Latest / Misfit Podcast / Your Road to the 2027 Season | Misfit Athletics Phase 2 - E.421
Transcript
- @misfitcoach: Good morning, Misfit. You are tuning into a special edition Misfit podcast Monday, October 26th, less than a week from today, is the beginning of phase two of our off-season programming for competitors. Phase two is very much a bridge from segmented style training, doing kind of the same things and progressions over and over in phase one to phase three being much more sports-specific. And we will get into How at Misfit Athletics we allow you to personalize those things. to think about this from a few different perspectives of why we do these episodes. If you're already a Misfit, if you're following the program, we're gonna do our best today to explain what you will be doing in phase two and how that connects to the other training and how you could make your choices and how you can start to develop using the variable training system, which we will explain in this episode. If you're new, this is an audition. of sorts. We are here to, you know, we're talking through progressions that you haven't done yet or did not do in phase one. but we want to let you know that we are thoughtful with all of these things. We think we write the best programming in the business and want to talk you guys through what it is, how to execute, all that good stuff. And then if you're a coach, student of the game, fan of the game, we try to give enough tidbits on just kind of, you know, a a better way to put it would be peeking behind the curtain, how we program, why we program the way that we do, and all of that good stuff. So we will spend an hour to nine hours somewhere in that range talking about the specifics of phase two. Before we do tiny bit of housekeeping this week, we'll keep it quick. This episode of the podcast and all episodes of the podcast are brought to you by GorillaMind. You can head to GorillaMind.com forward slash Misfit or use the code word misfit at checkout you save and you support the show at the same time and you get the best supplements in the game, which is fantastic. I wasn't sure what my product of the week was gonna be. but let's be real. Once again, I am solo parenting. I s spilled half of it already onto my desk, my legs, and the floor. but there is enough @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: nootropics and caffeine and this bad boy right here that it doesn't matter. I'm still getting what I need. so @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: gorilla mind.com forward slash misfit or use code word misfit at checkout. I do that sometimes I was showing you guys, if you're listening, the Gorilla Mind Citrus Terrain energy drink. again, phase two, we are gonna turn the free trials back on for one week only. something we've also added to our website now is essentially a free sample request for all programs. So you can go to MisfitAthletics.com now and get a free sample of GPP Hatchet Masters Pro, Misfit Affiliate, all that good stuff. And it just gives you instructions on maybe a deeper dive into how to execute and then how to sort of follow up on that if you feel like it's the right program for you. So that's another way that you could do that as well. so phase two again, Monday, October 26th. It is eight weeks long. and last but not least, on housekeeping, the Misfit Apprentice Colin is in black and white in a tiny little screen off to my right there. He's gonna @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: be listening to this episode from the perspective of the athlete. whether that's again once again a new athlete. someone who's already been here or maybe a coach that's listening that wants to know a little bit more about programming and he's gonna ask us some questions from that perspective at the end. Paige, hi. How you doing? @paige_semenza: Hey. I'm wonderful. How are you? @misfitcoach: shout outs. I'm good. I'm good. shout outs of the week. I am gonna shout out McKenna Enslin Mel. Oops, I almost lost the @paige_semenza: Whoa. @misfitcoach: Almost lost that last I'm sorry, I gotta get used to it. All right. I'm under pressure @paige_semenza: Mel. @misfitcoach: here. I got all these lights and cameras pointed at me. let's @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: do a little let's do a little trip down memory lane here. when McKenna started remote coaching, her f aerobic gears were in the nine to ten minute range. and probably running some zone two miles in the twelve ish. plus range. Her misfit aerobic threshold test scores, so 40 minutes for average run pace, have gone from 10 minutes and 11 seconds to nine minutes and 22 seconds to eight minutes and 14 seconds. And this weekend she ran @paige_semenza: Wow. @misfitcoach: a half marathon at a nine minute and three second pace. Trying to sub two hour. it's just One of those where there's a will, there's a way things. That's she's the example of that because if she ever gets in her head about things, she asks very pointed questions of like, Am I being realistic with this goal? And my response is often, are you still all in on this? Because if you are, then the answer is yes. Like you can, @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: you know, have the patience and resolve and perseverance to work through these things and to be able to beat your so her her retest last year was nine minutes and twenty two seconds for forty minutes and that was a you know a big PR. And this year she ran a half marathon eighteen, nineteen seconds @paige_semenza: Faster than that. @misfitcoach: per mile faster. Which is just really cool. And again, it's it's not @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: with the running stuff, it's not rocket science. It definitely took me almost, I would say, half of my career to develop the running progressions that we have because there's just such a big difference between a runner versus a not runner and how you sort of help them progress and @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: exposure is such a massive element of it. It's different. @paige_semenza: Huge. @misfitcoach: It's so much different than machines. Your body weight's not being supported by anything. You are not stationary. You do not get that immediate feedback like every second like you do when you're staring at the screen. It's hard to track form, you know what I mean? You're not still. So, you know, @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: filming yourself, all this stuff. so doing your zone two work, doing your first, second, and third gear work and just getting used to being anywhere from very uncomfortable to slightly uncomfortable for a long period of time while you're out there and being able to be in your nervous system and, you know, sort of modulate that and breathe through it and all of that stuff. so big shout out to McKenna. That's just huge progress. And being able to put it on display in that category, like going all the way out to @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: the two hour range, is like a massive proof of concept. @paige_semenza: Yeah. I I was talking with her yesterday and I was like, 'cause we did a half marathon last year together. And I was like, Do you have your split times from both of them? And her 'cause I I I wanted to bring it up. Her range in her half mile last year, she ranged from a nine fifty-eight mile all the way down to an eight fifty-five minute mile. And this one here, her slowest was nine twelve and her fastest was eight forty nine. So just even the difference in her splits @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. @paige_semenza: every mile were super consistent this time around. So like that's really cool to @misfitcoach: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. @paige_semenza: see. And we didn't really like talk about it, but I hope she did like go back and do like a a close an like analyze it a little bit more because it's like there's so much proof of concept in what she did @misfitcoach: yeah. @paige_semenza: from last year to this year, which is really cool. @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: so definitely worth the shout out there. and For anybody that doesn't know, McKenna is not a runner. Like, that's a lot of miles and hours put into doing that. So that's just the discipline and the trust. Yeah. @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. She might be now. Yep. @paige_semenza: I'll give two shout-outs. one of my remote athletes, he got married this weekend. So shout out to Jeremy and his @misfitcoach: Hell yeah. @paige_semenza: wife. so kudos to them. Love that. And I'll shout out Caitlin. Caitlin Nolan did one ring muscle up per round in one of her conditioning pieces. this past week and @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. @paige_semenza: so combine that a little bit with bar muscle ups but someone who's just been like drilling away at them, asking questions, asking for video review and telegram. so not being afraid to put herself out there. I think really huge and just you could see how eager she is to just get better at that thing. So huge shout out to Caitlyn as well. @misfitcoach: And that's we talk about the maturity meter, that is part of athlete IQ of being like, Okay, I finally get to do these in a workout, but I'm just gonna I'm gonna do the one. And then as the progression goes up or in the workout, the ascending ladder goes up, I'm gonna switch back. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: I think restraint is a huge part of it. That goes back to the McKenna thing a little bit, like the athlete IQ of knowing being able to hold that pace for that long. is not an easy thing to accomplish. And it's funny because it's the exact reason why our our sort of it's not an FTP test, but it's an FTP test, the the the 40 minute version. We do that because @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: CrossFitters don't have context outside of that 20 minutes or 30 minutes. And if we're going to say this is our long slow progression, we're gonna need to test a time domain that's a little bit outside of that. So The athlete IQ goes from, okay, maybe you can hold your pace the way that you're supposed to in the cube test, you know, four by one K, but then the, you know, kilometer test, now you don't have very much rest. You're running your eight hundreds. So that's part of it there. Then the forty minutes, if we extend all the way out to two hours, takes a tremendous amount of athlete IQ to be able to to @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: pull that off. So, shout out to Caitlin and McKenna and Athlete IQ for sure. All right. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: Let's do this. like I said at the beginning, phase two is very much a bridge. phase one, if you didn't notice, was intended to be okay, we're working on these machines, these lifts, and these very specific things, maybe only in these like two work these two workouts a week. Phase three is open prep and there's less mandatory machine work and more mandatory, you know, crossfit style conditioning. we get into maybe some front squatting things that are less, you know, bench press and strict press, things that are very much sports specific. Phase two is the bridge between those things. And the way that you figure out how to bridge phase one and phase three has a lot to do with our variable training system. Which we're gonna explain here in a minute. But the question you're asking yourself, and you can even ask yourself this after test week, is how segmented does my training still need to be? Or do I need to be doing more sports-specific work? so we're gonna try to weave that into the episode to help you guys figure that out. but it's really important for you to understand: am I the athlete who crushes lifting and monostructural conditioning? I'm getting my skills. where they need to be when they're on their own. But then when I try to put that stuff together in the workouts, it's either athlete IQ or just exposure therapy not having happened yet with the actual CrossFit workouts. so that's the way that I want you guys listening to think about how you're gonna personalize your programming going into phase two. @paige_semenza: Yeah, I think also we are starting to get into the more sports specific training. Like it's gonna continue @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. @paige_semenza: to kind of go that direction. so like as the athlete yourself, you have to be asking those questions of like, you know, am I someone who, you know, excels in the open, you know, quarterfinals is just a slight step up, but I'm still good to go there? Like, how segmented you need to be here? or like you really need to start making the decision of like All right, I really need to start honing in on like the segmented stuff and isolate things, or I can start getting more into that CrossFitty style training of like I need to get that kind of work capacity up a little bit. So you know, leaving that ego at the door and and starting to do things maybe a little more specifically of like maybe you're not good at it or you don't enjoy it and like that's kind of why you might not wanna do it, right? So this is kind of that time to start Being a little more disciplined in your decisions. @misfitcoach: Yeah, for sure. So this next section of the podcast here is a bit of an overview and like a frequently asked questions thing about our programming specifically relative to a phase like this. So battle rhythm for the eight weeks. Week one is test week. Week eight is retest week. We have six weeks in between those two, if I you know do my math correction over here. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: and one of those weeks should be a D load. One of those weeks is something we call primer week. In primer week, we remove the variable training system and it's do this, this, and this, with some asterisk there. The reason I bring that up is because you need to be ready for five of the eight weeks to be really challenging. We want to overreach for five of those eight weeks. That is much more realistic than just sixteen to twenty-four to thirty weeks of just bashing your head in the wall. It's also @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: just not the right narrative for what we are doing and what we do in this sport, spe especially for an open and quarterfinals level athlete. If you can't learn to dial things back from a volume standpoint and really dial up the volume on the intensity, then you're not gonna be able to translate your hard work in the gym to actually being out there. So I just want everybody to wrap their minds around like I want you to push yourself really hard in those five weeks. and we can talk about all the different ways to do that. but that's the way that I'm thinking about it. So again, weeks two through seven, you're gonna have a D-load and a primer week in there at some point. primer week is week seven, deload is your choice, either week four, week five, or week six. and we tell people with the deloads like. It's either life gives you a delo, you've got an injury, you've got a family trip, you've got whatever, that would be your delo. That's the first way to choose that. if you're kind of all in on this or it's just a great time of year for it for you, then you would probably choose week four or week five. those are the more kind of ideal things there. and there's there's merits to both. so Five weeks matters because there are five weeks of progressions as well. So your lifting progressions and your accessory progressions and your skill progressions are all going to be five weeks long specifically. on a day-to-day basis, and this matters mostly outside of test and retest week, we have what is called the variable training system. That is the basis for me wanting to start Misfit Athletics sixteen years ago, whatever it was. The one size fits all programming for a sport that requires you to be really good at 10 million different things made no sense to my brain. I was like, okay, I get the affiliate programming, I get this, but I now see all of these other companies and it's just do this, this, and this. It's like what what? I there are people that walk into the gym that want to compete that are super strong. There are people that are super endurance-based. There's your gymnastics freaks. Like, how are we? making the programming as good a as it can possibly be if we're sending it out to hundreds of people. I don't understand this. So the way that our program works, I will read one of the instructions from week two. and man, I tell you right now, if you don't read the instructions, don't follow the program. It's not going to make any @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: sense. It's going to be the most absurd list of things ever. There are people that have tried to @paige_semenza: volume's insane. @misfitcoach: do all of it. The how bad that would be from an execution standpoint, I can only imagine. but perform mobility slash stability, lift one, conditioning three, and skill. so that would be a front squat hold, squat cleans, a zone two bike, and handstand push up skill. Then, based on your weaknesses, remaining time and energy at zero to two of the following. And that would be clean pulls, accessory work, an extra interval. on other days, this really opens up. So you got three days a week where it really opens up, and you're only essentially being asked to do, let's say, week two, day two, you're gonna do the bench press and a couplet of rowing and bar muscle ups. Those are the days where you can really figure out and really dig into what we're gonna talk about for the rest of the episode. Do you need to be deadlifting? Do you need to be doing the specific accessories on that day? Do you need to be doing power output work on a Echo bike? Do you need to be doing our reps stuff that we that we'll talk about again here in a second? So those, there's three days a week where you're only being asked to do two things. And trust me, if you're newer and you're following the like scaling recommendations, just doing the mandatory work five days a week or doing the mandatory mandatory work, you know. two, three, four days a week and then adding is going to be really effective. We design it in that way. But if you are quarterfinals level, semifinals level, personalizing in phase two is so important. @paige_semenza: Yeah. I got a couple things. first off, like the battle rhythm. When we talk about w we're doing an eight week phase, when we weren't implementing things like D load or, you know, kind of the progressions or the primer week, like I never had a s successful eight week block or phase where I didn't have some sort of hiccup. So like it's five weeks of progressions, it's five weeks out of eight of you overreaching, and I promise you that's enough. So if you can go in with that intensity, it it does a hundred percent. Yeah. @misfitcoach: Well, and it works better. Like that that matters so much. Yeah. @paige_semenza: mentally, physically, to throw like to overreach for you know hit test week, overreach for two to three weeks and then hit that D load. Like it just it allows you to like you know go up in momentum, take a small step back. instead of a huge step back because of some injury or just overtraining in general. And then you get that other spurt in the back half of it. So I really like that we're kind of being more intentional about the D load in here. And @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: like as far as everybody in Telegram, like you guys are listening and taking that that advice as well, which helps us to be able to implement it even better. So I continue on with that feedback for anybody that is listening. and then I had something else and I'll think of it in a second, but I just @misfitcoach: So @paige_semenza: really got big on that thing. @misfitcoach: What I was thinking about, which is like an analogy, but it's the whole more is not better, better is better, and that would be for the athlete. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: But for Misfit as well, we are, you know, this era of what we're doing, we want to help less people more. We don't @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: want to see how many possible signups we can get so that a certain number goes up. We want to affect the most change. We want to affect the most change with athletes specifically. And of course that's @paige_semenza: It's yeah. @misfitcoach: always the goal, but when you are mixing the idea of coaching and business and programming together and social media and all that, it can be really challenging. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: so that that goes twofold. It's for the athlete and for the coaching staff. Cause like these are things that I've always implemented from a remote coaching standpoint, but like the it begs the question, how do we give that information to everybody? @paige_semenza: Right. Yeah, for sure. @misfitcoach: And the culture is is being set, which is really cool. @paige_semenza: Yeah. the second thing as far as the like the volume of training and in listening to the instructions and being really, really, you know, attentive to that. I have an athlete that I started working with a few weeks ago who you know, looked at our sheet and saw the mandatory pieces and his first bit of feedback to me was like, This is really low volume compared to what I was doing. and then we started getting into the do you warm up, do you cool down? So Starting @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: to implement that for him, the training volume became plenty. and that gives us like a really good foundation to build off because it's it's kind of our lowest barrier to entry of like I'm hitting a lift, a conditioning piece, and maybe a skill or an accessory that day. And then now we have again that baseline to build off of because they've been implementing the warm-ups and the activation and kind of fine-tuning @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: that stuff for himself. Yeah. @misfitcoach: It's a it's a rite of passage and an order of operations thing. where you are at in your journey, honestly, even relative to your skill level or leaderboard placement, doesn't shouldn't have anything to do with another athlete. Because if you have been a volume monster in the past and have never taken the time to warm up and cool down properly and weigh and measure all your food and sleep and blah blah blah, all of that, then adding more here, like you haven't done the prerequisite to add more. We add more. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: when we're doing everything that we can within the confines of, you know, the mandatory work, like plus one thing on the days where it's just two mandatory things. and we're like, I feel awesome. I'm making progress. I feel really good. it might feel counterintuitive, but the people who feel like they're stuck, adding volume is not a solution to that. Executing properly @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: is It's it's when you're doing really well that we're gonna add volume and go in and do that. Like I want an athlete @paige_semenza: Yeah. Yep. @misfitcoach: coming off phase one to if they're a remote coaching athlete, I want them to see what the other people are doing in Telegram that are maybe adding a little bit too much and be like, I don't know, they're doing this, this, and this. And I'm like, look at their scores. The score, if if @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: if they're someone that you're comparing yourself to specifically, they're your virtual training partner, like Just look at that, right? Execution is what matters here. So I want an athlete @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: coming off phase one being like, Come on, give me more, give me more. Because then @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: it's appropriate for them to take something like that on actually. @paige_semenza: Yeah. And from a remote setting too, as coaches, we have to be mindful of the way athletes send us feedback, right? To to tell us whether like, all right, this person is actually ready for a delo sooner than later. Like the way that they @misfitcoach: Yeah. Mm-hmm. @paige_semenza: their narrative is talking through their results also like tells us a story and you can also I'm not pointing fingers at anybody, but like if this resonates with you, then like be, you know, be paying attention. But like the way that you talk in your comments on telegram and your results also tell us the story @misfitcoach: yeah. @paige_semenza: of how you're feeling and it should tell you. So you know, pay attention to the narrative and and the way that you're you're giving your feedback might it might help you figure out whether you're doing too much or not. @misfitcoach: Yeah, for sure. One question we've gotten a lot in the past is accessory work specifically. Is it mandatory? Is it non-mandatory? It definitely is a little bit of a gray area because it is attached to the mandatory and non-mandatory lifting. and It's going to help you get better, but it's not something that people get too locked into like, these are new movements and this looks cool and I'm gonna like it it can just be a little bit of a shiny object maybe. It can never take place of anything that's mandatory. that's such a huge @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: part of it. So while I would say my remote athletes probably trend from like three to five mandatory accessory sessions down to like one to three over the course of like an arc of phase one, phase two, phase three. I am like very mindful of this can't get in the way of other things. just avoid shiny object syndrome with the accessory work. It is important and we're probably gonna spend twenty minutes telling you guys how important it is. and it will @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: feel like a contradiction, but it is relative to you specifically that really matters. yes, a lot of it is new. @paige_semenza: And new. We haven't done before. @misfitcoach: It's real shiny. but don't look at it. okay, so the other sort of category column that we have here is skill and reps. Skill is almost always mandatory. so we have the strict hand stand push-up bias and the bar muscle up bias for this phase. those are going to be mandatory skill sessions. And then on the other days, we have a column called reps. Reps is essentially us looking at the programming and saying, Okay, we have our list off to the side of the movements that they use in the open and in quarterfinals almost every year. Double under, toe to bar, burpee, you know, rope climb, whatever it is. We have that list and it's like, okay, what movements can we not fit into the program this week or in the week before, week after, etc.? Let's use traditional sports thinking and practice these movements. CrossFit is weird because practice is the game. It's the same thing, right? So like you you just go in and and and do the training methodology, which turned into a sport afterwards and that's where the lines get blurred. And we need moments in our training with something that's either a if you don't use it, you lose it type movement or just a weakness. That's I want exposure to this. I'm not gonna beat myself up @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: while I'm doing it. I'm just gonna do some, easy sets of heavy wall balls. I'm gonna do an easy set of wall walks. I'm gonna make sure my pistols still feel okay. Whatever the movement is, those are always non-mandatory and should always be chosen based on you trying to make sure that you're exposing yourself to something that you feel like you need exposure to. @paige_semenza: Yep. I think too, like a lot with in a lot of my remote settings I I use Misfit Athletics YouTube a lot. So like, you know, I I'll @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. Yep. @paige_semenza: give it in advance, but like if you guys are working on a movement and you're like I just can't seem to figure this out, like almost every movement is in our library. type in Toast of Our Misfit Athletics, type in Wall Walks, Misfit Athletics, and it's gonna pop up and you're gonna find Either a short efficiency tip video or a longer version of it that just kind of breaks things down. to help give you like some sort of maybe intention within that session that you're gonna do. So if it's wall walks, for example, or even burpee box jumpovers where you need to work footwork. there like obviously like for us to go and and put that in, it's it it'd be kind of tedious because like the resource is available for free for you, just right on YouTube. So, but like If you are stuck on like, I need exposure to this, but I don't really know what kind of direction to go with it, go on there 'cause you're gonna find something. @misfitcoach: Yeah, and sometimes people don't know that they need that, so maybe just do it anyways. You know? I don't I don't know that I jump and throw my hips forward in a wall ball and @paige_semenza: Yeah, right. Like i how how how much you want to commit to it. @misfitcoach: that's why I hate them so much. It's like why don't we @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: why don't we glue your feet to the floor and turn it into a squat versus a jump? So Biggest change honestly here is that I finally have permission from the community. whether they know they gave me permission or not, the progressions are now actually five weeks instead of six. So you're gonna see instructions on your lift. I'll scroll down here and give you guys an example. so You've got your heavy squat cleans in week five. And it says, Did you deload last week? Go back and do the session you missed from today last week. So if you're in week five, day one and you missed week four, you go back and you do week four day one on these squat cleans. So you're gonna see that over the course of the progressions here. And when you get to week seven, the progressions are gonna be the same as week six. there are instructions for the non-deloaders. We've said before, if you if your life forces you to have really low volume compared to other athletes, sometimes not having a D load is how you overreach. but you should still be looking at it from the perspective of like I'm recovering super well. so week seven, for a lot of the progressions is a repeat of week six. So now there's no questions of Well, why is this person on, ninety-two and a half percent and I'm on eighty-seven and a half percent? all of