Misfit Podcast
Misfit Athletics provides information and programming to competitive Crossfit athletes of all levels.
Misfit Podcast
ARKHAM: New Misfit Affiliate Phase - E.366
The 2026 season kicks off with Arkham Phase, a meticulously designed training cycle that builds on summer programming while introducing new movement biases to create well-rounded CrossFit athletes.
Drew and Hunter dive deep into the front squat and squat clean focus of this phase, explaining how these movements represent a logical progression from the deadlift and back squat work of previous cycles. "The front squat is probably the most accessible squat that also does an exceptional job of midline work," Hunter explains, highlighting how this positioning demands upright posture and core engagement while providing natural feedback—if an athlete loses position, the barbell simply falls.
The gymnastics bias shifts to toes-to-bar, offering a foundation for developing proper kipping technique without the shoulder injury risks associated with other movements. This focus serves both newer athletes working on basic positions and experienced athletes building capacity through volume. Meanwhile, the conditioning bias expands beyond pure running to include mixed machine work—rowing, biking, skiing—creating varied stimulus that prevents monotony.
What sets Misfit's programming apart is the 80/20 principle at work: while movement biases make up only 20% of the program, the remaining 80% consists of foundational CrossFit elements—couplets, triplets, and heavy lifting—that drive overall fitness gains. The coaches reveal how this approach produces remarkable results, with athletes hitting PRs in benchmark workouts like Fran and maximal lifts at levels that would have been unthinkable years ago.
For affiliate owners and coaches, the podcast offers valuable insights into member retention through tools like the Competitor Extra programming and special events like Hell Week. "I like the idea of people getting excited for a specific thing," Drew notes, "because otherwise we're kind of just maybe a little bit of groundhog's day at a CrossFit gym."
Try Misfit Affiliate programming with a two-week free trial at teammisfitcom—experience a program that delivers results through smart programming, intentional progressions, and the perfect balance of structure and variance.
------------------------------
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.
Speaker 2:Good morning misfits. You are tuning into yet another special edition Misfit podcast. The Misfit affiliate Arkham phase. Phase one of what we refer to internally as the 2026 season is live now. Before you listen to the podcast, if you were not a subscriber to the programming yet, you can head to teammisfitcom, click on sign up now and then you have your choice of a two-week free trial on SugarWad, streamfit or PushPress. On SugarWad, streamfit or PushPress, if you would like a PDF version, I've got the new Arkham 2 week with the engine program added to it. If you would like that version, the PDF version, feel free to email me, coach, at misfitathleticscom, and I can get that over to you.
Speaker 2:This podcast, basically, if you're new to the program, if you're new to listening to these, the idea is to get people excited about the new phase, whether that's yourself, your coaches, your athletes. Dig into the nitty gritty for those who are interested in it. Talk to you a little bit about how the progressions work from phase to phase, maybe some coaching tips built in the way that we would think about it out on the floor, and then I am the one who writes the competitor extra on the floor, and then I am the one who writes the competitor extra. So one of the things that I have for this podcast is maybe some extra kind of competitors in your class, the nuggets that you can give them on this stuff to help them improve.
Speaker 2:As always, we will start the podcast with housekeeping and life chat. Housekeeping is very straightforward. Just told you guys how to get started on Misfit Affiliate. We also have phase one of Misfit Athletics individual programming for professionals, for your open athletes, age group athletes all that good stuff For all of our programs. Honestly, head to the link in bio on our Instagram. They're kind of broken out so you can decide where you want to go and get them, which program you want to do. All that good stuff. All right, hunter, what's up?
Speaker 1:My car door broke.
Speaker 2:Your car door broke and you had to run 800s. Yeah, on the same fucking day.
Speaker 1:No, my like. I went to. I like I got in my car this morning, drove over to the dumpster to throw out my trash and I go to open my car door from the inside driver's side and the handle, just like there's no tension, there's no like slack. So either the cable that connects from the door handle to like the door locking door opening mechanism like yep, came off or broke off.
Speaker 1:And I called the local repair shop, the new one right down riverside street I take it to like the scarborough, the Scarborough VIP usually yeah, and they just opened this one and I called them asking about it and I was like, hey, like this is like I'm almost certain this is what's wrong. Like is this something that is like a relatively quick fix? Like can you do that like quickly? And the dude was like yeah, like we can bring it in. It'll be $ and seventy dollars to like diagnose the problem and then we'll see what we can do to like fix it. I'm like like what the fuck did you say to me? Like a hundred, like hundred? I'm telling you what the problem is like like right, here's the problem. And it's like, and he's just like yeah, well, you know I gotta pay my guys and stuff and I'm like I like.
Speaker 2:Thank you for explaining any of like how labor works. Have shit like that.
Speaker 1:Well, I've taken it to like the one near me and I've had like small shit like that. They'll look at it and be like, yeah, this is what it is. And then I'm like like I'll pay for the repair Motherfucker, $170 to diagnose, like the handle it's going to take.
Speaker 2:You like Send a video of you pulling on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's gonna take you, like you pulling on it. Yeah, diagnosed chicken fucker, god damn it like yeah reconnect that bitch, like get a new cable. Yep yeah. The short story long is that I'm now about to determine how good of a mechanic I would have been yeah, dude fix that shit myself, so get fucked.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, let's rip that baby open I love this.
Speaker 1:It'll be just my luck. I will not be able to put that door back on. I'll be riding a mazda jeep for the next fucking six months.
Speaker 2:Luckily, someone in the gym someone in the gym will know how to put that baby back on.
Speaker 1:My pride is too big to ask somebody else before that, because I can also think of like three or four people who are like I could figure it out like three or four people who are like I could figure it out like motherfucker. I could figure it out like I'm asking for someone who knows what they're doing but yeah, unfortunately I'm in the.
Speaker 2:I'm in the former category yeah, me too do I know how absolutely not I got.
Speaker 1:I got youtube and a brain housing unit that works 50 of the time every time.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, yeah, that's uh.
