Latest / Misfit Podcast / Listener Q&A: Volume, Intensity, Strength v. Endurance, Weakness work, Bodyweight, and more... E.411

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Listener Q&A: Volume, Intensity, Strength v. Endurance, Weakness work, Bodyweight, and more... E.411 · Misfit Podcast

• @misfitcoach: Good morning, Misfits. You were tuning into another episode of the Misfit Podcast. On today's show, we are answering your questions. we've gotten some really good ones recently. We've got a little bit of phase zero talk to to kind of put in here to to remind everybody that the conversation about volume and intensity is an important one. and then if we have some time at the end, we'll do a little little coaches or people too. Before we get into that, a little bit of housekeeping here. Misfit Affiliate phase one base camp starts has started in the last couple of days, depending on when you're listening to this. and we have added class plans and leveling, all written by a CrossFit level four coach. and we are offering a two-week free trial to new people. And if you have followed Misfit Affiliate before and you would like a one-month Free trial to see what all of this looks like. feel free to reach out to me directly. Coach at misfitathletics.com is my email. If not, just head right to misfitathletics.com, click on the affiliate programming button, and you can get signed up at StreamFit, Sugar Wad, or PushPress. You will also now be receiving your programming via email so that you have your programming partner and then the actual document that shows you all the stuff that I just talked about. Phase one for competitors. Misfit athletics gets started Monday, August 31st. This is the beginning of our in-season training, getting ready for the 2027 CrossFit Games season. we are going to drop the podcast for that next week, give you guys some full details there. And then once it comes back around, we will turn the free trials back on for one week so you can check it out. Last but not least, it has finally happened. If you're watching on YouTube, I'm back. This is the Gorilla Mind @paige_semenza: Citrus. @misfitcoach: Citrus Rain, a little lemon lime vibe. this episode of the podcast is brought to you Gorilla Mind. You can head to GorillaMind.com @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: forward slash Misfit use the code word misfit at checkout to save and to support the show. If you've been listening recently, my wife drank all of my energy drinks and I didn't notice. So we had @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: a hiatus. Maybe you've noticed my word recall wasn't just wasn't quite as good in the last few episodes. Well, this bad boy right here has caffeine and efficacious doses of nootropics. if you're like me, you were pounding the coffee and the nootropics in the past, and now you get it in one tasty little treat. So I'm very happy to be back on my Gorilla Mind @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: energy drink right now. Hey Paige. How are @paige_semenza: Love that. What's up? I'm good. We're at I don't know if you've heard of Asbury Park. Asbury Park Games. @misfitcoach: of course. Yeah, yeah. That was that used to be like a like a a big misfit event for sure back in the day. Yeah. @paige_semenza: Boy. really? I guess because of Jersey CrossFit Clue and @misfitcoach: Yeah, we had Clue and we had the the five one six crew from Ro Long Island and then I think Kenny Kenny was Santucci was part of it back in the day, so a lot of Misfit OGs were were into that. @paige_semenza: I don't know if Kenny's part of it now, but it was rough. It was rough. @misfitcoach: no, tell me about it. @paige_semenza: It was it was pretty unorganized. I'll just give you @misfitcoach: Mm. @paige_semenza: an example like okay, I love like we had nine teams there. We had the most teams there. and we had a great time as a gym, you know, just together. But for one event, we had there were 12 heats. Time cap was eight minutes. It took four hours. @misfitcoach: Yo, that ain't the math. yeah. @paige_semenza: Four exactly. So that just tells you that was one event. That do that for six events. It was rough. I'm @misfitcoach: That's tough for a misfit too. We've transitioned to quality over quantity over the last handful of years, really @paige_semenza: Yeah, yeah. @misfitcoach: trying to affect more people a l or or less people more. when @paige_semenza: I guess yeah. @misfitcoach: people do that quantity play, if they really don't have their shit together, it's obvious. It's very clear. @paige_semenza: It's tough. Yeah, it's it it seemed like there were like just some missing pieces. like one, you know, I don't know if the guy's trying to do it all on his own or @misfitcoach: Sure. @paige_semenza: what, but definitely could have used some help. But here we are. @misfitcoach: Yeah. Yep. Yep. Here we are. let's talk let's talk a little phase zero here. So I didn't want to do an entire @paige_semenza: Okay. @misfitcoach: podcast on this, but I have had a lot of conversations recently and seen the chatter in Telegram about how brutal it can be to lift heavy weights and do, you know, whether it's a Eight minute workout, a six minute workout, or a 40-minute wattage test. that bringing a level of intensity when you are leaderboard watching and talking to people about your strategy and all that good stuff, you know, how challenging that can be. And it just brings us back, I think, to the early days of CrossFit where we weren't as obsessed with volume and we were really dialed in on intensity. And it's not that we need to flip that switch. And go back to those days because we know that over a longer period of time, if we can be thoughtful about the way that we add volume, then we're just gonna be able to not only get fitter, but then when we go to compete, each day we're gonna be able to repeat what we're doing. And we might be the type of athlete that, you know, can climb the leaderboard on a day two or a day three, day four, you know, however long your competition is. but it really just brings us back to your ability to get the opportunity to show off what you can do starts with one open workout a week, right? And then @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. Yeah. @misfitcoach: it starts with what amounts to very low, extremely high intensity, but pretty low volume over the course of quarterfinals, the way that they spread it out over the days. @paige_semenza: Yep. @misfitcoach: and who knows, you know, the they've always wanted the open to mean more. So we could get back to a point where your ability Once a week for a few weeks, whether it's, you know, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, is gonna dictate a lot of things. So you might be preparing yourself for something that you haven't earned the right to reach yet, maybe, when you are adding so much volume and don't have the ability to say, Okay, well guess what? If we have one workout today and you and I are going into the gym and we gotta see who's gonna do it faster, I'm gonna do it faster. So I get to go to the competition that you are preparing for that you can't get to. so it's again, it's just a reminder of what how you should think about earning your volume. And when we're going in, we're gonna do the whole podcast next week, but we're gonna go into phase one and it's like, Do I need another lift? You know, we're gonna have the variable training system back. You're gonna dictate a lot of what you do in your own training, and it's like, do I need another lift? Or should it be accessory work? That would be one variation there. Do I need another MECCon or do I need to go do my aerobic whatever? or my zone two, or do I need to do the rep session, that sort of thing. So the way we're thinking about adding the volume on, I think is incredibly important. And the year-round athlete that needs like two Metcons a day is actually pretty freaking rare. Like it's a specific @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: instance, it's a tool we would use for a specific application. so trying to get yourself to a place where you know what's actually gonna move the needle for you and not like thinking about it from the perspective of what is everybody else doing is gonna make or break how you feel when you arrive at twenty seven point one. @paige_semenza: Yeah, I think too like phase zero should give you a good idea of like how much volume you could maybe do in phase one. Like if you're having a hard time recovering from two pieces a day, like reassess adding in more throughout phase one. Like skill sure, accessories sure. but @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: like if you can really just nail down getting good at one lift and one conditioning piece and adding the intensity that it requires, I think that's gonna help you consider adding volume in phase two and then in phase three. Like it could it @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: could have that bit of linear progression and it might also like take a step back. Like phase three, maybe you have to go down in in volume or something like that. But again, you're still trying to get ready for the open and for @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: the twenty twenty seven season. And that's where it all starts is with that that one high intensity piece. And I think the other thing too is like phase zero is not a perfect math equation. You might not hit every benchmark every day. So and that's okay. And like having @misfitcoach: Right. Yeah. Yeah. @paige_semenza: that mental like just acceptance, like and hearing it hopefully from us helps. I know my athletes need to like hear like it's okay. It's okay if you didn't hit something. There's, you know, it's not a consistent thing over and over again that you're skipping on things. It's like All right, I I went hard on three benchmarks this week. I'd I'd consider that a win. so kinda two sides to that there. @misfitcoach: Yeah. Yeah. It's I don't think people it's it's fun to see the new people come in and have their moments during it and then have the @paige_semenza: Whoa. Yeah. @misfitcoach: other misfits be like, see? Like it does look like nothing @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: and then it really is much more than that. Yeah, yeah. @paige_semenza: Yeah, for sure. For sure. @misfitcoach: All right, we are gonna jump into the QA now. and We are going to get through the telegram questions, DM or Telegram questions first. And then if we have time, we will add the ones from social media. But we like to to promise to get you guys your answers first, the ones who are participating in the community and and on telegram and all that good stuff. So take it away, Paige. Yeah. @paige_semenza: Alright, you want me to say who it's from too? Alright. So Ashley asked this question. it's a mouthful, so I'm just I'm gonna read it. maybe a podcast questi podcast question or topic, or maybe a bit too niche and needs a slightly more bird's eye view. But I hear a lot in terms of being more endurance based versus more power athlete. I found myself