everywhere, very Midwest vibe Even. You alluded to Rogue being just outside of a main city center and it is very much like you know.
Speaker 1:I mean we know in Maine all of the industrial areas when those jobs went away. What happens to those areas?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like mills and industrial areas, maine's so much different than Ohio, but in that regard, you get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was definitely the vibe I was anticipating and there's obviously, I'm sure, plenty of areas of Ohio that are exactly that. But Columbus is an awesome city, gives you a, gave me, a very Madison-like vibe, especially that downtown Columbus area, and I think it's bigger than Madison. So it would and I was just thinking to myself like the Masters won as far as locations between Albany versus Columbus, like I can't imagine that I don't care about saying that I have no issue with big big convention center, cool city, plenty of food, good food, restaurants, coffee, all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2:So it could definitely hold the spectator size, the competitor size, if the games were to go there Sounds like that's unlikely probably going back to the West Coast. But the city itself is sick by not even the same fucking stratosphere as Birmingham, alabama, and, based on conversations, not even the same fucking stratosphere as birmingham, alabama, and, and based on conversations, everybody felt the same. Yeah, location was great. I thought the programming was substantially better this year than last year. Talked a little bit with bob about that. He he was happier with, with how that that all went, athlete briefing stuff, basically all the things that we had a really shitty negative experience with and we were like what the fuck is happening. They managed to rectify and and it was a very well run, smooth, well-run competition much. I think again like the programming was quite a bit more well-rounded. They did, in fact, exercise for longer than 17 minutes on more than one occasion, which was pretty cool yeah, yeah and yeah, and and yeah.
Speaker 2:I think the level of competition was great and like, overall, I would say, a complete turnaround from Birmingham, Alabama, which definitely gives you and hopefully masters athletes thinking about competing some confidence that you know this could be a like they're still they're, they're doing their best to make it a great experience. Like I said, bob, bob actually joined us like we were, we were wrapping up dinner and then bob walked in and started asking kelly specifically like hey, what did you, you know? Asking, basically soliciting for feedback, like tell me what we fucked up gave you know, just lay it all out there. Whatever you, whatever you got, tell me. He gave us some context for for things but, like I said, far and away, uh, an improvement from from last year in Birmingham and we did?
Speaker 1:we did say I mean we were, we were a little harsh last year and we did put out there that previous years they had earned the trust of the master's community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like like I think, I think, like I think that part of it is important, like I don't know when they found out and like how much they had to do with X, y and Z. I do still wonder if they would ever be open to either having someone else program or having more of a like, like bringing someone in. It's just like simple things. With the way certain workouts were written, I was just like I don't even know what this, I don't even know what this is Like you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:That was actually a point of feedback, and we run into things like that, right.
Speaker 1:Like we write stuff for I mean, it's just for one person to read on their own and then go execute like or for affiliates. But like we've been down that road of like, okay, so every seven minutes make sure you're north, northeast, um, you take your left sock off, and it's just like we don't necessarily need that.
Speaker 1:So that would be the one thing where I'd be like, hey, would you guys be open to this? Because, like, as we know, when we run the, the tiny competitions that we do, when you have one thing to focus on, you can really execute on it. When you have a million things to focus on.
Speaker 2:It's like how can you do there? But?
Speaker 1:I'm glad to hear that it went better. I did definitely get that vibe from what I was able to pay attention to.
Speaker 2:Yep, there were a couple of real small things but I don't think worth mentioning. And yeah, as somebody who absolutely shat on their them from last year, I'm stoked, I will and I'll stand by that because it was not a great experience last year.
Speaker 2:but right they definitely turned it around this year. So, yeah, great on the good, on the like overall vibe. And then, as far as the athletes go, I mean kelly jumped three places from last year, from 12th into ninth overall, so officially a top 10 CrossFit Games athlete, which was terrific and pretty cool. I think it could be even a good podcast topic or maybe even having her on. But she had a very different year of preparation this past year as far as a little bit lower volume just to accommodate life.
Speaker 2:Essentially and I think it's a worthy conversation topic of like how does somebody who focuses on training less perform better and like, for all intents and purposes, the goal for the weekend was but like is counter to what we always say is like have fun. There was obviously like a competitive drive in there, but it wasn't like. When we learned that there was a cut like, the immediate goal was like okay, let's make sure we're working out on Sunday. But you know it kind of brings up the question of like how much focus on training is too much focus, to the point where it's a negative.
Speaker 1:And I think like two things that pop into my head from that are one she's been down multiple paths, like a lot of different paths, honestly. I mean, she was a legitimate individual CrossFit Games contender not too long ago and the level of volume and execution that is needed to do something like that is pretty high. When you can whittle things down and refocus, I think you have a different perspective than someone who's never gone maybe a little bit too far over that line and you're like, oh yeah, like if this is it, I can really get after it. So it's like I wouldn't recommend someone do too much volume as like a case study, but like when you go back to the way things are supposed to be, when you overreach a little bit too much, you can like you can really feel the benefits of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's obviously something to be said about like having such a high baseline of fitness, having developed that over literally decades of both CrossFit and athletics in general. But definitely a good conversation topic to think about for programming for athletes, especially ones who have been in the game for a long time, and then and then knowing the vibe that you want for different athletes because I would assume that the vibe would be different for Justin and Kelly, knowing their personality.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. I mean. I mean, kelly is and this is partially just because we've worked together for a longer time like a little bit more of a like hey, hey, coach, tell me exactly what to do. You know, hey, I'll do it. Tell me where to be, when to be there and what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Justin, much more of a like yep, I have my routine. Like you know, I have a response, an element of responsibility, to make sure he's not like I'm like hey, man, what the fuck you doing? Like I need you to do a primer. Like I need you to, not you're, are you? Why are you at your like opening? Wait for this clean and jerk 20 minutes before you corral. Like like, slow down a little bit. But he's got his routine and stuff and so there's a different approach to that and I would say that, like, without turning this into just a recap podcast, I think the most impressive thing I saw with Justin, having like worked with him more closely this year, is his like he has the ultimate short memory kind of attitude. They say that that's a like in golf you hit a bad shot, you don't let the next shot be a worse shot. You know, you don't try to be a hero.