Speaker 1:I still suck at golf. That's all Huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got back last night from Phoenix, went to world fitness project with page and then Elena from from CrossFit raid, who follows the programming, did the challenger division as well. She had a really, really good time there, which was cool. Kind of the type of thing where you go to that level of competition to see if you belong and then you feel like you belong so you get that extra level of motivation coming out of it. So that was really cool to see. I had probably the smoothest travel in like years. There were absolutely nothing was annoying or went wrong at any point. Like overhead space was like right in front of my seat. Every single time I rented, I prepaid for a rental car from the wrong airport and I called chase and they were like we'll call budget and like fix this for you. And within minutes they were like, yeah, just go pick one up at Phoenixoenix airport instead of mesa. And I was like hell, yeah, this is just just way too easy yeah, you're fucked
Speaker 1:yeah, I don't know what's about to happen to me?
Speaker 2:but yeah, so that was that was. Uh, that was a good trip. It was fun.
Speaker 2:Ryan was with us, did the did the media felt a little bit like getting the, getting the band back together nice good hang with with ryan and page, and then, whether we talk about it at length or have page on, she looked like herself again, which was really cool to see, and I'll give the only anecdote that I'll give before the longer version is the attitude of holy shit, these girls are so fast, like who she's competing against, and the response to that realization was I just need to go faster instead of no these girls are so fast.
Speaker 2:Like she's just got that little bit of that like kind of competitor's grin of like all right, here we go, like especially machines on the machines you're looking at, 10 seconds faster per 500 that you'd go in training you're looking at you know that five round workout with that five round workout with 24 cows on the biker glotta, 1200, 1300 cows per hour on the women's side and a you know, not a long workout like medium to long type of workout, um, and I know there's a lot of you're probably not privy to any of it but there's a lot of drama, just the like crossfit versus wfp stuff, which is probably predictable. And the one thing that I'll say kind of unequivocally, because I don't really care to pick sides is the level of competition there is crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just looking at the names on the leaderboard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean so many athletes are used to. Okay, I do the Open, I do quarterfinals, I do semifinals, and each step of the way it's a little bit more challenging. Yeah, but a games athlete going to semifinals, something would have to go really wrong for them to fall out of the top 10, let alone the top five, and then there it's basically the games for the most part.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's like three names on this list that I don't know and then you see, like bkg and yonakoski in like the bottom five, five places.
Speaker 2:It's like yeah there's a, there's a like, there's a passing of the torch currently taking place in the sport. That's for damn sure so for me in terms of progression of everything, having them compete against each other more often, I think, would create faster progressions and adaptations. One of the things that was kind of the talk of the like, like warm-up area and with the coaches, was there was one athlete on the men's side and one athlete on the women's side that could pirouette while moving forward. And the video of victor hoffer in slow-mo is fucking insane. He's doing a 180 forward, so he turns and he's his. Where his hand goes is whatever, however many feet apart forward, and then his body rotates another 180 degrees and he puts his hand there, so he's literally rotating forward through space.
Speaker 1:He does not stop and do a pirouette.
Speaker 2:He spins on his hand basically would be a good way to put it while moving forward and it's just like okay, not only that's not really just a parlor trick, because his time under tension was like a quarter of the other people, so like it really is like actual fatigue and you know muscle fatigue and breathing and all that. So that was pretty crazy to watch and I just think things like that, where you see an athlete that can blast through a particular movement or set or do something at a certain pace, has the you know sort of progresses, everything faster.
Speaker 2:So I thought that was pretty cool some good, good events, yeah, the my only complaint would be it was a bit of a kitchen sink, it was a bit of like there was every machine. Yeah, there were two five-rounders. There was a lot of workouts that had. You know it didn't have like a. There wasn't much of the like couplet, triplet, vibe like that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:A lot of chippers. Five movements or four movements per event, exactly, yeah, so there was a lot of that.
Speaker 2:So there was a lot of that. It definitely favored. One thing that was funny was it definitely favored a aerobically inclined athlete because the top heats were worse in the heavy events. Like the top heat of one or a max clean was like like interesting, like very low. And then the what was the other one towards the end, some of the athletes moving the power, snatching 155 on the women's side and then clean and jerking 155. It was clear that they had positioned themselves over the course of the weekend a little bit better because of their like, more like GPP that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Crazy two mile run times. I saw 1206 and I was like, oh, like, that's not crazy. And then it was like Laura Horvath, respectfully, respectfully to Laura, but like Jesus Christ, she's a great runner, fucking fast women. Yes correct.
Speaker 2:Do you see the men?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Then I toggled over, I was like 1101. The difference with the?
Speaker 2:men was not only obviously the times, but how close they were together. The women weren't as close together. There were really big gaps in the women one through 10.
Speaker 1:1048, Ricky.
Speaker 2:That's nuts. So the men's was cool. Ricky and Yella ran together basically.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:Yella did his. He got like double crossed. Basically he did his final kick, which Ricky was waiting for. On purpose.
Speaker 2:And then Ricky ran on his hip when he tried to pass him and then, when they got really close, he knows he's a faster sprinter and he just fucking blasted by him. Wow. So he led, knowing that at some point yellow was going to sprint. And then he just stayed on his hip and ran past him and I don't know like. I think he won. I think they're probably like one and one a in terms of what they could do, but I think he won based on tactic and strategy smarter.
Speaker 1:Yep, I mean.
Speaker 2:Only four seconds is hardly about 20 strategy, 80 fitness right and the the only thing that I heard from the athletes that were like roughly 10th place that they were pissed about is they got too far behind and couldn't catch up so they didn't feel like they felt like they should have started hotter, even though, like you, shouldn't basically.
Speaker 1:But it complains like not about the event, just like about how? No, no, no, no, no yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they, they just felt like I had a little bit more in the tank. But when you look and see someone 200 meters away, like what the fuck are you gonna do about that, like that kind of thing, so it's like okay, how much do you ride the fucking lightning? But then, in the other sense, like laura was one of the ones who started towards the back and literally passed almost everyone. So it's, you know, it's possible, but like spreading out your final kick over a mile was this, outdoor, on a track, on a runner?
