Choppin it Up with Coach Krispy Kreme | The Quarterfinal Tests!

We take a look back on the Quarterfinal tests from the 2024 season and Discuss if they were appropriate to get the best to the CrossFit Semifinals

What is Clydesdale Media Podcast?

We cover the sport of CrossFit from all angles. We talk with athletes, coaches and celebrities that compete and surround in the sport of CrossFit at all levels. We also bring you Breaking News, Human Interest Stories and report on the Methodology of CrossFit. We also use the methodology to make ourselves the fittest we can be.

I was born to kill it,

I was meant to win I am

down and willing so I will

find a way It took a minute

now it didn't have to ride

away When it get hot in the

kitchen you decide to stay

That's how it went

what is going on everybody

welcome to chopping it up

with coach crispy cream my

name is scott switzer I

will have by next week I

promise new bumpers new

backdrops um we'll get

something appropriate for

this show but I do like

that song it's fine by me I

always want to like groove

a little bit when it's

going but yeah so how's your week been

Good.

Yeah, what, it's Thursday?

Time just flies right now

with quarters ending.

We have a lot of athletes

who are prepping.

The semis prep is always odd,

especially with the calendar this year,

because some teams have been prepping.

they have longer some indies

don't have as long now that

their quarters is done

depending on when their

semis is so it's a lot of a

lot of athletes are

starting to get back in the

gym after taking some time

off quarters just a lot of

moving parts plus logistics

for semis and things like

that but it's been good uh

lex says you must be off

today scott you're knocking

out like 40 interviews

Uh, I think it's 39, but close,

close enough.

Yeah.

And I actually, I took yesterday,

today and tomorrow off, uh,

for mental health.

Um,

just one stressor I didn't need was my

job.

And so I took a couple of

days off and then tomorrow

we're heading to

Pennsylvania for my mom's birthday.

She turned 79 years old yesterday,

79 years old.

And, uh, go and check,

see what she's doing and

hang out with her for a weekend.

So yeah.

That's awesome.

So yeah, got a lot done today.

You've been busy.

It was a productive day.

Even got a workout squeezed

in between the last two.

Very nice.

What'd you do?

It's Cardio Thursday at Polaris.

Love it.

So every Thursday is just like super long,

super cardio machines.

So it started with a salt

bike and four rounds of a

salt bike and pushups.

Okay.

Then I went into like three

rounds of double unders and pushups.

Pull-ups like very like

Murph testy kind of stuff.

Um,

and then it finished with farmer's

carries and squats, air squats.

I like it.

So, yeah,

what I like about those is it's

an in and out workout in out,

not a lot of warmup,

not a lot of cool down.

Yep.

So yeah, you don't have to prep too much.

Yeah.

So Hattie's in the comments.

Oh, hey, Hattie.

And we'll see her in an hour and a half.

Hour and a half.

Two hours or so.

So a lot of things have

happened this week.

We had an agenda.

It's the same agenda we had

last week that we never got to.

Yeah.

But I want to talk quickly

about... I was on Coffee

Pods and Wads yesterday.

And...

While I had a blast, right,

and I knew kind of what

Peter looks for in those

games and I tried to pick

the pieces of my argument

that would get me the most points,

I left feeling like there

was more I wanted to say

about each topic because

you only have 60 seconds.

So you got to figure out

like what haymaker I'm

going to throw for the 60

seconds and then the rest

of it's just kind of out there.

And don't get me wrong, I had a blast.

You looked like it.

Had a blast, and I won.

So, yeah, you got to love that.

I don't think Harriet

Roberts knew what she was

in for on that show.

Nope.

Waking up at 5 a.m.

and jumping on in Australia.

Yeah.

And Adam, I thought, came pretty hard,

but he did not prepare properly.

Yeah,

it seemed like he just showed up and

sent it.

So the big thing I just

wanted... I really do

believe that... Because the

first question was,

how do we improve the

quarterfinals for 2025?

And my opinion is,

it doesn't... We need to

keep strict video review in the process.

And I truly believe that too

many people with bad

movements have gotten

through in years past.

And we just keep forgetting

about that when stuff like this happens.

And the one thing I didn't

get to say on the show is,

if you feel wronged,

why haven't you posted

proof that you were wronged?

I mean, that's something that has I mean,

what an athlete that I know,

who's good friends with my

fiance brought up early in

this whole thing.

Where's the only one we saw

drop a video pretty quickly was Velma.

Right?

And he just threw it out

there like whatever.

Yeah.

I think it's a valid point.

And

It's really funny because in

my Emily Rolfe interview today,

she talked about how

someone messed up her clock

during that workout.

So it actually happened twice.

Her clock got messed up mid-workout.

She had to redo it a couple times.

She is normally a do the workout,

get it posted, and be done.

She does not review the video.

But because that happened, she's like,

well,

I've got the video of the first half.

I might as well take a look.

And she didn't like her reps.

So she made sure she came to

full extension on the next rep.

So thankfully someone

stopped her clock midway through because,

yeah, it may have cost her.

I mean,

we had a slightly similar thing

with Jacob.

I just wasn't paying enough attention.

And the first time he did that,

he only started with his

back to the barbell on the first round.

