Latest / Misfit Podcast / 2027 CrossFit Games Season Changes: Our honest take - E.422
Transcript
- @misfitcoach: Good morning, Misfits. You are tuning into another episode of the Misfit Podcast. On today's episode, it's freestyle time. All right. We got QA, we got State of the Union, we've got some programming stuff here, extra shout-outs. If we have time, maybe some extra coaches or people too. Every once in a while, we just need one of those free flowing episodes where we're meander @paige_semenza: I yap. @misfitcoach: around and we yap and we do what we gotta do. Before that, just a teeny bit of housekeeping here. this episode of the podcast is brought to you by 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. I've said it once, I'll say it a million more times. I went to them, I asked them over and over and over to sponsor this podcast, and they finally did because I really believe in their products. Just one of those supplement companies that actually puts the amount of things into their supplements that make a change and actually help you. so you save with the discount code and you support the podcast, keeping it free forever. GorillaMind.com forward slash misfit or use the code word misfit at checkout. We are in phase two. We are in test week of phase two. Just got started this week. And the free trials for our programs are live. They are only live until Sunday. and that is all packages, programs, all different places. so make sure you go in and do that if you've been kind of sniffing around and wondering, you know, just whether the programs are right fit for you while listening to the podcast. We also have a new offering. We have comp plus. In the past, our highest tier offering underneath remote coaching has been pro. And the problem with that is we are not giving more access to the people who want it, regardless of what level they are competing at or striving to be at. So now all programs are in the comp and comp plus package. pro is now in comp as well. But with comp plus, you get weekly calls with coaches, you are in a private group, and you get video review. and it's really just a way to say, hey, no matter what program you're on, if you want more access to coaches, you want to be able to ask questions and get them answered, you know, a little bit quicker. You wanna be able to, you know, do the QA on the calls, talk through the programming, all that good stuff. Make sure you get signed up for comp plus that is on fitter only right now. as always, backstage, the misfit apprentice, Colin, page can see him. But I can. he's dancing in in black and white off to the side there. he will he will @paige_semenza: He's such a nerd. @misfitcoach: have some questions for us at the end based on the stuff that we talked about, and also just questions that he has as an athlete, as a coach, as the apprentice, all that good stuff. The work is the only way collection. You will notice the same chest hit on @paige_semenza: Ugh. @misfitcoach: all three of us at some point in the episode here. And I actually have. another one underneath here. I the my wardrobe for the next year is the work is the only way collection. really easy. Well, I get up and I'm like, do I want tan? Do I want black? Do I want a workout shirt? Do I want a long sleeve? @paige_semenza: You gotta manifest it. @misfitcoach: Right. and I do want to give a shout out to Katie Tavig, I believe I pronounced that correctly this time. she was the one who was like, please, something other than black. And for me, I prefer to wear black. It goes with everything. it it goes with my deep dark soul. I think the tan stuff might be cooler. I don't know. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: I I think I like it better. It it pops a little bit more, it fits my vision of the design a little bit more. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: so I'm saying that and I'm wearing the black hoodie because I want to wear a black hoodie, but shout out to Katie for a little nudge on hey, Katie. Some of us would like a shirt that's not just black. all right. Shout outs of the week. Paige, @paige_semenza: Cool. @misfitcoach: do you want to go first? Do you want me to go first? @paige_semenza: Yeah, I'll go first. I'm going to actually shout out one of my remote athletes. His name is Jeremy. I kind of gave him a shout out last week. He just got married, but he texted me last, I don't know, like maybe three days ago and was like sending me all these improvements on different tests. And he's like, it's probably the best week of training I've had in a long time. And that was him coming off of doing like a lot of volume. And now he's like one lift, one conditioning piece, one skill, maybe accessory, @misfitcoach: Yeah. Hell yeah. @paige_semenza: and adding in warmups and, things like that. So, I just really like that. He was open-minded enough to be like, I'm going to just try what you're giving me. and then to see like the head space that he was in to follow after a couple of weeks. So, shout out to him. I thought that was pretty cool. and he's just a vibe, just like fun dude to talk with and do remote coaching with. So. @misfitcoach: I did the sales call with him and and definitely got the same just just kind of like @paige_semenza: He's got a personality. @misfitcoach: in like an open personality, like we were able @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: to get right into having the conversation. @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: Yeah, I mean, that's music to my ears. Coaches, you gotta build proof of concept into your programming. You have to find those moments, whether it's in the progressions or it's in the test retest, where you can prove to your athlete that they are improving. because that's gonna even for somebody you've been working. even for someone that you've been working with for a while, the trust is already there, but they need that for their headspace specifically. We need to @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: work on the athlete IQ side of it. but then with a newer athlete, the the trust element is huge. It's like, hey, we are going to do the these things differently than how you've been doing them. And I want you to give me those five weeks in the middle. We're gonna focus more on quality over quantity. And then on the athlete side, just know that this you're not setting your schedule in stone. You're creating a baseline that you would either add to because it's appropriate based on where you're at or because of what time of year it is. When we do a phase one and we remember what it's like to like really grind through squat reps and focus more on the conditioning. and not just add a bunch of stuff, that sets the tone for the whole year, right? And then @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: you have that one extra thing in phase two and it kind of kicks your ass a little bit and you're like, wow, so intensity matters, right? Like, so it's always cool to hear that stuff. And so important @paige_semenza: Yeah. I wanted to. @misfitcoach: for coaches and athletes to wrap their mind around why we do it that way. @paige_semenza: Yeah, for sure. I wanted to grab off Telegram because he sent me the message. He said he's been chasing a 315 squat clean for about seven years and finally hit it this week. So I just thought, yeah, like this is such a cool anecdote. know. And we didn't we haven't been doing cleans. Mm hmm. @misfitcoach: Hell yeah. dude. my god. Come on. I called that three lollipops. Okay, that's that's three blues, blue raspberry, blow pop, the goat of of 90s kid candy. Three lollipops on the clean is huge. Love that. Yeah. Milestone. @paige_semenza: Yeah, so badass. @misfitcoach: All right. I have a few here. The Desert City gang for sure. Adrienne Winges first place, no stranger to the podium @paige_semenza: crazy. @misfitcoach: or the top of the podium. and the the real shout out here, I had an assumption she would be on the podium. The real shout out here was the event that was a little bit heavier for her. That's the thing that you know we're working on right now of like, hey, part of getting over a weakness is rewriting the narrative. It's not just building the strength or the technique. It's also when it's time to go, it's time to go. And your old story that you've told yourself is just not true. So let's let's do something about it. So she was asking me about how to warm up and the strategy. And she told me she was gonna get time capped. and also shout out to Kyle. He gets a double shout out in this, in this episode, but shout out to Kyle for being kind of the intermediary. I think he has a really she has a very high level of trust with him. So when I come in with the like, no, no, no, no, no, no, like I want you to be really aggressive in your warm up. I want you to go even heavier than the workout is, and I want you to to again rewrite that narrative as you get out there. And him like kind of nodding his head and smiling is a like @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: a helpful like nudge in that direction. She went out there, she finished the workout. She finished in fourth in a workout that she probably would have finished further down the leaderboard, you know, @paige_semenza: Hell yeah. @misfitcoach: in in in previous years. And those are the things, @paige_semenza: What a confidence boost. @misfitcoach: right? Cause she's she's she's, you know, her goal is to get to the CrossFit games this year. so for her to start to develop that new narrative now and then go back into phase two and be like, I can lift some weights, like. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. Yeah. @misfitcoach: That's that's w really what we want. So we love the we love the showcase at the end, you know. Yeah, you were on the top of the podium, but we're a little bit more about journeys and destinations. Work is the only @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: way. So that is what I got excited about. It's like now @paige_semenza: That's awesome. @misfitcoach: with a new narrative, you can really get after it. @paige_semenza: Love that. @misfitcoach: the second shout out for Kyle. Kyle posted I hope I can get this right. I didn't write it down. I believe he went from 17th to 9th to 4th in his three years @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: at Desert Desert City. And again, leaderboards are great. They show us where we're at. It's like test retest. But he is now very much mixing it up with the athletes that he wants to be. there @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: was a that there were four of them at that comp and then there was a pretty big drop off points wise afterwards. and there were just you could tell that he was getting it getting after it with them. And again, just to know that you belong there, I think does something for your training @paige_semenza: 100%. @misfitcoach: and getting you back into to getting to that that place and doing better in the next season. so awesome to see that. Last but not least, Brian and Crystal, they did the co-ed. Brian is a remote client of mine. And when someone is a lot of times the reason someone applies for remote coaching is because they're at a particular level and they've kind of been there for a little while and they don't know what exactly needs to be done to go to another level to the next one. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: we see it, we see it pretty often. And for an athlete in that space that is trying to level up to go somewhere and receive this huge boost of motivation from being in the moment and knowing, like, hey, this is what I want. I do like the competitive environment. It is exciting. just is always awesome for me. You know, a motivated client is, you know, someone that's awesome to to work with. @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: and and you wanna, morph that into into discipline, but for him to come back and be that excited is it's just awesome. Super cool. Yeah, it is. @paige_semenza: Yeah, that's so fun. That's like a, I don't know, that it's just one of those, you know, it reminds you why you love what you do. And it just like it, it helps. It @misfitcoach: yeah. @paige_semenza: just fires you up a little bit more. I love that about Kyle, because like as somebody who's chasing that high level of competition, like that could either steer you away, out of fear, or you can really lean into it. So to see him lean into that and be like, you know, on the outside for a little while looking in and now being on that inner circle of like, I'm here to compete and actually take points off of other people on the leaderboard is really awesome. @misfitcoach: Yeah, yeah, for sure. and then the other, you know, global shout out here is we're coming off retest week. We are in test week now. it would take the whole podcast to talk about all of the PRs from my remote clients, from the people on the leaderboards. It's just again, one of those things where we are doing our best to honor what works. within the program and not having that dogmatic or ego driven coaching style where it's like, @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: well, you're not doing it right if it doesn't work, that sort of thing. So to see again for us, it's a bit of proof of concept. Okay, we're we're in the right d we're heading in the right direction. You know, we're we're getting things done here. And then the people that are, you know, potentially struggling a little bit, we know that the program works and that we probably need to lean a little bit more into execution. Athlete IQ, recovery, volume intensity, all of those other elements. @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: so just a shout out to the community at large for kicking ass and retest and then @paige_semenza: Hell yeah. @misfitcoach: so far in test week. okay, let's let's do a little state of the union here. We've got some changes to the game season. and We'll just go one bullet point at a time here and talk a little bit about how we feel about it. So the first one is the open workouts are now Wednesday through Monday. you gotta change hats around a little bit here. So I'd be interested, Paige, you work at an affiliate and I think their concept is we're gonna announce on Wednesday so that you have forty-eight hours to prep for Friday night lights. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: I think that's the kind of the thought process there. But then on the athlete side it's different, right? too long can be a problem on the athlete side. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. Think about how many times someone's going to repeat a workout from Wednesday through Monday. @misfitcoach: you could do Wednesday, Friday, Sunday and @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: Depends on what the workout is, depends on what your goals are. But even just with my I won't call them out, but my athlete will know if they're listening to this. Like there's some some of that retest stuff gets in your head and @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: they are they missed some tests retests last week and I told them to skip them and get into phase two. And they were like, I can't. I have to retest. So now we're in this jumbled up mess and it's gonna be easy to fix, but people @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: get crazy about that stuff. So we'll have content related to this later on of what you should @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: do. But I'm just curious what your thoughts are from like a coach versus an athlete standpoint on that window being longer. @paige_semenza: I don't know, part of me is like, don't fix something if it's not broken. If your routine of doing it on Thursday or Friday and then doing a repeat on Monday has worked, I don't know. I don't know if I would want to change up that format and have to make more adjustments to my training. Because if my goal isn't the Open and it's quarterfinals, I don't want to keep putting these hiccups in place. of that or know peaking for quarters or semis or whatever it is. So that's kind of my thought as a coach. As an athlete when you see an extra day you're like it's another opportunity @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: but do you have the discipline to just stick to your plan and for most people it's going to be I need a coach to talk me and walk me through that. @misfitcoach: Right. we're gonna do gives us more flexibility for schedule. That's one thing that @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: I like as a remote coach. There are athletes who they're like, Man, Thursday's just not a good day for me, or @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: Friday's not a good day for me. Now we have more flexibility there. The the programming, our programming, we will have you doing it on Thursday for sure. That just @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: gives you more of an opportunity to go in and and retest. And we'll @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: again, there's so much content waiting for us out in the future. on this topic. as a as a former affiliate owner, I think it's nice to have more of that window. The problem you're gonna run into though is your athletes are gonna do it in open gym on Thursday and not come to Friday Night Lights. So @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: you gotta figure out a way to deal with that. That's one of those things. @paige_semenza: Yeah, I think part of that's the culture too, at your gym. you @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: gotta market it, you gotta make it a big deal. But knowing the workout in advance also I think allows for a little bit more opportunity to market and hype it up and make it a fun Friday night. @misfitcoach: Yeah. In theory, yes. But as an affiliate owner, @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: things don't always go quite the way for when you do @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: events and social stuff, it's not, it's never checks enough boxes for it to be @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: like the exact right thing. individuals will only be able to accept invites to two in-person semifinals. Now that I think the language is important here. Invite. means they can't be invited to a third. It doesn't even matter whether they compete or not. They cannot @paige_semenza: Okay. @misfitcoach: accept more than two invites. So if they accept two @paige_semenza: interesting. @misfitcoach: and then they decide they want they don't want to compete at either of those and they want to go to another one, supposedly they're not allowed to. @paige_semenza: Okay. @misfitcoach: this is a step in the right direction, I believe. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: I think being a hater Is a young man's game, or you're just an asshole. those are those are two possibilities. So we are critical when we need to be on this podcast about we'll we'll be critical about legends here in a minute. but this is the right direction. I'm still wondering, is this one of those things where the event organizers are like, hey. whatever mayhem's gonna take all of the top people first and then we wanna, be part of that as well. because mayhem is interesting. It's the smaller, it's there's not as many athletes do it. but there's like a ton of media surrounding it and pageantry and, you know, it's you it's @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: Rich Roning's gym. People want to go there and experience that. So @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: are they doing two because it's like Well, that one's like this own th its own thing. And then I need to also be able to go compete because there's only three @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: people. Like that I wonder about that. I still, from a traditional fan, like sports fan perspective, you if you lose, you lose. That's what bothers @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: me about this. I'm okay with the online afterwards. I think the online takes care of, you know, last year I think Legends was well programmed and then sponsor stepped in and gave them a bunch of money and they got rid of the running and then Danielle Brandon didn't qualify, which probably probably shouldn't happen with the other people who @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: are in there. So like she should be afforded the opportunity to compete online after that. Should she be afforded the opportunity to compete two more times? I don't know. I don't know. Like I don't think @paige_semenza: Yeah, it does limit. mean. @misfitcoach: the system the system is not athlete friendly in that, like you have no clue who's gonna be competing where. So it's this weird game of waiting @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: and seeing where you're gonna go and who's going here and I wanna go here. so that part of it I do understand. It's I don't think it's fair for an athlete to go to a competition where it used to be like a region where you kind of knew what was about to happen. And then you look and there's eleven like of the top eleven athletes in the world and you're like, how the fuck am I supposed to qualify? Like @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: even if you're Even if you're the eighth best athlete in the world, there's a really good chance you're not gonna qualify. so there's a lot of devil's advocate that you can play with this system, but I feel like they're moving in the right direction. Because like @paige_semenza: What was? @misfitcoach: I don't fault the athletes at all, but there was there were athletes that competed three weekends in a row. And it's like, what the f what is this? Like this this @paige_semenza: I and you spend, @misfitcoach: makes no sense. @paige_semenza: like some people could spend thousands of dollars or they have sponsors to help them. And like that helps you kind of game the system. So it's like, it does create some level of like equality, but I mean, still like resources are different for everybody. So there is still a huge limit there, but yeah, I mean, I, I agree. think two is. is definitely in the right direction. What has been your favorite format in the history of what we've had so far? Like, regional, sanctionals, strength of field. @misfitcoach: Mm. I think the easiest one was regionals and then that morphing into sanctionals. It just it made it made some sense. I think there's @paige_semenza: Yeah. Yeah. @misfitcoach: a a version of all of these that could be jammed together. Like if CrossFit can't put all of these on, then I understand that it needs to change. That's just @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: kind of a a fact of the situation. There's not a whole lot that we're gonna be able to do about this. But like Hey, have Paige DM Ben so she can get into the semifinal. Stop it right fucking now. You want @paige_semenza: Insane. @misfitcoach: to turn me into a hater? Start pulling that shit again. That was @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: insane. And then seeing the same athlete week after week after week @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: being there. It was just like, why are you guys allowing this to happen? This is not the way that sports work, right? @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: You you you win or you lose. That's just how it is. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: I think they are I don't have it on the list on my notes over here, but I believe every single one of them is three men and three women. @paige_semenza: Okay. @misfitcoach: I think that was announced, which I think is important, is really helpful. You just know @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: when you're going into it. I didn't know that this one was two and this one was one and this one is four. Like @paige_semenza: Right, I agree. @misfitcoach: that's a little bit of an issue there. And then that brings us into. We are back to 40 men and 40 women at the CrossFit Games, which is so important. And I wonder if they are finally leaning more into like Dave's got his whole thing, his shtick of like I want to find the fittest on earth. It's got a very glassman vibe to it. That's what we are doing here. That is my job, as in Dave. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: Is Boz's job to make sure that the sport thrives and survives? You know what I mean? Because those two things, like, I think if if Dave's gonna be that person, great. Do that, do your thing. But how you get there and the logistics of all of it should be thought of from the perspective of this needs to be fair from a competitive element and it needs to keep growth of the sport in mind while we're doing it. So I don't @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: know if Boz just goes on the podcast, the CrossFit podcast, and is just the figurehead for it, or if he's thinking about it from that perspective. But either way, it feels like it matters to someone in the room that, like, hey, we're not gonna find the fittest on earth if everybody leaves. We can't, right? So @paige_semenza: Yeah. Right. @misfitcoach: I think we're going in the right direction. I think. I've been fooled so many times before. We hope. Yes. Think and hope. but @paige_semenza: We hope. I know. @misfitcoach: yeah, the 40 men and 40 women, what you're doing, I know that there are people that get upset about this kind of stuff and they're like, I don't want to see so and so come in 35th and 34th and 39th and 40th in every single event. We've had multiple athletes do that and then I mean, you're one of them, end up in the top 10, right? @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: And if they had never given you the opportunity, or if your experience had sucked and they just cut you right away, or you'd never been allowed to go, how long would you have stuck with it? Right? And it's easy @paige_semenza: Right, you don't know. @misfitcoach: for me to say the sport and misfit and all of that would be in a much worse place if you didn't have those experiences. So I think of it like out towards these other athletes. Like give them the opportunity to go there. We have other we you know, other athletes have gone and come in fortieth and been like, Fuck this. I reached my goal. I'm good. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: and that's totally fine. But but the opportunities for more athletes being able to go to semifinals this year is a step in the right direction and more athletes @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: going to the games is also a step in the right direction, I think. @paige_semenza: Yeah, think we have a lot of relatability for more relatability for people who have made semifinals. think of what that did to your confidence and your performance and how you wanted to show up for the following year. You wanted to come back and do it again and get better on the leaderboard. it's the same thing for the athletes, the 40 athletes in the field at the games. you want to, you get those opportunities and those experiences and that just. it helps you grow as an athlete, helps you improve, it boosts your confidence. I love that they're bringing it back to 40. I think, regardless of the fact that you know, you see the top 10 or however many, you see the field separate just like Kyle and those top four saw at Desert City. You see that no matter what, but again, those opportunities and those experiences for the back half of the field are just as important. @misfitcoach: Yeah, one hundred percent. dude, I'm not we'll do this on another episode. I don't understand with the the team thing. It doesn't make any sense to me. There's no I believe yeah, @paige_semenza: There's only one online- er, no online. @misfitcoach: there's no online. You go in person @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: and it's a it's a leaderboard combined from every event. And you could I think you can go to more than one. Not really sure what's going on there. Yeah listen, Colin's doing the hands in the little box. @paige_semenza: Hahaha @misfitcoach: He might be the one that's giving the project to figure out what's going on with the teams. That might be @paige_semenza: Perfect. @misfitcoach: that might be that might be a job for Colin. We've got a thumbs up there. we will report back on that situation. I think it's mandatory for CrossFit to change how the teams work six or seven @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: times per year. so we'll just we'll just we'll just go with that. the new @paige_semenza: Doing an online run last year is crazy. @misfitcoach: Yeah, yeah. Teenage division eighteen to nineteen. This is awesome. This should this should be in there. As the sport progresses, @paige_semenza: Yeah, this is really cool. Bridge that gap. @misfitcoach: you cannot have that expectation that you used to. Every once in a while it works and it happens, but then you've got like, you know, the Alexis Raptus story of like I don't remember how many years it was, but it was like like three or four, something like @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: that before she made it back. keeping keeping them that is also growth minded in the sport. we've lost @paige_semenza: Retention, yep. @misfitcoach: a lot of really good athletes. and and listen, if if somebody doesn't want to do it anymore, like great. That's you know good for them. But the athletes that do that receive the wrong narrative about who they are and think that they can just, you know, pull the, you know, Emma Lawson or whatever and just, you know, @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: snap their fingers and and go there. That's that's kind of an anomaly. So I think that's really cool. a big fan of that. @paige_semenza: Yeah, just to bridge the gap for the development of athletes at that age too. you look at a kid @misfitcoach: yeah. Yeah. @paige_semenza: like Dallin Pepper, you're like, that's not an average kid coming out of a teenage division. Like, you know, he's one of the, one of those anomalies that we're talking about James as well. Like, yeah, I think it's, I think it's going to be cool. I'll be interested to see how, like, how many are they taking at, like at this, like in this division? Do we know? Is it 10 or is it, yeah, okay. @misfitcoach: No. No, I would guess it's twenty or thirty. That would be yeah. @paige_semenza: Yeah, that'll be so cool. @misfitcoach: the divisions weren't tiny last year. I wasn't at the teen games. I was only at the the Masters. @paige_semenza: Okay. @misfitcoach: but yeah, yeah, and and again those those are anomalies. Like I believe w either the first year or one of the first years Dallin was was in the normal semifinal. He was the reason why one of my male athletes didn't want to take their shirt off. And that is that that's the definition of a man child. If someone's walking around hulking @paige_semenza: That's true. @misfitcoach: when they were worried about their physical development and where they're at specifically. Magic City Games is going to run the 2027 Masters CrossFit Games. I don't have an intimate knowledge of that event in their programming, but they have a good reputation. And they seem to be on board with more of the pageantry that people are expecting from the CrossFit Games versus legends. so like Tony wrote @paige_semenza: Yeah, that's where we were. @misfitcoach: like Tony wrote a road bike last year at the @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: right, like they did that inside. They did a bike inside. So just the idea of what is the CrossFit Games and like you know, going for a little jog and doing a 2115-9 is not the CrossFit Games. That's not what the expectation is. So I'm hoping that now we can bring more elements into the programming. The programming can be more well rounded and test more things than just straight up CrossFit at the Masters CrossFit games. @paige_semenza: Yeah, we had a great experience at Magic City last year as a semi-final. They gave it very much a semi-final feel. The programming @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. @paige_semenza: was hard, it was challenging, and just the way that they ran it was very professional. So I'm excited about that. I @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: think that'll be pretty cool. @misfitcoach: Yeah. I think the event organizers are put in a very tough position. There's a bit of a like for the love of the game situation. And I think @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: you can become jaded relative to that. why am I running is this pro bono? Is this charity work? I'm running this and I'm working hundred hour weeks and I'm losing money. Like, should I be doing this? And to me What comes to mind is like get yourself a young whippersnapper to to run the event that's still not jaded by this whole thing. And hopefully they can build something that kind of goes above and beyond. So I have @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: no issue with people are complaining about where it is. Shut up. Get your ass into the it's in Alabama. It's it's where they've @paige_semenza: Where is it? Yeah, okay, that's where we were. @misfitcoach: had it in the past. the venue's fine. Get y @paige_semenza: Venue's great. @misfitcoach: you're there to do what you're there to do. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: Right? the vacation element of it is a, side bonus, right? you're gonna get more people, yeah, you're gonna get more people to travel to Del Mar, California or @paige_semenza: Sure. @misfitcoach: whatever. You're there to do the work. If you're @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: worried about the CrossFit games, the like it being somewhere like that, I don't think that should matter too much. For the competitors. @paige_semenza: Yeah, the the nightlife was yeah, like the nightlife was actually busy. Like we would try to go out to dinner and was like a 60 minute wait when we were at certain restaurants on a Friday or Saturday. Like, yeah, it's kind of like middle nowhere, but it's not. It's not either. @misfitcoach: I had a great time because I crushed Hunter at top golf and he's supposed to be a golfer. So that was that was super fun for me. all right. Yeah, so I think we're moving in the right direction, and there's nuance here, and there's gonna be s I there's no way there isn't another rant or two that I'm gonna have over the course of the process. Part of that though isn't being a hater, it's feeling that like like papa bear mentality towards my athletes, right? @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: I need them to have a fair shake. If they're gonna work @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: the way that they're working, they need a fair shake. They need an opportunity just like anybody else, and their name should have nothing to do with it at all. @paige_semenza: Yeah, agreed. @misfitcoach: that's just not the way that sports are supposed to work. so step in the right direction for sure. we have on Saturday this week a lovely workout called CubeStakes. And essentially what it is, if people don't know, it's four four-minute AMRAPs and you're rotating through rowing, bar facing burpees, double unders, and wall balls. And there's a set amount of each. and it's supposed to be about a minute roughly for each one. So you do a minute of rowing, minute of wall balls, minute of double unders, and then you do a minute of as many burpees as you can do. And it rotates movements. So each station has a max rep. portion in one of the AMRAPs. And when people notice the nuance of me trying to make it as shitty as possible. And again, I do that for athlete IQ mostly. Not like a sadist for the most part. I just love it. Cause the fourth round kills people. @paige_semenza: So sad. @misfitcoach: The fourth round kills people, right? And it shouldn't @paige_semenza: you @misfitcoach: matter Because by the time you've gotten to the fourth round, you've gone through every iteration of the rotation. But I put that round, can you look up Paige real quick what the fourth round is? Yeah, tell them what the fourth round is. @paige_semenza: Yeah, so fourth round is this is pro version. You want hatchet? @misfitcoach: Hatchet. @paige_semenza: Hatchet version is going to start off with 16 bar facing burpees, 24 wall balls, 72 double unders, max cal row to finish. @misfitcoach: Yeah. when you remove the individual cadence movement for people, burpees are an individual cadence movement, but not to the extent that a rower is. When you remove that, the level of athlete IQ to get through three rounds, doing it exactly how you should, and then to execute in round four requires a very high level of athlete IQ, like have to be super aerobic, you have to know the pacing, all of that stuff. And we see a lot of people, I believe the max rep portion in round three is the burpees. Is that right? @paige_semenza: Yes. @misfitcoach: Yeah. When people get @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: eighteen burpees, they get one cal row. When they do like fourteen or fifteen burpees, they get a bunch, you know what I mean? So like it's @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: it's nuanced and McKenna had some comments about the pro version recently and in previous years, and then Gus you know, talked to me a little bit about that last round. And I just like when people notice stuff like that. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: Ashley noticed the nuance of Dip Van Winkle last phase. Like, I'm trying real hard. People are noticing Marty McGlide. Like, I didn't think this would be this gassy. And like, that's gonna feel good for you, Paige, specifically, @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. It does. @misfitcoach: getting into this, you know, getting in onto the other side of the fence and @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: really nailing because we needed Marty McGlide to be a good bar muscle up test. But we needed it to be really gassy. We wanted @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: a little bit of that. Are you sure you're okay? Like while you're doing all this stuff. So I like when people notice the nuance. That just it just helps. Yeah, for sure. @paige_semenza: Yeah, yeah, just how intentional things are, right? Like you can look at it and I mean, feel like most of our athletes now know like everything we do has intention, but like when you feel it for yourself, when you watch Ashley Drabicki trying to do a set of 12 bar muscle ups and all of a sudden does a kipping chest of our pull up, like it just feels good to know that like you're right on mark. @misfitcoach: You're right on Mark and you love to see the like that is towing the line is a visual re she's posting @paige_semenza: Yeah, 100%. @misfitcoach: a video that's like if you were wondering what it looks like to @paige_semenza: Hehehehehe @misfitcoach: tow the line, here it is. Cause I believed in myself. I went for it and it just wasn't there. that is exactly how you know. speaking of that, we have three questions from Ashley. So we'll start we'll we'll start with those, continue through the telegram questions. And then if we have time for anything afterwards, we will go for it. So first question Do you think experienced athletes can become too attached to their identity as a particular type of athlete? And how might that influence the way they train, approach competition, or interpret their performances? How do you help athletes recognize and move beyond personal narratives that may no longer accurately reflect their abilities? This question is so important for all coaches. And all athletes. This is what separates someone who cannot translate their training onto the competition floor from honestly someone like you, Paige, where like you know when it's time to go out there, you go out there and give it everything you got, and you're not like I'm sure you have been in particular workouts, but you're not wrapped up in a narrative. It's a competition, @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: it's a you versus you know these other people kind of a thing. @paige_semenza: Yeah. Yeah. I like this question a lot. I definitely can. I definitely have had moments where, I've let my identity, me thinking that I'm a specific type of athlete dictate how a competition is going to go @misfitcoach: Sure. @paige_semenza: and that that's removing that expectation or working with somebody to like, you know, continue to remind yourself that you're this ever evolving athlete and you're working on things that you are trying to get better at and recreate that narrative or change that narrative is really important too. It's a confidence thing. yeah, I don't know. You want to build on that? @misfitcoach: Yeah, it's from the athlete perspective, it's so dangerous to tell yourself stories. And one of the it happens on the other side of the coin as well. You have an athlete who thinks that they're the best rower on earth and it's a twenty minute AMRAP and they're at sixteen hundred cal per hour, and it's like the fuck are you doing? They typically @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: see it with men a little bit more than women. but like those things where hubris or too much humility, like like that whole world again these are stories they're not factual statements and what the coach @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: needs to bring to the whole conversation is objective reality is well you don't think you can do this you have already done it here it is @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: so let's talk about what that how do we rewrite that narrative do you do you want to do even better before like okay You made it halfway to your goal. That's progress. That's not enough for you. Okay, we're gonna make it all the way to your goal. You figure out what works with you and your athlete. It's the same in the other direction of you wanna do what in this workout? Okay. Well, we have this workout from two weeks ago, and your average pace, not your fastest, was this. So maybe let's try building on what you're accomplishing versus like Okay, my end goal is to be able to do this workout in five minutes. And I know that it takes me nine, but what if I tried to go for five again? Would that work? No. No, it wouldn't work. And we have to we have to figure that out. But I mean, in life in general, in so many things, the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves, about other people, create a perspective that warps the way that we view the world. The way that we communicate, execute, all of that stuff. And it needs to be paid extremely close attention to as an athlete and as a coach. @paige_semenza: Yeah, I think there's a level of awareness that needs to occur and a level of openness as well. Obviously, McKenna is an easy example for me to use because we talk so often, but on Sunday, she was getting in her own head and in previous years, she wouldn't text me. She wouldn't talk. She would never open up about it or reach out about it. And here she was texting @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: me on Sunday being like, hey, at a really rough morning, I could really use some. some conversation with you. And that right there in itself, I think is somebody recognizing that there is a narrative in her head that needs to change that probably isn't true about herself. And I think it's, I think the other part to that is people in telegram see it too with her of like, she just did a huge like handstand pushup, handstand walk workout, which she's coming out post surgery and has this comparison of her previous self. And she has to actively work like in her head to not compare herself to that person because she's coming out of something completely new. She went through surgery, she's building through all these progressions and like to see her even doing handstand walk and handstand pushups and volume like that in the progressions that you guys have been working through has been really, really cool to see. And you know, her getting on a pull-up bar. So the level of trust that she has with you. And with myself, her friends, or whoever, it's like she's able to take these narratives in her head and tell herself they're not true and show herself proof that I am an ever-evolving athlete and I am getting better at things that I'm working on. @misfitcoach: Yeah, and what I don't want people to miss here is when she allowed herself to just wade into those waters and figure out where she was at, she opened up the possibility of crushing it, which she did. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: I she sent me the video, and what I wanted to know, she had 18 handstand push-ups to open. And I just wanted to know if she was gonna kick down. I knew that if she and I'm I'm thinking it's Come on, 10-8, 10-8. And she does 10 handstand push-ups. She kicks down. I'm like, thank God. Right. Cause that again is like, I want to see where I'm at, is not the same as like, okay, now we're retesting and I'm gonna like let it rip and see what happens, sort of a thing. So @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: she opened up the possibility of, okay, I'm here right now and I know what I need to work on, or I'm further along than I expected. But if you go into it with like my peak self. Pre surgery is who I'm comparing myself to, you're you really narrow the window of what's possible within something like @paige_semenza: Yeah, agreed. do, I think for that question specifically, it's kind of cool to have like a real life example, like within the community to use. @misfitcoach: And I have two, I have two for you. So the the two bigger narratives for a few years were for you were toast to bar and running. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: those were those were two big ones. And we've covered the running a lot on this podcast. You put in the work, you became one of the best runners in the sport. It was just really fun to see, and I'm sure was awesome to experience because you actually felt the work that you did and then @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: saw what was on the other side of it. We also had event two at 2024 Syndicate Crown. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: and it had a hundred toes to bar in it. It had five sets of twenty. You took top ten in that workout. And I will, I mean, Tia Toomey, Lexi Neely, Erica Folo, Annika Greer, Alexis Raptis, Brooke Wells, Emma Lawson, Daniel Brandon, Fee Sigafi, Caroline Stanley, Shelby Neal, Lydia Fish, McKenna Enslin. like, that's a list right there. Like you did you took it's almost like a game, it's like a games event. You know what mean? @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: so again, just allowing something to be an old narrative. I don't even so like the second part of her question is how do you help athletes ri recognize and move beyond personal narratives that may no longer accurately reflect their abilities? A lot of times they never accurately reflected their abilities, right? @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: It might be more just like this is where you're at in your journey. relative to everything else. You're just stuck on this one thing. Like people get obsessed with muscle ups or running @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: or handstand walking, whatever it is. And it's like, no, this is where you should be at this part of your journey. But then if it's a narrative, okay, this is the thing that I'm not good at. And then it gets announced in quarterfinals and you go into a workout with a lower level of confidence, even though that's not what should be there. @paige_semenza: Yeah, you're almost explaining your results through this story that you have rather than the actual data that's in front of you. Yeah. @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. Yep, for sure. all right. That could be a whole episode. Maybe it will be. what are some of the biggest pitfalls experienced athletes face when evaluating their own performances and how can they develop a more objective understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, and overall competitive abilities? this one you've got a few different angles you can take. Once the competition is over. If an athlete consistently doesn't perform in person the way that they do in the gym, and it's not one of the situations where they just lie about their scores, then that's objective data to be like, hey, we have to figure out your head space specifically. Cause I've worked with athletes that their number one issue was going on between their ears. But they were also the kind of person that didn't know how to really talk through that and weren't comfortable @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: with talking through that. So they were like, Okay, make me so fit that that doesn't matter. And it's like that's just not @paige_semenza: You @misfitcoach: the direction to take this. It's @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: not gonna it's not you're never gonna reach your ability. So we're gonna keep training, but you're already one of the best athletes in the entire world. You just struggle to show it because of some sort of narrative and story that you're telling yourself. And then like if it's not that, then for me, it's just bringing actual factual statements to the conversation. Whether @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: the athlete has an inflated view of themselves or a deflated view of themselves, it is my job to come in and say, You can do this, this, this, this, and this. We've proved it. We have to figure out how we're gonna get you to eke out ten percent more in a competition with the adrenaline after a taper. All of that stuff. @paige_semenza: Yeah, I think a big pitfall is. defining your weekend of competition by a placement on a leaderboard rather than by the execution and performance that you put out there. @misfitcoach: yeah. Yep. @paige_semenza: I think that's a really big one. I think Haley Adams posted something either yesterday or the day before of like 10 things that she's learned. And it's like, you can do everything right. And still not like still fall short on a leaderboard. So it's like, if you're not grading it by your performance and your effort and your attitude, then you're gonna put yourself in a position where you might have a really negative mindset about it because you're only focused on the fact that you came in 12th instead of fifth. I think that's a big one. @misfitcoach: So y I guess you could say one of the pitfalls is not knowing like not having an objective view of what you can tr what you can control and what you cannot control. and kind @paige_semenza: Yeah, that's a good way to put it. @misfitcoach: of lumping all of those things together. @paige_semenza: Yeah. And obviously I think talking like Tony does a really good job of debriefing his performances, like every event, every competition, like he takes it down to very good detail. And I think for him having someone to just talk, talk through that with allows him to get a really objective perspective on the way things went. Cause he always comes back and he's like, I, I felt like I gave great effort and he's still hungry for more. Like he's still like, I want to get up that leaderboard, but He knows how to define his weekend by the way that he performed. @misfitcoach: Sure. Speaking of Tony, you regularly refer to certain athletes as gamers, and I'm curious what actually qualifies someone as a gamer in your eyes. Is it a particular competition mindset, the ability to rise the occasion, or something else entirely? What's fun here is there is something happening internal that only the athlete could express, and we'll ask Paige to to attempt to do so. the positive side of this is someone who understands how to use the adrenaline of the moment as fuel versus like the same athlete feeling a very similar feeling and thinking that it's discomfort and like leaning into getting nervous and using a bunch of their physical and mental resources to like stress over stuff. and oftentimes that adrenaline is the same fuel there. There is a somewhat negative connotation that can come from this that I don't like to perpetuate. I was a gamer in sports growing up, but it was a little bit more about me not like doing a great job of of training in the offseason or like focusing and practice and stuff like that, which is tough. As a testosterone fueled 17 year old moron, it's very challenging. just get me to the game, please. I also played sports where I was forced to stand around and do nothing a lot, which is not good for my brain in general. so what we have to do is celebrate the idea that someone is rising to the occasion and not @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: celebrate the person who. doesn't train very hard and still does pretty well because that's the @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: wrong side of that conversation to celebrate. @paige_semenza: Yeah, think the negative connotation is like, gaming the system, right? Like I'm finding loopholes in ways to do things. We're talking @misfitcoach: Exactly. Yes. Right. @paige_semenza: about being a gamer. We're talking about someone who can make good decisions under fatigue and adapt quickly. And like you said, rise to the occasion. A gamer is someone who can perform at or above their training level when it counts. So I think that those, that's a clear distinction there. And it's a lot of it comes down to, think, composure as an athlete of like, @misfitcoach: Mm. @paige_semenza: like you said, using your adrenaline appropriately in in high pressure situations. Everybody knows every competition feels like a high pressure situation. So @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: I think there's a learning curve there. I think there is an experience, a level of experience that's required. I think of someone like Kyle Moline or myself who have competed in Division one sport. we've had those early experiences in our past that have helped us develop as athletes. You could say the same about Kenzie Riley, where I look at maybe someone like McKenna who has done competitive cheer and things like that, but maybe not at such a high level, who she is someone who is learning to become a gamer, does really well in @misfitcoach: Right. Yeah. @paige_semenza: training, and needs to learn to. express that in a competition. So I feel like having those kind of polarized examples can help you figure out more of what that means for Tony. @misfitcoach: And it's not a snap your fingers kind of a thing. @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: you want to think about it from the perspective of I am working towards becoming a gamer and the experience that I just had at said competition is data to help me do better at becoming a gamer the next time and then the next time and then the next time as we're moving our way through. @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: All right. I I don't wanna be rude. I wanted to skip this next question, but I know why the person is asking it specifically. I think the HIROCs, CrossFit, crossover stuff is just part of what we're gonna have to deal with as coaches @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: and programmers moving forward. So what are Drew and Page's thoughts around hybrid athlete and as a CrossFitter, a hybrid athlete, how would you two define it? a CrossFitter is a hybrid athlete, a hybrid athlete is not gen is not a crossfitter. So @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: you are working strength and conditioning and skill and all these different elements. shout out to the lamest name of all time. It's high rock stands for hybrid rock star. No. That does not pass the @paige_semenza: Hehehehehe @misfitcoach: sniff test. That's an ick. Hybrid rock star like you should have to wear an Ed Hardy shirt. @paige_semenza: It's cringe. @misfitcoach: While being a high so high rock sounds fine. And honestly, cross I almost didn't do CrossFit because I thought it sounded stupid. Just the name. This is 2008. was like CrossFit? Excuse @paige_semenza: you @misfitcoach: me? Like I I'm thinking like, you know, like it's it's like a big X. You know, I don't know. It just it the naming threw @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: me off a little bit. so that's I define a hybrid athlete as as someone who, I would honestly right now be a pretty good example. I ride my bike four days a week and I do bodybuilding three days a week. That's a @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: hybrid athlete. so it's really just the like crossfit and nudging the fitness community to be like, you guys need to lift and run. Right? @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: Like it's not one or the other. If you want to be the best version of yourself, regardless of any sport affiliation, you should probably be strong and have good cardiovascular fitness. @paige_semenza: Yeah. I think of a CrossFit athlete is like a hybrid athlete that competes in one sport. Whereas like just a hybrid athlete in general is more like in, like a, you know, a, it's more a generalist who competes across multiple sports or modalities. So I like, I like how you said it. Like a CrossFitter is a hybrid athlete, but a hybrid athlete is not just a CrossFitter. Yeah. @misfitcoach: Necessarily. Exactly. Yeah. All right. not CrossFit related, but coaches are people too. What is your dream vacation? @paige_semenza: Exactly. @misfitcoach: I have I've been everywhere, man. I've been to many, many places. I've been very lucky a lot of it through CrossFit specifically. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: this is a general one. I'll give a specific example. I would like to go to Iceland in the summer and have like a like a camper van kind of a situation. And do the other side of the island. Because when you fly in to Iceland, you're in Reykjavik, and the surrounding areas are somewhat populated, and then the entire island is empty. It's like, I don't know, like volcanoes and all kinds of wild shit. But the scenery on the coast going all the way around it, which you can't do year-round, is insane. So if I could do that with my wife and son with my camera. And I get up at six AM by myself and I make my coffee outside and I'm looking out at the ocean and giant volcanic cliffs. That would be that would be about it @paige_semenza: You @misfitcoach: for me, I'd say. I might not come back. Yeah. @paige_semenza: Right? I haven't like, I don't know, I haven't really thought about it, but I will say, I was having dinner with two of my friends and we were talking about, there's a company called Voyage RX, which is like, it's, they're like, itinerized, itiner, itiner? I don't know how to even say that. Yeah, okay. They all have an itinerary, but it is a @misfitcoach: I know what you mean. I don't know if it's a word. Yeah. Yeah. @paige_semenza: vacation. And they do different places. They do like Croatia, Switzerland, like they go all over the world. and you could either do it with friends or on your own. can, you can go, @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: the whole trip has like a whole plan every single day. Like some days it's like, all right, we're going to drop in at a gym and then we're going to go visit this volcano or this mountain or do something active. and we were talking about like, I don't know the reviews on like Voyage RX, but we were talking about the Croatia one. I'm like, Croatia looks pretty fricking cool. I don't know, something like that. I think I would like, cause there is some flexibility within an itinerary that they give. So you'd be @misfitcoach: Sure. Yeah. @paige_semenza: able to still do things on your own. @misfitcoach: The one my recommendation right now that comes top top of mind is what I would refer to as Switzerland. you'd be in like Zermatt in Switzerland, and then you would go to like Lake Como kind of area in northern Italy. That that's a wild like you feel you're in Wonderland. And then the train too, the @paige_semenza: Yeah, that's cool. @misfitcoach: train from Zermot to I think it's Milan is just like you've @paige_semenza: That's awesome. @misfitcoach: n If you think you've seen HD before, you have not. you're @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: looking out the window and you just can't believe what you're looking at. So would @paige_semenza: wild. @misfitcoach: definitely, definitely recommend that area. All right. CrossFit related, why do you hate us? specifically regarding Misfit Aerobic Threshold tests. But also curiously, we have only done two machines. for that, I think the concept to bike in the row. Will we see this on other machines? It exists in the ecosystem on every machine. The Misfit Aerobic Threshold test is 40 minutes at or 40 minutes for average pace on any machine running, whatever we could do a 10 minute sections of each machine. There'd be different ways @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: to do it. It all depends on what your goals are, where you're at in the season, what your strengths and weaknesses are. So, like in a remote coaching setting, you know, bunch of running, like Remote coaching athletes doing the the misfit aerobic threshold test with runnings for average, mile pace, that sort of thing. So it's really just the row's gotta happen, because it's rowing and it's cros online CrossFit. The concept two bike is one of the longest, longest levers that we can pull to in improve leg endurance in the sport through @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: zone two. and then phase three, I believe is non-mandatory echo bike. There are rumors of that being pulled into the sport more and more. It is a huge part of the sport. and there is an exposure therapy element to it for people to realize that there are speeds other than stupid slow and stupid fast. There's a whole world in between that you can get to on those. So it @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: does exist everywhere, depends on the athlete, time of year, all that good stuff. @paige_semenza: Yeah. Yep. @misfitcoach: I don't hate you guys. it's it's it's tough love, I think is what it is. all right, prioritize these three deficit, tempo, or load. You can't have all three. My body says no, thank you. I don't fully understand the question. but Is it @paige_semenza: Are they talking specifically about the deficit deadlifts in this phase? @misfitcoach: I don't know. Let me go back and look. @paige_semenza: I feel like that's how I would frame it. @misfitcoach: Let me go back and look and make sure there isn't something missing here. @paige_semenza: because we have it's a lift to on day two. Positional @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: deadlift, three inch deficit tempo. @misfitcoach: I think it is more of a more of a general programming question because there's nothing else attached to the question. I mean, load is number one. It's gotta be. Like if we don't have it if you aren't able to put a bunch of weight or, you know, force application into something, then it's not really gonna matter if you do tempo or deficit. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: Tempo would probably be second. I think you can manipulate muscles in that way. and then deficit is either a limiter or a way to progress something and overreach. So I'd put it kind of in that order specifically. and then the my body says no, thank you. I'm not entirely sure what that means. I'm sorry. I don't have I don't have any any anything else there. @paige_semenza: I don't know. mean, if it is talking about the deadlift positional work in this phase, like the rule of thumb is like, use a lower deficit as needed to maintain safe and strong positions. number one, remove the deficit. If your body is saying no, thank you to that. I don't know, maybe some more activation work, glute work, hamstring work, if specifically the deadlift. @misfitcoach: Yeah. All right. We are moving on to questions from Instagram. What are the best exercises to get your VO2 max up? I'll give an answer and then I'm going to completely hijack this question and give the turn it into what I want it to be. I would say that running is an interesting one because you can't really get good at running without your VO2 max improving. In the CrossFit space, I would say anything that is more total body is going to have like @paige_semenza: you @misfitcoach: a just a a wider effect. So there's a lot of really good stuff happening with localized muscle tissue, say on the skierg or the C2 bike. But if we're talking about the rower or the Echo bike, Our ability to move the needle on our VO2 max is going to be higher in those with it just being total body, because you can receive a level of intensity, I believe, that's a little just a little bit more balanced and easier to get to. The real answer to this question is to work in the time domains and energy systems that are weakest for you, and then the machines that you struggle with. So the context of a CrossFitter trying to improve. their VO2 Max. yeah, there's probably something to say about like doing the VO2 max test, you know, on a treadmill or something to that effect. And and that would be an expression of it. But you need to go to I would tell this person to go back and listen to the the engine podcast that we did, where we talked about all of the different ways @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: that you expand and build your engine. that is where you're gonna see the biggest difference. So @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: like Short, medium, and long, zone two, all the way to power output. Where do you struggle? What machines do you struggle on? Become very well-rounded in all of those things. And that is the way to improve your VO2 max. Also, CrossFit. It's probably the best at improving somebody's VO2 Max. So throw that up. @paige_semenza: Yeah, I don't have much to add to that. @misfitcoach: Any tips for training through soreness while avoiding getting hurt? soreness is not an injury, which is great. But if it is happening nonstop and you're really sore all of the time, something is very wrong. Something's @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: wrong with your training, something is wrong with your recording. Recovery, your sleep, your nutrition, whatever. So being sore is part of the game. Honestly, minor injuries, training through minor injuries, you know, you know, little little things, you know, being hurt versus being injured, that kind of thing, it's just part of like what we do, right? If you're on the GPP program and you've got a little injury, then you stop training, you deload, you do whatever. If you're on a competitive program and you're close to the season, gotta figure out what to do. in that specific kind of moment. So @paige_semenza: Yeah. Yep. @misfitcoach: I would I would say that if s perpetual soreness is just an issue over and over and over, then then something is wrong with either the training or the recovery @paige_semenza: Yeah, I was like, my first thought is like warm up, like hit a long warm up. And usually like you tend to start feeling better with that. I've had days where like, you guys know, a 12 to 15 minute sweat check is a non-negotiable for me. I've had days where I extended up to 20, just based on like how I'm feeling. And if I can like, like trying to get myself into a second gear, even mentally. So, something like that. Or it's like, you, like you said, if you are always sore, maybe it's more of like, you have to look at like movement pattern or maybe, you know, something is just kind of off kilter a little bit. but I think that deserves like a, a deeper conversation, individually for that person. @misfitcoach: For sure. We're gonna do one more question. Paige is gonna bounce and then we will pull Colin in and Colin @paige_semenza: Sweet. @misfitcoach: and I will do the rest of them. So what's the best way to scale progressions through a phase as you recover from an injury? the first question is is it appropriate for you to be doing the progression at all? so if you're truly injured, doing something else entirely or an accessory version of something is probably the right answer. To that question. If you are coming back from an injury, what I write in a lot of the programming is I put in parentheses in remote coaching, rehab edition, right? So the mindset that you are going into the session with, let's say it was the tempo overhead squats, one by one, heavy but pretty, as someone who's rehabbing, right? So like If that's 135 on a normal day, it's 75, 95. You're dip you're jumping @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: back in, you're feeling it out, that sort of thing. Same