to be particularly good at certain types of endurance and struggle more in others. I find I'm pretty good. Pretty good at more force production type of endurance, and I can grind through heavier lifts and loads and things that naturally have a bit more of a slower cadence. I think my endurance lacks a bit more when it comes to more elastic movements and things that naturally have higher cadence and frequency. Box jumps, box jump overs, wall balls, double unders, etc. I'm curious if this is common to see people better in one or the other, or perhaps one develops faster than the other. I've noticed a significant improvement since focusing heavily on higher RPMs and stroke rate. But are there other strategies you might suggest in training or for either profile? @misfitcoach: So this one's fun for me. I like this question. I like this question because w for multiple reasons. Number one, I think I relate to it as an athlete. I am nowhere near as strong or as fit as Ashley, but I can understand the concepts. but I also have my own kind of avenue within this that is unique and annoying as hell. I also like this topic because when I started as a coach and was really trying to find the best ways to do things for athletes, I went to textbooks and you know, books by coaches and, you know, PubMed and trying to find the studies and all of this stuff. And the information that we have is not a one to one replicant of our sports specifically. And then we also just have the issue of as coaches, and this isn't like the best way to explain this, but you guys will get what I mean is, you know, just the whole, you know, if All you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. We can have information on a topic and then not even within CrossFit and then not take into consideration the nuance of this specific athlete that we are talking to. and I think a lot of people shy away from asking us specific questions, but if we don't have the nuance, we have to give a generic answer. @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: and it's not to say that it won't be a good answer, but it's an answer that's meant to cast a wide net. so again, one of the reasons why I like this question is because I think as coaches and programmers, we have to be dangerous enough with this information to understand the nuance. But then the intuition piece and how to actually execute comes down to, you know, your intuition as a coach, your ability to help people move the needle. so we've got a few different concepts at play here, things that we want to be able to understand. We have force-based endurance and we have frequency-based endurance. We also have to understand that fatigue ability is task specific. really interesting research there showing that things that you would assume one person is good at based on correlating to another movement, if they don't have a lot of exposure to it, and haven't really kind of figured out the movement economy and trained, you know, the musc the muscles and the neuromuscular elements, then they're not necessarily going to be as good at it, even though you think they would be. rate of force development is really important here. So your ability to very quickly create force. and then what happens in the stretch shortening cycle. So stretch is going to be your eccentric portion, your loading phase, and then the shortening is going to be the concentric. So your ability to, you know, use the bounce would be one way to think about it there. And then what happens in your body when that goes away? I think some of us know what happens when that goes away. and then we have things like contraction frequency, movement economy is always gonna be something that we bring up. And last but not least, here is you can theoretically become strong and become fit cardiovascularly and not have the adaptation specific to the neuromuscular recruitment that you would need. so to go back to answer this question here, force-based. Force-based endurance is going to be your heavy cleans, heavy dumbbells, sled pushes, something more like an Echo bike, or if you jack up the damper on a machine specifically, low strokes per minute stuff, grinding through just heavy reps, whereas frequency-based, double unders, wall balls, box jumpovers, when we get into the higher cadence stuff, and then you're just essentially your ability to rebound. Now we talked about fatigue ability being tasks task specific. Hooray variance. That is such a huge variance propaganda thing and is one of our guiding principles at Misfit Athletics. You can get really good at the things that you work, but it's gonna be rare that you just have this ability to turn it on with a new thing that has a high frequency. We have to understand the mental load. Of like when you are really good at a movement, you can kind of turn your brain off a little bit and just get to work. We talked about it with the kettlebell swings, watching Kenzie Riley do double unders, like the physics of it doesn't even look like the rope could fit under her feet. And it fits twice. so she's @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: her brain is shut off. She's not working extra hard to figure out the movement economy. It's gonna be significantly less fatiguing for her. and this would be not just in terms of variance, but also kind of the opposite of it. This is why remote coaching can work really well. We can dial in how often you would do something to improve on it. I can't do that casting the really wide net, right? Like you @paige_semenza: Mm. @misfitcoach: have to know as an athlete, okay, this is the volume that I need to attack this at. And by volume I mean in a specific session. so we're talking about doing workouts with, you know, three to seven hundred double unders, depending on who you are as an athlete. making sure that we have a nice pretty recovery period, whether it's, you know, forty-eight, seventy-two, ninety-six hours, and then we're doing that again, or we're running long distance, we're doing things of that nature. so that's why that can matter there. strength reserve here is huge. So like early days of CrossFit, I I called it the illusion of fitness. my ability to lift heavy weights and do higher skill gymnastics. was so much further than the people that I was competing against at like local comps that I could make it look like I was fit because I'm lifting 65% of my max and maybe they're lifting 90%. so to be able to use your strength reserve when someone else is lifting a larger percentage of their one rep max than you are, especially as we get heavier and heavier and heavier, you can make it seem like you can you know, do that th well, you can do it more, than they can. But if we get back into that gray area, they're they're gone, right? You're using the @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: bounds, kind of working their way through all of that stuff. so that's really important there. The stretch shortening cycle research is fascinating because we are relying on elasticity to a certain extent with movements, but that will go away for everyone at a certain point. And I think if I remember correctly, in the study they were like hopping to failure almost and they were figuring out what was happening. So you basically like be like doing a set of double unders, but no rope. and @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: they're trying to figure out what's going on there. And the people who were able to stay within the stretch shortening cycle, the cost was just so low metabolically. Like they can measure that with the masks. And then once someone loses their ability to do that, the body thinks That they're squatting and jumping. they're not bouncing, they're not using the elasticity there. And then the metabolic output goes through the roof. So @paige_semenza: Mm. @misfitcoach: so that would explain why I can take six months off from jumping rope, do a hundred double unders in a row, and be like this is nothing, and then you put in a Metcon and I like completely fall apart. also @paige_semenza: Ha ha @misfitcoach: my claim to fame back in the day was my fight gone bad score because you could bound the box jumps. You actually didn't even need to stand up on the top, you could jump off the box. So real, real yeah. Hey, you opened your you could open your hip in the @paige_semenza: Really? I did not know that. @misfitcoach: You could open your hip in the air. You had to open your hip, but you could open it in the air. You could essentially like jump off. @paige_semenza: okay. Yeah. @misfitcoach: so I could just do those, you know, I could do whatever, sixty in fight gone bad. And then the second they introduced the standard to step down and jump back up. I'm terrible at box jumps. I'm like lower third. so That can help explain these things. What is your ability to use your elasticity? How well is it trained? How much endurance do you have within that? And then what happens metabolically when you are no longer doing that high frequency kind of bouncing there? and one of the things that you and I talked about before we started recording page was the idea of we can't just like this all comes back to just program and do the thing. And the right dose and continue to work the other stuff to to make a well-rounded athlete. But if movement economy does not improve while we are doing that, you're still gonna be behind where you should be. You need to move efficiently in these things. That's why something like running, where we're trying to get better at running and we hit a plateau with an athlete, it's almost always going to be because something like you know, their their legs are behind them while they're running instead of picking their knee up or they're breaking too hard and they get that huge muscle contraction every time they kind of pound the pavement a little bit. So we need to program in the correct frequency. we need to allow for the right amount of recovery to happen. But then if we plateau, it's like, okay, we got to take a really close look at what's going on here. Cause there there are athletes that just jump way too high. With their double unders. Like you can see it. You can watch people, like especially at a competition when they're all lined up doing the same thing at once. And it's like that person's round four is gonna suck. Like they're not like @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. Yeah. @misfitcoach: they're like the speed is good, the arms are down, like everything is kind of where it needs to be, other than that's what they're doing right there is too much work. And of course that extrapolates out to a million different CrossFit movements. but we just need you you need to be able to figure out the more efficient way to do the thing. you know, the people that, you know, don't need to but jump with every wall ball. You think about like how much more you're putting on your quad to jump and land every time. so there's a bunch of examples that we could use, but hopefully this both helps people understand how nuanced this subject can be if we feel like we are moving the needle in a bunch of things and