Speaker 2:Um, his, he had a few, a few like mistakes, I would say, over the weekend. Combination of like, hey, he was like he was real and this is hardly a mistake, but he was trying to catch up to somebody in that sandbag at the last second he fell. He like, he ran, he tripped over himself. He had to go pick the bag up and lost a couple spots, dropped a overhead squat, stood up. His final rep dumped it behind him. I'm like please, judge, don't catch it, judge, just goes. No rep makes him snatch again. He gets behind, loses a couple spots, but his like mentality of just like fuck, cost me a couple places, whatever. Moving on, it's very much like just fucking, eyes forward, eyes ahead. At no point was he feeling sorry for himself.
Speaker 2:Um, in in a like a negative, you know, in a manner that took him out of the game. And then, just like the overall kind of gamesmanship and sportsmanship of like when, when he like, after the final event, like he knew that Pynther had done enough to stay ahead and he ultimately won the tournament, lasalle is the first one to go over there, shake his hand and say congratulations in like a genuine way, like he's obviously you know he would like to stand be, you know, have another gold medal. But like, at no point did I look at him and think to myself like, or, you know, is he, you know, envious, like, have any ill will towards? Like competitors that you know not, not that you would, but you know what I mean just like a, a tremendous, like, just a really tremendous competitor. And like you can't, I can't, be mad at the he lost to. He lost to somebody who was very well-rounded and just like, had some really high finishes over the course of the whole weekend.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, yeah, the uh. Another really good segue here. So for anyone I'm trying to think I mean most years, I would say over half of the years that we've restarted we've had a catchphrase, a tagline, something for people to rally behind.
Speaker 1:And we had this, we always had this in football, and it's funny because, like part of it, like some of the ones that our coach chose, like dude could have benefited from a little Chad GPT and like commitment to excellence, like he just had, like these, like cheesy little slogans, but the way that he presented them and what we were trying to accomplish was something that were very meaningful and something that I like to bring along with me. And the tagline for this year, you know, potentially specifically for phase one, is rain or shine, and the two athletes that you're talking about, like Justin, stood on the podium for the fourth time, like the idea of consistency.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that motherfucker's renting real estate to other competitors on that podium.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah like he, just if you want to know the secret of him, you know, I mean, you kind of just explained it right, like yeah, like maybe not. You didn't explain that he always shows up no matter the circumstances, but you explained how he is able to right. So he has these moments and he's like, ah, shit, and then he moves on and he goes out and gets after it. And the mental aspect of rain or shine, like you know, it's a lot of rain and if you're going to commit yourself to something like this and are you going to continue to show up, are you going to continue to do that? And it really just came from me asking myself what separates us, our coaches, our programming, our athletes, our community. What is like the common theme throughout it? And it's like, if we're getting ready to do this for the 14th time, like there's something to the consistency in continuing to show up.
Speaker 1:And it's just cool to have these examples, like to have someone like Kelly, who's been doing this for so long, someone like Kelly who is a red shirt, who affects things at the coaching level there she's an affiliate coach, she's a top 10 athlete at the CrossFit Games, that kind of thing, and those are the kind of examples that are set for us by the athletes. And then, in the thing that I posted to Instagram today, I just go on to say the coaches, the athletes, all these people within our community, whether it's Misfit Affiliates, misfit Athletics that's the fuel for us. We have the 50-50 agreement. I don't think we should ask athletes or coaches to improve or to get better, to work their asses off, if we're not going to do the same thing. And that's just kind of where all of that came from. And again, just to double down on it, I think those two people are really fucking good examples of that concept they've been at it for a long time.
Speaker 1:They're super consistent. They get after it, they give a shit.
Speaker 2:All the stuff that we're looking for yeah, yeah, overall, great weekend for the, for the misfits we have page simenza at uh world fitness project 2 and mesa.
Speaker 1:I'm heading out uh flying out to phoenix tomorrow and then elena pomerisi from Raid is doing the Challenger division, which is really cool.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:We're having an opportunity there. The last time I saw her was at Fittest of the Coast. She had a pretty bad wrist injury and has been kind of rehabbing and getting back into things Arizona. So who doesn't want to go to Phoenix in August? You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:There's some golf out there.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying dude, how bad would that be? How, how bad would golf be if it's 108 degrees? Yeah, it'd be pretty bad. Yeah, um, cool.
Speaker 1:So phase one we'll be quick with this stuff at the beginning. Here, a lot of what we're about to talk about is either for people who are new to the program or people who have not been around since the more traditional phases last year, previous years. How do you choose your program? I'll make this as simple as possible. If you are an in-person semifinals athlete or CrossFit Games athlete, you should be on our pro program. Our pro program is split up into double sessions more complex gymnastics, potentially a little bit heavier weights, a little bit higher volume, more direct access to myself and the other pro athletes. That is a very small subsection of the community. A lot of people sign up for it that probably aren't ready for it, and the way that you can know that I'm not trying to trick anybody here is it's more expensive and I'm telling most of you not to sign up for it.
Speaker 1:Excellent businessman, the comp subscription is like the old school Misfit Athletics where you got all of the other programs under one subscription. You get Hatchet, masters and GPP. The Hatchet program is for athletes that are trying to do really well in the open, potentially make it to the in-affiliate semifinal and do well in the in-affiliate semifinal. One way to explain the Hatchet program that popped into my head this morning I think your first semifinals, your first in-person semifinals invitation, should happen while you are on the Hatchet program. I think that might be the easiest way for me to explain that. If you've never been, even if you think you can go, even if you think this is your year, we have sent someone every single year from Hatchet to the in-person semifinals. We just talked about more is not better, better is better. It's a really fucking good program. It has the most people to compare scores to.
Speaker 2:It has the most people to talk about the programming with Kelly did Hatchet almost all year this past year.
Speaker 1:So really important that you guys choose the right program. Masters is pretty straightforward. The Masters program is going to be for, I would say, 95% of Masters. Hatchet is almost like the pro version of Masters. You're in the 35 to 39. You can go look at Kelly's scores in the open and things of that nature. I would say, even you know it's kind of like you're the barely qualifying thing that would. That would again come from the master's program. And then if you, you know, really dug in another year and wanted to try hatchet, you can. But the good thing is you can see both of these programs. You can see what the differences are. And again, slight reductions in weight rep counts are taken into consideration. Gymnastics skill is taken into consideration and then, instead of scaling the workouts, we have age group modifications.