Speaker 2:No, so it started on the road and then went on to turf and then came back through the complex which I think is like maybe concrete or something like that. The athletes did say the turf was weird. It felt more like the air runner, like they had to like pull with their hamstring more. And then quite a few of them said their calves were really sore because it's like bouncy.
Speaker 1:It's the stuff with the like, the like crumb rubber in it. Yeah, what was the? What was the drama with the? What fucking happened to all the equipment? Her ghd's fucking snapped in half bikes, the ghd foot pad slid off the end.
Speaker 2:It wasn't. It wasn't tightened all the way, and they supposedly walk around and check all of the knobs. Yeah, it was tight but it wasn't tightened all the way, and they supposedly walk around and check all of the knobs yeah, it was tight but it hadn't clicked into the hole, so he fell off that and hurt his beanbag and then, when he won the clean, grabbed his beanbag also. I think go to the clean. Is it eight guys that cleaned 400?
Speaker 1:don't say that one, two, three, four, five, five, and then the next three were 392. Fuck, you took eighth. Some of them were in challenger, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there were seven potentially eighth plate.
Speaker 1:I mean this says pro. But yeah, 407, 407, 405, 400, 400, 395, jesus christ, no, that's not because because hatfield was 422, so there's, there's more than that.
Speaker 2:Did you sort by the event?
Speaker 1:yeah, hatfield, oh oh holy fuck yeah.
Speaker 2:4.30, 4.22, 4.07, 4.07, 4.05. Just eight with Tolo from Challenge.
Speaker 1:One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Speaker 2:Wow, how fucking crazy is that. And we were talking about bridges, not being able to pick up 4.05 at regionals. Oh my god, that's Talk about progression.
Speaker 1:That's insane. I did not know.
Speaker 2:Hatfield could do that. He's like a classic CrossFit guy Like blasts the couplets and triplets. That's pretty fucking crazy Any 300 pound female cleans.
Speaker 1:That's not a 280, something. 282. Kyra Milligan and Annika Greer, yeah, and a 270. Good fucking Lord, they out-cleaned me from this week. I would have taken like 10th place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Paige was like 15th with 247.
Speaker 1:That's insane 14th.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:Well, got out of fitness at the right time, yeah, 2014. So, all right, well, good experience though, yep, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yep, good experience though. Yep, yeah, yep, good experience. All right, arkham.
Speaker 2:So we started naming if you didn't know, from the last few phases we started naming the Misfit Affiliate phases. I love a narrative. I like the idea of people rallying around an idea. This is technically phase one and there is the scene from I think it's Dark Knight, the not Dark Knight Rises, I don't know when the Joker says here we go.
Speaker 2:And the Joker, if you are familiar with, like the actual comic book and stuff, has definitely spent some, some time, uh, probably intentionally, inside of Arkham insane asylums, um, cool imagery again, the idea of of restarting, digging into things, um, and there's definitely, as we talk through this stuff, some pieces of what the movements are that will connect.
Speaker 2:So the way that we'll do this is we'll go through each bias for the phase and we almost always bury the lead on this.
Speaker 2:What we are talking about makes up about 20% of the programming, whereas the other 80% is couplets and triplets and heavy lifts and all the you know, monostructural conditioning, all the good stuff.
Speaker 2:But again, talking about liking a narrative, I do, like you know. Okay, this is the phase where we're going to work on these things, not only because it gets buy-in, but it also helps you wrap your mind around how powerful GPP is Like if I go into this phase and 80% of the work is just kind of putting my head down lifting weights, running, rowing, you know pull-ups, this, you know this weighted movement, that weighted movement, and I only do the bias you know, sort of once a week as I'm working through this, and those things increase at the level that they do, you can understand how GPP works, whereas if you did all of the biases on their own and then did nothing else on those other say four days, three days you wouldn't see the same thing. You wouldn't see anywhere near that. And I love the idea of selling GPP to affiliate owners, coaches, members, understanding that the thing that we do that moves the needle is the stuff that fills in the cracks.
Speaker 1:That you might not notice if you're not kind of obsessed with programming and nerding out on that stuff, but it's really what moves the needle and all of these categories that we're talking about are just sort of pieces of foundation that we use yeah, and I think, like one of the I would say a conversation that a coach and owner myself like I've had had these conversations with members a lot of times One you have to as a coach especially if you're not writing your own programming have to be able to speak to the program, and not even to the program necessarily, but kind of understand where an athlete's coming from. A lot of times I get questions from an athlete. It's like well, like hey, we're focusing on X, y or Z. Why don't we do it more? We're focusing on the squat clean. Why aren't we doing a squat clean? Why aren't we doing squat clean twice a week? Or why isn't the lifting day every week the squat clean? And it's a fair question.
Speaker 1:And my usual answer to something like that is I. Then I'll turn it around and be like how many times were you in the gym in the last three weeks? It's like, well, I was. You know, usually I'm like a four day a week kind of guy, but then I was on vacation, it was Labor Day, so I was out of town with the family, and the week before that I missed a day because my kid you know, my kid got sick so I had to take him to school and I couldn't come into the gym and it's like that.
Speaker 1:That's why part of the reason that the program works so well is because, like you alluded to, like, these biases and whatnot only account for about 20 percent of the program.
Speaker 1:Because, unless you are, you know we have to remember the program is for the average everyday person, the general physical preparedness.
Speaker 1:I don't need you to be cleaning squat cleaning three days a week as if you're preparing for a weightlifting meet because you're not, um. So, having the bias where, like, we can focus on something once a week. And for those athletes who do, who are able to be super consistent with their attendance, they're going to be able to see, at least maybe connect the dots between from week to week and see where the progressions are, and you, as the coach, can obviously explain that to the members. But for everybody else, who maybe doesn't have the luxury of a ultra consistent schedule, like just getting in the gym, those three to five hopefully three to five days a week is going to move the needle on your fitness, assuming that you come in here and put your head down and work. So I think being able to answer those questions to your members about, like you know, the progressions and stuff like that, and hearing these podcasts can really help get that buy in from the athletes.
