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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.