Speaker 2:Kelly did also get the GPP did masters Sweet.
Speaker 1:There you go, both top 10 and Justin on the podium. Once again, the GPP program is in there. I like it to be in there for people who are in a season of life where they just need to get into the gym and work out for 60 to 90 minutes, want to stay within the community and then can kind of bounce back into the competitive program when they want to Probably a little bit easier to look at those workouts if you're traveling, that sort of thing, and then there is a cheaper version where it's just the gpp program, which, which you can get and we need to. We need to do another. We'll do a podcast in september, october, about the gpp program because the results are kind of fucking crazy. The people like we've got some. We've got some benchmarks that I named after the founding members of the gpp program and the test retest is really awesome and people are having some pretty big transformations and like finally getting gymnastics.
Speaker 1:They didn't think they were going to be able to get losing a bunch of weight, that sort of thing. So we'll definitely go check in on them. Frequently asked questions, things that we're going to get a lot of once we get started. Misfit Athletics talk about that 14 year thing.
Speaker 1:You know, rewind all the way back and the idea to start the program, aside from our affiliate stuff, was based on me thinking that one size fits all made no sense when it came to competitors, especially back in the day. You had a lot of specialists the aerobic guy, the strong guy, the gymnastics guy and oh my goodness, if you had two of the three you were probably going to go to the CrossFit games, that sort of thing. But the idea that each of those guys or girls should be following the same program made no sense to me. So the variable training system is basically, when you log in, you'll have test week first, so there won't be much of that. But when you log in for week two, which is the first full week of training for phase one, so it'd be September 8th you will see complete you know, mandatory work, complete lift one, accessory one and conditioning one, and then, based on your weaknesses, how much energy you have, what's left over choose, you know, zero to two of the following pieces.
Speaker 1:That is how we personalize your program. Hey, do I need more strength? Hey, do I need more skill? Hey, do I need more monostructural conditioning? You're going to have options to do all of those things. Hey, I'm actually kind of good at single modality stuff and I suck at CrossFit because I don't know how to pace it. It's going to be more, you know, met, cons and intervals and things like that that you can add to the program. Once again, more is not better.
Speaker 2:Better is better.
Speaker 1:So get that mandatory work done, get used to the program If you haven't been doing it yet and then start to add stuff slowly. You don't have to add that extra piece every day. You can add that extra piece, you know, when you have extra time on the weekends, and then see how your body reacts and see if you need to do, you know, a second extra piece of the week, a third, a fourth, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:Accessory work I love accessory work. The athletes that I have that have the time to dig into it see some pretty, pretty incredible progress in specific weaknesses related to both strength work and gymnastics work. I have the mandatory lift. I have the accessory next to that you know listed as mandatory for the most part. Aside from that, you adding accessory work, skill work, what we call reps honestly should be more based on time than anything else. Right, like a lot of this stuff, like five round secondary accessory work has 12 minutes of rest in it you know what I mean, and you can trim that down a little, but it's not going to work as well.
Speaker 1:So you're really just dealing with a time constraint when it comes to that stuff.
Speaker 2:What are your thoughts on? Not to get too far in the weeds on this, but things like supersetting, so like slide push superset with my neutral grip. Strict press that sort of thing in the interest of time. Would you rather see somebody do one of those exceedingly well, or is it like hey?
Speaker 1:no, that's not the worst thing in the world to superset. Um, I'm gonna be annoying and say no, one size fits all. So basically the the thing that is attached there to a lift. So if it says lift to accessory to the thing that is attaching, that from the, for the most part is can I use this accessory to get you better at this thing? So if you don't need it, the answer would be to do the other one and do it really well.
Speaker 1:Let's say you were weak at both or good at both and you did have time, like chopping them in half and doing a superset so that you are getting a dose of both. I think would work pretty well. And then, from the other standpoint, a lot of it does have to do with kind of that prehab, rehab, strengthening. You know, at more of a base level when it comes to this stuff. So it's you know we're pulling from different angles, we're pressing from different angles. That kind of stuff is going to keep you healthy. Knock down the volume by super setting and even on the strict pull-ups, use a band. Or even though it says primary accessory, you know you're doing rdls, you actually go pretty light on those. I think that can also work from a health standpoint, like if you're injury prone, going lighter weight and doing both accessories and you know, super setting, something like that's a good idea. So you guys, as you know or I hope you know through all all of the different avenues, when you guys sign up, I send you my email address, social media, telegram, all these different places you have access to me and if there are more FAQs, make sure you ask, make sure you reach out.
Speaker 1:So what we're going to do now is go down through what makes phase one different than another phase relating to strength bitch work, which is what we call our monostructural conditioning, and sports specific work relating to Metcon skill. That sort of thing we will probably spend just based on how many people follow it versus the other. We will probably spend more time discussing what is going on within the Hatchet program. We will tell you what the pros are up to. That's a little bit different, but I think it's more important to spend more time on hatchet.
Speaker 1:So when it comes to strength work, this is probably the case where there's the most sort of overlap between programs. So your mandatory strength work is as follows your one rep max peaking lift for the phase is going to be the volume back squat program, your volume work so a little bit closer to you know, blurring the lines between what you would do in a Metcon and what you would do in a lift. You know your sets of 12, sets of 10, sets of eight is going to be snatching your positional work, where we're going to try to get you better at. You know moving through space is going to be the clean and then your speed work is going to be strict press only mandatory on pro, non-mandatory on hatchet is going to be heavy bench press. What sticks out to you, hunter, when you look at the list of of mandatory lifts there?
Speaker 2:volume back squat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Um, we switched. I was scared man. We switched last year from three days a week to two days a week for the program. Yeah, and it, and then it ended up working better, which was great you can still three day a week.
Speaker 2:Program is so gnarly, it is it is and it's.
Speaker 1:It's blurring the lines between specializing and biasing right yeah conversation that we've had a lot of times on here, and there's not always a very strict definition. I feel too boxed in programming everything else.