starting to plateau somewhere. But also kind of brings it back to something fairly simple. Like we need frequency of stretch shortening cycle to improve those things specifically. @paige_semenza: So exposure to movement. @misfitcoach: Yeah. Exposure to movement and move better. @paige_semenza: How do you @misfitcoach: And and and like running versus you know, running versus using machines would be a huge example. When @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: I was marathon training, every time I did double unders in a CrossFit class, I was like, This is fucking incredible. I love this. And I'd ne because I that that stretch yeah, I was I was @paige_semenza: Because you were running so much. Yeah. @misfitcoach: running and recovering from running. @paige_semenza: Okay. I mean, for someone like Ashley, like you I you I guess you could get a little specific with her, you know how she moves, you know, @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. @paige_semenza: kind of throughout the last couple of years. like what would be a good focal point for her specifically when talking about this stuff? Like how would you if you were to just kinda take a peek behind the curtain @misfitcoach: I would look at replacing yeah, I would look at replacing things that are already very good with things that are more high frequency. And we would try @paige_semenza: Okay. @misfitcoach: to figure it out if it is like how specific can we get? Is it just, you know, the Achilles tendon that we're trying to like figure out, or is it the lower half? because if it's the lower half then we can I would definitely want zone two running in there, but we can also continue to rely on like a ninety to ninety-five RPM zone two bike @paige_semenza: Mm. @misfitcoach: to be able to to keep that cadence high and to be able to get that reflex to continue to be trained. so there are a few different directions that you would take it, but I would extend it out to basically every muscle group because there are some people where that really is the problem. They have that ability to produce large amounts of force in a short period of time. But then when they're asked to repeatedly produce that force and then recover in a half a second, it's just not the same. It's not gonna be the same kind of situation. and you just kind of figure out ways to do the same do the same kind of stuff really. @paige_semenza: Yeah. It can also I'm sure a lot of people in here will like a few people have commented Kyle Moline had done like a flight simulator test, @misfitcoach: Mm. @paige_semenza: and that got some traction, that got some conversation going, but @misfitcoach: And Kyle would be Kai would be a good example of somebody who can like absolutely dominate machines, but then would need to figure out what we're talking about with the double unders the running compared @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: compared to where he's at with the other stuff. @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: Yep. @paige_semenza: That's a cool a cool cool question, for sure. @misfitcoach: It was definitely that plus the phase zero chat was the impetus for let's do a QA. Like I think we got a good we @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: got a good start there for sure. All right. This next one is from Tammy. this is one of those instances where the nuance is actually important, Tammy. So I'm glad that you asked this. Not a general question, so maybe this isn't the spot for the podcast, isn't a place, but I would say my biggest question in my head is always. What do I prioritize when I need to get skills like strict handstand push-ups and ring muscle ups, but also want to keep progressing weaknesses? And I have been doing work to get handstand push-ups for a while and I feel like I get nowhere. So I'd also love to know how to make better progress with that. @paige_semenza: I mean I can speak, you know, from experience. I think the the conversation about, you know, with Ashley's question does come into play. Variance, obviously, can definitely @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. Yeah. @paige_semenza: come into play here in exposure to movement. my question would be like, how much work are you doing on handstand push-ups and what does it look like? but from my experience, again, like pressing has being inverted pressing, it has been a weakness for me. And exposure has been really big deal. Like a weekly exposure, like we're talking like two to four days a week of getting upside down or pressing in some, you know, whether it's horizontal, incline, strict pressing, wall facing, like adding every variance of a pressing movement has been a really big deal for me. but I've also I would also like be mindful of how much volume. Like some people like the volume and some people do better with like the heavy sets of threes and and stuff like that when it comes to pressing. but I I feel like I need a little more context to answer this 'cause I like what do you mean when you get nowhere? @misfitcoach: I think I think we have a little bit of an overcorrection instance here. We get the the thing that we are insecure about as athletes just takes up so much brain space. Like I'm not a runner, I'm not a deadlifter, I'm not whatever. And an overcorrection gets in the way of us moving the needle with GPP, which is gonna be the thing that's gonna bring you back to a place where you're probably a little bit more ready for these things. I would say my specific answer, if somebody comes to me in a remote coaching setting, I have one person right now who wants to be ready to be upside down by masters semifinals. And then I have one person who wants to spend a year trying to get better at bar muscle ups. Neither of them are doing handstand push-ups or bar muscle ups right now. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: they are doing they're doing every strength rotation and accessory rotation related to pulling or pressing in different planes. So we can identify the true limiter. What is the thing that's @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: really getting in our way? And then I can modulate frequency and intensity and rep range with a movement. Whereas with gymnastics, Like our tools are confined to a window of like what is physically possible in terms of how many muscle ups you do or how many handstand push-ups you do. Whereas I'll put fucking five-pound dumbbells in your hands and tell you to press them 25. You know what mean? Like we can really, @paige_semenza: Yeah. Yep. @misfitcoach: we can get a band, we can get horizontal, we can do so many things with all of this stuff. so getting yourself stronger in the positions is really important. And then Knowing that if I spend all of my time on handstand push-ups and muscle ups, and that's not quite the level of competition that I'm at currently, when I go to do movements that I'm good at, a total bar, a burpee, a wall walk, whatever, I haven't like pushed myself like way into what my capacity could be with those things because I've got a little bit of like shiny object syndrome. so it's not to say you shouldn't work on them, but you should work on them in bursts. You should work on them @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: like, okay, this is the phase that we're working on this thing, fantastic, but then I gotta go work on other stuff. I gotta get as fit and as strong and as skilled in the best shape that I can be before I'm gonna obsess over a specific movement. @paige_semenza: Yeah. My my final like takeaway with that was like pick one to two priorities like within a phase and really kind of like dial in on @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: those things. Like make sure that those are very intentional on the days that you have them throughout the week. but again, if if you work on everything, you work on nothing. So kind of figuring out like what is actually limiting you and then you know, starting from that baseline. Because everybody's baseline @misfitcoach: And you can @paige_semenza: is gonna be a little different. @misfitcoach: Right. And your priorities can be adjacent. You can spend @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: eight weeks getting incredible at push ups. You know what I mean? Like there @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: are it's a lot of things that you can do where the barrier to entry is low, but your ability to work and make change is very high. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. Like it. All right. This one's from Crystal asking for a friend. I wonder who the friend is. @misfitcoach: Peaking peaking emoji. @paige_semenza: For someone whose primary goal is to become the fittest, most well-rounded version of themselves while also competing in CrossFit recreationally, what should their training approach look like if their biggest limitations are strength and power output? Their conditioning is good and continuing to improve, and they've actively worked on developing their gymnastic skills. However, they currently lack the strength and power needed to move Rx weights at the volume and and intensity required to compete effectively at the Rx level. How should they prioritize strength, power, conditioning, and gymnastics development to eventually close that gap without sacrificing overall fitness? @misfitcoach: The commitment to this friend by putting they the whole time. I'm impressed, Crystal. Well done. So I would tell this per I would I would @paige_semenza: Pete. @misfitcoach: you can start taking notes and you can tell this person. this is @paige_semenza: Ha ha. @misfitcoach: one of the best problems to have. This is about eating snacks and lifting weights is what this is about. your ability to @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: continue to move weight. we need to use linear progression. We have to see that when I lift this weight, if it's a heavier percentage in the same rep range, that maybe it's as easy, if not easier, over a given period of time, or it's just again heavier because it's a higher percentage. if it's an am wrap style, I'm getting more reps. Maybe we get, you know, the the bench press, I always do the amrap at the end instead of another set of five or four or three, you know, maybe you hit a PR on how many reps you get, even though it's a a heavier set there. the part of it That is not fun for someone hypothetically that is a very hard worker is sometimes you gotta back @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: off of some other stuff and some of the other volume for these changes to take place. I was advising a super high level games athlete a few years ago, and their weightlifting coach was suggesting something to this effect, and they needed me to say, yeah. you need to back off of the conditioning for a month. that kind of thing. So I don't think we ever suggest that anyone just does lifting and skill and stuff like that without any conditioning. but you can work on different things in your conditioning and you can also make some modifications to the conditioning if