Speaker 2:And another sort of peek behind the curtain here. I come from more of the world where we would be doing, say, squat cleans twice every week with a competitor and there is an expectation of like six days a week of work.
Speaker 1:And it's on you if it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2:So what's cool is Hunter and I will have these conversations about what we've learned from certain things, how we're going to make the program better, and I would be more on the side of let's squat clean every week, and Hunter would be on the more on the side of like, really making sure the GPP is there, and where we come back together in the middle is what actually works. That wins for sure. So if I have the idea in my head that it's not going to work as well and then it works even better, that again brings us all the way back around to GPP, and I would say that this style which we're about to explain, if you're new, is it literally just works better Aside from your schedule. If we are trying to move the needle in all of these different areas, each thing that you're doing that's either a bias or not is borrowing like some of your energy to. You know, help you potentially lose weight so that you can get into a better position.
Speaker 2:We're working on your midline so that you can actually brace. We're working on your shoulder mobility so you can get in the front rack. You know you might have leg endurance and not power, so we're going to develop power in different ways you might have. You know, it's just vice versa, all this different stuff. So it's not just that we have to figure out this world where someone's going to come three or four times a week and we have a 60 minute class, it's also what actually works right Like we get these you know screenshots from from gyms of their whiteboard and their PRS, and like they're getting more PRs on their back squat than we would in a competitor program where the person's doing it two or three times a week, and that's because we can make everything kind of rise up together. So our heavy days, as we refer to them in the program, is front squat and squat clean, and the retest at the end of the seven weeks, which I believe is like maybe beginning or middle of October roughly, will be the front squat.
Speaker 1:The 13th is the one rep max front squat day.
Speaker 2:And the progression that we've taken you through is we started off summer one with the deadlift and then we went into biasing the back squat and now we are combining a pull from the floor and a squat to give you the clean, while also working on the front squat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean like I don't know, I'm not so, I'm not naive enough to think that, like all this, like that looks really good on paper. It's like we're going to pull from the floor, we're going to get really strong pullers, and then we're going to from the floor, we're gonna get really strong pullers and then we're gonna squat and then we're gonna get really strong legs and then, like you pull from the floor and you squat, so it's like a better squat clean. It's like it kind of works that way. But like, not not like perfectly right, it looks great on paper.
Speaker 1:I think that, like the what we saw at the end of last phase, we saw a lot of one. We saw a lot of back squat PRs at our gym here and then we saw come like this past Monday, labor Day, we had a lot of folks come in and do their squat clean and either hit a PR, more likely just hit numbers that they haven't hit in a long time, and I think more like what this does is like it's not so much that it's like this perfect progression into peaking a squat clean, it's just these like this type of progression makes sense for again maintaining like gpp all year round it's like okay, we haven't done a super heavy squat clean in a couple months yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 1:It's like we're not necessarily like in this. You know this wasn't a 2015 plus 7, 22 week progression to PR your squat clean. It was like keeping these things in the rotation consistently and then, like you know, like we alluded to, you're not going to squat clean every week, you're going to squat clean and or front squat in some capacity and then you're still going to do another GPP heavy day. So and what I mean by that is just like there are heavy days that are not a squat clean or a front squat. For week two, for example, we actually go back to a deadlift. You know, week four, let's see we have a bench press as a heavy day, mixed with some other stuff. So it's not this exact beautiful. You know it looks great on paper. I understand that's not how it shakes out, you know, as far as peaking that specific lift, but it does work really well as far as maintaining kind of like strength, gpp, so to speak.
Speaker 2:Yeah and it. What I think is important here is the when you trend from least technical to most technical. You need every step along that trajectory. You need more and more practice. So you'll actually notice that athletes are probably better at front squatting from working on their midline and the deadlift and doing the back squat, even though you would think again, like you said, maybe the pull and the squat yay, now I can squat clean. It's pulling from the floor, then squatting and then squat cleaning. That's going to get you that full progression. You have to sort of reach the end of all of that.
Speaker 2:I would say from a programming standpoint in the affiliate, the front squat and squat clean combined is one of my favorite things because the front squat to me is a mobility and skill-based movement.
Speaker 2:If you can get into a really good position then you can show off your strength, and if you can't, you absolutely cannot.
Speaker 2:And if you don't have that skill and that mobility, the idea that you are going to reach your potential in the squat clean just makes absolutely no sense.
Speaker 2:So you really get to teach athletes like the idea of having a like, if they can, having a full grip on the barbell, and why that tension is no different than like screwing your feet into the floor, but for your shoulders it's sort of the same concept for your T-spine, and being able to teach that in the front squat might get the buy-in of you know.
Speaker 2:Maybe you hold onto that hook grip when you catch the squat clean at lighter weights and you start to learn as you make your way through that again like there's a lot of grunt work elements too. We want our athletes to move really well, but there's a lot of grunt work that is done with the deadlift and the back squat. That just doesn't really translate to the clean unless we can understand the technical aspects, and just doing one or the other doesn't teach those things as much. So I would ask coaches to really lean into the idea of trying to marry the idea of those two movements sort of being the same when it comes to the squat portion and teaching that as you jump back and forth in movements.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think, probably, I think the front squat is probably the most accessible squat that also does like an exceptional job of midline work.
Speaker 1:So even if you are somebody who can't get into like great positions in the front squat whether the hips, knees, ankles, whatever, a little tight I think the benefit to somebody having to like really fight to keep their spine erect and upright while tying in you know upper body, that you know upper body musculature, that that's required for the front rack is super helpful Lots of times the front squat gives you know someone who might struggle with depth just because of the positioning on the back.