Speaker 2:When it comes to that, you can't fucking do a met, a squat in a metcon when you're back squatting heavy three days a week, unless you want people to die, right?
Speaker 1:so yeah, like jokes on you guys that third day is just front squats and metcons, the entire phase. So you are still squatting, but I think it's important to have. You know a different, a different plane of squatting, different weights. You know more variant, more variation, that sort of thing. So, yeah, you're doing either five sets of five, four sets of four, three sets of three and we follow linear progression. One piece of advice that we've given in the past, that's really important Do not carry the baggage from one session to another.
Speaker 1:It makes no sense. You got this random. Some people like the. I loved the three by threes and hated the five by fives. A lot of people are the opposite. It makes no sense. I mean, honestly, it probably makes sense if you really dig. And what did I eat today and did I actually stretch and did it actually? Like you're just going to have days that feel close to like I don't know if I can do this, and then when you do something harder, the bar will fly later on and you're like, wait a minute. But I know athletes that will be like I can't do this because I almost failed last week and that boxes them into like I'm not going to be able to do this Like that attitude when you've got 400 pounds on your back or 300 pounds on your back or 200 pounds on your back is.
Speaker 2:It's just not going to work yeah, I, I think like I've had. I have that feeling basically every time you're halfway into the texas method at the gym. It's like five by five, it's like you kidding me, I'm supposed to add, do, like I'm barely surviving this and I'm supposed to add weight next week. And no, I'm not going to say. It always is like now you're fine, you're just being a little bit of a baby, but more often than not you do, you can like, just don't think ahead to the next session and that's also a good like.
Speaker 2:This is also a good psa to make sure that you're using like you did just do um zero and potentially have a new one rep max to work off of. If that new one rep max is like astronomically higher than maybe a weight that you've used before, like be smart about starting in a place that does allow you what's the? What's the heaviest Does it get? Is it three by three at ninety five percent? I always remember the four by four at eighty five percent as being the like that's the linchpin to the phase. But, like, the first first couple sessions are reasonable.
Speaker 1:But if you saw, it by three, and ninety two and a half is the heaviest, and then four by four at eighty seven and a half is yeah, that's the one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean like if you were to, if you were to right now say, like you know, think to yourself, like could I do ninety three of my ninety three? Ninety three percent of your one rep max is is pretty closely correlated with like a true three rep max. I'm sorry, 90 of your one rep max is about your three rep max and asking you to do three sets of that, hopefully right now seems like pretty daunting and potentially impossible. But that's obviously like that's six weeks down the road where you've hopefully built up some additional kind of stamina and strength. So starting at a place that's not like already putting you in a deficit is important but, like you said, not looking like yes, every session does get heavier, but you also have to account for the fact that you're getting stronger.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's honestly. It's like the actual practical example of when your kid's 10 years old buy him a baby cow and he carries them up the hill every day and then by the time the cow's 400 pounds, he's still going to be able to carry him. The two and a half percent jumps, I think, are the difference between this program and a lot of the ones that just stay locked in on 5%. It's 5% in the lift, like that can really make a huge difference. But wrapping your mind around, you do the math on what 2.5% is and be like okay, well, if I can do 5x5 at this, why can't I do 5x5 at 2.5% heavier? And we just sort of follow that along the volume snatch work. You're going to be looking at basically a rotation of touch and go work, volume singles, squat snatch and power snatch. So we can essentially apply the GPP principle, where we love variance, into something that is a little bit more specific.
Speaker 1:Snatch is one of the most programmed movements. And are you good at power snatch? Are you good at squat snatch? We're not going to guess. We're not going to guess what's going to come up. We're not going to guess what you're good at. You are going to be exposed to all of them. And guess what, if you love to power snatch and hate to squat snatch, go heavier in your power snatch and that's adaptation right there. The other sessions might feel more like you're figuring out the skill of Metcon snatching. And then the ones where you're like, yes, this is wheelhouse, don't skip that stuff. That stuff is where a lot of adaptation lives, where you can really make changes on the cellular level because you do excel at that thing.
Speaker 1:Positional work on the clean. I think the positional work that I have been using in competition prep for our higher level athletes in a remote coaching setting has worked better and has been a little bit more fun than some of the stuff that we've done in the past. So I'll give you guys an example right now of the power clean skill complex. So it's an eight minute EMOM one power clean above the knee, one below the knee and one power clean and essentially alternating back and forth again between the power clean, between the squat clean, um, and giving you guys an opportunity to get used to the positions but allowing you to add weight if it's moving well. But just keep in mind, in eight minutes you're going to be doing essentially 24 heavy reps, which sort of adds up, but I've really noticed a combination of athletes getting stronger and moving better by the end of them following something like this for week after week, as opposed to I'm going to lock you in at this one specific position and make you move perfectly.
Speaker 1:I think an athlete you know thinking about like, like, as a baseball player, having a lot of like boring in between time in the sport can be really challenging and having those moments where, like you, actually are kind of locked in because you know you're, you know I was, I was a pitcher, so you got to stay locked in there. Being on the bases, you know, is, you know, exciting and an eight minute emom of rolling through these complexes, I just think keeps an athlete focused and not click clacking on their phone on a bench somewhere and just kind of going through the motions because the barbell's light yeah, well, I mean, if it's a complex and every minute, like there's not a whole lot of time to to dick around and there's also not a whole lot of potential to go heavier, just because it's like that's self-limiting in itself.
Speaker 2:So taking the chance to really move through good positions and especially with the, the, the where, sorry, were you talking positional clean work or the alternating non mandatory stuff?
Speaker 2:yeah, the positional clean work yeah yeah, the positional clean work or the alternating non-mandatory stuff. Yeah, the positional clean work. Yeah, the positional clean. And just remember part of the reason that clean is positional and they're, by nature, lighter. It's like you're squatting heavy two days per week. We don't need you going ultra heavy for a third day. We're ramping into the season in which you will get a phase where you clean heavy, you know, at least two days a week. So just use it as a chance to refine positions, knowing that your strength, your kind of leg strength, so to speak, comes through that volume back squat this phase, remote coaching arena and I don't always do the best job of translating it onto the podcast.