it should @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: should make sense. And, you know, if the if the misfits that we chat with on a weekly basis have any feedback on how to execute this, definitely let us know. But @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: we are doing actual five week progressions so that people don't get confused. just kind of another thing that makes its way from the one on one coaching space into the program. Last but not least on FAQs here, to make the variable training system actually make sense, we share templates of the week. So it's like, okay, here is everything, here is mandatory versus non-mandatory. Now you go in and build yours. So you you would do test week and then you would build your structure for weeks two through seven of how you want to execute on it. So, you know, you make the cell black where you're not gonna do the accessory work, and then on the day that you're gonna do it, you add that in. can be based on scheduling, all this good stuff. and we will go over the template, the templates very specifically in our weekly coaching call. So when you join the program, you are going to get sent the link to join our free telegram group. If you're looking to see what that's all about now, you can hit the link in bio on our Instagram where we communicate with our athletes all week long, where athletes communicate with each other. And in Telegram is where I share the coaching call. so it's just a link. We go on Google Meet for an hour. I talk about the programming, we do QA, we do video review, all of that fun stuff. So we will talk about the templating and try to make sense of all of this stuff for you guys relative to how to choose certain things before the phase actually gets going. Anything before we jump into strength page? @paige_semenza: Nope. Yappa why. @misfitcoach: We do strength first because I'm a meathead. I'm the chief meathead. The most email the the most email responses I get are your email signature is the greatest because it says chief meathead. Because I think it's funny when people think that they're the CEO of a company with zero to five employees. I don't know that there's executives at Misfit Athletics, but there is a chief meathead. okay. Mandatory. We have five mandatory lifts per week. and two of those are squat cleans. So you are going to be peaking your one rep max squat clean. you will get a chance to do squat clean survivor in week one. That is essentially testing your one rep max for percentages relative to a way that maybe it could actually get tested in competition. So you got one squat clean every two minutes until failure at 80%. you add 10 pounds per round. and then eventually if you make it further, you start adding five pounds per round. and how do we execute on this? So a little bit of a flashback to talk about the progression. Phase one, we had back squats, positional cleans, clean and jerk volume, and non-mandatory clean deadlifts. So you can see how we were hopefully trying. To build really strong squatting patterns with strong pulling and positional work with the clean to now come back to do that. and first and foremost, you use your actual percentages from squat clean survivor. the joke is always if you, you know, hang power clean with straps, 400 pounds when you're an offensive lineman in high school or college, that's not your percentage. It's it's the one from this specific one. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: that allows us to have something like a training max. I think that got overused back in the day because power lifters, you know, are lifting six hundred pounds and they need a training max so that their joints don't explode. We're not we're not lifting six hundred pounds. Come on, guys. You know, we're not squatting eight hundred. but a a a training max is important because it's it sort of sets the tone for if you have the best day of your life, And then always use that for percentage work. It's probably gonna be not that fun and not the greatest @paige_semenza: Right. Yeah. @misfitcoach: progression. In terms of execution, it's really just understanding that your first few sessions, you know, in the 70% range, you know, your singles are at, you know, in the 80% range, that sort of thing, that you really think about the way that you move. and each time we add two and a half percent or five percent to a lift, you're going into it thinking. Okay, I'm progressing. I'm getting better at this. I can move the same way with this jump being as small as it is. That's the goal here. To be able to continue to move the way that you did at the very beginning towards the end. and that's not only just so that you get better at it and that your retest is better, but we need consistency of movement in CrossFit. You're not going to the platform @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: to squat clean one time. They might ask you to do 30 of them at a fairly heavy weight. you might get a ladder. You need to be able to call on the way that you move if you're gonna be breathing super heavy. So it's not just like gatekeeping of you need to be perfect in your Olympic lifting. It's like, hey, you gotta be pretty damn good at this from a technique standpoint because they might ask you to do something wild with the movement specifically. @paige_semenza: Yeah. I think that comes up more often than not. Like a lot of especially @misfitcoach: Right, exactly. Yeah. @paige_semenza: a lot of our our like open or quarterfinal style workouts, when it is a ladder or it's the one minute of max reps of this, it's like our first piece of advice is to move well at your lightest weight so that you start moving well at your heaviest as you're building through that workout. so same I same concept, same idea here. @misfitcoach: But my one right max looks way cooler on social media. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: Isn't that more important than how I do in the competition that I've been training all year for? All right. speed work, we're gonna be doing bench @paige_semenza: That's just fluff. @misfitcoach: press here. last phase we did strict press speed and heavy bench press. and this progression is allowing us to essentially continue down the path of Balancing our planes of pressing. the other thing here is a bit more of a peek behind the curtain than normal. We have a ton of inverted gymnastics volume. and forcing a bit of an accessory for that. I don't wanna call it accessory work, but it is in a way. forcing you to press in a different plane with a weight that's much more appropriate while you're doing that volume is very important. So Part of this @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: is forced planes of pressing, you know, while we are getting upside down a bunch in this phase specifically. With speed work in terms of execution, what does the note say? Lower the bar under control, then press it up like your life depends on it. You have twenty-four reps of doing this per week. This could be a glorified accessory movement, or it could be the way that you finally bench, you know. 315, 225, whatever it is you want to bench. So it's your choice there. do it right. Lower it under control. Don't rely on the bounce. Press up as fast as you can. Try to hear that clicking sound. because when you do go to get the the bounce, now you get that free couple of inches and @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: you want to be able to actually press the barbell out. So finishing, that's why people use bands oftentimes with work like this, because it forces them to be more aggressive at the top. You can also just force yourself to do that anyways. really @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: just kind of pay attention there. This it's one of the ones where the tool, you know, from the intensity toolbox is focus. Like d doing @paige_semenza: Yeah, a hundred percent. @misfitcoach: it twenty four times isn't easy, but it makes a really big difference. @paige_semenza: Yeah, you stole my line. @misfitcoach: Sorry. For our volume lifting work this phase, we are going to be doing power snatch. For the power snatch, we've got volume singles, which would be you power snatch the bar, you drop and reset in between reps. Maybe we're taking a little bit more time than you normally would, but the idea is you're going heavy enough that you are overreaching what would happen inside of an actual workout. So let's say there's 155 pound power snatch in a workout. maybe you're doing sets at 165, 175, 185. And yeah, it takes you a little bit longer, but when you overreach in that way and you go back to the other weight, that adaptation is really noticeable. The other movement that we're going to be doing here in the alternating weeks is touch and go power snatch. and the disclaimer here is there's really no point aside from general stimulus, which we feel like we have enough of elsewhere in the program to do slow touch and go work. The kind of touch and go work where you pause over your head for a long time, or it takes you a while to get from up overhead back down to the hip, and then you're resetting your grip in your hip. We will have weeks where you overreach and wait, and that just happens for a few reps, right? We're getting down to the doubles, you know, which honestly actually could have context in the sport, right? You might do. a double to end an event or something like that because the person next to you drops the bar, whatever. but for the most part, we are actually practicing barbell cycling. So if you normally cycle 75, 95, 115 in certain scenarios, maybe it's 95, 115, 135, that sort of thing. and we have progressions to take you through the weeks so that you know what to do in your second session based on your first session. But this is an easy one to explain. Why are we doing this? It's one of the most programmed movements in the entire sport, not even relative to like, it's just in the lifting category. It is one of those things that is at the top of the list in almost every single one. And it fits into so many places as a programmer, right? Like you're not like trashing someone's, you know, quads or shoulders or whatever. And it has this massive metabolic demand. so it makes sense that it's there. It's a stimulus bomb, it requires skill, all that good stuff. But the volume work for the phase is the power snatch. @paige_semenza: Yeah, I think too, last phase we got a question about the clean and jerks and you know, if I'm not good at going down like from overhead to the floor, like should I be practicing that? And it's like, yes, you should be. Like that that @misfitcoach: Yep. Yeah. @paige_semenza: is a skill in itself. again, we do have YouTube videos on this on this for athletics. I I remember you know, Hunter telling everyone, like, shoot your hips back behind you, like it's it's there. but again it is something that you have to give yourself exposure to and it's probably gonna have to start lighter than you want it to if it's not something you've done before. But the more you do it, the better at it you get. @misfitcoach: that is days one, two, and three of the week. We have our rest day, then you have your squat cleans again, and the final day is going to be positional work for the snatch. So phase one, we had power snatch in workout, we had snatch pulls, positional overhead squat, squat snatch. Plus PAP. So all of these opportunities to work on your snatching. Now it is mandatory to work on your snatching. And we are taking you from kind of personalize the accessories, figure out what you need to work on in phase one to we are working very specifically on positional squat snatch. to in phase three, we're gonna peak the the one rep max lift. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: In terms of execution here, the number one thing that I can say is when you reverse the order of the power snatch, people move in a way that they wouldn't if they were coming off the floor. And those are the things I have to correct a lot in a remote coaching setting with newer athletes. What I mean by that is in the positional work, you stand the barbell up to your hip and then you lower down to above knee, below knee, and the floor. And what you can see is. If we I almost always work backwards, I go to the rep at the end where they're going to the floor and I show them what their first pull looks like and where their body positioning is at at the low hang around the knee. And it is completely different from their hang work that they do. so I'm trying to think of podcasts are n are never the place to explain these things from like a visual standpoint. But if you were to think about hinging and getting out over the barbell. which happens in a real snatch, versus keeping your torso upright and just bending at the knee and pushing the barbell along your leg down out away from your knee. You can cheat @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: getting back to power position pretty easy, and you will not get better at snatching from the floor at all, which is the end goal. That's @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: what we're trying to do here. We're not working on hang complexes from the standpoint of like Bouncing it off your leg or burying it in your hip to get a one rep max in a competition. That is a separate skill that would be worked on in comp prep or one on @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: one with somebody specifically. So that's not what we're trying to do. So film yourself and try to mimic the positions that you get in from the floor in your above knee and below knee, and you will get significantly better at snatching. @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: all right, let's talk about non-mandatory lifts. So every single day in the variable training system, you have a choice to add a lift, which should very much be about trying to get better at a specific thing. so we have clean pulls on day one. Why would you choose that? If you're the type of athlete that either just doesn't move well from the floor to the hip and into extension in the clean, then you would do it more for a technique based thing where you're removing the variable of having to actually do the clean. If you are an athlete who really struggles with I know once I get like mid shin whether I can maybe or maybe not clean this thing, you know, you're more of a squatter than a puller. that would be like the very specific reason why we would program this for somebody. just getting your pull stronger, getting used to being Feeling like you can be aggressive knowing that you don't have to clean it, right? You can start to wrap your mind around how you would go @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: in and deal with those things. @paige_semenza: Yeah, I think it's a good a l a good layer too from from last phase with the deadlifts. You're gonna start getting more dynamic with this. @misfitcoach: Right. Yep. next is positional deadlift. this is one of those things where the deadlift is challenging to do from a positional standpoint because we are trying to place enough limiters on it that you guys don't go too heavy. That's like job number one for us. So the rep scheme in week two is seven, six, five, four, three. we are also doing it at a tempo and a deficit. All right. So it's a set