concept would go for doing skill work. and you see a particular type of sets. Like we try to have the the those things scaled for you guys accordingly. So if you were doing, say in phase one, the total bar, you would just do a smooth, comfortable set and call it. And then once you hit the time cap, you're done. And that this is the again rehab edition of this specifically. And each week you, you know, you try whether it's adding one rep to one set, but you are changing, I try to get athletes to change the mentality. Your @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: goal is by the end of the phase to be ready to do the full version in the next phase. So you are slowly working from I haven't done this in a while to I'm ready to go over the course of eight weeks. @paige_semenza: Can you use, like you've had to do this with McKenna, right? So like @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: what has been the progression from her from like accessory through, then she did wall walks in this pass phase and now she's onto handstand pushups and handstand walks. Like what did that look like for @misfitcoach: Yes. So @paige_semenza: her? @misfitcoach: there are three different elements to this. The first one is accessory. It is showing someone that we can scale this like infinitely, you know? can do shoulder press with nothing in your hands. You can then do shoulder press with five pounds in your hands and you can work your way towards that. The next thing is like three rounds of one easy set with machines in between. Just, I just want to know what this feels like. And then the third iteration is we've landed on what I just talked about, is working yourself from I haven't done this yet to I'm like ready to go by the end of the phase. So @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: her and I set goals for which things live in those categories in the phase because then the expectation is there and we know we're not, even if she's feeling good, we're not doing high rep bar muscle up during phase @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: two. She can practice it once a week, but we're not putting that back into intensity until phase three, no matter what. @paige_semenza: Yep. I like it. @misfitcoach: Cool. I am going to Bring Colin back in here. And Colin Boesch: Hi page, bye page. @paige_semenza: See you later. @misfitcoach: Paige is gonna run and we'll see you next week, Pai. Venice of the coast calls. See ya. @paige_semenza: Guys, Fittest of the Coast calls. See you later. Colin Boesch: Go get me. See ya. @misfitcoach: Colin, what you got for me? Colin Boesch: Sir. Alright, is the Echo Bike gonna be in quarterfinals this year? @misfitcoach: No, I don't think so. It's like backflips and triple unders Colin Boesch: there's a @misfitcoach: and things of that nature. I mean, listen, if rogue, you know, if rogue's like, Hey, you got you we'll give you fifty grand if you put it in there because I know that we s we're gonna s we're gonna sell out of them the next day. Maybe, maybe. I hope so. I want the d diversification to be there. I think at a particular level it matters a lot that they push the envelope. Right. I don't know if quarterfinals is the right place. Maybe online semifinals is the right place to do that. There's no way a semifinals athlete doesn't have access to an Echo Bike a thing. So Colin Boesch: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: I'd like to see it expand out for sure. Colin Boesch: The only reason I think I've ever been opposed to having an Echo Bike in an in an online qualifier or just even a bike in general is the variety of how tough different Echo bikes can be. As in I know for a fact that there's one Echo Bike model number sixty three in my gym that's much easier to pedal on than model number sixty seven in my gym. So that's that's the only like @misfitcoach: Right. Yep. And that could be part of it, you might have to show like we're using this monitor or something to that effect. Yeah. Colin Boesch: Yeah, exactly. So I was just wondering what your opinion on that was. Cause it who knows, man. He drops stuff on his weekend review all the time these days, I feel. @misfitcoach: Yeah. Colin Boesch: I feel like we didn't dive into too much like within the phase stuff. So I've got a lot of like frequently asked questions, I think. Or I @misfitcoach: Sure. Let's do it. Colin Boesch: within like some phase stuff. So within like I know we're doing the tempo deficit deadlift this week. Does a deficit work differently for a deadlift as compared to something like a handstand push-up? And why would you do either of them? Why are we doing a deficit deadlift and not a deficit handstand push-up? @misfitcoach: Yeah, for sure. The we just talked about the loading portion of this conversation. We can't really change a whole lot about the loading within a deficit handstand push-up. we are increasing range of motion in a deficit handstand push-up because honestly a handstand push-up's range of motion is kind of weak, right? Like there's there's a lot more that you can get out of pressing, which obviously we do regularly with the dumbbells, with the barbell. so that would be a progression in that direction with the deficit. deadlift, what we are learning to do is use our legs to get the barbell from the floor to our knee. it really kind of forces that. Now if you're already good at it, then it kind of turns into what the deficit handstand push-up is. because you can add more weight, you get to infinitely scale that movement and you can scale up and you can get even better at using your legs in the first pull. You can make your pull even stronger from that perspective. So I'd say that that would be the main difference is I can do a deficit deadlift with sixty-five pounds. A deficit handstand push-up is just a deficit handstand push-up. Colin Boesch: Yeah. So then I think I have a couple of questions about stuff like this. in that vein of like y if you're really good at deadlifting, you can make this really hard. Like what is the point of or where is the point of like diminishing returns? if my deadlift is six hundred pounds, should I be doing these tempo deficit deadlifts? Or should my effort be more focused elsewhere? @misfitcoach: That one's just easy, right? That one's just an easy question to answer. Just the answer's just no. That's why it's non-mandatory. Colin Boesch: Yeah. @misfitcoach: It's like, hey, if you aren't either you aren't a good deadlifter or a safe deadlifter, this is for you. If you're a great deadlifter, no. Like we don't need to that's not necessary for us to do. Colin Boesch: Cause then it also I feel like the question then is in the same vein with the handstand pushups, you we've talked about that Russian saying all the time of in order to be good at pressing, you have to press. Is there a point of diminishing returns? And like how good of a presser do you need to be to start seeing like diminishing returns because you're pressing too much? @misfitcoach: It's nuanced. I could press three or four days a week when I was 20, and I can press two days a week as a 40 year old. So like part of it is like like your fitness level, what you bring, you know, with you know, training age and how many reps you have there, what's your mobility, stability, testosterone and grow growth hormone, what's, you know, Colin Boesch: Yeah. @misfitcoach: pumping through your veins, that sort of stuff. So that that matters a lot. in a in the CrossFit sense. Diminishing return would be doing so much of one thing that it affects the training outside of it. So like it's usually pretty easy for us to know, like, wow, I can press three days a week. I can do a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, whatever, and really move the needle here. Then you go to do other movements and it becomes a problem. That's where we would draw the line and be like, this just like there's so many things to get better at. Let's raise the GPP and the pressing at the same time. Colin Boesch: Yeah, I I felt that that fit into the any tips for training through soreness question as well there of if my shoulders are so sore, should I really be pressing this much or sh is my @misfitcoach: Yeah. Colin Boesch: effort better spent elsewhere? @misfitcoach: And there are this is typically more at the affiliate level, but we saw it a lot early on, where there would be gyms that went long like every day and they had people do the paleo diet. and they looked great and people were very jealous and then they couldn't perform, right? Like bodybuilders will tell you when they do a cut, they feel like they're on like death's doorstep. That is not a optimized human being, but a lot of people really do like the aesthetic side of it. And within that training, you're always doing, hundreds of sit-ups and hundreds of air squats and all of that stuff. And like it you should not be struggling every day to walk up and down the stairs. something's going on again with your programming probably, but also your recovery is not matching what you're doing in the gym. Colin Boesch: Well the aesthetics behind bodybuilders too is also the hydration aspect. So is you could also be dehydrated and looking the way that a bodybuilder looks in that sense too, right? Yeah. @misfitcoach: Yeah, what is it? They're taking dandelion root because it pulls all of the moisture out of their body? Doesn't that sound terrible? Like go for it, you get the pick. You know what I mean? You know, it's it's it's a goal in and of Colin Boesch: Yeah. @misfitcoach: itself, but that is not what a healthy human being looks like. Colin Boesch: Yeah, exactly. okay. For the accessory work in this cycle, is there any specific strength numbers that I should have in like as a weakness in order to do the accessories? Because we talked like at length in the phase two podcast about like you don't have to do every piece of accessory every day. Like you should be picking like what you're the weakest at. But like the @misfitcoach: Sure. Yep. Colin Boesch: example is if I have a five hundred pound back squat and I have a three fifty clean, but my snatch is 205 to 225. obviously @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. Colin Boesch: I need to snatch more if I want to be competitive. But like is there like accessory specific that I should be doing? And how do I determine which days are good for that? @misfitcoach: You would hope that I know that you probably need some strict like people that don't have the upper back stability. I love strict pull-ups and even some like wider grip, strict pull-ups for somebody that struggles with that sort of stuff. Eventually it does lead us back. All roads lead to do I want remote coaching? Can I afford remote coaching? That whole conversation because Then it's like, okay, with the rest of the program, am I moving things around so that I'm having you walk with kettlebells over your head? Are we doing the overhead squat holds multiple times a week? There are things that help us get better at that specifically. But again, if you cast a wide net with a group program, it's not always possible to have all of that like subtlety all the way down through the Colin Boesch: Yeah. Yeah, I mean it makes sense. It's like so I guess then like adding on to that, is tempo work only beneficial for positional strength or can I use it to improve my overall peak strength as well and why? @misfitcoach: yes, you can. The translation here is the athlete who has actually already has the strength in the one rep max, but then cannot lift maximal