Speaker 1:But, like Erica was doing leading up to Supra Games, erica Folo was doing Texas Method and we did a two week less than two weeks, roughly two week peaking phase. So triple, double, single, twice on the snatch, like every other day, like definitely, definitely a specialist type program, and she snatched 200 at Supra without honestly having snatched a ton leading up to that. She is starting phase one early. She is in week two of phase one right now. She stopped in the skill complex at 220 because she figured that was enough. She doesn't, and this is one of those things that you second guess.
Speaker 1:As a programmer, I don't have her clean very often, so I'm just looking at the board of what we're working on and like every once in a while she'll clean and I'm like I don't need to do that. So that Texas method if you watch, if you guys I'm sure you saw it on Instagram If you guys go on Instagram and watch it, it's 220 and the squat speed is absurd, right. So we're going to keep. She'll keep doing like she's doing the skill work right now, but she's going to benefit more from the squat phase than she is from the clean phase with cleaning, and I don't think people really like always wrap their mind around go on, hook, grip, watch the latest team that weighs four pounds, that can clean 400. Like it's the art of moving your body around a barbell and like that first pull off the floor, the way that they actually use their legs and keep that torso angle like plus the skill, that's back squat and and skill work that's what that is.
Speaker 1:That's how they're able to do that, um, speed work on the strict press I. If you do it right, it works so fucking well and if you don't do it right is it's not a waste of time, but it's like accessory work basically. Who need to lower the bar under control and press the bar as fast as you can up over your head should feel that little snap. I'm hoping that in years to come, some of these devices that are coming out again like or even an app with just a camera, should be able to do the physics and tell you what's going on there and to hold people a little bit more accountable, yeah, and when it comes?
Speaker 1:to this stuff. But I can tell you right now that, like when this is in my program, I know a little bit about the old strict press, been doing quite a bit of it. When this is in my program and I'm in the right percentage ranges, I see more benefit from this than I do from volume work or from heavy work. So I just want to put that out there. The instructions are very clear. It could be the thing that finally gets you over the hump with pressing, or it could be just another session where you get a tiny bit stronger over a long period of time. So do the work it right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think anytime you see a lighter percentage, that's almost always condition set to move that thing fast, especially with the slow lifts. Your squat deadlift pressing like low percentages are not, are not there to just like oh, this is a recovery session. It's like I mean it can be, but the speed work is like we're looking for force production.
Speaker 1:Yep um, the heavy bench press this is. This program is one that I've tweaked quite a bit over the years and have landed on specific percentages and I honestly think the secret to it is kind of a hybrid between a traditional lifting program and more velocity based, like with what we just talked about. So your first two sets, um, more centered around the the old school idea of, like a training max, and you're going to be able to move those fast. So you're either going to do a set of five, a set of a set of three in those first two sets and then you do an AMRAP set and you get to follow a linear progression of I did as many as I could at 80. And then I did it as many as I could at 85.
Speaker 1:You kind of work your way through it and we rotate back through a second time in the phase and I just I just program it because it gets the best results. It gets better results than a traditional, you know, sets of five, sets of four, sets of three, that sort of thing we don't always know why. We can theorize on like, well, fast twitch guy gets to you know, lift more reps. And slow twitch guy gets to, you know, doesn't get pinned down by like 90, some percent or something, like you know what I mean, like we can guess why, but it just works better than traditional benching programs. So we're going to do it again.
Speaker 2:I mean, we, we talked a little bit about that with the squat cycle that we just finished up with, the misfit affiliate program and we had a shitload of prs in the one rep max day yesterday, which was really cool, but it was. It was a kind of like it was nine. It started off, started with nine rep, a set of nine, a set of seven, a set of five, a set of three and then a max rep set and over the weeks it progressively got. You know, we got down to seven, five and three and then the max rep set turned into. Like you know, we got down to seven, five and three and then the max rep set turned into, like you know, one max rep set at 90% plus 85%, plus where it's like I just want you to get like maybe it's only three reps, but it worked really well because it it worked for.
Speaker 2:It worked for a lot of people, right. The people who needed the volume work got the volume work in. They got the skill element of being able to do a bunch of lifts at a relatively light percentage. The heavy, the strong athletes got their work in when they got to do the max rep sets. So it worked really well for everybody, which tends to be kind of like that, just that when you find that blend that typically just works well for a crossfitter, given the way that they train for sure.
Speaker 1:So when we get into again, you'll be able to choose that on hatchet as one of your non-mandatory lifts. I would say my advice to nine out of 10 athletes would be you should pick which ones you're going to do for the phase and follow them, especially if they're a weakness. If you're a strong athlete and you want to lift extra every once in a while when you have more time, that would be when you could cherry pick an extra lift here or there. But all of are meant to be progressions. Everything that we're talking about is are they on the same day?
Speaker 1:every week. Yes, yep, they're on the same day every single week, so that I think that helps people with like scheduling and whatnot yeah, and just because you can't see weeks in advance, just know that.
Speaker 1:You know it's always the same non-mandatory because we're doing positional cleans and some people need to, you know, remain under a heavy barbell, continue to power clean, continue to squat clean.