Speaker 1:You know someone who might struggle with depth just because of the positioning on the back you know to like kind of the awareness of where they can get to. And then the front squat tends to be a little bit friendlier for somebody's mobility because you can, you know, because the weights in front of you, there's a counterbalance element Lots of times that that helps with mobility. And then also, just like I mean, regardless of who you are like, if you've ever had to do a heavy front squat or a heavy five by five front squat, like the demand on your midline is just absurd and the fact that that's a little bit probably safer and I'm thinking like you're more deconditioned athletes at this point like maybe a safer, smarter option for a for a squat versus like a back squat for that athlete, because you can modify that any number of ways with kettlebells, dumbbells, stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Still get a squat movement while still Well and the barbell just falls off of your body if you do it wrong.
Speaker 1:Exactly In almost every example.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, the GPP lift. So basically, we have our heavy days where we would be leaning more towards the idea of your. You get strong when you do three to five sets of three to five reps of things. The gpp lift brings in that element of variance where we're looking at okay, what did the reps and sets look like elsewhere in the program, what were the other movements elsewhere in the program, what were the other movements elsewhere in the program? And this is another way to fill in the gaps.
Speaker 2:So for you know, doing a lot of of pulling and a lot of squatting, that probably means that in this phase there's a decent amount of pressing with the GPP lift. And you really just got to keep an eye on, you know, when you're programming. Hey, when we're, you know, benching or going overhead or doing any of these things, are we doing threes and fives and maybe some sevens and maybe some tens and things of that nature, yep, and that keeps things balanced. It keeps people's bodies healthy. Anytime you over-bias a particular movement, if we took this too far, there'd probably be more injuries and things of that nature that pop up. So this is a really good way to get stronger and eventually get more mobile, injury prevention, all that good stuff, yep for sure.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we did. In the summer programming we had more bench and press, and again those types of things will continue to be filled in where they need to be. When it comes to the GPP lift Gymnastics, bias is the toes to bar. This one's pretty straightforward A lot of strict upper body gymnastics, a lot of traditional kipping gymnastics and when it comes to bar pull, in the phases preceding this and you being comfortable with holding onto the bar the pull-up bar the way that you should and moving your body through space where you're actually controlling your movement and not swinging around, is like the foundation of how you get someone at the affiliate level better at toes to bar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think toes to bar probably gives the widest number of athletes the ability to develop the kip without it being like a serious shoulder injury risk. I've had conversations with athletes and just thought a lot about it in general, about the like, the functionality of something like kipping pull ups maybe even more so kipping handstand push ups for for athletes at the affiliate level, and how, just how necessary or not they are for, you know, a well-rounded program.
Speaker 2:But I think toes to bar yeah yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:The toes to bar I think is like it's a good. It's kind of like that foundational movement for the kip itself. I know we've done we did some kipping pull-up work and that was just kind of because it worked nicely with the strict pull-up work that we did. But learning how to kip properly I think has its place, and strict pull-up work that we did, but learning how to kip properly I think has its place. And doing it in like a toes to bar where it's so easy to modify that to a knee raise type deal for your less less proficient, less skilled athletes and then like the grip strength kind of training that you can get the midline work you can get as a more experienced athlete of just doing like a lot of reps with that movement and it's a great like it's a good movement to plug into a conditioning piece where you can kind of keep that metabolic demand high, do a moderate skill gymnastics movement in a workout and still see some improvements.
Speaker 1:So, good movement. You'll see it once a week, whether it's in a skill piece like kind of standalone chance to work on it, or if you're a more proficient athlete, build some capacity and through volume and then see that get plugged into conditioning pieces as well.
Speaker 2:One good thing when you have the kind of gym where the standard is set on movement from the coaches down to your sort of fire breathers, is there's a bit of monkey. See monkey do with movements. Right, if you're the only person in the gym doing some kind of wacky shit on the pull-up bar, you're going to notice and other people are going to notice. But when it comes to just a kip, there are ways to like mime a kip where you're not actually actively using your shoulders and a total bar pushes you outside of the typical range of motion that you would get, just dangling from the pull-up bar and you are forced to use your back to actually like push yourself into a position to do a good total bar and really just kind of the first place where someone would really learn again how to push back and then how to create momentum. You know getting into that. You know hollow arch position.
Speaker 2:When it comes to your competitors, please go to our youtube channel and watch some stuff. You're going to have competitors that, just because of what they see, mentioned victor hoffer they might watch victor do some toes to bar which look like they would be scored a 10.0. And that makes it not a grip movement. It makes it a hip flexor movement. It's a bit of a problem. So sort of teaching getting back into the kip, getting the knees up, flicking the feet, pushing the feet back out the kind of thing that you see most honestly.
Speaker 2:Now most high level athletes are doing that. But if you want to help your athletes just in general, get better at the movement, but especially your competitors if they're trying to crush the open you know when the Toto bar becomes a bit more of like an endurance type movement teach them how to do that properly. All right, bitch work. So we went running and running in summer one and summer two, and now we are biasing mixed machine, which honestly just means everything else, and running it's the whole gamut. It's not like we're locked in on this particular thing, it's very much a GPP of like we're going to run and we're going to row, we're going to bike. Sometimes we're going to do both that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think of this like we used to make this a little bit more of a progression, almost like the strength work and that's like we're going to run and then we're going to row, and then we're going to bike and it's like again, something that looks nice on paper might not be realistic One as far as the constraints of putting together a well-rounded program at the affiliate level, where you have an hour to work with, you have limited equipment and then we also like a combination of feedback and just like observation as us coaches looking at uh we did it.
Speaker 1:I just remember we did a phase where it was basically like one day a week was just straight up running and like I don't give a shit, like I'll fucking program five by eight hundred meter run and like you can choose to come to the gym or not. Uh, part of the job is making sure that like well, I can trick you into doing five by 800 meter run by saying run 800 meters and then do a, two toes three and a half, three and a half wall walks and like now you're, now it's a, now it's a metcon, now you're excited to come to the gym.
Speaker 1:But you know, having those days regularly can get tiring.