So then we had this huge discussion about,

you know,

are they going to watch that one?

Are they going to penalize that one?

This whole thing.

And then I also really started, you know,

we'd seen him do it.

We had seen a couple other

athletes on site do it.

We were starting to get some

scores from some people.

So then the conversation also turned into,

okay, we need a cleaner run and we,

we can probably put up a

significantly better score.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

But again, super fun.

Super glad I got invited on.

And I get to do it again in

a couple weeks.

Nice.

Heck yeah, man.

As we move through the process.

It is a fun show to watch.

I try to catch it when I can.

It is.

I...

To be fair,

I catch that in Death By every

week just to hear where

people's thoughts and

feelings are for our shows.

Just so I can kind of hear a

smattering of different topic thoughts.

Yeah.

And those are kind of the

two hot topic shows.

Right.

I do like Peter's because it

is so succinct.

it's done in 30 minutes and, you know,

so you can get in and out pretty good.

Um, or death by,

they can kind of go on for a while.

Yeah.

I also thoroughly enjoy

Peter's sense of humor.

He's hilarious.

And I love it.

So another thing happened on

the way to this show is, um,

Andrew Hiller,

Broke news just about an

hour and a half ago.

Maybe a little longer.

Yeah.

I've been in interviews,

so it's hard to like your time.

That some of the semifinal

workouts have been released.

We have a leak.

There's a leak in the boat.

And it was confirmed by John

Young that some coaches already had it.

Oh.

By the time Hiller posted it.

So if you watch the Savant

show from this afternoon,

I listened to it on the way

to the gym and on the way home.

Yeah,

John Young says that some of the

coaches he knew have it.

Dang, I need to get on that list.

Well,

and so that brings up a lot of questions.

So first, I'm going to put up the...

their workouts that were leaked.

Um, there it is.

Carolyn already is jumping in.

Yeah.

I'm not surprised either.

Carolyn, uh,

not surprised at all by the

fact that some coaches had it.

Not at all.

That's a problem.

Yeah.

That's a major problem.

One thing that was brought

up by Brian spin on that

show is that the circle has

to be bigger than it used to be.

Right.

For semifinals,

you've got people in Africa,

got people in China,

you got people in South

America that have to know

what the workouts are and

the layouts to be able to get equipment,

get floors ready, get venues ready.

Yup.

So that circle is way bigger.

And we don't know if this

leak came from HQ or from

just some random guy

putting a rig together in South America.

Yeah.

Friends of athletes test

things can leak there.

So, Carolyn,

we are in a sport where

friends of athletes test workouts.

Things can leak there.

Then all the regions know the workouts,

so stuff can get leaked there too.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think there's a... I mean,

I'm not surprised given the

logistics of the semifinals

this year at all that it got leaked.

There's so many more people in the circle,

so many more opportunities

for wandering eyes.

You know,

HQ doesn't have that tight locus

of control that they

usually do on the events

and the workouts.

So...

I mean, as a coach, I guess,

if I'm not on the list of

coaches to get it sent to them,

then I'm glad that Hillard

posted it publicly.

But I also...

I mean, you've known me a good while now.

I get pretty fired up when I coach,

and I do have a certain

level of aggression when it's game time.

So my inner coach thought,

not looking at it from the

nuts and bolts of the sport,

is I don't give a shit.

We're going to go do what we

need to do anyways.

So I want to throw this at you.

And we're always talking

about the sport and the methodology,

right?

Yeah.

The methodology to train

general physical

preparedness has the term

unknown and unknowable.

And it is so that you coming

into the gym as average Joe

are going to do something

different every day.

It's constantly varied.

You don't know what that is going to be.

You can't prepare for that.

It just is what it is.

Somehow that term has

flipped over to the sport.

But I ask you this.

We know what the events of

the Olympics are,

and it doesn't make it less dramatic.

Yeah.

So why do we need to hide

what these workouts are

until last minute?

I don't.

Especially if some are

getting it leaked to them

and some are not.

Right.

I don't personally see an

issue if the workouts were released, say,

the end of quarterfinals or

when the leaderboard was finalized.

it's hard because some

people will have longer time to prepare.

Some people won't,

but we had that in the

regional system and

everybody just kind of

understood that the last people to go,

we're going to probably put

up the fastest times

because they had the most

time to prepare.

They could watch other high

level athletes do it and

strategize and things like that.

I don't necessarily fall in

the camp where I want a set, you know,

event list year to year.

I do like that it changes, but I also, uh,

do think it would be nice if we had,

especially for the prior

stages of the season

quarters and the open, we had, you know,

kind of like a list,

like people have talked about of 50, 40,

60, however many movements like, Hey,

these are the things.

And then for quarterfinals,

it's all those things from

the open plus these for semifinals,

it could be a little more elusive,

but perhaps we get the

workouts a little bit earlier and,

there's a lot of things that

play into this because from

a coaching standpoint,

knowing the workouts early

is a nightmare.

It's like,

how many times can I make them

do this or a version of

this to perfect it on game

day without making them

sick and tired of doing this workout,

getting an overuse injury

from doing the same

fricking movement patterns over and over,

you know,

still trying to preserve general fitness,

like not actually letting

people get detrained

because you're only

focusing on these things.