Speaker 1:We have alternating weeks of power cleaning and squat cleaning. Same thing with the power snatch and squat snatch. Some people just need more exposure to the olympic lifts for, honestly, a handful of different reasons. But you have the opportunity to do so and then if you are looking to set yourself up to really succeed and change the way that you can press both with a barbell and inverted gymnastics, we have a heavy strict press so you have the potential of strict pressing twice and doing the bench press and doing the accessory work, that sort of thing. So just another way to sort of round things out. A lot of this stuff used to be mandatory, but there's just I've worked with enough athletes that just don't need like either desperately need a second strict press day or don't need, you know, need zero or one that kind of thing. And that just goes back to the beginning of like it's not one size fits all and making these small changes to the program can have the biggest impact for different athletes yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:It is weird like it's kind of an all or nothing with the pressing. Tony, in prior to phase zero, did like pretty much all the pressing that there was. There was bench press, strict press day, and then he was doing neutral, the, the dumbbell, bench press stuff. He ended up pr-ing his strict press among like 86 other things in phase zero, which is pretty awesome. But like the, if you're, I would say that if you're somebody who really struggles with pressing of any variety, it's this is the right time of year to like take a look at that non-mandatory pressing and add that in it's like you always say that, that old russian adage of to press, you have press and it is just one of those lifts. Fortunately, the demand on your nervous system isn't crazy high, as long as you're taking care of your shoulders and joints and aren't beating the shit out of yourself. Like you have to get a decent volume to really move the needle on pressing, especially if you've been doing it for a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. All right, so now we're on to bitch work again. Bitch work, uh, monostructural conditioning, what what most people call it. This is probably the place where we can start to explain the difference between the programs and why you would want to follow one versus the other. We have found that if we have a three-phase progression, an athlete takes the the modality that they need to improve the most on and does a zone two bias, then an aer bias and then an anaerobic bias. They see the greatest results. So you're starting long and slow, then you go long and hard, then you go short to medium and hard that sort of thing. That's where we see the greatest benefit if we are going to follow a path. So what that means is we have to identify for the masses, outside of a remote coaching scenario, what thing goes in that place that matters the most, that will move the needle the most in terms of your standing. A pro athlete, that is undoubtedly 100% running, very cut and dry. If you are not a great runner and you want to excel at the semifinals and CrossFit Games level, you won't. It's just not going to happen. And what's really cool about this is we have proof of concept now dating back five years, six years. Over the course of six years, I have turned not a runner into a really fucking good runner, following this exact progression.
Speaker 1:This progression started with remote clients, specifically, they're my test bunnies for all this stuff before you guys get to see it. So we know that it works. We know that it translates from the gym to the competition floor. Now, when we go to the hatchet side of things, it's obviously rowing. It's the only fucking machine that you're going to use to get through the stages of competition in terms of what we're trying to prepare for. And if you follow pro and you go all in on running and then you don't get to use it, like of course there's a GPP effect, but like it just doesn't make any sense to do Right, um, it's too many eggs in that basket. Whereas on the rowing side one thing that's cool about this, also like from a fitness standpoint those are those are two of the. Those are the two best right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like we you know it's probably. It's probably you could argue one or the other for different reasons based on a specific athlete, but I think that's a cut and dry example of why you should be on one thing versus the other. You know, not related at all to your fucking ego. Like, don't bring it along for this conversation, it's not gonna like, there's not gonna be logic attached to that. So your zone two bias for hatchet is rowing, for pro is running and, as stated, if you're a long-time listener, at least you've listened recently the Misfit Athletics threshold, sphetorobic threshold test is coming. So you are going to row for 40 minutes as fast as you can or run for 40 minutes as fast as you can. That is going to set the tone for us and give us something that is truly measurable outside of and beyond the range that you will be asked to go to. We have the Mount Dooms, we have the cube test. We have a lot of these things covered A CrossFitter, now semifinals. Last year we had the 30-minute AMRAP. It's cleared event organizers that they need to go long that sort of thing to really test your aerobic threshold, to really test if zone two is changing things. We need to go longer than 20 minutes, like a lot of programs do with, like their wattage tests, um. So that's where that comes from. That's it's not just like a hazing thing. It's honestly actually more realistic to test something that's going to be potentially a little bit slower than it is to have you go, you know, fluctuate in pace greatly for 20 minutes.
Speaker 1:Yep aerobic bias for hatchet is the c2 bike and for pro is the echo bike.
Speaker 1:Um, a lot of echo bike programmed at the pro level like a lot, a lot, and some of that has to do with it being a great machine and some of that probably has to do with the fact that it says rogue right before it. The c2 bike honestly is in there because, if used properly, one of the things about making it to the next level in crossfit is your ability to flush waste in your lower half. So you know, going into going into the program and essentially working on those really brutal you know aerobic is 15 minutes times to rest, one minute, 13 minutes times to rest, 90 seconds, like those kinds of things we're going to be able to make some, some significant changes in your ability to stand up. Hopefully you get the proof of concept in real time where you're really learning to grind on that C2 bike and those long durations. And then you're going to do a shorter medium duration, heavier front squat workout and you're like, oh wow, like I can really feel the difference here.
Speaker 1:That to me is how that machine should be used.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a super effective tool if you use it correctly. It's a wildly useless tool if you don't.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, true Anaerobic bias starting to get into the dirty shit here. Hatchet and we're going to use the Echo Bike and Pro, we're going to get on the rower so you can start to see a little bit of a theme here With a professional running. Echo Bike and rowing are the trio. Those are the things that you're going to be asked to do On the hatchet side. I think about it earlier on in the year a little bit more based on stimulus. Specifically, as the year progresses, your aerobic bias will actually be CrossFit movements moving forward and then your anaerobic bias will be CrossFit movements. So think of spiders on Mars and cube staked. You guys just got to do both of those super fun workouts. We're mixing in the rowing the wall balls, the double unders, the burpee box, jump overs, the things where it's like, okay, you finally figured out your monostructural conditioning, but now can you go like actually translate that to CrossFit? Because if we can't do that, then we're just specializing in monostructural conditioning which basically never comes up in the early parts of the off season.
Speaker 2:I think if you're a hatchet athlete really taking the C2 bike like aerobic stuff, is that in that aerobic oh, it says zone two, rowing the aerobic stuff on the C2 bike I think translates really well to the anaerobic stuff on the echo bike, just because it is like the c2 bike is obviously a much more localized muscle fatigue, whereas the the echo bike, I think for most people is a little bit more of like a breathing thing. It's obviously depends on the stimulus, but I just remember doing a lot of the aerobic work on the c2 bike and feeling way more comfortable on a bike in which the cadence is substantially lower, ie an echo bike. So if you're somebody who really struggles on those machines, just because they're both bikes doesn't mean they're the same thing and getting good at both of them is really helpful, is really useful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny. Basically, what I find is one level below whatever you're doing on the C2 bike. You really notice the difference on the echo bike. So if I'm doing a ton of zone two work on the C2 bike my aerobic even on the echo bike.
Speaker 1:So like if I'm doing a ton of zone to work on the c2 bike, my, my aerobic even on the bike is great, and then exactly what you just said, doing a lot of first, second and third gear intervals on the c2 bike, I finally like felt like I wasn't the worst echo bike person in the entire fucking gym. Like okay, I can hunker down at whatever 65 which would have been a bad idea prior to that.