Speaker 1:Instead thinking about the cardio days, as we would call them, as just being there, they're the opportunity for basically everybody to play. Not saying that, you know, you don't need to be scaling this for certain athletes, but when it's like row bike, when it's run kettlebell swing, when it you know, very, very simple borderline engine type movements, where it's like, hey, the only limiting factor here is fitness. It's not skill, it's not a heavy barbell, it's nothing like that. It's just like how hard can you work in your current fitness level? And those are often the workouts that you see like athletes either have the light bulb moment of like learning whether they learned how to pace something properly or they they finally felt like their fitness that they've been working on for the last x number of months like really shine through in a conditioning piece like that, whatever it happens to be, makes those days super useful and super beneficial and, if nothing else, or just you know, you can't beat that as far as the simplicity and effectiveness for for improving fitness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a different vibe in class on those days.
Speaker 1:I would say everyone's kind of parked on the row or you're you're in it together, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:You know, my screen says 200 calories per hour and yours says 2000,. But we're rowing and breathing real fucking heavy.
Speaker 2:We're both trying real hard. Yeah, exactly. So again, I'm in a lot of ways, this, this, all of this information is going to be helpful for everybody, but I like to I like to sort of speak to someone who's either on the fence or just getting started. Something that you're going to see in the programming every single day is a competitor extra, and I've said it before, I'll say it again I believe, more than anything, this to be a retention tool. Too many gyms have the open gym culture where you know some people that would be great members of your community and great to have in class to help set the standard, whether it's personality wise or they're great at a certain thing or whatever. End up an open gym following, insert program name here. Honestly, even ours, and for the most part you know, aside from someone who's trying to become a professional athlete or trying to make it to in-person semifinals like we can deliver a program that's going to help you crush, you know your local throwdown, that sort of thing, that level and keep people in class. So, basically, you have you know, if you, if you look at a day's programming, let's say there's, um, a lift and no conditioning piece, there's typically going to be a conditioning piece in the competitor extra. Um, if there is lift and conditioning, you know probably going to go more on the side of an accessory or a skill movement, that sort of thing. Um, every week we have one of the five. One of the five days is zone to work, um, and basically what I'm trying to do is I'm looking at the programming and I have a list of the movements that are like 100% have to be good at, to be good in the open. Um, and whatever stuff Hunter does not program ends up in the competitor extra. So it's either going to end up inside of a Metcon or an interval inside of bitch work.
Speaker 2:In the strength, you know there's a lot of strength. I would say two to four days a week there's going to be a strength movement. That's definitely one of the things where we're an affiliate level athlete Sometimes just can't like muster up the. You know they get to the point where they're great at burpees and they're great at, you know, rowing and all these different things. But it can be really challenging to make sure that you're um up to speed or sort of up to par on the strength stuff.
Speaker 2:Um, but again, just having that piece that you know probably adds 30 ish minutes I would say most, most times to your local competitor type member to their day, keeps them in the gym, in class. A lot of times there's like these little pods that will form where they're going to do it hopefully after class Sometimes it is before class, but hopefully after class and if you give them those gaps to be able to do that again, I believe that's a retention tool and you're just keeping people. You know they're paying a premium at the end of the day, not because you got a bunch of fucking echo bikes and nice pull up bars. They're paying a premium because you're providing a group class, you're providing coaching, you're providing community. That's what's special about coming to, you know, to your gym and keeping people in there and then saying, hey, we actually have this well-rounded program that's like put together which you know maybe 80% of local competitors will buy into, or is 20% just want to do their bias and it's not really anything we can do about that. But it is also, I'll say, the last note of the competitor.
Speaker 2:Extra is a really good place to teach athletes to take notes so that they can improve. So again, this, this list of movements that you got to be good at isn't as long as you might think. So that means that certain strength sessions are going to rotate through and be the same. Certain skill sessions are a lot of like Metcons and intervals will have the same movements. You know you might see rope climbs fairly consistently If athletes start to pay attention to used this weight.
Speaker 2:I was able to do this many rope climbs in my one minute AMRAP, just certain things like that. If they have you know, whatever, whatever software you use, or if they kick it old school and they have you know a note on their phone or, you know, take notes in a notebook. That's one of those things where athlete IQ grows exponentially. If they're actually paying attention to what what they're doing and some people honestly might just want the extra volume and give them the old thumbs up when they head on to the gym, they're enthusiastic, good for you. But if they're trying to actually get better at competing, this would be a place where I would nudge them to say, hey, it's not just the work, it's understanding the work.
Speaker 1:You know we always say on the misfit side, like being a student of the game is kind of mandatory, like the intent there is that the, that theoretical competitor that you have at your gym, or somebody who wants the extra work, is now able to take class. Like the class workouts suck in the best way possible, you know, as far as getting fitter. And then you do have that somebody who wants to do something after that. You know they they cool down, they catch their breath after their Metcon and they want to. Today we had a few athletes out there doing some push jerks. I think it was the the 10, 8, 6, 4, um push jerk and like, again, it works nicely those movements are. We take into account the movements from the rest of the week, so somebody could theoretically do, you know, the competitor extra every day, assuming that they're, you know, recovered well enough and you kind of enhance their fitness gains, their potential.
Speaker 2:So in at Misfit Athletics is always the question of do I follow pro or do I follow hatchet and someone who buys into to what we're trying to do at Misfit Athletics and they go to a Misfit affiliate, that may be like hey, I'm going to go to open gym and start following hatchet. We've had, I think, more than one Masters athlete qualify for the CrossFit Games from doing the affiliate program plus competitor extra. Again, the idea of being a part of something else might be, and probably is, more powerful than going to do something specifically written for a competitor on your own, you know, in open gym.
Speaker 2:So, just just something to, something to put out there and something to to let your members know. We have sort of that correlation. We always get to tell people hey, like you're not as fit as these people who go to semifinals and they're on hatchet. Same, same sort of concepts like, hey, like you're probably not going to beat person X, y or Z that qualified for the crazy age groups at the Masters games, and they follow the programming. So it's more about what you're putting into the thing and how much you're paying attention and all that stuff. All right, we basically just got a handful of notes here scanning through the program.