So your variance goes down.

So it's like, it has a lot of play to it.

I don't, I would prefer, of course,

that if they were leaked or released,

they were done at the same

time so that everybody just knows it.

But yeah, it's, I don't have...

I don't have super strong

feelings about the workouts

changing and that part of

it being unknown and unknowable.

I do think though,

when we start to use that

as an excuse for off the wall movements,

it can potentially be an

issue and things like that.

Also, I think

Sometimes that gets brought

into the conversation of

the way we test movements.

So personal bias here,

a back loaded ring muscle

up is asking for a torn labrum.

Like that's a terrible movement.

You should never load that

dynamic of a movement with

a weight behind you.

It's a terrible idea.

So if that's the

justification for something like that,

then I would have some

arguing points against that.

So it's such a nuanced

conversation that I think

it's hard to have a,

a hard stance one way or the other.

And there's so many

different ways it can apply

to different stages in the season.

With like these two being known,

if they are in fact the real workouts,

which there's no reason to

believe they're not other

than I think Carolyn

pointed out in the comments

that why two echo bikes.

They had two echo bikes last

year and they had two

assault runner workouts last year.

There's no reason it couldn't be.

I would be more surprised

than the fact that they

have echo bikes at every

one of these venues,

but you can also make the argument.

It doesn't matter.

If somebody is on an assault

fitness bike and somebody

is on an assault bike and

somebody is on an echo bike,

as long as everybody at

that regional is the same.

Yeah.

Right.

So with these being known,

is there a fear as a coach

that you have that athlete

that wants to keep drilling

this down to perfection

that they overuse the

muscle and then overtrain

it and it creates injury?

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

You start to hit the same movement pattern,

the same exact in the same exact way.

So many times with the same loading,

right?

You're not getting,

With the dumbbell,

I think the safest

assumption with that is

it's a 100-pound dumbbell overhead lunge.

That would make the most sense.

I can't have them do that 16

times before then and not

start to have shoulder, tricep, elbow,

whatever.

right start to flare up with

people so it's this that's

why I almost don't like

having them super early

because it's this fine

balance of okay how many

times are we going to do

this what other things can

I program that simulate

this plus perfecting our

race day strategy and pacings um

it's also mentally hard for

the athletes like to do

intervals or even the

testing of the workout so

many times prior.

Like, I mean,

I know there are athletes who,

by the time they get to semifinals,

you have to be careful with the workout.

If a workout super painful,

you don't want to be gun

shy going into semifinals

of what you're going to experience.

Right.

Right.

It's,

it's just this kind of annoying balance.

Um,

My last question before we

just look at the workouts

themselves is Europe goes in two weeks.

This stuff was going to have

to be announced soon anyway.

I think the date was the

10th in the rulebook.

So we're a week away.

We're a week early with the league.

So the East was going to

have three weeks with them anyway.

yeah so it's like does it

matter yeah I don't know I

mean it's a little more

time yeah it's just I just

think man the crossfit we

just love drama we just

love drama um before I pull

up the workouts here I

don't carolyn says I don't

think two echo bikes are

necessary if you're going

to do two of the same thing

it should be running

I don't disagree,

but I would caveat that

with the fact that we had

the lane eight issue last

year at the European

semifinal where everybody

who ran on lane eight's

runner got dead last in the workout.

And I would also say I hate shuttle runs.

So...

don't disagree I don't love

the echo bike a whole bunch

of times but I at this

point don't trust the

efficacy of a fair

semi-final on assault

runners because it was

proven last year that they

don't have a testable

repeatable way to calibrate

those so I have a lot of

thoughts on that because

As a volunteer,

starting my life in

CrossFit as a volunteer,

I saw them calibrate those.

Oh, really?

I would argue that maybe the

person in Europe didn't do their job.

Potentially.

Or it was just all a coincidence.

We believe in those.

Yeah.

Um, so here are the workouts.

Do these make sense to you as a,

as a semifinal workout?

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Uh,

obviously it would be interesting to

see if there, you know,

we don't know anything with this,

if there's a different echo

bike calorie prescription

for the ladies on these, or if, you know,

it's just expected,

they're going to be a

little bit longer on those bikes.

Um,

72 foot is a really particular number.

I imagine that's based off

of some sort of average

length of field of play for

most of the regions.

15 ring rustle ups isn't

anything out of pocket.

Tall box jump overs,

nothing super crazy there either.

I mean, the first workout,

70 echo bite calories,

14 legless rope climbs,

10 box jump overs.

you're going to have a

little bit of a break

between the legless.

So it's a healthy number of

legless rope climbs.

That's for sure.

But I don't think it's

anything outlandish.

Um,

If this is truly one of the workouts,

I'm a little surprised that

we don't see the return of the seated.

I thought those were a very

good thing to test last year, personally.

So it's funny you say that

because if you remember,

one of the big complaints

coming out of semis last

year were that people were

resting sitting down and it

was a bad look for a fitness competition.

But here they're split up.

Okay.

People are going to say resting,

sitting down is a bad look,

but then I want everybody

to remember that when they

watch the first two heats

of people at semifinals,

put the dumbbell down four times.