of seven. @paige_semenza: So bad. @misfitcoach: It's tempo. It's a three-inch deficit. The writing should be on the wall. Right. This is not a challenge. There are people though who tag us and they have like a trillion pounds on there. And it's like, you're not doing this the way that you need to. Also, why are you even doing this? You clearly @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: can deadlift a house, like it's not necessary. @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: in terms of execution, we there there is a a reason for this. Deficit deadlifts to me, when they're safe, are the best way to teach an athlete how to move the bar from the floor to their knee. That is the entirety of a deadlift if you're doing it properly. From that point, extend the knee, push the hip through with your glutes, you're done. getting it from the floor to your knee in the correct way. So that deficit just makes it so hard if you shoot your ass up. To be able to even budget at all. Whereas @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: if you create tension and you know, the guy that I've been reposting a bunch recently basically is like you're trying to create the longest distance that you can from your hand to the top of your head. You're just trying to like stretch yourself out, get as long as you can. If you get into that position and you push your legs into the plate that you're standing on, the bar's gonna move. And it's probably gonna be an epiphany type moment. I find the deadlift to be one of the only things where you can take someone from zero to hero in a very short period @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: of time because you're fixing what they're doing. you know, they call it the earth press for a reason. It's not a pull, but we have seen so many CrossFitters either do a clean pull with a deadlift, which is really hard, or they pick up the bar with their arms and then stand up. And it's like Congratulations that you can, one eighth curl 400 pounds, but I feel like that might not be efficient. so again, we are adding all of these things to just to make it technique work. That's the whole reason for all of this. And some of them make the technique work better, and then some of them force the technique work like tempo and sets of seven. @paige_semenza: It's funny you say it's like you have an epiphany because as soon as you said like that's exactly what I was thinking in my head when Gabe actually got me to learn what like leg drive meant, it wa @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: mind blowing. It's just such a different feeling when you are lifting a barbell. @misfitcoach: You need six cues. You need a Swiss army knife of deadlift cues as a coach. Because once you @paige_semenza: You do. @misfitcoach: find the one for the athlete in the moment, it's like holy shit. Because when we when we started with Cody Mooney, it was just always very clean pull-esque and his back would fry out and it was an issue. And then he was one of the best deadlifters in the entire sport by the time he, @paige_semenza: Crazy. @misfitcoach: you know, got to that level. Because he was like, these are two different movements, right? My @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: feet are closer together, my arms are way closer together. scooping into power position makes you quarter squat 400 pounds every time you go do it. Maybe don't @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: do that. there's a there's a lot to it. But positional deadlift is for the people out there that struggle with your traditional crossfitty deadlift workouts, 2115 nines. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: being able to move in an efficient way to be able to execute. Next we have heavy strict press. I don't think I really need to tell people why or why they wouldn't need to choose a heavy strict press here. I will let you guys know that it is Where is the okay, yeah. So it is basically the heavy strict press. On Monday you will do strict handstand push-ups and on Friday you will do them in a workout. This is a way to like really bolster that concept. The Russians, the quote, to press you must press. we need to up the volume is one of the rare things in CrossFit where it's like if you want to get better at this, you need to do a bunch of it. So we're giving you the opportunity to go in and do a bunch of it. it's the type of lift where how many reps you can do given a particular percentage is all over the place, athlete to athlete. so it's one of the ones where our final set is always an am wrap. So you're gonna go in and you're gonna do your percentage work. And if it feels light, move it faster. and then in that am wrap setting, that's the way that we're personalizing. I mean, you get people at 85% getting. strong people get in three or four and not so strong people get in seven. and that makes it more challenging to program. but it's a little bit of a nod to the like back in the day five, three, one style lifting where @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: the am wrap really helps us dial in getting athletes to that close to that, you know, zero to one reps and reserve with the pressing, which can be really helpful. @paige_semenza: No aerial low and pressing please on your on your on your AMRAPSA. @misfitcoach: No aerial low impressing. I didn't understand that joke in the I didn't understand that joke in the chat last week. all right. Positional back squat. you guys complained enough. and you were correct, honestly, that the 20 second back squat doesn't exist anymore. You remember the 20 second page? Do you? Five pu yeah. Yep. @paige_semenza: Ugh. Five down, five pause, five up, five weight, five down. so bad. @misfitcoach: Sorry guys. so the 10 second, @paige_semenza: You do like three reps, you're like, all right seven minutes later. @misfitcoach: the 10 second squat is here, and you are trying to nail five seconds down, five seconds up. I recommend a clock or a person there counting for you as you do it. I would say the biggest we just got done doing the overhead squat for 10 seconds, and the athletes that struggle with it the most really struggle to slow down. are around parallel. So they can go slow @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: and then they don't have control because they always bounce all of their squats. and if you are one of those athletes, this is one of the best ways to like go from, okay, we just went heavy, we just worked on that within the back squat. Now we're gonna work on this and prove that we actually have the requisite strength to go in and do it because we are at the end of the day trying to develop requisite strength with the back squats, not really in the sport. specifically. @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: so choose that if you want to move better in your back squat. You want to sort of fix that or if you move well to the naked eye but are relying really heavily on the bounce specifically. Last but not least we have the tempo bottoms up snatch deadlift. Some of them are tempo, some of them are not you are basically Putting your hands on the bar in a snatch grip, going all the way down like ass to grass, rock bottom of your squat, standing up into tension, really driving those knees out, and then doing not a snatch pull, but a snatch deadlift, taking the bar from the floor to your hip while moving like you would in an actual snatch, not like a traditional powerlifting deadlift here. this really teaches people how to use their legs in the first pull. If you're gonna back squat as much as we just asked you to back squat and you're not gonna use your legs in the first pull of Olympic lifting work, then again, it's just not really worth it, right? You should be front squatting @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: at that point. it's not gonna help you as much. So this is this is one that I I really like again for people who struggle with the pull in the snatch. That feeling of, my goodness, this is really heavy. Like I'm not comfortable picking this barbell up off the floor, there's a pretty good chance that there is a technical aspect to that. you're getting into this beautiful position and then one frame later as you start to pull your butts, up by your head, @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: and you're just not using your legs to get the barbell off the floor. @paige_semenza: I kinda like the progression too for people who did the clean deadlift in this last phase of understanding @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: that like that first pull that deadlift fee is it feels heavy and like when it comes @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: to a clean and a snatch like you have to remind yourself that it's okay that it feels heavy. Like it's just, you know, one of those big cues that yeah, that really clicked for me. @misfitcoach: Yep. It is heavy, right? Yep. Yep. All right. So that is all of our strength work. We're gonna move on to bitch work here. Is what we affectionately refer to monostructural conditioning as. And if I don't know if this helps or hurts, but if you're offended by the name, I'm the bitch that this is named after. so @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: Our zone two bias for the phase is going to be the C2 bike. You will see how fast you can go for 40 minutes on the C2 bike. Then you will do aerobic sessions every other week before you retest. I want to talk a just a tiny bit about execution on zone two work. I guess we could talk about the test a little bit as well. the test is not zone anything other than zone four or five. Like it should be pretty bad. @paige_semenza: Hm. @misfitcoach: You should be going pretty hard the whole time. I think people get a little confused because they know it leads @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: into the zone two progression. you are going as hard as you possibly can for 40 minutes. Now, obviously, that's a weird thing to say, right? 'Cause it's not s super hard, but it eventually gets very hard to do that. I recommend breaking it up into four ten minute sections in your mind at the very least. You know, five, eight minute sections if you need it. But I am going to hold 200 watts for the first 10 minutes. And then at nine and a half minutes, I'm gonna be like, okay, what do I think? Thirty more minutes of this? Can I hold it? Do I need to slow down a little bit? Can I speed up a little bit? and break it up that way as you move your way into it. A lot of people did this during phase zero. So you guys will have a number that you can kind of base this on. I'm a pretty big fan in aerobic stuff of starting zero to five watts higher than the previous test and then building your way up as you go. makes it a little @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: bit, I don't want to say easier to PR, but that's the way your energy systems would want that to work. When we get into zone two on the bike, it just matters that we put out there that the warm up is really important. you take the time to to spend 12 to 15 minutes building up to that heart rate before you do the actual session. And then it's okay if you can't get to your heart rate. You are very much training your body at a, you know, it's just a higher wattage, which is which is totally fine. If it's hard, it's not zone two. Okay. If you @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: went in and did the actual, like measured how much lactate was, you know, blood lactate was in your muscles, it would probably be higher. zone two is relative to that more than it is heart rate specifically. So normally other machines, it doesn't matter. It's pretty easy to get into those ranges that we're gonna give you guys. The z the the C two bike isn't always that. If you if your legs are just killing you during that session, you're going too hard. And if you feel like it's taking away from your training the following day, you're probably going too hard as well. the top athletes in endurance sports that just have the capacity are closer to low end zone two or zone one. oftentimes in their, you know, sort of slower, long, slow work. So just just keep that part in mind as you go to execute. @paige_semenza: I think @misfitcoach: Aerobic @paige_semenza: pay attention to your damper too. Like, you know, if you are feeling like you went too hard, I can almost assume your damper is like maybe a w a little too high. Like we want that fast RPM when it comes to this to really kinda move those legs. Yeah. @misfitcoach: Yeah, we want eighty five to ninety five RPMs on that. The only the only instance where we wouldn't want that is if you sometimes on the bike, if you're new to it and it's a little bit older, you can put it on the one damper and you can't get to eighty five RPMs in your zone two. That's okay. So you would more be @paige_semenza: Yeah. Yeah. @misfitcoach: working towards that over the course of the phase as you go. the aerobic row bias and the aerobic bias is row. And this is you'll see here with the aerobic and anaerobic bias where how we are starting to get more sports specific. So you get to do the row kilowatt test. @paige_semenza: Yum. @misfitcoach: and then you have once again the sort of alternating weeks of aerobic stuff. I lied by the way on the zone two. The zone two is every week. There's no alternating anything, it is just straight through there. the aerobic sessions are the ones where it alternates. You'll do, you know, your third gear, your second gear, your first gear, all that good stuff before you go in and retest there. Our transition from zone two work to aerobic work to anaerobic work over the course of the season, that working on a rower specifically needs to have a form element, an efficiency element, a technique element attached to it. Most people get to the catch and their shoulders fly open and they lean back. That is the last thing that you do. Okay. We need leverage over the handle. We need that nice 90 degree angle or even more all the way through your leg drive. Then you lean back and go with the arms. So we need form to be there and we hope that because you go from slow to a little bit faster to fast. that that progression takes you in that direction. But there's a pretty good chance that you're either in Telegram or at an affiliate when you're doing this stuff, get somebody that understands what rowing technique looks like and then understand that it might be one of the like take a step back to take two steps forward type situations. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: I think a lot of people get really frustrated week one working on something and it's cause you've done a million strokes on a rower and now we're asking you to do it a different way. @paige_semenza: I remember I used to I would have to do like five minutes of just driving with my legs. I wasn't allowed to like open and pull and @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: then Gabe would make me like I wasn't allowed to strap my feet in so that I would learn to like fully drive through my legs and then like @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: have to learn to recover and so yeah, there's a lot that goes into I mean, you guys spend so much time on a rower, you should want to move well on it. @misfitcoach: Yeah. Just watch the people that annoy the shit out of you in class. It's like they're not even trying. I'm trying so much harder. Why do I want more @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: effort points? I want an RPE next to my name, right? I want a score @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: here. And it's like, yeah, it's like you gotta move well. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: all right. This is where it gets a real in your face with sports specific. So we go from aerobic row to anaerobic CrossFit. which is twenty five to fifty percent rowing, depending on the day. So @paige_semenza: Ha ha. @misfitcoach: we do a test called Cube staked, which is our cube test, four minutes on, four minutes off, but there is a rotation of movements. You st you basically rotate through, twenty cal row, sixteen bar facing burpees, twenty four wall balls, seventy two double unders, and each round they change positions and one of them becomes a max rep sort of thing. If you're doing really well in this, you're essentially spending about a minute with including transitions at each station. so the note that I have here is a question that someone asked me back in the day, who hurt you? And I said, people who can't pace hurt me. I'm a coach, @paige_semenza: Ha ha. @misfitcoach: I want people to learn how to pace, and they won't do it, and I will force it, right? I will create limiters that force pacing. or you're just being an absolute nut job, right? You do cube staked enough times, you keep sprinting the twenty cal row. I I can't help you at that point. Just keep doing your thing. @paige_semenza: Ha ha. @misfitcoach: I appreciate your business. Congratulations. But like @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: at that point I don't know what to do. So you've got cube staked, you've got spiders on Mars, you've got workouts like Clio, you've got the forty minute tests. It's those are all coming from like not me being sitting in this chair being sadistic about the way that I program. It's forcing people to understand how their energy systems work, what their body, is down to do. and then having you test that and trying to make the workouts feel like there's like relative context. And then I'm coming back and like, okay, I now I really understand what my, you know, burpee pace is in this moment and whether wall balls should be unbroken or should be sets of five or should be sets of ten. All these different elements that come into it. but if you wanna know who hurt me, it is people who can't pace and won't listen to advice. non mandatory. So there are two days per @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: week on the monostructural conditioning that are non-mandatory. First one is going to be your power output bias. This phase we are testing the ski erg. Ski erg is a really good tool for power output work. It's just a bit @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: of a kind of a let it rip sort of situation. Really good stimulus there. So the test is 50/slash 40 calorie ski. Then you would do three weeks of other machines and three weeks of skiing and you come back and you retest that. There's two reasons why you would do it. One, I can never keep up in a short workout with skiing when I need to sort of work on the efficiency and get calories done a little bit faster. Or some people just need power output work. They need to be able to work on their strength. And work on their energy systems and come back and see if they're moving the needle on being powerful in a given moment. anytime we raise that ceiling, when you are doing, you know, 50% of that capacity, it is easier for your body to handle. So we want to raise that ceiling on how hard you can go on any given modality as well. So that'd be the reason why you would choose that. We also have what we call gear progression workouts. And for those of you that are misfits and understand what the gears are, we're basically just chopping them up a little bit. We find that especially with the aerobic gears, for athletes that are challenged by that, and then the anaerobic gears with athletes who are a bit more aerobic, kind of vice versa, that when we shorten the windows and the rest periods and you get to repeat them a bit more often, the adaptation. on s just sort of like how to execute and the mental game of it becomes a little bit easier. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: It's just a bridge from like I have no clue how to pace to here's how you execute on the gear sessions. So an example would be third gear is six minutes times four and the third gear progression in phase one, week one or phase two, week one is four minutes times six. So it's just flipped. and again, we are getting, we don't want you to go faster because the window is shorter. It's the same work to rest ratio. We are trying to get you used to pacing, running, rowing, biking, all of that in potentially a longer duration where you can figure out, you sort of get more opportunities to test where you should land within this. @paige_semenza: Yeah. I like to I I th we had the question asked too in Telegram, but like I think the the way I kinda think of the non-mandatory ones is to get that exposure at like the pace you're kind of familiar with that maybe you've done so that when you do go back and do the third gear piece in its entirety where it's what is it, AMRAP six by four instead. @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: that's where you kinda want to retest of like All right, I I know I c I held my pace for round one. Can I start to you know, increase my pace by one to two seconds per split in in the following AMRAPs of that? So like when you come back to the the actual third gear piece, not the non mandatory one, that's where you get to kinda see if that exposure and the non mandatory helped you with the improvement in going faster in the actual mandatory piece, if that @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: makes sense. @misfitcoach: It does. And for those of you we've over and under explained this in the past, trying to find the sweet spot of explaining the gears, you for your first phase, consider them benchmarks. It is the name of a workout. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: It's no different than naming a workout Fran, Helen, Grace, whatever. Third gear run is a specific workout. You mark your paces, you take good notes, just like we would ask you to do in any other workout. And then the next time you do it, you base it on that. Once you're familiar with all of those things, you start to realize they're different speeds. And there's typically, depending on how much you like a machine and how aerobic you are, it's typically like one to three seconds per gear on your 500 meter to one K split. So an example would be If your first gear row is a 205, then your second gear row is probably 204, 203, 202, something like that. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: mile paces are roughly 15 seconds per gear. so if your first gear run is seven minutes per mile, then you would try to go 645 per mile on your second gear. and you start to to work into it based on that. But the first time you do it. It's ignore that, right? Like i any in any @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: other program, it would just say aerobic run, amrat fifteen minutes times two, rest one minute. And you would do your best with your athlete IQ, with the information that you have and the data that you have to decide how you're gonna do it. What we're trying to do is say, okay, take really good notes, and then not only can you transfer this to the next time you redo it, you can transfer it to other workouts. You can just have a rough idea of what your starting point is. so It should be pretty obvious why you would choose those workouts. It's either I struggle with this energy system or this machine or pacing in general. Those would be like the three @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: reasons why you would add this work in. But you can start to see where, okay, this is not like ultra sports specific, especially if you're an online competitor and it's echo bike, run, ski. Things of that nature. So those are the things to keep in mind as you're deciding do I choose this? Do I not choose this? Last but not least, we have our sports specific. for marketing purposes, maybe this should be first in the episode. I'm not really sure. It should definitely at least be second. but Metcon and Skill is going to be a bar muscle up bias. So you're gonna do bar muscle ups in Marty McGlide. is the name of your your test workout. you're @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: gonna do bar muscle ups there, and then every single week for the whole phase, you're gonna do bar muscle up skill work, and you are going to do bar muscle ups in a workout. The workouts will be short and medium and long, they will be amraps, they be for time, they will be low rep, they will be high rep, all the things in between. we have found and and it could be placebo thing due to programming being fun versus boring. We have found that we write those and then we jumble them all up. Not the skill progression, but the workouts. We want you @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: exposed to a lot of different things. and I think the athlete IQ, the extra mental work you have to do is really helpful because if it just goes from three reps in a workout in week two to four to five to six and we're working our way down through that The athlete IQ portion of it might just kinda float away once you're done. Whereas with these ones, you really gotta think week to week, right? They're @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: all of the different workouts are referring to the workouts that are coming, the workouts that have already happened, your test retest, all of that. @paige_semenza: Yeah, I think too, if you are someone that's really, really good at bar muscle ups, really be mindful of the stimulus we're trying to achieve. So if it's a muscle overload, like really pay attention to like in at what point should you be trying to overreach that you can kind of get that stimulus so that you are figuring out your threshold with the bar muscle ups. and obviously that could be said to everybody. but I just feel like for people who are in the sport now too, at the high level, so many people are so good at bar muscle ups that like you wanna just really kinda figure out where your threshold in is in every kind of stimulus that we hit. and I think that with the balance that we have in this phase, you are gonna figure that out. Like you're gonna really be able if you take good notes. @misfitcoach: For sure. The interval and skill sports specific bias is going to be strict handstand push-ups. I think some people might hear that and get a little nervous. Yours is gonna be kipping handstand push-ups. That's totally fine. and it's more appropriate than you would think. Even someone who's on the fence should probably do most of this as kipping handstand push ups. You're upside down, you're pressing, you're learning how to move your body through space upside down. There's all of the accessory work. There is all like we're not, you can't just decide that it is the right time for you to do a strict handstand push-up bias. It needs to be appropriate for you to do. The other cool thing is because we are in phase two and not in phase one, it is movement family chipper season in that. I think you guys need to be doing handstand walking, kipping handstand push-ups, strict handstand push-ups, wall facing handstand push-ups. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: So there is a mix over the course of the phase. Ultimately, we are leading you to that moment in the opener quarter finals where you have gotten your butt kicked the whole workout and they want you to kick upside down and, you know, go get that set of strict handstand push-ups. And it's that moment where you just waxed somebody for the whole workout and they're one of those jerks that does the old neck trampoline. And just, a couple elbow bends and they pass you. so we are preparing you for that moment, but there's a really good mix here. I definitely recommend wall walks in place of handstand walks. for those of you that like again, you can't decide it's appropriate. It needs to be actually appropriate. If you're gonna kick upside down and spend most of your workout just teetering in space, that's not like necessarily effective for in Metcon work. We're gonna keep all of that stuff for intervals and you know, things things sort of just that are a little bit more appropriate there. so yeah, I mean it's it's a doozy. The there's an inside joke with the name of the workout. the word name of the workout is Alf and it stands for arms like fish. obviously the joke there is, you know, sometimes you feel like got fish arms. No arms when you go. but there's an inside joke there that once the album cover for this workout is shown, you will see where this came from. I won't I won't tell you guys what it is yet. So keep your eyes on social media for the alf. @paige_semenza: So like the the masses will know, they'll understand. @misfitcoach: They will under yeah. any @paige_semenza: All right. @misfitcoach: you'll understand as much as any of the other wacky shit that I cook up. but you you'll @paige_semenza: Okay. @misfitcoach: have con you'll have some context of what's going @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: on here. All right. Last but not least, sports specific work. We have three non-mandatory cross fitty pieces per week, two intervals and one Metcon. Why would you choose it? it should be obvious you're on that day specifically and you're looking at the lift and the accessory and the reps column, and you're like, you know what? I've actually gotten pretty good now at lifting and you know, rowing on its own, and you know, these skill movements. I gotta put them together. I gotta be able to develop my athlete IQ. Could be the movements, it could be the specific workout on that day. So that's when templating could change a little bit week to week. You see that workout and you're like, Yeah, I do need a really gassy workout where I gotta go climb the rope three times in a row every round. I can know that's always been an issue for me. I gotta start to, figure out how to do that. So this is where you would not choose all of the stuff that we've been spending the whole episode talking about, and you would choose CrossFit specifically. So in a remote coaching setting, I am really just paying attention to scores, body language. self talk relative to executing in workouts with an athlete and depending on their goals if they're very open oriented, I'm probably gonna push them into that Metcon starting now instead of starting in phase three. Like we gotta get more @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: practice in this setting, because athlete IQ just isn't at the place that we need it to be if you want to compete. That's a little bit more of the like affiliate class, let it rip type mentality. @paige_semenza: There is a doozy of a non mandatory MECCon in here for you guys. @misfitcoach: which one? @paige_semenza: I