Speaker 1:Power output bias for both programs is going to be the SkiErg, a bit of a grip and rip kind of machine. Obviously, the stimulus for letting it fly will probably work for everybody. If your technique is trash, your scores are going to be really bad. It's one of those machines where someone less fit than you that knows how to actually use the SkiErg is going to have very different scores. Power output work for the most part on pro, is always going to be mandatory and almost always going to be non-mandatory. When it comes to the hatchet program, your ability to do the sprinter-val type workouts, your classic finales, is really important, not as important when it comes to someone on the hatchet program, unless it's a weakness. If it's a weakness, exposure to it is going to help you. You know you're going to have those kinds of beginner gains and you're going to see something from it. If you're a monster, you don't need to be doing that stuff. If you're trying to get a little bit better, you know in the open, get closer to in affiliate semifinals, that kind of thing yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:Last but not least, we have our sports specific work this time of year. I put this last sort of to just say like we are building a foundation. Right now we are laying the groundwork for you to be stronger, fitter and more skilled. So a little bit less classic CrossFit and then, as the phases go on, more and more of that starts to appear.
Speaker 1:The biggest change when it comes to sports-specific bias this year is we are doubling down on the combination of conditioning work and skill work. So in the past you would do something to the effect of you do your test workout with front squat and toes to bar and then in week one you do a workout, week two you do skill or vice versa, and you'd alternate all the way through. Again in the remote coaching setting, when I double down and give the athletes the toe to bar and the skill work and the toe to bar and front squat, you know, in the other two or three day block in the week throughout, we just see better adaptation. So translating it to the masses is just more about finding ways to make sure that it's actually appropriate, that we aren't beating you guys up and overdoing movement patterns.
Speaker 1:So you'll notice that the skill progression and the workouts will end up being in the same week all the way throughout. So for Metcons, we have front squat toe-to-bar for Hatchet and front squat GHD sit-up for Pro. Hopefully one day that's just front squat toe-to-bar for everybody. But the GHD sit-up is such an outlier when it comes to it's definitely on murderer's row. It's the kind of movement that stops people dead in their tracks. So it's, you know, whether we like it or not, the kind of thing that you kind of have to set a base for and start early with athletes who aren't very good at it.
Speaker 2:It sucks because I just dislike the movement so much in competition a lot of people and it's either, and it's just like well, and it's just like it, it can.
Speaker 2:It's almost always only one of two things it's either in a small enough dose that it's a sprint, and it makes me nervous watching people just fucking send it through that, that movement, and that that's kind of what we saw at the masters this weekend, at least for the younger divisions, where they were just like the people who won the event with the ghd sit-up sandbag carry shuttle were just sprinting ghd's and you can tell who who trains like ghds for speed or yeah it. They're just gonna lay an egg and drop like a hundred of them in the middle of a chipper and it's like I'd almost rather prefer that because it forces people to go slower. But I just it's, I can I can weird body position.
Speaker 2:It's a weird movement and people like man, especially in competition, racing just to get the work done. It's like I think that it does have a place. As far as like teaching people, I'll refrain from putting on my level one seminar cap and saying like all the words that you're supposed to say, but like there is value in it. But I just I think, I just feel like we can do better in a competition setting and agreed, yeah, agreed, that's, the bar is a great movement.
Speaker 1:They program it plenty. It adds a grip element. It adds more of a skill element like I don't know um all right interval and skill. So basically we're doing crossfit type workouts in an interval setting. For hatchet it is power, clean and handstand walk and for pro it is clean and jerk and handstand walk.
Speaker 2:There are some fucking do is clean and jerk and handstand walk.
Speaker 1:There are some fucking doozies when it comes to these workouts that you guys will see throughout what I will say. Uh, we took you guys feedback on what do I do in these skill settings If I don't have the skill. So you guys are going to notice notes. In phase one, there is a wall walk progression for those of you who don't have the handstand walk down, so you're going to have options related to that. And then there is a conversion of how many wall walks per 15 foot section in all of the Metcons, so you can essentially like, phase wide, do power, clean wall walk and have the right progression. I built that out as well, so you guys will be able to do that. And then, even in the reps column, which I'll explain here in a little bit, there are suggestions for what to do if you don't have a certain level of gymnastics, because we will do that within the Metcons and the intervals and then in the past hadn't done it in the skill and the reps, so that will be there.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we basically are just beginning that list that we referenced a few weeks ago on the podcast. We have front squat um the bar, or front squat GHD, sit up and then we have the handstand walk with either the power clean or the clean and jerk. Some of that is based on going for a specific stimulus, but a lot of it is based on they don't really program clean and jerks in the open and they program power cleans and there's a lot of interference that can be had with having to jerk over and over instead of, like, just doing the power clean and then getting upside down with the handstand walk. So I think that helps with the stimulus and a lot of the workouts when it comes to the hatchet and master's side. So yeah, I don't know that there's a whole lot to for you to jump in on related to that stuff, hunter.
Speaker 1:It's just no we're getting started on the stuff that we think you guys need to get better at and it will increase for the most part. Increase in sort of skill and difficulty as the year goes on because of the idea of like, hey, if I tune your muscle ups and get those perfect in phase one, are they still going to feel that way, going into the open? So we're going to make sure you know, for phase three, which is open prep for the hatchet program that you guys are doing maybe a little bit more skill based type stuff. So to kind of round things out here, you guys will notice there's mobility stability holds in the programming. You know your five-minute squat holds, your dead hangs from a pull-up bar, your handstand holds and then the days where we are working on the toes-to-bar or the handstand walk. That's going to be specific skill work. So your traditional EMOMs, where you're working on the thing, and then the other days are non-mandatory sections that we refer to as reps, and reps are.