submaximal loads repeatedly in a CrossFit workout. like for me personally, I always needed if it was gonna be a heavy workout, for it to be like fast and furious. You know what I mean? A six, five, four, something like that, that kind of rep scheme to be able to show off what I can do. and for me, it's concentric strength is like an eight out of ten, and then eccentric strength is like a four, and isometric is like a two. So if you're the type of person who's strong in one rep maxes, can't hold a plank and L sit, can't hang from a pull-up bar, can't do a handstand hold, all of those different things. That's when You can tr learn to translate your strength into CrossFit through tempo work. Force the time under tension, force the development of that musculature. I think to the people who with the 10-second squats would basically do all 10 seconds in the top half of their squat. So like five seconds in the top half on the way down, bounce, catch it, and then five seconds. Colin Boesch: Yeah. @misfitcoach: From there, that's not what that is, right? There's no muscular Colin Boesch: Yeah. @misfitcoach: control. The the nervous system is not on board for this. You have to take the weight down to a place where you can truly do five seconds smooth from the top of the rep to the bottom, five seconds smooth from the bottom of the rep to the top. we're doing that right now in the in the programming with back squats. and aga that style of training is helpful again for people who need strength endurance and then people who need to get better at the specific movement itself. Colin Boesch: Yeah. This is a fun one. Should strict pressing be easier than strict hands and push ups or vice versa and why? And is the answer just the range of motion? @misfitcoach: I I don't even know how to I don't how do you answer that question because how much weight like what is the strict press? You know? Colin Boesch: That's true. I s like in theory, right? I weigh if I'm 205 right now, I @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. Colin Boesch: can't strict press two five, but I can strict handstand pushups. @misfitcoach: Yeah, that's 'cause that's 'cause your hands are in line with the top of your head, right? Yeah. Colin Boesch: Yeah. So it's less range of motion, right? So in theory, the strict handside push-up should be easier than a strict press because if we're gonna one to one the weight, right? @misfitcoach: That's not the only reason though. The other reason is because we have the eccentric portion loading like a back squat. so why is a touch and go deadlift easier than one? because we get to load properly and come back down. That strict press is weird, man. The strict press is odd, right? It's like if I could just take this out and put it over my head and then come down and press back up, And I've actually done that with athletes that really struggle with it, is they're allowed to push press rep one. and then they can just get used to pressing the heavier weight that they can't do from a static position. they can get used to that from a neurological level, which oftentimes is part of the issue. It's why I tell people if you're weak, get that belt, get those lifters, get the knee sleeves, like use those things to your advantage. because you're never gonna overload the nervous system like if you're always bragging about your beltless in nanos squat. It's like, I would rather just squat more. That sounds like that sounds better to me. Colin Boesch: Yeah. So you're saying if you are strong then we shouldn't be using the the lifters, the knee sleeves, the belts, the @misfitcoach: No, I just find that it's funny that weaker people brag about that more than stronger people. When they're the ones that would Colin Boesch: I feel like that's @misfitcoach: rely on it more, be able to rely Colin Boesch: Yeah. @misfitcoach: on it more, right? so no, not necessarily. There there are definitely instances where people rely on those things way too much. you know, the like I can strict press like ten more pounds with one of those rogue leather belts. Like I call it my artificial midline. Like I don't need to train this. I'm just gonna wear a corset while I'm strict pressing and then you know there's no manipulation in my spine and I'm good to go. Colin Boesch: Yeah. Yeah. I'm straight as a board. I I've @misfitcoach: Yep. Love it. Colin Boesch: had one of those belts since like my first week of CrossFit. That I think my first purchase. @misfitcoach: they're incredible. Colin Boesch: It I it still it still works. Ten to fift twelve thirteen years later? Wow. Sheesh. all right. here's a good one that I think relates back to what we shouted out earlier in the podcast. When coaching a competitive athlete through a competition, meaning it's like during the competition, what do you believe is more important to focus on in the moment? Strategy or mindset? And the answer cannot depend Or cannot be it depends. @misfitcoach: There's n I Colin Boesch: It has to be at any moment. @misfitcoach: At any moment. so I'm trying to order them. I'm trying to say like if you had one but not the other. Colin Boesch: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: Unfortunately, I do think it's I I don't I I'm just gonna put out there that the question's not fair. I'm being I'm being forced I'm being forced into a box Colin Boesch: It's not. It's not supposed to be. @misfitcoach: here without strategy. I don't know, you know what I mean? Like if you're just going out there and doing God knows what, like does it really matter? So in terms of order of operations, getting an athlete to realize that their strategy can carry them through particular moments that other athletes, if they're not strategizing, then they have a leg up on them. if you're not having that conversation, there's a serious problem. There are plenty of athletes who, in terms of mindset, either need a ton or very little. Like I had athletes who I was there to support them almost more on a like friend social level. For them to go compete, keep the vibe the way that we want it. I am gonna Colin Boesch: Keep the vibe. @misfitcoach: go fuck shit up out there on the floor. And if you talk to me too much before, it could mess with me. and that would typically Colin Boesch: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: be a gamer, that type of athletes, usually someone who played high school, college sports, like that kind of thing. And then there are athletes where it's you know metaphorical hand holding the entire time, which is totally fine. You know, it's the job. but the idea. Idea of no strategy sounds insane at a competition. Colin Boesch: I actually have an athlete who came from a different company that I won't that @misfitcoach: It depends. Colin Boesch: I won't name. A different company that I won't name. Competed in a competition and her the only strategy talk that she had with her coach was to pick up a sandbag faster. Just pick it up faster. @misfitcoach: The general public does not want to meet their heroes in most instances. I can tell you that right now. There are five to ten coaches with the reputation matches the reality. Total. Colin Boesch: Okay. @misfitcoach: And I mean that in a positive way. So somebody has a bad reputation, maybe they're actually good. but I mean people who are put on a pedestal, might be better at recruiting, schmoozing, businessing than actual coaching. so you I I don't like people don't want to know what certain coaches Colin Boesch: Yeah. @misfitcoach: do or don't do. I can tell you that right now. People would be very sad about it. And listen, if you're listening to this and you're a good coach and you have a good reputation, you're just on the list that I'm talking about. You do exist. there are some Fantastic coaches out there, but there are a bunch that people think are awesome. They don't pass my awesome test. Colin Boesch: Wait, I wrote it down. The Druisms list is growing. I have ick and sniff test today. @misfitcoach: And awesome test. Colin Boesch: An awesome test. I had that @misfitcoach: The one that got added to Telegram recently was Soup to Nuts and I remember when I said it in the video, I was like, What the fuck? I don't say that But I did. That's that's me Colin Boesch: That's incredible. @misfitcoach: that's me feeling awkward as fuck sitting in my office by myself trying to talk to a camera. That's what Colin Boesch: Extremely understandable as you guys can see the background here of my my my family it lovingly calls it the clawfis as it's a claw closet office. @misfitcoach: I love that. The clothes. Colin Boesch: all right. that one got a little heavy. Let's end with my last question. Drew, what's the solo parenting go to activity? Are you guys a park family, bike ride in the carrier family? Get in the car, go through a car wash. @misfitcoach: I would say definitely on that list, Park would be number one. That would be like the A number one thing. He is less into the park now than he was before, just in terms of like convincing him to go. But once he's there, he absolutely loves it. now it's more like Colin Boesch: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: put on Lightning McQueen stories or take me to the grocery store so I can buy a matchbox car. So if he had it his way, this would be a different list. But the park is definitely the park is definitely a go-to because you're hitting a lot of birds with one stone there. You're getting out of the house, you're getting the exercise, the sunlight, the fresh air, so that they actually, you know, may sleep during their nap and you can take a deep breath. but yeah my go-to activities Colin Boesch: Wait till @misfitcoach: and his would be very different lists. He would want cheese balls Colin Boesch: Yeah, I so that's @misfitcoach: and YouTube. Yeah. Colin Boesch: Well, that's the question. what's your go to? I this is just these are just examples. what what would you choose to go and do? @misfitcoach: I would say the park. The park would definitely park would definitely be on there. Or another go to would be enlisting my two best friends from college have three year olds as well. so it's like Colin Boesch: Nice. @misfitcoach: get them in a room and, you know, play with cars and do all that stuff and we watch football and make sure that they're okay. Yep. So that would be pretty high on my prioritized Colin Boesch: Yeah. Check in every five to ten. Yeah. @misfitcoach: list, I'd say. A little group parenting. Colin Boesch: Yeah. Archer. The only reason why the why the go through a car wash is in there is because my son loves a good car wash. @misfitcoach: Yeah. Colin Boesch: throw in the car, go to the I don't know, it's called ever clean here. @misfitcoach: Yep. Yep. Colin Boesch: loves it. He'd go through it like six times in a row if you'd let him. @misfitcoach: That's awesome. Colin Boesch: the car's getting real clean, but I think that's I think that's all I got. @misfitcoach: That's you got? Cool. did we do it? Colin Boesch: I think we did it. @misfitcoach: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Misfit Podcast. Thank you to our show sponsor, 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 this show, keeping it free forever. remember those free trials are only on until Sunday, November 1st. and if you want to get in on that coaching call, the very first one is tomorrow. Make sure you get signed up for comp plus. as soon as possible. and that will be through misfitathletics dot com. if you go to individual programs you'll be able to find it there. See you guys next week.