you can see that it's the kind of thing that's gonna whoop your ass. Like Wow, this 20 minute amrapts gonna be that many rounds. Nah, it's a 12-minute amrap. Or @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: I'm gonna turn it into an interval. I'm gonna rest 30 seconds or a minute after rounds to keep force production high. There's different ways to do it. so I just this is one of those instances where you have to focus on the thing that you're trying to focus on. and strength to body weight ratio is a a big part of this conversation. and The other thing that I will say is there's sometimes a body weight that gets you stronger, that's five to ten pounds heavier than your fighting weight. but you're making neuromuscular changes at the same time that will maintain once your @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: body weight goes back down a little bit. Like I think there's I definitely just think crossfitters have those ebbs and flows through the season. And in if you are on the smaller side, being five, ten pounds heavier, the ten pounds might be a little bit more on the men's side, but like five, ten pounds heavier in the fall, is probably more protective than anything else. And and and @paige_semenza: For sure, yeah. @misfitcoach: then a lot of people don't even change their diet at all. They just go into comp prep and they're back at that weight anyways. @paige_semenza: Yeah. It's kinda crazy to think about other sports too when it comes to that specifically. Like, @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: you look at a wide receiver on a football team versus a linebacker, like a linebacker needs to have the fucking meat on his bones to to handle the force production against @misfitcoach: You can be the strongest person alive and you get thrown into the stands in two seconds if you're not heavy enough. Yeah. @paige_semenza: Yeah. Right, right. So like having and you know, you can I I think back to you know, I remember if if you follow Allison Scuds, like she went through having to put on weight and and get her her weightlifting numbers up. so there are definitely some more like acute like within the CrossFit space examples @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. @paige_semenza: for sure. so Yeah, that's a that's a good question. I think the other thing too is like, kinda like you said, just i if you don't know how to back off of things and like definitely ask, be you know, w talk with somebody. @misfitcoach: One hundred percent. @paige_semenza: Like, my other question though is like power output, is that like that's a definite within your week. Yeah. @misfitcoach: It is, but it's a little bit of a cart before the horse. You need to be strong to express power output. @paige_semenza: Okay. @misfitcoach: so if you feel like you're plateauing and you need to take a little bit of time off of it, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Like, especially on the women's side, if we look at power output as Echo Bike specifically, like there are some people that look like they're riding a big wheel. I won't I won't point at anybody that I'm podcasting with right now. This is a I'm talking about a friend of mine. @paige_semenza: Ha ha ha. @misfitcoach: and you gotta be real strong if you're small to to get the benefit of doing that. Like well, at the affiliate level, have like a dose of time where it's a little ambiguous, like, okay, we shortened this because the people who can really let it rip are gonna like be in trouble if we don't. But then you get the people in class who are like, what was that? Like, that's it. Like that's all we're doing, @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: and it's because it's so hard to go in and do that. So I would probably adjust what that meant. I love sleds in this instance because once again we can moderate the weight. So you can, you know, look at your Echo Bike stuff and swap in a sled for it and do pushes and pulls and all that stuff and get yourself to a point where you can again see the linear progression if water just topping out on a machine. Let's go to a sled. And we'll see if we can go as far in the same period of time with five more pounds and then 10 more pounds and @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: 50 more pounds, et cetera. That kind thing. @paige_semenza: I like that. @misfitcoach: Yep. All right. This next one is from Brian. Not sure how many people this applies to, but this is my question for the podcast. For an athlete like me who still wants to make meaningful strength and performance gains, but also knows that leaning out would benefit gymnastics and conditioning. How do you approach finding that optimal body weight? At what point does getting lighter start costing too much for strength and recovery? And what markers do you look at to know that an athlete is settling into their body weight where strength to weight ratio and overall crossfit performance is best? @paige_semenza: I mean this definitely could go back to the conversation we just had too, right? A little bit. @misfitcoach: Yeah, it just depends on which direction we're going in, right? @paige_semenza: Yeah, right. I would say like, you know, talking about some of the markers, like if getting lighter means that like I'm having some diminishing returns, my strength is is declining, my training quality is going down, my power output is decreasing, poor recovery, You could say consistent, like persistent fatigue, even. @misfitcoach: Mm-hmm. @paige_semenza: how's my mood? How's my sleep? and then just kind of like even even through phase zero as an example, like the difficulty of sustaining training volume. I think those would all be like good indicators of like if I'm dropping too much weight. But I think the cut the conversation about like the neurological adaptation, like as a benefit of adding of gaining weight and then, you know, eventually coming back to that optimal weight for you is a a big part @misfitcoach: Right. @paige_semenza: of it too. @misfitcoach: Yeah, for sure. yeah, I think the issue I think in CrossFit typically we're gonna run into the opposite side where athletes get really into it, and they really enjoy it and maybe they've just got kind of what whatever their niche is, whether it's already the gymnastics or the weightlifting or the endurance portion, and they aren't taking the time enough to back off and make it a priority to get themselves to a honestly I would say in a lot of instances is more like a body fat percentage than it is a weight. Different people are gonna operate @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: differently at at a given weight. We've definitely seen that there are much larger people in the sport than there used to be. and it's it's funny. I've I've personally done plenty of of calorie deficits at different points for different reasons while also doing CrossFit. And it's just one of those moments where you have to accept the whole like energy balance thing. I've personally done plenty of the like calorie deficit moments while doing CrossFit and it's just the energy balance thing. It's the universe at work. I always say there's no free lunch, but then there's also always the opposite side. Like if something's negative, we can find the positive. And if I think that I'm gonna PR my 2K or my back squat during that period of time, then I'm probably a little bit misguided. But at the same time I'm flying over those rings and I'm @paige_semenza: He @misfitcoach: feeling fantastic and my double unders feel better and my box jumps feel better and my running feels better. Then those are the trade-offs that we need to understand that we're gonna have in these moments. I also think that people try to lose weight way too fast. like you can put yourself @paige_semenza: Yeah, that was another part of it. @misfitcoach: in a very slight situ like a very slight calorie deficit, and we could be looking at that like three to five pounds a month thing. in in even slower, cause like if it's like, @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: okay, I want to be at my fighting weight by you know the open, and that's you know, even if it's 10 pounds, there's there's a lot of time to be able to go through and do that. And there's a huge difference between like I'm right at my metabolic rate or just below, and being hundreds of calories below that thing. @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: and unfortunately, whenever I give people nutrition advice in this instance, They err on the side of going under the numbers to be safe because they think their goal is to lose weight. And it's like, yeah, we want to lose weight over time, but we don't want to sacrifice performance in the name @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: of doing that for a significant period of time. So, I do think there are a bunch of athletes that could benefit from getting themselves again to a little bit more of their fighting weight and then just being okay with the fact that during that season of time, it's just kind of the opposite of what we said for Crystal. It's like Okay, we are we we're gonna be a better runner, we're gonna be better at double unders, we're gonna be better at burpees, we're gonna be better at, you know, muscle ups and all these gymnastics things. And if that's the case, then that's great. And it is the sport of fitness and your ability to do those things is going to far outweigh your ability to hit a one rep max, which we can definitely get back, basically. @paige_semenza: I mean kind of to add on to that too, like I think the patience thing is a really big like, you know, the open is all of a sudden a month away and you're like, my god, I gotta get down to my competition weight. It's like, no, you should have been, you know, weeks ago been thinking about that. So like if you are really considering like what that optimal weight is and like, okay, I'm not there right now, but your timeline from you're in August right now to February. Like na you have more time now. Your your deficit would not have to be as aggressive as if you were to put it @misfitcoach: No, not even close. @paige_semenza: off further. So it's like that's that's also, you know, your level of commitment comes into play there. Like if this really is something that you want, like start thinking about it now. if if you need like a nutrition coach, I know, you know, I I talked to McKenna quite a bit. you know obviously like her nutrition and all that was changing throughout her injury and her surgery and now post recovery and now getting back into training and you know she was like, man, I'm so wrecked. And I'm like, well, one, you're adding new intensity. You're getting back into things that like you actually can hit hard. and you know, you need to be able to eat rec for recovery, but it it's a if if you're in a deficit, like there is that acceptance factor. and it sucks, @misfitcoach: yeah. Yeah, big time. @paige_semenza: but you do have to kind of circle back to that. when you have those bad days. Yeah, right. @misfitcoach: It sucks too if that thing is your strength. I I find like if like a I I'm the strong person and I don't feel strong today, like that's a little bit of an ego hit. I think @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. @misfitcoach: I think that can that can be a little bit of a struggle there. @paige_semenza: Yeah. okay. This is from Lindsay. it's probably been answered, which probably. but is there a minimal effective dose for zone two? @misfitcoach: So here's here's how we've we've addressed it related to other things already in the podcast. I consider things like skill and rep and accessory work to be the zone two work of the strength world or of the crossfit world. and they're our way to add volume @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: through lowering intensity, basically. and if we are doing you know, higher intensity and CrossFit and and with Misfit you're gonna do that in the like twenty to thirty minute range. If you are not if there's not a noticeable difference between the time that you spend working in your first gear, for example, and your zone two, then you're not gonna make as much of a change. That's that's the way I try to get people to think about it. It is the amount of time multiplied by the intensity is what's gonna give us kind of our work score there. now there are benefits to doing zone one and zone two work for shorter, but they're not what you think that they're for probably. They help flush, they definitely help on the like muscular level, but if we're really trying to make a change in the engine, 45 to 90 minutes of a single modality performed inside of the window of zone two is what's actually going to move the needle for athletes. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: All right. Yeah. @paige_semenza: That one comes up quite a bit. People love the zone two conversations. Yeah. @misfitcoach: They do, they do. And it's funny because some of the other coaches that I DM with like weekly on Instagram are just like if somebody if another fucking person asks me about zone two, I swear to God. It's great. All @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: right. this one is from Ashley. My burning questions. True. Are you a Globo gym guy now? Are you writing your own programming? What's the split like? Also, yes, three year olds are the worst. And how's Ponti training going? Paige, you can start here. Paige, are you still rooting for the Lions this year or was that a poor life choice and now you were moving on? What a great question. @paige_semenza: Well, I got a pretty spicy answer for you. number one, yes, I will stick with the Lions. But number two, my cousin is a walk on at Penn State graduate and was just in his first Baltimore Ravens preseason game. So I will be rooting for the Ravens simply for that fact. That's pretty badass, right? @misfitcoach: As cool as that is, I don't know if people know that that's like the Ravens are like to the Steelers as the Yankees are to the Red Sox. Yeah, they're @paige_semenza: I didn't know that. But @misfitcoach: they're our biggest rival, and it's annoying that they're black and purple. It's annoying that they're black and purple. @paige_semenza: That's amazing. Black and purple, black and gold. That's fair. black and purple missed it too. Yeah, my bad. @misfitcoach: Yeah, yeah. @paige_semenza: But yeah, so he was in his first preseason game this weekend. I didn't get to go, my whole family went. so that's pretty friggin' cool. we'll see how that goes. Yeah. So he's on the @misfitcoach: Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. @paige_semenza: practice squad right now. I don't know. I know like the NFL is very I don't know, intricate. There's a lot of details to it, so we'll see what that means. Yeah. @misfitcoach: yeah. Yeah yeah. Yeah. They work from like a hundred people to around fifty during camp. Like that that's how @paige_semenza: Yeah. Yeah. @misfitcoach: that's how they get it down. But being if you stay on the practice squad in the NFL in the regular season, that's them basically being like, We think you're worthy of next man up. Like somebody gets hurt, you're on the roster, kind of a deal. Yep. @paige_semenza: Yeah. That's dope. Yeah, so that's badass. He's a linebacker. it's funny because in high school @misfitcoach: I also remember he's a very good special teams player and that's @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: one of the easy not the easiest, it's not easy at all, but that's one of the ways that like it's like how is this person possibly making every tackle on kickoff and punt? And then like a year or two later you see them actually starting on defense. So like he's got like an avenue. @paige_semenza: Yeah, that's cool. He but kind of like the optimal weight conversation too. Like he started off as a quarterback in high school. played quarterback all through his @misfitcoach: Holy smokes. @paige_semenza: year, and then went as a walk on as a linebacker. So like the size that he had to put on is pretty wild. Yeah, he's @misfitcoach: my god. @paige_semenza: massive. So it's pretty cool. @misfitcoach: Yep. All right. am I a globo gym guy now? no. I don't think that that designation is fair. @paige_semenza: He @misfitcoach: While CrossFit Cupcake Longs is being built, you know what's annoying too is it's it's the only part of my house that's been done for a while. So I just walk in there and think of all the possibilities. For like @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: insurance reasons, I'm not allowed to like build my gym in there yet, but I like want to be like, listen, like what if I like just put @paige_semenza: That's annoying. @misfitcoach: the flooring down? Like that wouldn't count right. Anyways, so I go to Globo Gym Monday, Wednesday, Friday so that I can use a wide range of dumbbells and like cable machines and like st things like that. even me I can lower my injury rate by a lot when I have a lot of implements to choose. I am writing my own programming. I tried to go the generic bodybuilding route and found that some of the programs that were on there were very clearly for people on TRT, or just, you know, straight up like horse steroids. just absurd levels of volume and I didn't really feel like I was responding super well to it. I am lucky in that with weightlifting I'm a hyper responder. So I need like less stuff, more @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: intensity, more rest in between. and I've really enjoyed figuring out a new programming problem, essentially. Like seeing what like things that they use, you know, like tri sets. For instance, like I've kind of settled on once I've done my main lift, I will do a rotation of three movements that are separated by like thirty to sixty seconds. And then fully recover and do that for like three or four rounds. there's definitely like an ability to chase that muscle endurance element there that you wouldn't have in maybe more traditional CrossFit lifting. you guys are also going to see a lot of this in phase one. that's part of I kind of need to feel like I'm either like working towards a specific @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: goal or working on misfit stuff while I'm doing it. That keeps @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: me motivated while I'm going. All right, what is my split? Monday buys and tries, Tuesday zone two, Wednesday, midline and shoulders, Thursday aerobic bike, Friday, chest and back, Saturday zone two bike, Sunday, long, super intense bike ride, like outside. that would be my that would be my kind of live chat if if we have time for it. potty training. it's I mean it's good, I guess. he was on poop strike for a while. Apparently that's a thing. Every parent laughs and is like, @paige_semenza: So it's here too. @misfitcoach: yeah, we were we were dealing with that. @paige_semenza: Three days. @misfitcoach: turns out he will shit for bunny grams. so @paige_semenza: Ha ha @misfitcoach: 'cause like you read the books and it's like don't right. @paige_semenza: Same. @misfitcoach: you read the books and they're like don't give them like reinforcement like that because they are going to associate it with that and think that that's what they need. But then you get into the instance where the diaper ash is so bad that they're crying, you give in and give them some bunny grams. so there's ebbs and flows. The if if we got have any new parents on here, the biggest mistake that we made is when he would get out of the tub at night, we would make him sit on the toilet And we would let him like watch Curious George or something to occupy him, but we would like be like, You gotta push, bud, you gotta push. And he got so frustrated by that that he wouldn't try at all. he @paige_semenza: No. @misfitcoach: like literally lay on the ground, put his head in his hands, and he would say, Trying to poop makes me feel grumpy. So we realized that we basically made pooping the least fun thing that's ever existed. Like literally like @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: push, buddy, push. And he's like Nothing's coming out. so we came back around to that. but yeah, it's it's going fine. the no-free lunch thing, the like energy balance of the universe is most apparent in children. You could never, ever, and this is probably part of it's like human biology, but you could never experience the level of joy and love that you do for your kids. And it's also so hard. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: Like like getting done work and still having the like impulse control and like really like being on and being there and being a good parent is @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: like extremely challenging. but again, it's another one of those things where like you work your butt off to be a good parent and then it's the most rewarding thing that's like ever existed. So Yep. @paige_semenza: Yeah. Love that. @misfitcoach: Yeah, we got a we got little fun little life chat kind of mixed in there. She kept things entertaining @paige_semenza: We do. @misfitcoach: for us. Yep. @paige_semenza: Yeah, me to ask? I am. I am. Yeah, @misfitcoach: I think you're up. Yeah. Yep. @paige_semenza: you're right. Lindsay asked, This was fun in Telegram reading this conversation. Do we consider @misfitcoach: Yeah, it was. @paige_semenza: do we consider burpees to be a monostructural movement? Any chance of burpees ever being incorporated into the Gears matrix? Or no because not b it's not machine based? @misfitcoach: So yes, burpees are a monostructural movement. burpees, double unders, wall balls, all that good stuff. I don't know that Lindsay has been following long enough to go through the what we consider CrossFit bitchwork yet. Like she's you've @paige_semenza: Mm. @misfitcoach: probably seen CubeStaked and Spiders on Mars. Those are the tests related to it. it would be I have thought of this because it's part of the programming and I will mix it in for remote clients. You know, do the whole like you're you're it's not amrap three thirty, it's amrap three minutes with 30 seconds of burpees, that sort of thing. You