Okay, cool.

They'll just be resting, standing up.

So that looks better, I guess.

Those were comments that were made.

Yeah, I mean, it is odd to watch.

You're not moving quickly, right?

It takes maybe away a little

bit of the speed of the

race with a seated legless.

But I wouldn't have been

surprised if those made a

return this year.

That's for sure.

Those wrecked people,

both at semis and the games.

Well, in the games, they were tall,

brother.

And I know Kelly had mentioned...

And the Einhorn team,

when you sat on the mat, you almost sunk.

So you were starting even a

little bit lower than you

would have expected.

Yeah.

That alpaca workout was gross.

Yeah.

Hands took some damage.

Oh, yeah.

So we're good with this.

We're going to move on to our podcast.

yeah yeah I don't think

there's too much to say on

this other it's the one

thing I would leave with

the whole leak thing is

it's interesting from a

coach's perspective because

now it's you almost don't

have a choice but to act

under the assumption that

these are the workouts

because then if you if you

don't and they are then

you're kind of caught with

your pants down and right

yeah so it's it's and then

if they aren't but you did

them a whole bunch it's

kind of annoying you're

like well that was a waste

of time so at least

hopefully the movements

show up if these aren't the

exact workouts at this

point there's nothing here

that wouldn't help you in

preparing for semis though

correct like it's just that

fine line and a fine line

of overusing right yeah

All right,

so we're going to go back to

quarters and just talk

about those workouts for a

second because you made a

statement on one of our

shows that the most

important programming that

CrossFit will ever do is

this year's quarterfinals

because the window to make

semis was reduced from 60 to 40.

Yep.

So it needed to be the most

well-rounded test possible.

So we're going to go through this,

and I want you to explain to me,

did CrossFit meet that goal or not?

All right.

So here is workout one,

the famous penalty workout.

The penalty workout, the slaughterhouse.

Yes.

It was four rounds for max

reps of one minute of snatches,

one minute of rowing for calories,

one minute of dumbbell box step-ups,

one minute of rest.

I liked this workout in the sense,

I like this workout more in

how it fit in with the

totality of the other

workouts than as a

standalone test for a

quarterfinals workout.

Especially when on the men's side,

we take into account the

snatches really didn't matter.

It didn't behoove the men to

snatch very much.

It was get some reps here to help yourself,

and then what can you do on

the rower and still hammer the step-ups,

right?

I did like the 20-inch box

for both genders, I think, with...

just a lot of height

discrepancy from human

being to human being.

I think that is a fair thing.

You know,

I'm nowhere close to most of my athletes,

but if I do box step overs

on a 24 against some athletes that are,

that I coached that are shorter than me,

I can hold my own just cause I'm tall.

Right.

Um,

I liked the fact that it was

an interval test.

I think it fit the bill of a

power output-y-ish workout well.

As a general rule of thumb,

I don't love AMRAPs in competition,

but I also understand those

are probably not ever going

to disappear completely.

But overall, as a standalone workout,

I wouldn't have loved it.

When you look at the other three,

I think it fit very well.

My argument for your AMRAP

is that this was a long

time to get four workouts in.

So if ever you're going to do an AMRAP,

this is probably the weekend to do it.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

In my observations watching Jamie, Haley,

Jim,

and some of the general population of

Jamie's gym do this workout

is a lot of people underestimated it.

Yeah.

Really underestimated it.

This is the only one I didn't do.

Let's put it like that.

I had no desire for that smoke.

Yeah, Haley... I mean,

Haley got into the second

round and realized she had

jacked her heart rate to a

point it was not going to recover.

Yep.

Put the dumbbells down, called it a day,

came back and did it the next day.

Lived to fight another day.

That's good.

I did like...

that there was a certain

amount of strategy to it.

I just don't like when that

bleeds in from you can strategize it to,

well,

really you strategizing it is just

the same way that

everybody's going to do it.

Right.

Like putting your eggs in those baskets,

so to speak.

Yeah.

I, you can probably convince me I'm wrong,

but I thought for some athletes,

their best bet was to snatch like crazy.

And forget about this box step-ups.

For general population people,

just doing quarterfinals to do them, yes.

But everybody who is trying

to be in the top 40,

those step-ups were it.

Okay.

You got to think,

a good score on those step-ups,

we're talking 20-plus a round,

that's a large ask.

Even if you're holding...

say somebody could do 13 snatches,

those seven more snatches in that minute,

that's a tall ask.

Okay.

Right.

That's why you're the coach

and I'm the media guy.

I also watched a lot of

people do this and thought

about it a lot.

All right.

So let's go to workout two.

The grinder.

The grinder.

This was three rounds for time,

50 wall ball shots,

50 lateral burpee box jump overs.

Not really,

didn't have to be burpee lateral,

but those that were doing

it fast kind of went lateral.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I think the decision to call

it lateral but then not

mandate the lateral was

from kind of the lack – not

wanting to do floor plans,

measuring tape under the box,

that kind of stuff.

So I think it would have

just been – if they didn't

want the scrutiny of it,

they should have just said

burpee box jump overs.

Orient yourself however you would like,

right?

My media observation of this workout was –

Find your pace.