Speaker 2:You also have access to the engine program. Always have the joke built in here. The engine crew are annoying because they kick your ass in engine workouts in class, which means that it works and that they're fit, and chris does a really good job when he writes this program of like. Again, there's that idea of you know, hunter you alluded to, I'll fucking make you run every week. I don't care like that kind of thing. And know, hunter you alluded to, I'll fucking make you run every week.
Speaker 1:I don't care, like that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:And then you're like, well, like buy-in. It's kind of important that sort of deal where when I wrote the engine programming it was, you know, monostructural conditioning, like straight up, like again it's going to work.
Speaker 1:You're not going to like it, but it's going to work.
Speaker 2:Chris definitely builds in much more buy-in, knows how to trick people into doing engine through more basic CrossFit movements being mixed in.
Speaker 2:It's got cool formatting.
Speaker 2:He has really specific instructions for the athletes that if they are doing straight up monostructural conditioning they have broader concepts that they can kind of latch their mind onto, onto that sort of thing. So something that again could be a retention tool for for members in your gym just looking for that style of programming a little bit easier on the body A lot of times then you know if they're, you know, not handling four or five days of super high intensity CrossFit a week, really well, and then we do a Sunday engine class here at the gym. That's really popular, I think, on the weekend people like to kind of just come in and get some work done and maybe work for a little bit longer than they normally would in a lot of instances. So we intentionally don't offer that seventh day of programming because we really like the idea of you guys running, you know sort of the the Monday through Saturday CrossFit, the Sunday engine class, especially considering most athletes are going to hit that three to five sessions a week and kind of bounce around a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Only thing I'll just say on, like I think, like Chris does a great job with the engine program and each day kind of has a different focus, say like other ways that you can kind of think of using this program. Like for a while we had a three day a week program where each day was coached, and now this engine program is like so, say you, maybe you do have that sunday. You're looking for a class to put on a sunday. You have the engine program. Like we said, on every sunday we do that day three workout. We've also got a lot of athletes who like to just follow the engine track. Like we said, on every Sunday we do that day three workout. We've also got a lot of athletes who like to just follow the engine tracks.
Speaker 1:So those are like they get input into stream fit that's our program partner or programming software, and then members will like maybe on a day that maybe they don't want to take class for whatever reason, or they want something like relatively straightforward to do on their own and open gym, we'll see athletes pull up like the day two engine workout, which is, you know, for example, in week one it's a row ski bike interval, super easy to get those machines out there and just get after that. And I would also say, like this could be, depending on you know how far involved you want to get into. You know you know naming this stuff for your gym, like the popularity of something like High Rocks has gotten pretty significant, and like the end, like aside from doing CrossFit, which I think is probably the better preparation, is like use using the engine, workouts, like there's a lot of them, and it's super easy to say, you know, instead of row ski bike, it's going to be row ski run to get your high rocks running type stuff in. So there's lots of ways to kind of leverage the a free, like add-on program to like give to your members to to get more buy-in for sure, three things that I noticed, sort of scanning through.
Speaker 2:We have this idea of test retest being sprinkled out over a longer period of time. Um, and it's not just it's not just based on, like, not having a test retest at the beginning and the end of a phase. We also just have that thing where, like again, members are not there every single day. So if we give members opportunities over the course of a whole year to check in on certain things, that can be really helpful. So we've got a Hero WOD on September 11th, we've got Isabel in there, we've got a 0.5, potentially not a retest for some of your members.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to say I don't think I've ever done that.
Speaker 2:Would be a retest for me. I have a vivid memory of that workout because we moved from my garage. Yeah, I was going to say I don't think I've ever done that it looks like a fucking terrible workout it's. I mean, you know how that is. It's different now right, yeah people are so much fucking fitter and athlete, iq, athlete.
Speaker 2:I thought iq back then was crazy was like all right, I'm gonna scoop these toes to bar and I'm gonna jumping reverse, curl these cleans and I'm only gonna use my upper body. I'm gonna, you know, sort of jump.
Speaker 1:Every single time I do a wall ball like that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I can imagine that's going to, you know, sort of jump every single time I do a wall ball like that kind of thing. So yeah, I can imagine that's going to be, if you know what you're doing a pretty painful workout.
Speaker 1:Do you have it up right now? What is it again? 20 minutes, five power cleans, 145 slash 100,. 10 toes to bar, 15 wall balls yeah that's bad, that's really bad, that's a problem.
Speaker 2:That, that's a problem that's a wall ball problem actually yeah, that's actually one where you need to, I wonder, four days off after that I wonder if it's more like stay unbroken but figure out the cadence of your, of your transition because something happens to a crossfitter after 12 minutes when they drop a wall ball. It's not a good thing they ain't picking it back.
Speaker 1:They're not picking it right back up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or is it more moderating the pace of the singles? I know now we're getting more into competitor territory here, but yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't like it. I'm going to be sick that day, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:But yeah, last but not least, here we did not originally write a hell week and it kind of warmed my heart a little bit. I talk about how I like a narrative. I like the idea of people getting excited for a specific thing, because otherwise we're kind of just maybe a little bit of groundhog's day at a CrossFit gym. So if you can get your people excited about something that just disguises more constantly very functional movements performed at high intensity, then I think that's a good thing. So we had a few people that follow the program that were like hey, where's Hell Week? And you will have the option during phase one to insert Hell Week, which is sort of an addition that is meant to be swapped into the program.
Speaker 2:Correct me if I'm wrong, hunter yeah, no, you're right, you're not going to add it to the end, you're going to put it in place of something specific, and that means it kind of fits into the flow of all the stuff that we're trying to do yep, yeah, so in week two of september, which also happens to be week two of the phase, that that's kind of convenient.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the week of Monday, september 8th is where Hell Week is kind of meant to go and it is important that, like if your gym is going to do Hell Week, that it needs to be that week, because basically what I did was I, we published both so you don't have to do Hell Week Monday, for example, in the regular quote, regular class programming there is some strict press work and then a short run and burpee Metcon. In Hell Week it is a shitty run, shoulder to overhead. Burpee Metcon, you know, tuesday is front squat and row intervals for class. Hell Week is a spicier relay version, not spicier, just a different relay version of that workout. So basically I just kind of reformatted the week to be beefed up a little bit.