won't tell you when, but I think when you see it you will know. And just throwing it out there. @misfitcoach: Is it bad that I'm just saying doozy doozy doozy doozy as I'm scrolling down through? I'm like, damn, that looks good. Do I know what it is? I'm trying. @paige_semenza: But this one is a doozy. I think you guys will know. Yeah, you know what it is. We did talk about it. @misfitcoach: This is good podcasting right here. yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. Yep. I just had to get to it. I just had @paige_semenza: It's it's it's the long boy. You'll know guys. @misfitcoach: to I had to re-remember. There's a doozy in there. okay. Accessory work. Last but not least, final category. first question on a lot of days is do I do reps or accessory? A lot of people are adding one thing. They don't have the bandwidth time-wise, energy-wise, resources-wise. To do another conditioning piece and you're deciding between am I gonna go in and do, you know, a fairly long, dedicated accessory session, or am I gonna do six rounds for quality, one smooth set of wall walks, ten shuttle runs? I'm really gonna think about my footwork in the shuttle runs and I'm gonna think about the way that I'm moving my hands and you know, is it four out and three back every single time on my wall walk? Am I getting my hips up over my head so I'm not doing the like press. my body somehow magically back, you know, in or once again, am I doing the accessory work? So that to me is kind of the beginning question of how you're building your template. I'm this right now we're at an hour and 20 minutes. We would be at two hours and 40 minutes if I explained every accessory movement. I'm gonna read them to you. Just it's just a little preview. It's a little tease. of what we got going on for accessory movements. We have front rack walking lunges, dumbbell farmers carry, forward-facing sled drag, leaning lateral raises, hanging leg raises, dumbbell lying, tricep extensions, strict pull-ups, goblet cyclist squats, Louis push-ups, Zotman curls, back extensions, endless rope pulls, neutral grip, dumbbell, chest supported rows, say that. 12 times fast, goblet @paige_semenza: Ha ha. @misfitcoach: lateral lunges, and banded face pulls with external rotation. Those are all of your accessories for phase two. During test week, what we do is we tell you all of those things. We tell you what they are, and we explain the session in a way where it's like, I want you to practice this week. Cause we kind of when we start in week two. means we're starting in week three because we have no clue where to start, how many reps to do, how slow should the tempo be to make it challenging, my strict pull-ups, should those be chin over bar, chest to bar, banded, whatever. So we go in in week one, while we're testing everything else, while the volume is low and the intensity is high, we decide whether we think we're gonna need it. And then we practice those things. We figure out the weight we're gonna use in our walking lunges. we figure out like what our, logistics are, if it's sled work, all that good stuff. So use week one to practice the accessories that you think that you're gonna be doing in phase two. @paige_semenza: Yeah. I mean the the only other thing I'd add on to that is we're we'll have videos for you guys, a little movement library again. and really pay attention to like full range of motion when you're working through these things. It's kind of the huge part of it. Yeah. So @misfitcoach: And tempo. Your east the eccentric portion of all of these things should be tempo relative to your abilities. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: that part matters, right? If you take twelve hours to come down from your strict pull up and then you can't do a second one, you're overdoing it. But we haven't really had that issue quite yet. We've had more of the like, I'm a CrossFitter watching me bounce my way through these movements. And that's @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: just not it's what you do in CrossFit, don't get me wrong, in the sport especially, but it's not what we're looking for. With the accessory stuff. @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: so choosing your progressions also matters. So we want to have a little bit of runway here. When you're choosing your weights, you really want to think about I'm gonna be doing this for four to five weeks every single week. And I wanna be able to add a rep or a pound or 15 seconds to the max duration hold or sled push, whatever it is. So give yourself runway there. And you can the cool thing about accessory work is you can say, okay, I bet on my best day I could say do these curls with 35s. You can do week one with 25s and you can make them really hard with your negative. @paige_semenza: Yeah, right. @misfitcoach: Right? You can still do that. So that's that's the way that I really try to challenge myself early on with accessory work. So I go in and I'm like, okay, set one was like easy, but I can see the writing on the wall of once the volume. starts to add up set to set, I'm just gonna make sure that I am forcing myself to make each set challenging by having the eccentric portion of the movement be a little bit slower. and again, just choose which ones you choose should have to do with your goals, your strengths, your weaknesses, and how close are we to your Super Bowl. The further away we are, the more appropriate accessory work is. semifinals, games athlete, do five days a week if it works for your schedule and your actual training. If the open is like the peak of the mountain for you, then we're probably talking about I'm only doing this if I feel like I really need to, it's gonna help me a lot. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: all right, how to choose your volume and rest periods. So the essentially you're being asked before your max rep sets to either do two or three sets to open. And you're being asked to rest 30 to 60 seconds. If you are trying to get stronger, specifically, do two sets and rest a full minute. If you are strong and have no slow twitch fibers and are trying to build Strength endurance, do three sets and rest 30 seconds. your max rep set is essentially how we figure out whether we're gonna progress in the following week. It says rest 30 to 60 seconds. I think you would have to be really strong and want to really push the muscle endurance side of things on your max set, not to rest the full 60 seconds when you're going in there. It's really rare. You gotta be like a true meat head for me in remote coaching to put rest 30 seconds in there. Cause it's like you're already strong. I need you to slow down and move really well. And that's the point there. So @paige_semenza: Yeah. Yep. @misfitcoach: less sets, more rest if you're trying to get stronger, more sets, less rest if you're trying to work strength endurance. Woo! We gotta I gotta get Colin back in here so I can take a break. Colin Boesch: hey. @misfitcoach: Colin. Holy @paige_semenza: hey. @misfitcoach: holy smokes. I see you're a little bit more in the middle. I always have to edit Colin because he he hangs he hangs out to the side a little bit. So @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: there you go. Colin Boesch: It's it's very specific for a different reason, but yeah. Tried to be more in the middle today. Hi, that was fun. Fifteen. @misfitcoach: What you got for us? It was, but I'm tired. Colin Boesch: So these fifteen questions are gonna be @paige_semenza: Yeah. Colin Boesch: all directed at only Drew, I'm sure. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: I'm ready. Colin Boesch: this is the bridge phase where we feel either not strong enough or not fit enough, but we know the open bias is fitness. Right. @misfitcoach: Yeah. Colin Boesch: So why are we not just starting open prep earlier for everyone? @misfitcoach: we are relative to who they are and what they choose. I would be my answer. You know? have to know yourself Colin Boesch: Yeah. @misfitcoach: pretty well. And the cool thing is there are yeah, there are still three days a week of mandatory bitchwork. Two of those are sports specific. One of them is ultra sports specific. So I think that would be my answer there. And honestly, the only non sports specific lift, which is actually kind of a stretch. is the bench press. That's the only one that's mandatory that's left in there that is not sports specific. and you could argue that it is, because you do a shitload of burpees, gotta be able to press off the floor, and they do put bench press in every seventh year. Colin Boesch: I've been knocked off the podium in two separate competitions due to the last workout having dumbbell bench press. So bench press. @misfitcoach: Mm. Colin Boesch: did we program this phase to try and specifically test what we know that we would need to improve for the season? So, like kind of building on that whole like the open prep slash semifinals season and kind of like what I was just getting into a little bit there with myself. Like, did we program this phase like specifically to improve what we're gonna do or what we're gonna see in season and slash or quarterfinals. @misfitcoach: Yeah, that progression, there's two questions that I ask myself in developing the progression and they're kind of opposites one another. So last phase we did the ring muscle up and the tota bar first, and we chose those for opposite reasons. The ring muscle up is a high level skill that Is not really a huge part of the season for a lot of people that are trying to get better in the open specifically. So it's further away. We're still gonna work on it. It still matters. but it matters probably a little bit more for higher level athletes going into like quarterfinals prep. So we do that. Then we do the tota bar because it is probably the exact opposite. It is programmed the most and is the most accessible people. have a larger capacity within that movement. So when we get to phase three and it's chestabar and wall walks, it's like, okay, these are things that almost everybody can work on. they are tested very frequently and they really kind of make a difference there. So those are the questions that I'm asking when choosing those things. It also just matters which I can't I'm not going to put like wall walk, strict handstand push up or something like that. They're not going to be, you know, They need to be the complimentary type thing. So @paige_semenza: Yeah. Colin Boesch: Yeah. So we would consider like ring muscle ups and toes to bar like complementary in that way because they're both hanging gymnastics though, or like 'cause in this phase we've got bar muscle ups and strict handstand push-ups. So how do we 'cause one one would be pressing and one is pulling, right? @misfitcoach: Yeah, no, I meant you don't want them to interfere with one another too much. That would be Colin Boesch: gotcha. @misfitcoach: the goal. Yeah. So there is hanging, but obviously the total bar, not a lot of pulling there, not a lot of pressing there, with the total bar. So they need to be able to coexist with one another. Colin Boesch: Gotcha. That makes sense. @paige_semenza: I think with that one too, the accessibility is where it's more polarizing. Like, @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. yeah. @paige_semenza: so like not that they're not both pulling movements, but like he said, you know, a lot a lot more people are are able to do the toaster bar and again we see it come up so often in in high volume and I you know, not so much with the ring muscle up. Colin Boesch: Yeah. It's so funny that we're talking like that because we saw we didn't see any Toaster this past year, right? It was the first year in ever, I think, that we didn't see. So that means @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. Colin Boesch: there'll be three workouts this year that'll have Toastabar in them. @paige_semenza: Yeah. Colin Boesch: What do you so this t take a take a step back now? We've got I feel like we've talked a bit about like when we're just meeting, about the new misfits that are joining the the program every day. What do you think the biggest difference between long term misfits is and new to the program misfits? And where do those differences arise, especially when we talk to on Telegram? @misfitcoach: It's usually athlete IQ to me, but that's such a broad if anyone's listened to our athlete IQ episodes but never followed our programming, it's not just your strategy within a workout. It's deciding on which pieces to choose. It's deciding on volume, it's recovery, it's you know, the maturity meter of stacking behaviors on a daily basis. I think Other programs don't have the opportunity with just the way that they communicate with their people to build that into their ecosystem. You could follow our programming and listen to nothing that we say, but we try really hard to make sure that you know that we're gonna blab for a couple hours a week on a podcast and that you can always talk to us and that we've, you know, indoctrinated so many people into our cult that you could probably ask them as well, and they @paige_semenza: Ha ha. @misfitcoach: would help you. So I think that's what's different is understanding like like I I don't remember what it's called, but there's the Japanese thing where they take the broken cups and they dump the gold, you know, in to put it back together. Like a lot of Colin Boesch: yeah. @misfitcoach: the stuff that we're doing is trying to fill those cracks that really hold everything together and make a massive difference that isn't just words on a page like, okay, go do this specifically on this day. @paige_semenza: I think part of it too, I think maybe some new people like you know, obviously our our OGs talk a lot in Telegram and but I think a lot of new people maybe are afraid to. So I think part of it is like there's no stupid question, like you probably are confused on something that somebody has been confused on before. So it's like just throw it out there 'cause like someone's gonna answer you and they're not gonna be a dick about it, like We want to see you excel and we want to support you and help you understand why you're doing what you're doing. So for anybody that is new, that is watching, like don't be afraid to reach out, whether it's in Telegram or on Instagram. Like we're we're here to help. So, you know, no question is stupid, maybe. Colin Boesch: Talk to us. Throw it in there. One way or another. @paige_semenza: Just kidding. I'm just kidding. @misfitcoach: What is this? Is there's no stupid questions, only stupid people? I don't think I don't think that makes anybody feel better. @paige_semenza: Yeah. Colin Boesch: I had my number four piece, so maybe this isn't really a question, but it's kind of a funny question in that if Drew is the chief meathead, does that make Paige the president meathead? Like if we're talking executives here. He goes like CEO, president, like VP. @paige_semenza: Mine's gotta be something with fitness. @misfitcoach: That's a good question. I should I really should I really should do do an org chart that's only related to that. That would be good. Yep. @paige_semenza: That would be fun. Colin Boesch: Only like meathead related. Meathead intern. Why are we doing heavy squat cleans without any positional now as opposed to not or