Very correct.

And hold that pace to the bitter end.

Yep.

Come hell or high water.

That is... So this was...

This is actually a really

interesting workout, I think,

from a coaching perspective.

So this was our 5K run.

This was our 5K row of quarterfinals.

But...

crossfit did it in a way

where from a crossfit

methodology programming

perspective it was a weight

lifting and gymnastics

movement we have a loaded

movement in the wall ball

and then we have a body

weight movement in the

burpee box jump overs right

but the stimulus was long

aerobic capacity right

muscle endurance that kind

of stuff so it was

it was good in a sense to

see something like this again,

I think as a community,

we've gotten away from

testing engine without

leveraging machines a lot of the time.

And you know,

the older CrossFit programming,

large chippers with a ton

of reps with lighter weight

kind of movements that you

can still be cyclical with were a staple.

Um,

You're absolutely right, though.

This was how well can you pace yourself?

Can you sustain it?

And there was absolutely nowhere to hide.

If you didn't have the ability to sustain,

be aerobic throughout this whole piece,

keep moving on those burpees,

keep moving through those wall balls,

then you were just going to

have a bad day.

And I saw two types of athletes.

The athletes that died on the last set

the athletes who could pick

up the pace just one gear

higher just a smidge yep

yeah yeah I mean speaking

from like a you know an

actual practical

perspective when jacob and

I game planned his pacing

for this we basically game

planned a 19-minute finish

and he finished his first

round exactly on pace

And then he finished his

second round exactly on pace.

His score ended up being

just over 19 minutes.

And that's because when he

started to pick it up,

he jumped off the box.

So he had to run around,

do another burpee box up

over and ended up, he would have been,

you know, sub 19, but that to your point,

that is how that workout should go,

right?

You should be on pace,

perfectly holding steady,

very uncomfortable from

minute eight through,

but not going to fall apart.

And then somewhere in those

last 50 burpees,

depending on your level of fitness, you,

you kind of bite down on the mouthpiece.

As an athlete,

what is the fear going

through your head that

you're going to notch up

that gear just a hair too early?

You can't come back.

Right.

You can't come back.

I mean,

so I got roped into doing this with

some other Ascend athletes.

And I finished my first round at 640,

which is exactly on pace to finish.

Looked at the clock and was like, well,

that's not happening again.

So just kind of muddled

through the middle round.

I was with another one of our athletes,

Dion, going into the last wall balls.

He got a little bit ahead of me.

We had about a minute 15,

a minute 30 on the burpees.

And I said, I'm going to go get him.

And I just started pushing my burpees.

Did eight or nine, looked up the clock,

and we had 45 seconds left.

And I was like, crap.

Because even that, for me, where I was at,

I tipped over that red line.

And then those last 45 seconds,

I just had to go to moving

and surviving pace.

And then I tried to pick it

up for a couple more at the end.

So if you do that...

you know,

if you're on a pace to finish

that workout and you're fit

enough to finish that workout,

but you do that on burpee box,

jump over 10 of the last 50,

that's a bad day.

Yeah.

All right.

So we got to go here.

Number three, my favorite one.

Four time, three rounds,

10 handstand push-ups, 20 toes to bar.

Two rounds, 10 strict handstand push-ups,

five rope climbs.

One round,

10 chest to wall handstand push-ups,

20 muscle-ups.

Time cap, 15 minutes.

So this one was all gymnastics, right?

So,

and this is where I think it's good to

start talking about how

this all fits together.

So we have a pure gymnastics workout.

We had technically a

weightlifting and gymnastics workout,

but the stimulus was very

aerobic and long.

The time cap on this is long,

but the competitive times is not long,

right?

And then we had that, what was it,

15 minutes of work,

but it was more power-based

on the first one.

You kind of had to really

hustle for about three minutes,

and then you could have

your minute of recovery.

I liked the progressive

nature of the handstand

pushup as a separator.

in this workout I also liked

the rope climb volume I

thought it was appropriate

for semi or for quarter

final stage not something

that you know is going to

completely like you can't

win this workout on the

rope climbs but you can

lose your score on the rope

climbs if you're not

proficient um and then

finishing with 20 ring muscle ups I think

This is something that we've

seen over the last couple

years of quarterfinals tests.

We had the 21 wall facing

last year on the first one,

we had the nine rope climbs.

So having some sort of a

very taxing dense set of

gymnastics to finish might

be a trend that we continue

to see rather than

dispersing the volume

throughout the workouts or

a workout into more manageable sets.

This was my favorite workout

of quarterfinals as a test.

I really liked this.

I liked that athletes could

play to their strengths a

little bit on this one and

still get competitive times

for their regions.

You didn't have to

necessarily go unbroken on

the toes to bar and the

kipping or the strict, right?

You didn't have to go as

fast as you could on the rope climbs.

It was more,

how do you move through these

first five rounds and set

yourself up for success on

those 20 muscle ups?

And that strategy would be

different for different athletes for,

as an example for Jamie, right?

We knew, okay, we got to get ahead, right?

For Jacob,

who ended up redoing this and

did a lot better his second time,

it was more,

how do we have you better

when you get to the rings,

even if it's just around the same time,

so that we can hold

potentially better sets, right?