Speaker 1:Still a great challenge either way for athletes. You're going to see if you do Hell Week it's Metcon based right. There's still a heavy deadlift in there, but it is within a conditioning piece. And then also the Hero Workout, white, which was the September 11th Hero Workout that was chosen for one like nice, it works nicely with our toes to bar progression. It's got some toes to bar in there and it's like you know, with all due respect to the Hero Workouts, lots of times Hero Workouts are just volume beatdowns on athletes.
Speaker 2:It has a very specific intention.
Speaker 1:Exactly. There's a very specific purpose for that. I think white is actually one of the few workouts where it's spicy.
Speaker 2:It's a gnarly workout, but it is a responsible volume of know each movement still gonna get the stimulus prefer an athlete to be the reason why the workout is bad yeah, as opposed to like. You bring that to the equation. Yeah, not like. Oh my god, if I literally just do this, I'm in trouble yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So. Yeah, just a fun again, kind of like, like you said, drew Drew, I would say you're more in line. I'm much more of just like. Just tell me what the fucking work is. Let me just do the work versus like. But I do understand the value of the narrative and trying to get people excited for it. So Hell Week has a little bit of just kind of a wow factor to it. That's going to suck, I'll get you fit.
Speaker 2:That's for dang sure, true, all right. Factor to it, that's gonna suck. I'll get you fit. That's for, that's for dang sure, true, all right. So I will go first on final thoughts here again, getting your athletes excited and having the narrative and having these little pieces of bias to deliver to the people that would actually want it and care about it, I think is important. Um, it's a pretty good segue from just that idea of hell week if things become repetitive or stale, which we don't want. We we, you know, really rely on variance and things change a lot. But over a long enough time horizon you might get a one eight year member or whatever who's like yeah, here we fucking go again.
Speaker 2:You know it's, it's, I'm gonna have to do toast bar every week the idea of a narrative, the idea of we are kind of starting over here and building from a base, can be really powerful.
Speaker 2:And then I just like to look down through here and see things like front squat, squat clean, toes to bar mixed machine, Like we're still just doing the thing you know from the coaching side.
Speaker 2:And I guess the other piece here, if you wanted a rallying cry for your coaching staff, is brush up on your knowledge relating to the front squat and the squat clean and the total bar. Think about how you would do a skill progression, Think about how you would do a warmup, Think about how you would keep an eye If you always have the same people coming in at 9am. You're keeping an eye on this person and not only are you helping them in the moment, but you go jot something down on your phone or in a notebook and when they come back it's like, hey, remember, we're really working on pushing back and staying long and getting into that position, and I personally find that type of thing to be really rewarding from a coaching perspective helping someone make those progressions, make those changes, and that can sort of I don't know be an anecdote to potential Groundhog's Day on the coach's side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think my was gonna go into.
Speaker 1:You know why it was cool. This past week we had like one rep, max back squat, and Fran were in the same week I was very disappointed that my the cross annual crossfit games flew killed me for both of those things. But like the number of fran prs back squat prs, both in our gym and hearing, you know, hearing it from other gyms is really fucking cool. Um, and even talking with some athletes about fran after having it and they're just like Fran, had a couple coaches who you know hit the, or male coaches hit the 400 pound back squat mark. Some lady we had, you know, on the day all four of our coaches were sub three and Fran, three of them were under two and a half minutes and Fran and it's like you know. And then we have members who talk about that too, where it's like, yeah, I just like the. My legs finally weren't my legs and lungs were less of a factor than my upper body was and it's like that just goes to show the progression of people getting fitter.
Speaker 1:You know, fran used to be the thing where it was like I got to fucking call it sick for like the next day, like I can't go to work today and maybe not tomorrow either, if I do, fran and just seeing those things like at the end of a training phase, that kind of pay off for athletes where it's like you hit a benchmark number on a lift or just an improvement in general. You know a PR and a Metcon like that is really cool. So I think all that just goes to speaks to just athletes putting in the work and kind of actually putting in the effort to to get to earn their fitness, not just going through the motions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I need to do a second round of final thoughts, just because we have the comments that we make about on the competitor side.
Speaker 2:This is words on a paper and unless you go in and work your tail off and execute, nothing's going to happen. And at the affiliate level, I don't want to pigeonhole us here, but if you're good coaches, this is the best program in the world. I truly believe that. So when we get those notes, when we get the pictures of the PRs, there's this thing where it's like a moment of pride, where it's like the trickle down effect of people who care enough to listen to us and execute, and on their own work, on their own craft, and then pass it down to members. And there's an element of you needing to potentially, you know, set the example as a coach to inspire and motivate people. And then the athletes are buying in and they're the ones actually doing the work and getting it done. So we have potentially again pigeonholed ourselves a little bit here with the way that we deliver programming and the way that we write programming.
Speaker 2:But I'm telling you right now that if you are a great coach or aspire to be a great coach, this is the best programming that you can follow. And we have to tip our caps to the coaches who do that and the affiliate owners who buy into it and the cultures of these gyms sort of buying into the overall concept because it definitely works Like we. Just, you know, you can't put your laptop under your pillow and snap your fingers and you know, be a great affiliate coach, be a great affiliate athlete. It's just not how it works, yeah.
Speaker 1:Did we?
Speaker 2:do it. We did it. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Misfit Podcast. I don't know the last time. We got this done in almost under an hour not under an hour, but almost under an hour. That was fairly quick and succinct. Teammisfitcom. Click on sign up now you get a two-week free trial. Uh, stream, fit, sugar, wad, push press. If you would like a sample of this phase specifically, along with the engine sample, email me. Coach at misfit athleticscom. Would love to talk to you about the programming. If you've got any questions in general, you can also email me. If you're looking for our individual programming, click on the link and buy on instagram. Get signed up up either on Strivee or Fitter. See you next week Later.