as opposed to heavy snatches without any positional? So like what was the deciding factor or the wherewithal behind like why squat cleans not positional now and why snatch positional? @misfitcoach: So positional precedes the peaking phase is is the goal. So we do f to go even further back, we do back squat volume into Texas method into the peaking phase for the back squat. That's how we transition into the squat phase that we just did that people are finishing up now. The Clean positional work is meant to transition you from okay, you're doing your back squats and maybe you're doing these other clean accessories. I want you to also really work on the way that you move. And then next phase, we're gonna go back to the floor. Now we're essentially the snatch is a season-long progression of like you gotta work on these things. Maybe it was the positional overhead squat, maybe it was the snatch deadlifts. Two, you need to work on the actual s actual snatch technique. into peaking the snatch because it's more complex in the majority of people. I think out of my like 12 to 15 remote clients, I only have two people who are very clearly way better at snatching than cleaning and their order is reversed. most people need more work on their Colin Boesch: Interesting. @misfitcoach: snatch than they do their clean. I think probably just because of the range of motion, complexity, mobility, etc. Colin Boesch: I I guess my my more so question there was like you said, like we're doing this with back squat and that's is that specific that it's far away from the season? And then as we get like closer to @misfitcoach: Correct. Colin Boesch: the season it snatches, right? @paige_semenza: Yeah. Colin Boesch: And is that just like a general thing or is it because of competition or I guess like go into detail about @misfitcoach: Because of competition, it is least to most complex of the movements that we are gonna peak. Yeah. Colin Boesch: And it's also because we see snatch as like one of the highest used movements in all of CrossFit, right? @misfitcoach: Yep, for sure. Colin Boesch: This w we'll get we'll get a little bit more meat heady here. You brought up banded bench press for like a split second. @misfitcoach: Yeah. Colin Boesch: Do you not program that in like the template programs for from like an equipment standpoint? Because you don't think people have the proper stuff, or is it just better to see force @misfitcoach: Not just equipment. The prescription. Colin Boesch: speed? @misfitcoach: Yeah. The prescription itself is you go into the the West Side Barbell textbooks and it's like band tension at peak is twenty six point two percent of the velocity @paige_semenza: Hm. @misfitcoach: of the it's very much one of those things where it's I would want an in person touch point with an athlete, even if they were a remote client. Because you can just ruin the session so quickly by putting a band, or a level of chains on there that is not appropriate for you as an athlete. You can slow things down. You're basically just like as you build momentum, finishing a bench press at fifty five percent, those last few inches is not very challenging, right? It's just you go through the motions and doing it, which is why we're asking for you to find that like clicking sound. When you add the band, you force them to just right at the end. they learn after that first rep. I really gotta try and do that. So I I would encourage people to play around with it for sure, but it is ultra specific to the athlete, to the bands that they have, to whether they have a setup where the band is creating a triangle or whether it's just in a single pin Colin Boesch: It's just @misfitcoach: that is straight up and down, then how high do you need to go up? Some athletes have to raise their bench. It's a it's a mess. And I see really piss poor execution because athletes are just like, I th I thought I was supposed to use bands. I might have a bias because I am a like a speed athlete. I just I have never found it come to be necessary to have that implement to tell me I need to move faster. Colin Boesch: It can also be a repeatability thing, right? If one week you're @misfitcoach: yeah. Colin Boesch: using a red band @paige_semenza: Yeah, for sure. Colin Boesch: and then you're like that's too easy, the next week I'm gonna use a blue band and that's too hard and stuff @misfitcoach: Yeah. Colin Boesch: like that too. @misfitcoach: Yeah, it's a great tool, but it has to be really fine tuned. Colin Boesch: Yeah. It's one of the I f you've we've talked about in the past, I feel like it's one of those point one percent things, right? Like everything else before that. @misfitcoach: yeah. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yep. Colin Boesch: would you say that all of because we kind of talked a little bit about the snatch and like gaming the snatch, these next two questions are like a little bit about like competition bias within your mandatory lifts. So would you call all of the mandatory lifts competitive competitively biased accessory almost, right? because we don't often see like a one rip max bench press in a competition, right? Unless you're doing WFP, apparently. But obviously like it's still extremely necessary for competitive stuff. So like were all of these movements selected based on in person competition or online competition or competition in general, or is it just because people need to get better at that? @misfitcoach: Oof. How much time do we have? They're they're supplemental Colin Boesch: Yeah. @misfitcoach: to CrossFit. I think that Colin Boesch: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: part of it matters. That's why we have the categories that we do. If we were just @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: in GPP land, you would probably see more just kind of straight up. We're either going real heavy or doing a bunch of reps. Those are kind of Colin Boesch: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: like the things that we would do here. We need them to be supplemental. But there's also just the idea of getting stronger and when we're doing that at a muscular level versus a neurological level. So that part of it definitely matters there. And then as we get closer and closer to the season, replicating or overreaching moments where strength matters in the sport in a specific sense, not in like a I wanna be stronger so that lighter weights are a little bit easier, but like we start to do the in wad lifting where you have to go in and do, squat snatches at 205 in a workout and you gotta be able to repeat them. So there'd Colin Boesch: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: be a bunch of reasons why we choose them. And then last but not least is the Telegram group, Fitter, Strivey, those leaderboards are a proving ground for the way that we program and iterate on our programming. If it doesn't work, if it doesn't affect change, if we don't see it. at the remote coaching level, it just doesn't have a place in our program, no matter how excited we were about the progression or what we thought was gonna happen, it needs to do something, needs to make a difference. Colin Boesch: This next one might be more of a remote coaching plug as well. But is there any benefit or do you think that there's any benefit to gaming your strength work? Well, you talked about the snatches where we might take an extra second over our head or something like that @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. Colin Boesch: and do a double because in the competition or something that we're doing, somebody next to us is put the bar down after one rep and we're gonna, you know, pull a Colton Mertens and double two sixty five to finish the To finish the workout, right? Like is is there anything that should be going on in the athlete's head related to that, or is that just what a remote coach should be worrying about? Or not at all? @misfitcoach: I don't know that I fully understand the question. You have any thoughts, Paige? @paige_semenza: are you talking okay, you get into your eight six four two, you're at your heavy double, and it's like, as a coach, I'm gonna tell my athlete like I want you to try and overreach at this weight, even if it causes you to pause at the top. That's something you're thinking. Colin Boesch: A little bit I'm more so talking about the the test that we're gonna do in phase two here with the snatch volume and slash or the clean and jerk volume that we did. because if I'm looking that at that from an athlete, I'm gonna single from the start, but would there be benefit to touch and going? And would that be competitively base at all @paige_semenza: Yeah. Colin Boesch: or not, is what I'm saying. @misfitcoach: No, I can't think of a situation like it would have to be really light. There are situations where you you have a an opening weight in some of those ladders that's a meant to be nuisance and have you arrive at the actual first weight, just slightly annoyed, you know, heart rate up, grip going a little bit, but normally that's not that's not really part of it. So no, I don't think so. You're definitely gaming a test. I mean, that's the definition. Of how we're executing on a test specifically. So I would actually think about that as the opposite. would you try to bring training elements into a test like that? And the answer would be no. But I think barbell cycling is less prevalent and important than it used to be in the sport as we've gotten to heavier and heavier weights and much better coaches and athlete IQs. You just don't do it as often. But What happens when we overreach like that as a community is when you have to go do the thing, the athlete that's still practicing it is going to be way better than you at it. So, you know, there's three weeks of touch and go power snatches here, and you can overreach and you can get better at the skill and you can get stronger and you can get a stimulus, and then everything else is singles. Colin Boesch: When a semifinal inevitably inevitably programs snatching Gwen this year, we will be prepared. That'd be really bad. @misfitcoach: Yes, we will. that'd be bad. That'd be fun to watch. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: See people have to switch from power to squat and then be like, ooh, ooh when they catch it, can they do it? I don't know. Colin Boesch: should absolutely nobody did that at Mec at mayhem and it blew my mind. Like, just try and squat it. Don't catch it. in your in a genie position like Megala did, just squat the to squat it. Anyway. should anyone be doing all three non-mandatory pulling from the floor? Clean pulls, deadlifts, snatch deadlifts. @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. You could. They are it wouldn't be Colin Boesch: I mean you could. @paige_semenza: I actually I had an athlete doing that last phase. But we we were also limited. Colin Boesch: And like I feel like that's a lot of pulling. Is there any specific I'm bad at taking this from the floor and in any case that somebody should be doing all three of them all the time? @misfitcoach: I think it would be one out of ten or twenty or thirty athletes that would need to do that. You really struggle with the pulling and you're not gonna rely on accessory at all to to do that. Cause if you start to really stack stuff, that's one of the reasons why templating before you actually start training matters, is you might just look down and be like, I'm overdoing it on these things. They're much meant to be you go to the store and there's a bunch up on the shelf. You're not you're not gonna grab all five of them. You're gonna be like, yeah, that looks good. I need to work on that specifically. So it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but in this phase also you are cleaning twice a week. so and you're doing power snatch volume work. Like so Colin Boesch: You're pulling from the floor a lot. @misfitcoach: I might Change my answer to I think more things would need to change in the remote coaching setting, which happens @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: a lot for that to happen. If you did all the mandatory and those three, you might want to invest in, I don't know, like a heating pad for your back or not do that. @paige_semenza: Ha ha Colin Boesch: My next question was dang it, Paige. Because I had a whole bunch of questions about like zone two stuff and damper stuff. So can we go into more detail about like why we want, especially for this zone two C2, to be at a low damper and like the eighty five to ninety-five RPM? And maybe this is a question that's very specific to myself. Because I've literally never hit that RPM for more than two minutes at a time. so why @paige_semenza: Bro. Colin Boesch: why do why do we want the damper so low and why do we want the RPM so high in zone two work specifically? @misfitcoach: we are in the essentially the most efficient place on a bike, RPMs wise, like flat ground. You're kind of thinking about it from not going uphill, not going downhill, in the 85 to 95 RPM range. That is something that you need to train. be able to get better at. relying on a lower damper or a higher damper, lower RPM is honestly masking either your aerobic system or on another machine your efficiency on it. So it's it's not really any different there. It's you're you're making it harder for essentially no reason. So we want to develop being able to go in and flush waste and use those slow twitch fibers specifically. It matters a lot on the C2 bike because people don't know, a lot of athletes don't know that biking at XRPMs on this damper is different on every bike. The first thing that you should do in any bike piece is decide where you think you're going to be at RPM wise and pace wise and slide the damper around until you find that. So you're like, I know that I need to hold 150 watts on my C2 bike today. I'm gonna move the damper around until 85 RPMs gives me 150. It's gonna be different on Colin Boesch: Interesting. @misfitcoach: every single bike. Sometimes it's two dampers off. Like it's crazy how much different it is on a bike. The old bike at the old gym, I was on a one damper, and then the one downstairs I was on like a three. So it really matters Colin Boesch: Hey. @misfitcoach: and and changes quite a bit. So that's an efficiency thing relative to, you know, it's like the opposite on a rower. Rowers are typically at a lower strokes per minute. you know, once they get good at it, that sort of deal. So it's it's a a bit of a Goldilocks zone for training specifically. Colin Boesch: I've we're learning a lot about me as an athlete because I've literally never once even thought about @paige_semenza: Ha ha. Colin Boesch: doing that. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. Colin Boesch: what is usable and I'm I feel like I asked this question in phase one too, but what is usable about my mat test pace within a competition workout? Like, I if my if my forty minute mat pace mat pace on the C two bike is, like you said, 150 watts, what about that would be usable in A twenty-one fifteen nine Calcy two bike and thruster workout. @misfitcoach: Wouldn't be. At all. your Colin Boesch: Yeah. @misfitcoach: ability to if we went all the way back to the to the engine podcast and we talked about the house analogy, we're doing all of these different things. We're trying to increase the square footage. We're trying to make our ceiling taller, we're trying to add more staircases to be able to switch gears. When you are aerobic. And you bring that element into a 2115 nine, you clear waste more efficiently and can go back to a similar pace better. So it's more about the fact that you're developing an energy system that a lot of CrossFitters don't have to be able to repeat yourself and not crash and burn in that workout. So it would be confidence in, you know, not falling off, that sort of thing. But there's no way to translate your, you know. two hundred watts to how that relates to four, five, six hundred watts at a very short duration. Colin Boesch: Yeah. So is that would you say it's only transferable for like a longer Metcon? Something that's like, you know, they're gonna do inevitably at a semifinal they'll have a twenty to twenty seven minute workout that's got a three thousand meter C two bike in it or @misfitcoach: Yeah, there's you get lucky sometimes, NorCal last year was, know, biking for thirty-five minutes or whatever and you get locked Colin Boesch: That's yeah, that that was kind of the Yeah. @misfitcoach: into there. But you don't wanna get bogged down in adaptation versus data that you can use in a Metcon. Those are kind of two different worlds. We have Colin Boesch: Okay. @misfitcoach: these tools now. It's gotten so good again with the coaching, the programming, the access to equipment that a lot of athletes have, that it's like the first time any coach put athletes through a zone two progression on the C two bike and they're just like, I can front squat 95 pounds two billion times and not get tired. It's like we should probably use this. It's not as sports specific as other things, but wow, what a great tool. You know, it's no different than a back squat. @paige_semenza: Yeah, I like that you brought it back to the the house and and the square footage 'cause the like the all I was thinking of was like it's it doesn't translate, but it like offers repeatability. Like how fast can I go and repeat @misfitcoach: yeah. @paige_semenza: over and over again? That's what I thought. Colin Boesch: Gotcha. back to like some of the newer misfits maybe here. if new to gears, like myself, do you recommend doing as many of them as possible over the course of the phase so that you get an idea of each gear individually? As in like I've never done like a gear fifth gear Echo Bike like and I see that in phase two, but I haven't been doing that conditioning piece or extra piece that day. Should I should I make sure that I hit it? Because I haven't hit that gear on my matrix yet? @misfitcoach: No, the cool thing is if you look at that workout and you either go, Ugh, I'm not very good at this, or I've no fucking @paige_semenza: Ha ha ha @misfitcoach: clue what pace to hold, then ta-da, you are magically slotted into the person who should choose that workout specifically. If you look at that and go like, goodness, I'm gonna have to hold 70 RPMs this whole time, like that's gonna hurt so bad. I'm as a coach gonna be like, that's awesome that you can hold 70 RPMs there. You don't need to do this today. you know, if there is something else that's better. So, you know, sometimes we're just looking for a stimulus bomb. And if you want to do five rounds of nasty intervals on a on an Echo bike, great. It's not a lot of thinking required to go in and and @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: bury yourself there. But That that's the cool thing about some of this stuff is if you have no clue how to pace it, like I don't know what I would do. Even if you are good on that machine, then it's probably worth it to do it. And if you're not good on it, then that makes it a little bit more obvious of why you would choose it. Colin Boesch: Got it. So I should choose every single time. Got it. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: Yes. Colin Boesch: is there any carryover between machines and gear work? @paige_semenza: carry over to like mechons Colin Boesch: Like would my @paige_semenza: and intervals. Colin Boesch: No, I'm sorry, I'm between machines. So my gear one ski compared to my gear one row, is there anything like that? @misfitcoach: No. it might give you super generalized context, but no. Most people are way better. Colin Boesch: Not even C two bike to echo bike. @misfitcoach: definitely not. That that one's those are those are miles apart from one another. Yeah. @paige_semenza: Bro. I'm like 85 to 90 and then I'm like 51. Okay, like 61. Colin Boesch: Okay, okay. Yeah. @misfitcoach: Yeah, if you see fifty RPMs ever on a C two bike, I don't know what the hell you're up to. That would hurt so bad. Ugh. @paige_semenza: Trudging through mud. Quicksand. @misfitcoach: Yeah. Yep. Colin Boesch: It have dampered ten. @misfitcoach: No, the translation that we ask for is feeling. It's not pace wise. It's you should know what it feels like to push in this category. Colin Boesch: Okay. I sorry, I'm smiling because my last question was I need so much more detail on e.l.f and the wacky shit behind an album cover for this workout. What are you what are you talking about? @misfitcoach: Yeah. You'll you'll @paige_semenza: Be patient. Right. Like I'm being surprised too. Sometimes @misfitcoach: see. You'll see. @paige_semenza: it's the best part. @misfitcoach: There are two other people that understand that reference and they will be on the album cover. Colin Boesch: That's amazing. @paige_semenza: Ha ha. Colin Boesch: I feel like I know what you're talking about and I can't wait. @paige_semenza: Same. Colin Boesch: I think that's all I got. @misfitcoach: All right. We will do we've we've been getting we are at the two hour mark right now. I had I had twelve aneurysms during the episode, so I think we can erase like five of those minutes. but @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: we'll do a quick coaches are people too. We got a little bit of a little bit of pushback when we had two weeks of of none of it. I have @paige_semenza: So upset. @misfitcoach: three, but they will be quick. I don't I still don't know what the Steelers are. They under Tomlin would have lost that game. They rise to the level of their opponent and they fall to the level of their opponent and they came @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: back and won that game, which they normally wouldn't have done. They just would have lost. So maybe they're changing a little bit. And I'm also considering having my eyes removed if I see another screen pass. If Aaron Rodgers throws Colin Boesch: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: the ball one foot. every other play for another game. And it's funny too because they did it and it didn't work the whole game and then they started pushing the ball downfield and they just scored at will. so that was fun. my my next two are are kind of dad mode things. the way that I know that I Finally understand the meaning of unconditional Colin Boesch: Okay. @misfitcoach: love is I listen to Rascal Flats with my son every day a hundred times. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: And if you know me, like I really didn't think that would ever be possible. I sing it, I dance @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: with him, I love it. Okay. He also Yeah, yeah. Colin Boesch: I know exactly what rascal flat song you're talking about too. @misfitcoach: and he also ate most of the pepperonis off of my pizza yesterday and I thought it was cute. @paige_semenza: Hehehe @misfitcoach: That's just not cute in any other scenario, right? It's just a cheese pizza at that point if you're gonna take them all off. @paige_semenza: That's true. @misfitcoach: and then to flip it completely in the other direction, my son is a problem right now. The three major, we are at peak. We are at like he would not let me well, I did it anyways. He did not want to let me cook. Pancakes on the griddle. He wanted them done in the kitchen inside. And I was like, dude, it takes me 45 minutes to make pancakes inside. Outside, it's five minutes. Pour them all on there, flip them, we're done. And meltdown of the century. I bring him with me. I hold him the entire time I'm making them to show him to try to get him interested. and I made the mistake of giving him a kiss on his cheek. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: And that led to don't look at me. So I'm stand I'm @paige_semenza: Ha ha ha. @misfitcoach: holding him, looking at the pancakes, telling him about it, and I can't turn my head. Don't look at me. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: My son is a problem. I somehow have the patience Colin Boesch: Ha ha @paige_semenza: Problem. @misfitcoach: of a saint as a father. have never and probably will never have it anywhere else. so my son is awesome and a @paige_semenza: Did you get to go for a bike ride after that or something? @misfitcoach: no, but my parents @paige_semenza: You decompress, get some alone time. @misfitcoach: my parents took him to see their R V at the campground they were staying at, and I got to watch the first @paige_semenza: Perfect. @misfitcoach: half of The Steelers by myself. @paige_semenza: It's called balance. @misfitcoach: Don't look at me, bro. @paige_semenza: Yeah. Colin Boesch: Okay. @misfitcoach: Bruh, @paige_semenza: Okay. @misfitcoach: I gave you my pepperonis. Thought we had a bond. @paige_semenza: You won't forget, but he will forget that. And he'll ask again. @misfitcoach: Yep. No, he won't forget. He'll take him again. He now knows that he likes him. Yeah. Colin Boesch: Immediately. Yeah. It was okay the one time. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: Yep. What you guys got? @paige_semenza: Floodgates opened. mine's simple. well we went and competed this weekend and just for like fun, we did team of four, which was really fun. But yeah, thrusters with the worm, I did like we did like three reps and I'm incredibly sore from that. And then I get to run a clean and jerk seminar this weekend at my friend's gym. So I'm kind of excited about that. Yeah. @misfitcoach: Ron Squad holds. @paige_semenza: Front squad holes are gonna be in there. Trust. Mm-hmm. They don't know what's coming. @misfitcoach: Yeah, hell yeah. Camp preview. Colin Boesch: mine's mine's fairly simple. As you can see in the back of my chair, the the man is back. So Iceman came back this week and showed everybody why he runs the offense the best in Ben Johnson's offense. So go Bears. I was happy about that. Even though they almost lost it at the end, and I was like, they tried to lose it. @misfitcoach: They they tr they tried in the second half to Yeah. Colin Boesch: They did try to lose it. I was like, God, I almost had a meltdown there. But we're okay. They won the game. Roshan didn't score. Anyway. and then it's just so funny. @paige_semenza: I can't be I can't be excited about football because Wyatt's not excited about the Lions, so I can't really @misfitcoach: Mm. @paige_semenza: get in on this because unless he's excited, I don't really care. He's the entertainer for me. @misfitcoach: Wyatt, the question around the world is was Dan Campbell a Ben Johnson merchant? That's what people want to know. Was it Ben or Dan? We'll find out. Time will tell. Or just hire @paige_semenza: Yeah. Colin Boesch: Time will tell. @misfitcoach: a or just hire another really good coordinator. Yeah. Yep. Colin Boesch: Or that. and then my other one is just that the dad the dad stuff of me and Drew are just in such the same place right now. the threeenager. @paige_semenza: You got a problem at home. @misfitcoach: You got a n you got a you got another one though. I don't know if we're in the same place. If if if if my wife kept leaving Colin Boesch: That's true. Yeah, but my @misfitcoach: for work, travel, and there were two of Colin Boesch: Dude. @misfitcoach: I don't I don't I don't know what would happen. Colin Boesch: mean like but @paige_semenza: Yeah. Colin Boesch: I have I have family close. he's he's @misfitcoach: Yeah. Colin Boesch: downstairs with my aunt and uncle right now, just chilling and doing his stuff. Because it's I my my life deload week is going to happen either this week or next week. So my it's @paige_semenza: Yeah. Colin Boesch: but the funny the funny part was he tried I tried to get him down for a nap yesterday and his like hill to die on right now is I will not get myself dressed. But we take him to a Montessori school and the teacher's like, you have to let him dress himself. it's number one thing that he's got to start being independent on. He like will literally sit on the little like toy potty. He has his underwear like around his ankles. And like the hill is he will not pull them up. @paige_semenza: Ha ha ha. @misfitcoach: Sounds right. Colin Boesch: Absolutely, it's like, and he just screams, especially at me and my wife, but he'll just scream at us, no, you just over and over and over because he wants us to do it for him. And the the last time was before a nap. He screamed for 30 minutes, finally got it together, went upstairs, literally laid him into the bed, and he passed out. I was just like, obviously, you're just tired, my dude, but like @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. Colin Boesch: So yes, I also have a problem at home and then I have another @paige_semenza: Ha ha ha. Colin Boesch: itty bitty one that just army crawls everywhere she goes. So @misfitcoach: What a time to be alive. Yeah. Colin Boesch: What a time to be alive. I love it though. Wouldn't have it any other way. @misfitcoach: Same. It's quite a conundrum mentally. It's the best. And then you explain Colin Boesch: It is @paige_semenza: Pepperonis. @misfitcoach: it and people are like, Are you sure? And it's like, yeah, no, it literally is the best. Okay. Colin Boesch: Yeah, we like my wife and I every night @paige_semenza: Yeah. Colin Boesch: when they go to bed we're just like, Man, that was a tough day. But God, I love them to death @misfitcoach: Yeah. We're we are sending each other videos of him after getting yelled at. Go to bed and Colin Boesch: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: it's like, you see @paige_semenza: Ha ha @misfitcoach: this little cute little picture? Yeah, @paige_semenza: Ha ha ha @misfitcoach: it's great. Colin Boesch: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: All right, two hours, five minutes and fifty-four seconds. I say we call @paige_semenza: Oof. @misfitcoach: it here. Did we do it? @paige_semenza: We did it. Colin Boesch: We did it. @misfitcoach: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Misfit Podcast. You can head to MisfitAthlethletics.com or the link in bio on our social media to get signed up for phase two. We will turn those free trials back on for week one of the program only. Go check it out. Get your butts in telegram. Immerse yourself in the community. You're already listening to the podcast. Hell, two hours, six minutes, and twenty four seconds in if you've made it. go all @paige_semenza: You're in. @misfitcoach: in. Telegram. Get signed up. Get after it. thank you to GorillaMind. You can head to GorillaMind.com forward slash Misfit or use the code word misfit at checkout. You save on the best supplements in the game and you support the show remaining free forever. We see you guys next week.