I think, too,

if you're the elite of the elite,

this was a pure muscle-up

workout and how you manage

yourself to get there.

If you...

are a fringe semifinal athlete,

it could be a couple things.

There are two stoppers in

this workout that if you're

not proficient at,

could stop you from being successful.

And that is the handstand

pushups or the rope climb.

So I watched Jamie and Haley do this.

They are very different athletes.

Very different athletes.

For Haley,

it wasn't that the handstand

push-ups stopped her.

It just slowed her down.

Yep.

To where she gets to the

ring muscle-ups and she

just doesn't have a lot of time.

Right.

Right.

She was proficient at the rope climbs,

but side-by-side, her and Jamie... Like,

Jamie is proficient at

everything leading up to

those muscle-ups.

Mm-hmm.

And it was about...

could she string them together?

Right.

When she got there.

Right.

Yeah.

I,

I'm a big fan of rope climbs personally.

I'm really glad they were in

quarterfinals.

I think it's a good thing to test.

I don't think,

I know there was some

pushback on some other shows.

Maybe it was barbell spin.

And I thought I saw

something else on another

channel about rope climbs being a, um,

uncommon movement or this

that and the other and I

thought it was perfect two

weeks ish before

quarterfinals the main site

workout of the day was 30

rope climbs for time so I

I'm a big fan of rope

climbs I program you can

ask any of the any of the

athletes I coach or a lot

of our ascend athletes I

program a lot of rope

climbs uh I have a running

joke if you're trying to be

competitive rope climbs are

a monostructural movement

not a gymnastics movement

you should just if you can

get to a place on those

rope climbs where you just

breathe and move uh it's a

game changer I'll tell you

what I've seen a lot of

crossfit in my days my

co-host and my friend she

can kick ass on rope climbs

she's a monster at rope

climbs dude oh my gosh I

love it it is first as

small as she is to be a two pool

Rope climber is just insane.

It's amazing.

It makes me so happy every

time I watch her do rope climbs.

I get chills right now.

Yeah.

She's great at them.

Yeah.

So then we finish up with a workout four.

And that is the ladder.

Yep.

So you talked, we had power output.

We had the engine workout

mixed modal engine test.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We have the pure gymnastics

and now we have pure barbell,

pure barbell, single modality.

So I actually had a

conversation with one of

our other coaches two days

ago about this workout.

Cause he, he's an Olympic lifter by trade.

Um,

done CrossFit for many years, um,

been on some teams that

have been to the games and

stuff like that,

but he is a very purist

when it comes to weightlifting.

And he was making the

argument to me that this

isn't a strength workout.

Um, and I disagree.

I think,

especially at the quarterfinal level,

this very much was a strength test.

It did the job of testing strength.

Um,

Jacob finished this.

He went in with a really, really good plan,

executed really well.

Hattie had a similar plan,

a little bit more variance

in her strategy.

But the first thing Jacob

said to me after he got up

off the floor was,

you can't do well at that

and not be strong.

And he's 100% correct.

So this tested strength in a

CrossFit manner,

you had a buy-in of grace

at ascending load.

And then you had to AMRAP

245 as many times as you could,

or 165 for the ladies as

many times you could in the

remaining time.

So it was a very

cross-fitting way to test strength,

but I think it was an

appropriate way to test

strength at this corner final stage,

especially with a bigger

pool of athletes relative

to a one rep max or something like that.

Cause you could have had people,

if they would have

programmed a pure one RM

that didn't have any kind

of fitness requirement,

you could have had people who

maybe barely did four rounds

on the previous workout and

then could have just smoked

a 370-pound clean and jerk.

I know athletes at local

gyms in Houston who have that potential.

So I think this balanced

things well for the

leaderboard needing to

the people who are strong

enough and fit enough,

we're going to place very

well in this test.

Right.

And I actually, I did this one as well.

And Jacob and I had a good

conversation about it.

Cause he like watched me slash judged me.

And so Jacob got 28 reps.

I got six.

That's the difference.

But that,

that perfectly highlights the

difference between it being

a strength test and a fitness test.

right?

For him,

he had to be fit enough to keep

moving that bar.

I just not strong enough.

It doesn't matter.

Yeah.

Right.

So I actually really liked

how they did this.

I did think it was interesting.

And I guess this bleeds into

probably one of my biggest

takeaways from the test.

I thought it was interesting

that it was single modality,

even though it had some volume to it.

So when we zoom out, so let me,

Reset this conversation.

Coming into this,

you made the claim that

this was the most important

programming that CrossFit

was going to do because of

the short window for people

to qualify for semifinals

and how many people were

going to be competing.

It had to be perfectly programmed.

Did CrossFit meet that expectation?

Go.

I would say yes with an

asterisk just because of

all of the shenanigans

surrounding the step-ups.

From an energy system, loading, skill,

testing, balance testing, yes.

I think they did a very good job.

I think from testing the

fitness perspective,

the right people are moving on.

right?

Even those people who got

bonked out because of a penalty,

if they were in,

I think they fit that bill, right?

I was very pleased with the

workouts overall,

especially after things

have actually kind of

calmed down and I could sit

and kind of think about them a lot more.