know, do the pre-fatigue or you do the burpees first and then the rowing or whatever machine. it would be entirely irresponsible to do any variation of those movements in the durations that we do the gears work. It'd be insane. It'd be absolutely nuts to be like, all @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: right, do 30 minutes of dubs. Like honestly, th there is no there is no duration in the gears that would be appropriate for any of those movements. Like at all. So that's where that would be. So we just have to make sure that they're involved as part of the equation. they're you know, any of the ones that are in the open and quarterfinals and semifinals all the time are highlighted in our movement tracker and they're in the programming as as often as we can have them in there. and again, we do have the CrossFit bitchwork. but we need to mix up what those movements are, so that we don't hurt people, basically. @paige_semenza: Yeah. Like they fit the concept, but maybe not the tool, you know? Like they @misfitcoach: Sure. Yeah, yeah. @paige_semenza: there's definitely pacing for burpees that is very specific to like spiders on Mars, like I'm not doing fifty burpees at four seconds a rep and like you got your long we we talk about it in programming too, like just kind of a peek behind the curtain when we have like a long say AMRAP or a long interval, Burpee and burpees are like that like that moderating movement. Like you're thinking of those in terms of like how would I use rowing or skiing to pace this workout? so definitely the idea is there. but if you got a first gear burpee and an eighth-gear burpee, I think we're in trouble. @misfitcoach: Yeah, yeah, that level of variance is terrifying. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: all right. Well, you're not gonna be able to answer this one, are you, Paige? All right. @paige_semenza: I mean this one yeah, this one would be for you. so Kyle asked, any origin stories for some of the misfit benchmark workouts? And yeah, what are the like what do the names mean? I mean you guys know CrossFit Cupcake Lungs at Drew's Gym is or Drew's house is you know, cupcake lungs is one of the workouts. Tell us that one. We'll start there. @misfitcoach: I'm gonna let's yeah, so cupcake lungs is literally that workout specifically is named after me. So I am the bitch in bitch work. I made that term up on my own. seventeen years ago. @paige_semenza: Ha @misfitcoach: and then Cupcake Lungs, honestly, the origins. I'm not sure if I called myself that or if somebody else called me that. But I used to do whenever I would train with Cody, I would do what I called Cody Amraps, where if his workout was for time, I would stop when he stopped. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: I wouldn't get anywhere near as much work done. I learned to not do intervals with him as like the partner because you don't get any rest. but there was a one specifically that was Power Snatch Burpee. And it's just like this for me, this is the like full on kryptonite. Like it's not short enough for me to push. It's not long enough for me to like really kind of back off. so that workout right there was me trying to write what I think is the worst workout like ever. and I am cupcake @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: lungs. Enzo Gorlami is Brad Pitt's character's name in Inglorious Bastards. we have a lot of from the like days of like traveling and doing the sharpen the axe booths and like doing a ton of training camps, you end up with a lot of inside jokes related to something like a movie. so Inglorious Bastards, Enzo Gorlami, Hunter thinks that medball GHDs are quote unquote cheese dick. so I named the workout after him. Another thing that happens, Hunter becomes bumper, thumper, @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: trumpet. so bumper cables @paige_semenza: Ha ha @misfitcoach: is that one. King Larry. so a Larry is someone who's obsessed with CrossFit to the point where like you joke that they'd be wearing knee sleeves like at a bar or like the high socks from back in Day or like that sort @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: of thing. and Sherb was the biggest Larry that we ever knew, and he loved movements like this. So basically, that's where that came from. Chuckles @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: one and two is the Chuckleheads, Hunter and Sherb. so that's them. Pennies is the original Misfit Benchmark, the first one that we ever wrote, and it's based on tasting the taste of blood in @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: your mouth. Yep. which is lovely. A little little a little edema in your lungs. Might not is something that Gabe's son said to us as what we thought was the greatest comeback ever. he basically would just say, like if you said something was gonna happen to him, he would say might not. And there we couldn't really think @paige_semenza: Ha ha. @misfitcoach: of a way that like it's like you're actually right, like it might not happen. It's like might be probable, improbable. He would always just say might not. and yeah, that's That's where that one came from. Speed, not volume. that is in reference to Sherb's eating abilities. Sherb @paige_semenza: Ha. @misfitcoach: can eat very fast, but he can't eat very much. Hurt and Injured, another inside joke that's not that interesting. I'm the Yapton Now is named after the Yappers that tested it, Kyle and Adrian. @paige_semenza: Kind of an evolutionized one right there. @misfitcoach: Yeah. seventy-five Continental Drive is the address of the garage that CrossFit MF started in in 2010. Fairy Dust, another inside joke from Matthew McConaughey's part in Wolf of Wall Street. we definitely talked about that quite a bit. What do we got in here? I don't know if there's anything else that's like Riverside Time Trials. @paige_semenza: How did spiders on Mars? Like how did that get its name? @misfitcoach: I was listening to I was listening to a lot of David Bowie when I wrote it and Yeah. @paige_semenza: Okay. I think you have said that before. @misfitcoach: That's like a music reference. Riverside Time Trial for Torta Misfit is just the name of the street that the gym is on in Portland. Mount Doom is dead, but that was from Lord of the Rings. And then I thought CubeStaked was f funny because it's the cube test, but they like grind the meat up so you're being ground up. You're the meat @paige_semenza: Ha ha. @misfitcoach: being ground up and the cubes sticked reference. So that's about it. They they basically all have to be some level of like an inside joke or r related to me listening to an album too many times. @paige_semenza: There was there was a time when you guys were getting like this was before I got into programming, but you guys were having fun just naming workouts in general. I did see phase one. yeah, I did. That's why I'm like, I'm I'm enjoying this again. @misfitcoach: Did you see do you see him back in phase one? Yeah. So here's what happened. I spent I spent hours and hours writing the names for this. I would show up to a meeting with like 20 puns and we would talk through them and spend too much @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: time on them. And then our competitors, other companies, would start naming stuff. And it would be so on the nose, it would literally be the name without the pun. And @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: it's like, no, that's not what this is. It's not how this works. That's a dumb n that's not funny. That's not interesting. You literally just wrote Captain America. Like that what? Why is that the name of your workout? There's no entertainment value. This sucks. So I got, @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: I got like, I was like, you wanna know what? I'm going full hipster. I'm not naming workouts anymore. You guys ruined it for me. But I'm back. We're back. So we've got we've got some @paige_semenza: We're back in it. We're back in it. And guys they're good. @misfitcoach: names. Dude, I don't know why I I probably laughed out loud for like two minutes writing Dip Van Winkle. I don't know why I think that's so funny. Part of it's just entertaining myself. Like I really wanted to name a workout Dead Sheeran. @paige_semenza: Mm. @misfitcoach: And everyone was like, That's kind of fucked up. Like Yeah. @paige_semenza: It's a little morbid, but still good. @misfitcoach: And for some reason, anytime I think Dead Sheeran, I just start laughing. So part of it is literally me just entertaining myself. @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: And this is kind of how you can think about this conversation is the side quest that takes place in my brain in real time when I'm like, I have 40 things on my to-do list. What rhymes with dip? @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: Or grip? Yeah, good stuff. All right. I actually this next one is also kind of for me. just because so I I have this idea. For something that I call the score. And it is your rating on the misfit aerobic threshold test, the kilowatt test, the cube test, and the power output test. And the most like the the top score would be worth 25 points in each. And if you got the top score, you would get a hundred on that. @paige_semenza: Okay. @misfitcoach: so you would have an score for each machine or modality. And you would know where @paige_semenza: It's kinda like @misfitcoach: you needed to adjust those things. The problem is over the course of a year for a new misfit, it might take you I mean, it might take you a full year to get your score. And then you're not the same athlete anymore. So I have played around with this and had people done do some testing to figure out like how we would weight the scores and whatnot. So just something to to kind of put out there. @paige_semenza: The yeah. For context, Tammy was saying it'd be kinda cool to get an overall rating after completing the benchmarks. like you @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: got a seventy-two this year overall. It brings me back to like when you played video games and you're like, Let me get the best players on the field and it's like their strength is this and their agility is that. Like that's that's @misfitcoach: it was always Drew Crandall. He was seven feet tall, four hundred pounds, and ran like a four one forty. Just truck sticking people. Uh-huh. Yeah. it's good stuff. @paige_semenza: That's what it brings me back to. It's so great. That would be fun though. @misfitcoach: All right. you already kind of answered this one. we can we can answer it. It'll be fairly quick. Has Misfit ever included classic CrossFit benchmarks in their list of benchmarks, such as one of the girls? @paige_semenza: Yeah. I mean we we did say like we've we've programmed them before, we we've used them as references, as retests, but none of them are like formally misfit benchmarks. Like they don't they don't land in our suite of of benchmarks. but also like yeah, like @misfitcoach: I think they land at the affiliate level better than they do for competitors. @paige_semenza: yeah, I would say within the competitive fitness, like we're obviously chasing certain stimulus and feel duration different types of pacing, movement combinations. So with like having our own misfit benchmarks we can we can target those things and keep it specific and help us like kind of lay out phases and see where the community is at, like at large, basically. @misfitcoach: Yeah. Right. Yeah. We really wanted you guys to know like this is what to be good at this workout, you need to be good at muscle endurance in the medium time domain. Like that sort of thing. So that's what we were going @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: for there to help you figure out where your strengths and weaknesses were and what type of non mandatory work you should choose. The @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: other stuff is like it'd just be cool for you to Drop into class when it's Fran and smoke everybody and be like that, you know, that's that. Like we're not doing a ton @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: of like one to two minute workouts. judging those things in the sport is really challenging. Your Grace, your Isabel. We don't do kettlebell swings in online competition. We don't run in online competition. So there are definitely things like some of the newer ones that could potentially be in there, but I think they fit better as like kind of off to the side, do them every once in a while, see where you're at than like into a competitive program. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right. This one's from Chris. I'd love to learn more about efficiency on the rower and maybe skierg when going for calories rather than meters for shorter, more power focused intervals or components of a MECON. Does it make sense to increase the damper and maintain strokes per minute? Or does it make sense to keep the damper and increase strokes per minute? I know the answer is going to be it depends. But it'd be cool to get some ideas for how to adjust. @misfitcoach: I don't know if Chris knows this, but he asked two completely different questions in here. I kind of want to over explain this so that we don't have to talk about it anymore. I just the the things that people have said to me over the years, the way that they strategize certain things are the most insane. Like, there are people who do interval versions of like straight through Metcons because they think it's gonna be faster. They're like, well, what if I sprint for 30 seconds and then rest for 30 seconds? And it's like that's @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. and then it's like, okay, well this one's for cows, just should I be like on a 10 damper? And again, these are like exaggerations, a little bit more like from the old school. the math matters for the difference between meters In calories, but honestly more from our programming standpoint than an actual execution standpoint. it doesn't this is the part where he's got another question that's actually a really good question. Whether it's watts, cals, or meters, we're gonna want a higher drag factor and strokes per minute, the shorter and more intense the session is. Okay. So the drag factor would be related to you know. We might be all the way down at like a hundred drag factor for like a zone two or a first gear thing. and then we might be all the way up to like a hundred and fifty drag factor for a power output or like max wattage type test. your damper doesn't matter anywhere near as much as your drag factor. I don't think that's probably something that people don't realize. Elevation, air quality, how much lint is in that bad boy, how old the machine is, all of that stuff will completely change what we're looking for there. So we can talk about we can go deeper into drag factor if people want on another episode, but like those would be reasons why you would change that, not because it's calories, not because it's calories or meters. and the discrepancy Of how they're measured is why we do AMRAPs and not okay, do this many meters or this many calories, especially as it gets more intense. And I'll tell you guys why. if I jump from 200 to 400 watts on a machine, and this is why watts is the gold standard in the endurance community, because it's literally the exact power output, everything else is like an equation of what's going on. Like I think C I think the C2 monitor is like if you weigh 175 pounds. And there's a specif that's the the calories is based on a person in a specific situation. And it and it has to be, or or else it would have to change from athlete to athlete. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: So if you jump from 200 to 400 watts on a rower, is a 26% increase in how many meters you get. It is a 70% increase in how many calories you get, right? That's why when we're doing @paige_semenza: That's pretty crazy, yeah. @misfitcoach: a workout and it's like, hey, you know, I tried so much harder. And I'm ahead by three seconds. This sucks. and so the problem here is the tiny little window of when you would choose to row a little bit harder on in in a in a specific workout, it's such a fine window that we should honestly just forget about it. So the sweet spot according to the math is like if you're repeating. In a shorter workout, a 30 to 60 second row, you might increase your row pace because you could get like five seconds ahead versus one or two seconds. But think about that in CrossFit terms. You have doubled your output. You've jumped from 200 watts to 400 watts, and you're probably gonna give those extra three seconds back somewhere, @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: right? So like it just doesn't, it doesn't change. Anything in terms of the way that you should row or prioritize things. It just means we have to be smart about like a gigantic person doing 10 calz or 15 cals or 20 cals versus a smaller person. It's not the same workout at all. And you can tell how @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: that works, how that force curve works by doing a sprint workout with a group of people. Like if if it's if we're doing this is how many calories you need to do. the the times are gonna be all over the place. The stimulus is gonna be all over the place. They're gonna be very different. So again, it is different. It does not actually matter very much. What matters is you understand that you are going to have a lower drag factor related to the damper. And lower strokes per minute, the longer you're going, the faster you're going, the shorter you're going, higher drag factor, which probably means a higher damper, and higher strokes per minute. @paige_semenza: I don't have much on that. Yeah. I definitely like I definitely @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: feel the difference on a zone one verse I mean, even for like my I'd say most of my gears I keep it all at the same damper. I don't really change much. I'm a rower at least. A CT bike's a little different. but that's because like @misfitcoach: Yeah, C two bikes definitely different. @paige_semenza: yeah, but that's because like also like it becomes way more muscular and I I'm very fast twitch power output, like I will @misfitcoach: Right. Yeah. @paige_semenza: die if I put the damper up and have no muscles left to use. @misfitcoach: Yep. Yep. I feel that. All right. let's go dealer's choice for two more. And then we'll wrap up. so I'll pick one here. This is probably a good one for you, Paige. Th this is from Lindsay Hoffman. Thoughts on competing every now and then throughout the year, other than competing at semis. So she's she's a perennial semifinals athlete. How do you think about an athlete competing more than that in the off season? @paige_semenza: I mean I like the like I like the two to three times a year. I like the you need to get exposure, you do need to get experience, and you're only gonna do that. Like if if semifinals is your only chance to do that, like if semifinals is like your Super Bowl and that's the time the only time you're gaining experience, well then like there's There are times when you can have trial and error and see what does work and what doesn't, and then you can apply @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: it to your Super Bowl. So it's think of a season, right? Like you go through game after game, they review footage and they they watch their their previous games and sessions like that. It's like you kinda need the same thing. I think there's definitely, you know, it kinda depends on your training age and where you're at within like your level. an experience, but you definitely need to get reps in for sure. and they don't always have to be for like a high pressure situation. So @misfitcoach: I would agree with that for sure. And like ideally it would be planted like after a phase. So like if you could compete at like the end of October or you could compete in like mid January, you @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. @misfitcoach: know. I think that's really helpful. Like it's really helpful to go through a phase, and maybe even treat your retest portion not as specific as, okay, I'm gonna go retest those exact same things, but I'm gonna see where I'm at. Like I'm coming off primer @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: week, I've tapered just a little bit. Let's see like what intensity I can bring. as a remote coach, what's frustrating is when they're planted a bunch in these inopportune moments. And it's really hard to find stretches to like make improvements. So you wanna @paige_semenza: Mm. @misfitcoach: really wanna feel like you're placing them somewhere where you can be strategic about and like hopefully there's like two or three you can choose from and you can, you know, contact us and say, Hey, like I'm thinking this one, this one, or this one, how would you approach this sort of a deal? because as much as we wanna be able to just go compete to compete and maybe play around with When do I travel? What can I do to improve my sleep, my nutrition, all of that stuff? I've found that when athletes do like no prep at all, that they wind up in a not so great headspace afterwards because they don't really feel like themselves, sort of a thing. @paige_semenza: Mm. Yeah. @misfitcoach: So just kind of a little bit of nuance to to put into that question. @paige_semenza: Yeah, I definitely wouldn't be overly cautious. Like, look at you have games athletes that do Wadapalooza that, you know, they are finding other competition also to number one, see where they're at kind of in their season. and I I mean, you gotta do something for fun too. Like obviously you love to compete, you love to to put yourself out there, but like To also do it with some of that pressure to kind of be down a little bit, like it that will help you, that will allow you to express your fitness a little bit more. @misfitcoach: True. All right. You got one more? @paige_semenza: Yeah, let's go. I don't know this guy's name. JB Shaff. what is the foundation of a program that makes it successful? @misfitcoach: Ooh, that's a