Speaker 1:We've got our list of all the movements that are programmed. Those aren't programmed this week. You probably need exposure if they're a weakness. So it's a not for time. Hey, do one smooth set of bar muscle ups and then ride the bike for 90 seconds. Maybe you struggle with dumbbell snatches. We're going to let you guys use 55, 60, 65, 70 pounds for a set of 10 alternating, so that you can work on the capacity there. So all those movements that you need exposure to, specifically if they're a weakness, go into that reps column. You guys get to do a not for time kind of you know, three round, four round, five round, six round thing where you get exposure, you get practice, practice. You get to kind of back off and make sure that you're moving well yeah, I think that is phase one go ahead hunter no, I was just gonna give my final thoughts here.
Speaker 2:It's just like um, and I think we we've like gone through line by line here, like lifting, conditioning, skill, bitch work, like it's still a crossfit program correct and there's still plenty of crossfit to do.
Speaker 2:Don't think this is like a, a highly specialized, segmented program, and also understand that the goal is not to make you the fittest you are going to be by the end of phase one, right?
Speaker 2:This is part of a season-long progression where each phase builds on itself.
Speaker 2:Where we've you know you more than more than anyone has tried to tinker with the right balance of like, do we start with a super segmented lifting bitch work and then CrossFit doesn't come into the season until, you know, january, february, we learned that that's not the right move. And doing just straight up GPP the entire year round is like it's more, it's closer, but we still need to have some progressions built in throughout the phases just in order for people to like, especially those who are, like really vested in, you know, starting their season now, essentially their offseason now to to peak for whatever it happens to be the open online semifinals or the crossfit games, just um, there is, there's a progression and the subsequent phase two and phase three build on phase one. So, for whatever reason, you feel like you're not getting, like there's something missing or something like that, like it will come back. I promise there's. There are way too many spreadsheets and movement trackers and stimulus trackers between yes, between the two of us to miss, to miss something substantial.
Speaker 1:So and that's another good point that essentially presents itself as a differentiator between the programs. There is more crossfit in the hatchet program. There. There is a little bit less CrossFit especially mandatory CrossFit in the pro program, because there's an insinuation you can't be a pro without being really fucking good at CrossFit. Um, in order to specialize, in order to earn the right to really lock in on on an individual thing, you need to be amazing at CrossFit, you need to know how to pace.
Speaker 1:You have to move really well. You need to do all of those things. So when you go online and see your favorite CrossFitter with his bag of candy doing his ninth hour of zone two work, he will fucking wax you. In any MetCon you could possibly write, and he's probably deficient aerobically on that specific machine whatever, or he shouldn't be doing it. Um, and he's shying away from from CrossFit, which is a whole nother topic. But like it's it's doing.
Speaker 1:Programming like that for the masses is backwards. You haven't earned the right to go do that yet. Like I know of one you know top 10 games athlete that does like 15 hours a week of zone to work and in terms of power output he might be like the guy right, yeah, so like that makes sense and he knows that and he wouldn't ask another person to do something like that. So again, you see these things online and you see what people are up to and they're at a very different point in their journey or they're doing something that's just not going to necessarily move the needle. It's not going to help you. So yeah, again another. You know my final thoughts will just double down on the idea. This is a 27 week plan. We strategically build markers in here for you guys to like know that you're progressing. That's one of the reasons why we have the test retest model, that's one of the reasons why we bias.
Speaker 1:But what we just spent all of that time talking about is like 20 to 30% of the program. Everything else is all the stuff that we talked about in every time domain, on every machine, in every movement combination. That is how we program. So you're basically like there's that like famous college professor thing, you know, where he fills the mason jar with big rocks and asks if it's full and everyone says yes and then he gets pebbles and then he gets sand. The rocks are what we just talked about and the pebbles and the sand and the water and all that stuff is everything else and actually ends up filling in the entire program and making it well-rounded.
Speaker 1:Because, again, when you've done this for this long, you can try things and you can, you know, steer off the path for a short period of time and be reminded that we don't we don't know exactly the how and the why of the specifics of like in the way that we do with traditional strength and conditioning, why CrossFit works in the way that it does. And again, theoretically very easy to explain. But like you just can't if you never do, if you do this Metcon and you just never do it again and no one else ever does it again, because of the infinite combinations, it can be hard as a data-driven person, company coach, whatever, to be like. That's the thing, but it is the thing right the variance is the idea.
Speaker 1:That is the measurable thing you get spit out the other side and lo and behold, you are more fit than and I mean it makes sense.
Speaker 1:it's just not as measurable, it's just so fucking hard to measure, but it makes sense, makes perfect sense theoretically. And you know it might be time to to wax poetically on another podcast about why CrossFit works for an hour, but we're not going to keep you for two hours and 16 minutes. Yeah, so a lot going on. We will be back next week with phase one, the Arkham phase for Misfit Affiliate, and so so if you guys are looking for that podcast, that's going to drop next week. But what I will tell you is, well, it's another fucking great program. It works really well and Arkham is based on when the Joker says here we go in the Dark Knight movie.
Speaker 1:It's just fun again when you've been programming for as long as we have to, even if phase one, even if you know this is just another one in the course of a year, especially in, like the affiliate setting. It's the idea of something restarting and resetting and, you know, leaning back into specific bias is really fun. The comic book stuff the Jokers spent a little bit of time in Arkham Asylum, so that's where that name comes from. Again, we'll do an entire podcast on that. If you go to teammisfitcom and click on sign up now, you can get a two-week free trial. You want to see what the program looks like? Sugarwad, StreamFit and PushPress, We'll get there.
Speaker 1:That's a two-week free trial there. And, yeah, I'm just excited for a bunch of new misfits. Again, seven day free trial. Immerse yourself in the community. Listen to the podcast, you know, go to our YouTube tips. That's how you can kind of bridge the gap between all the remote coaching stuff that I talked about and being on the blog. So immerse yourself in the community, you know, sort of take notes from, from other misfits, that sort of thing. Yeah, and we'll see you out there.
Speaker 2:Good luck, we did it.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning into another episode of the misfit podcast. Head to our Instagram. Go to the link in bio. You can get signed up for a seven day free trial for any of our individual programs on fitter or strivy again, phase one for for misfit affiliate starts on the same day and you can get a two week free trial. Team misfitcom. Click on sign up now. Two week free trial teammisfitcom. Click on sign up now. Two-week free trial at SugarWad, pushpress or StreamFit. We will see you next week Later.
Speaker 2:Biggest bunch of misfits I ever seen either.