Something that I thought was

interesting that is a

little bit different from

what we've seen in the past is

To me,

when you look at these four workouts

on a piece of paper,

it is almost like a CrossFit combine.

So you have an interval test

that requires high power output.

You have a long aerobic test

that requires muscle endurance, right?

And bounding.

Then you have a pure gymnastics test.

with varied skill and things like that.

And then you have a pure

single modality

weightlifting test that

requires both strength and fitness.

A lot of times in

quarterfinals of the past,

we've seen loading and

skill much more evenly

distributed throughout the workouts.

Last year,

we had crossovers and 70 pound

dumbbell snatch for the men,

50 pounds for the ladies.

We had heavy front squats with gymnastics.

We had moderate to

moderate to kind of heavy

deadlifts with gymnastics.

And then we had the row GHD

is kind of this longer test.

When we look at this year and last year,

it's kind of pretty

different in how they

structured these pieces in the testing,

but it's still,

I think did a very good job.

Obviously your athletes that

are on the bubble and

fighting for those bubble spots,

the programming structure

matters a lot more than,

for them to perform and, you know,

possibly punch a ticket.

But I just thought it was an

interesting observation

that it kind of seemed to

me like they were testing

specific different modality

or different themes of CrossFit,

so to speak, in each, you know,

each of these tests.

But then when you put it all together,

it's relatively well-rounded, I think.

Kenneth says, that was an awesome analogy,

CrossFit Combine.

Thank you.

It kind of is right.

Like that's what they're

trying to do anyway.

They're trying to show the

talent of these athletes to

make sure they get the

right people onto the next round.

Yeah.

And I mean,

if we're going to continue with

this kind of combine thought process,

combine analogy to me,

if there's a stage where you want that,

it is quarterfinals.

What's your bench test?

What's your 40, right?

Let me see you run a route.

Let me see that stuff before

you go off to the big leagues.

What do the athletes at the

NFL Combine call it?

A cattle call.

Right.

25% of the people in the open,

a huge amount of people

that you need to funnel

down to the people that are

going to be drafted in the NFL.

Right.

I love that analogy.

Yeah.

I like, I love the tests as a fan.

What always,

they always seem to do a

pretty good job at this level.

And it's the level that we

don't get to see as a fan.

And it's the one I want to see the most.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I, I,

I love every athlete that I coach,

but I will always have a

special place in my heart

for the athlete who is

clawing with everything

they have to go to semifinals.

And they just get no love.

And it's the most stressful

because you're waiting a

week for everything to shuffle.

They're still waiting to see

who's accepting and who's declining.

Have you seen Halpin's thing

about the team alternates?

Yeah, it's like,

I guess there's some issue

with people who are on a team,

but like roster,

but listed as the alternate,

not being able to sign up

and accept their individual invite.

I have no idea.

That was the gist of his

story that I briefly read.

I think it's by tomorrow.

They have to,

they have to declare team or individual.

Also, I have no idea what's happening,

but Madison just called me.

One of my team athletes just

text me and one of my team

group chats went off.

So I bet the team workouts

just got released.

Okay.

Oh, I love it.

Um, fun.

I do think one thing I will

say about quarterfinals before, you know,

we, we move on or do whatnot.

I think it's really

unfortunate that whether

it's just because of the

shock value of people

getting penalties this year

relative to years in the

past or whatever we want to

put the onus on for what happened with,

with that, um,

I think because of that,

no one is talking about the

programming other than in a

bad light with one workout.

And really,

there's a lot of bitching going on.

But if Paige Powers isn't

one of the people penalized,

it doesn't even make the front page.

I said this,

and I mean this with no disrespect.

I would feel the same way if

it was one of my athletes.

CrossFit got along just fine

before Paige Powers was doing CrossFit.

We will be okay.

It sucks.

I get it.

But people really just kind

of went crazy with some of this stuff.

I love Paige Powers.

She is one of my favorite athletes.

She came on the show early in her career.

She's a monster, dude.

But if...

just uh chase and bill gave

the programming praise too

I'm glad I didn't get to

watch their show I do

obviously being a super

nerd usually try to tune

into their programming

shows and stuff but uh I

didn't get to catch that

one so I use that as a here

they are oh boy all right

These are the semifinal team

athletes or team workouts.

So I guess we'll go,

we'll go through these real

quick and get your first impression.

Okay.

I do have to go at the top of the hour.

So we have about 10 minutes.

All right.

Um, so team event one, 30 rope climbs,

120 wall facing handstand pushups,

150 calorie echo bike,

48 foot handstand walk accumulated.

Anyhow,

non-working athletes must hold the worm.

So I'm imagining that's one

athlete working at a time.

Or two.

No one?

Two might be a tall ask at semifinals.

Holding the worm with two

people is really hard.

Team event two.

Three cleans.

Two front squats, one jerk.

So barbell complex.

So it's a clean and jerk.

Basically.

Okay.

Yeah.

uh team event three five

rounds for time 800 meter

run 15 worm thrusters so

we'll have runners there's

that two and a half mile

run and team event four

four time male female pair

one three rounds 30 calorie

row 30 overhead squats

Male-female pair, 290-calorie row,

90 overhead squats.