deep one. It's like a @paige_semenza: Figured you'd like that one. Yeah. @misfitcoach: philosophical question. at base level, I think you need to know what you are trying to achieve with your program and you need to be thoughtful about the way that you prioritize that. programming should not be like spray and pray, like just you know, the maybe the random not varied. to flip that term around a little bit. So you have to decide what you're trying to do with a program. And then again, you need to be thoughtful about the way that you put it in because there's a dosing element to this. Like I want to get somebody better at something that has a huge CNS demand or something that has a tiny CNS demand. And it's like, okay, how often can we do these things? And then what kind of general physical preparedness can we build around that goal to help, you know, sort of, you know, rising tide sort of a situation? So I would say that would be the foundation because I don't know who this theoretical program is actually for specifically. I could take this in a bunch of different directions, but I guess all I would be doing is explaining what I'm saying in more detail relative to a specific person. So I think that's what makes a program successful is some sort of thoughtful progression towards a goal with well-rounded things built around it. @paige_semenza: Yeah. I think to add on to that too, it's taking what you have programmed in the past and learning from it and being able to either adapt the programming or, you know, evolve it in in a way that's kind of trending with the way the sport is going too. Cause I I'm sure you have data from twelve years ago that you can still look back on and and see how misfit programming programming specifically has evolved and how athletes that are following it have evolved. Yeah. @misfitcoach: yeah, for sure. For sure. You just need when you get better at programming, you have like instead of like four tools that you think work really well, you have like fifty and you have to know where to place those things. not only to like improve a specific thing, but also to like not get in the way of of maybe something that's a little bit more important in the given moment. @paige_semenza: Mm-hmm. Cool. @misfitcoach: All right, we will wrap up with coaches are people too. I wanna I wanted to do this because I have a like wearables PSA. a @paige_semenza: Mm. @misfitcoach: little story from from my weekend about wearables and trying to reiterate the fact that they cannot tell you how you feel. so I Basically woke up. I I I do a long bike ride on Sundays. I woke up to my Garmin telling me to take a rest day, and my aura ring telling me that I wasn't recovered, that I didn't sleep well, etc. And I think a less mature version of me would have let that kind of take over a little bit, and think about like how I want to push myself on the bike. And I have just learned that there are days where it tells me that I'm a champ and I can go for it and I don't feel good. And then vice versa. So the twelve to fourteen, fifteen mile loop that I do on Sundays on my bike, pretty hilly. There's one long hill that I face like three-quarters of the way into the ride every weekend. And I have to Essentially try to stay around like 15 miles an hour and then I can try to maybe get back to 16 by the time my ride is over. I ended the ride at an average of 17 and a half miles an hour and have in no modality ever felt that good in the 30 to 60 minute range. and I could have I think I could have done another lap at that same speed. Like I've just never something came together with You know, my programming and I don't know, some part of my biology was happy with what was going on. maybe the fueling was a little bit better there, but it's just a reminder that these things are meant to show us trends over time. to be like, hey, you're probably pushing it a little bit too hard, or we gotta figure out this sleep thing. and letting your phone Or a piece of plastic on your finger or your wrist tell you how you feel is kind of crazy. It's like a weird dystopian future thing @paige_semenza: Mm. @misfitcoach: that sounds like science fiction. And if you learn to use them as a tool instead of them dictating how you're gonna go perform, they can be really helpful. But otherwise, I just I think that they're a waste. @paige_semenza: Yeah. Yeah, I'm not wrong, definitely for sure. I I definitely have had those days. I used to use the whoop and I'll still like watch my HR V and stuff like that. But like at this point, if anything, they just kind of help me like lower expectations and just go have a good like go and give a good effort that day and like you said, like you @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: might surprise yourself. And most days when I'm able to do that, I do. that's pretty cool. So you PR'd, basically. @misfitcoach: Yeah, and like all my segments on Strava were faster. Like @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: I just felt it was weird. There was a like a point where I was like, Okay, sometimes I start out hot just because that's like how my muscle fibers work and you're feeling good and it's nice outside. Like it's nice to get off of the C two bike and get onto an actual bike @paige_semenza: Yeah. Like when is this gonna go south? @misfitcoach: and the area that I ride around looks like Mars. like legitimately looks like you're on another planet. So like real cool like really cool scenery and everything. And then there was just one point where I was like, why am I not tired? Like, this is weird. Why am I like I I feel great. I still feel great. What am I and I got done and I felt great. And I was like @paige_semenza: I love that. Yeah. @misfitcoach: weird. I've definitely found one more side quest that with the elevation, my I recover faster. and My ability to maintain an output for longer is there. My output's just a little bit lower. So like Garmin does a thing @paige_semenza: Okay. Yeah. @misfitcoach: when you go do a long ride or bike where it tells you basically how much stamina you have left. And I did a lot of endurance stuff in Maine where it was like, Are you alive, sir? Are you okay? @paige_semenza: Ha ha ha. @misfitcoach: And I could feel it too. Like I was cooked, I was done. We're talking 72 hours to like get my CNS back. And here I always finish with like twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty percent stamina left in the tank. So like, @paige_semenza: It's kinda crazy. Wow. @misfitcoach: yeah. So output a little bit lower, but like feel better all of the time. And I'm guessing that's just like red blood cells and all the like benefits of the elevation being there. Yep. @paige_semenza: Yeah, for sure. I wonder what it'll be like if you go back to Maine for a visit and what your first aerobic session will feel like. @misfitcoach: Hopefully good. I am going back to Maine in a week. @paige_semenza: nice. What for? @misfitcoach: Yep. Grandparents are all there. Everybody's there. Maya wants to go to the beach. Maya's a Maya's a beach @paige_semenza: Got it. Yeah. Love it. That's awesome. @misfitcoach: girl. So we're gonna go stay at the beach. same town as as her parents and you know, parade the baby around and hang out and all that stuff. So yep. Yep. @paige_semenza: yeah, you're yeah yeah. Love that. That's awesome. Yeah, we I mean, we live ninety minutes from the beach now, so that's kinda nice. But we're at Asbury this weekend. it made me like it stressed me out so I was just spectating. I was just watching. It @misfitcoach: Ha ha ha. @paige_semenza: made me want to run my own competition. And like I know that's no easy task. so it was a little rough. I i I @misfitcoach: I miss it. We did two or three a year at the gym and I miss it because we got really good at it. We got really @paige_semenza: Mm. @misfitcoach: good at like, okay, this person is obsessed with this, like what seems to be my new detail, and then @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: it's easier for everyone. And the people actually have fun and there aren't those weird like delays and no one knows what's going on with the points and all that. So @paige_semenza: Right. @misfitcoach: I definitely I definitely miss it. So if you want @paige_semenza: Yeah. @misfitcoach: if you want to host a misfit competition at your gym, let us know. We'll come crash your gym. @paige_semenza: Well, so Tony or Tony, Steven and Tara used to do a competition called Sink or Swim. but like around here it's tough because you have Asbury, you have Herdfest, you have Vitruvian Games, you have kind of like a lot of bigger scale ones. that it's hard to like really promote something at like a local gym like that. Not that we wouldn't get people to come. I mean it's New Jersey. You're gonna get people no matter what. @misfitcoach: Right. Yep. Lots of people. @paige_semenza: but the The stress to like like profit ratio is a little skewed. @misfitcoach: Yeah. @paige_semenza: And I was like, Steven, listen, @misfitcoach: Yes. @paige_semenza: you wouldn't have to do anything about it. Just I'll I'll take rain. He's like, I can't not do something at the gym. So @misfitcoach: Yep. @paige_semenza: his time is very limited, especially in the summer with what he does for work. But so yeah, we were there this weekend. it's kind of a normal week. And then I ended up getting a ticket to go see Bruno Mars this weekend. So I have a friend coming from yeah, from PA from back home. She's bringing her daughter, so we'll do that. @misfitcoach: Nice. @paige_semenza: Yeah. So I'd just a summer of fun, I guess. Kenzie and I are doing @misfitcoach: Sweet. Some are a fun. @paige_semenza: Tasia and her husband are running Legends Never Die in Memphis. So they @misfitcoach: Hmm. Yep. @paige_semenza: asked us to come down, so I booked my flight. Kenzie and I are gonna do that. I think it's a two day competition. try to help promote that a little bit. @misfitcoach: That sounds like belt to ass right there. Page and Kenzie. Good luck, guys. Good luck, everybody else. Enjoy. @paige_semenza: It should be fun though. I'm I'm excited. So we'll see Tasia, she's also pregnant right now, so she's got some exciting times, yeah. @misfitcoach: Did we do it? @paige_semenza: 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. Use the code word misfit to check out, and you can get yourself some Gorilla Mind energy drinks. and if you're in my situation, maybe order an extra case and hide it in your office so that no one can drink your energy drinks that you need, your precious energy drinks that you need for podcasting. phase one for Misfit Affiliate has gotten started this week. You can get a two-week free trial by going to misfitathletics.com, clicking on affiliate programming. and you can choose your program partner, Push Press, StreamFit, or Sugar Wad. If you're a previous customer from the past and would like a full month for free to check out the class plans and leveling, email me, coach at misfitathletics.com, and I will get you all set up. We will see you guys next week for the phase one twenty twenty seven Misfit Athletics podcast.