What's the load?

125, 185.

Shoo!

90 at 185?

Well, I imagine that's split.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It doesn't say synchro, so...

Event five, four rounds for time,

five synchro muscle-ups pair one,

five synchro muscle-ups pair two,

10 worm clean and jerks,

15 synchro burpees over the worm,

one section worm walking lunge.

I like that.

And that is it.

Okay.

Interesting.

Only five events instead of six.

Called that.

They're only competing two days.

Is that enough to get the

best of the games?

Yes.

Yeah, I think so.

I think the difference

between the top tier teams

and the bottom is there's a

pretty big gap.

Yeah,

I think just briefly thinking about

these workouts, your top tier teams,

you're going to have

significantly different

scores for sure on this workout,

the run workout.

Carolyn,

do we like the next lift for five events?

So full disclosure, myself as a coach,

I'm kind of tired of testing max lifts.

I would much rather see

moderate to heavy barbells

paired with high skill or

something like that.

At this point,

I just think we could use a

change for a couple of years.

That being said,

I think there's a strong

argument to make that it's

going to impact the leaderboard,

but they haven't really

rewarded the teams for

being strong at any point

in the season so far.

And again,

with there only being four

stages of the season,

open quarter semis games,

how long can we make the

argument that you're not

allowed to have a max lift yet?

So I kind of see both sides of that, but.

Lex,

that's the same complex Indy had before.

I do believe it is.

I think so.

Yeah.

In,

Interesting that they're

doing clean and jerk after

the teams did deadlifts and

shoulder to overhead in quarterfinals,

which is relatively similar

movement patterns.

Full disclosure,

I was kind of expecting a snatch.

It's the year of the clean and jerk.

Max lifts do get the crowd going for sure.

Maybe the Indies will have a

snatch variation.

I think that would be, to me,

a wee bit too repetitive if

we had clean and jerk in

quarterfinals for max reps

at a moderately heavy load

and then a clean and jerk 1RM.

So this is my argument to Wad Zombie,

right?

So I've been in the Coliseum

for some max lift.

I was there for the sandbag.

I was there for...

A lot.

And the,

and the roof comes off the

building in the Coliseum.

I would argue that the 400 meter,

not really run into the

clean and jerk ladder or

the clean ladder got the

fans just as hyped as a max lift.

Yeah.

And it had a fitness component to it.

Yeah.

I'm okay.

The worm thruster and worm

clean and jerk is fitness, not strength.

I have athletes I coach who

do not have the largest

clean and jerk in the world,

and they can absolutely

hold it together with their

team doing worm clean and jerks.

So, yes.

But I think for most teams

who are competitive at this point,

the worm is a test of synchronicity,

fitness,

and muscle endurance rather than

strength.

Unless they...

bring out that crazy thing

that was sectioned out and

we watch everybody get their ass kicked.

Now that brought the crowd to their feet.

Yeah.

People were scared.

Someone's going to die.

Yeah.

Um, as I said yesterday on coffee pods,

nobody watches sports for safety.

This is true.

Just,

just remember the people like me who

are in the back, like,

Carolyn is not happy.

She's not happy.

I don't disagree.

And I, I haven't,

I haven't looked at it more

than what we just saw, but it does.

I mean, you have muscle up handstand,

push up, clean and jerk thruster worm.

Yeah.

So a good bit of overhead work,

which I mean, they did dumbbell snatch,

shouldered overhead.

ring muscle up premium on

ring muscle ups at this

point um handstand push-ups

in quarterfinals so yeah I

would say that she's on to

something there with

potentially some redundant

overhead work um Carolyn

says I'm not saying I'm not

happy I'm just looking at

movement patterns Carolyn

I'm still salty that you

got way more votes than I

did on our drafted teams

I like two and a half mile run.

I'll be interested to dive into the,

the flow of that workout.

No way they have two runner

or four runners.

Yeah.

It's so this is like, it's nice,

but you don't have the flow

of the workouts here.

Right.

I mean,

I'm going to make my teams just

probably run together

because now we'll do some

different variations of it.

I'm sure if you go to the website,

they probably have the full descriptions.

Or they'll be up tonight or tomorrow.

I guess CrossFit just said, screw it.

The Indies got linked,

so we'll just drop the team

workouts to get everybody's

attention on something else.

Hey, look over there.

Yeah, literally.

All right.

Well, awesome.

We did all that and still

got it under an hour.

I think this is the best

we've ever done right there.

Well, thank you everybody for joining in.

Um,

that looks like this thing may become a

weekly thing.

Um,

I just got to get the bumpers for it

and the backdrop.

So we represent what we're

really doing here.

Yeah.

With that being said,

I'm going to go ahead, shut her down and,

uh,

had a Kenya in an hour for my last

Canadian interview of the day.

Um,

this is Canada day on Clydesdale media.

So we are representing

Canada on this one too,

even though he's a Texas guy.

I am a Texas guy now.

Yeah.

So, all right.

With that,

thank you everybody in the chat

for being here.

Thank you, Carolyn, for all your input.

We love it as always.

And we'll see everybody next

time on chopping it up with the,

with coach crispy cream.

Bye guys.