The Sevan Podcast - Does Size Matter… in CrossFit? ft. Patrick Vellner | Shut Up & Scribble Ep. 8

Episode Date: July 15, 2023

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That's BetterHelp.com. At Air Miles, we help you collect more moments. So instead of scrolling through photos of friends on social media, you can spend more time dinnering with them. How's that spicy enchilada? Very flavorful. Yodeling with them. Ew. Ooh, very flavorful. Yodeling with them. Eww. Eww.

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Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. Eww. bam that was that was good timing hit him with a fucking karate you just did it i just told you did not say the f word and you just did it dude i can't be contained bro literally before the show i told taylor i said can we end it and restart it 12 seconds i said I said, we can't say it in the first 30 seconds or it dings the show for ads. And Taylor just lets it rip. Before you did last time, maybe five seconds in, just F-bomb. Damn. Oh, here he is. What's up, guys?

I was not supposed to say the F-word within 30 seconds of the show starting so that we didn't get dinged for having ads. And I slipped up. He made it 3.7 seconds. Oh, man. What's your limit? What are you allowed? When does the muzzle come off? I think after the 30-second mark.

But totally slipped my mind. Oh, well. We could just run 30 seconds of dead air if you like if you can't help yourself yeah it's gonna be tough with him so what's up with you dude easy day today recovery day yeah thursdays are like my only day off um i swam in the morning but because i gotta i do 50 meter lanes and they, it's only open from like six to eight for fifties. So I go like first thing in the morning early. And then,

so it's kind of feels like a full day off cause I'm done by 8. AM. So I'm just like, I get to kick it for us today. So I kind of schedule all my other stuff during Thursdays calls or errands or things I have to do. So doing laundry, doing like normal life stuff because I put it off for the rest of the week and pile it up for Thursdays. What's the, what's the male equivalent for 40 pound dumbbells?

Like if females have 40 pound dumbbells, male sixties or 65s. Hmm. I mean, I'd probably go 65s. So we did this workout this morning. It was 15 devil's press, 300-meter swim, 30 dumbbell thrusters, 300, 30 dumbbell thrusters, 300, 15 devil's press.

And it looked pretty panicky after the sets of 30. So it was four swims? Three swims. So devil's press meters yeah okay so you start and finish on the yeah devil's press yeah it's pretty nasty and sorry how many devil's press 15 it's the devil's press are irrelevant it's the thrust yeah his thrusters were pretty we're really bad and this one we went to this open water place that i used like a range finder a long time ago and i thought it was going to be 100 out and back and i got there i was like oh it was more at the lake when i swam

open water too you kind of eyeball and you're like i don't know and then like my watch i'm not sure how it is for it has an open water setting but i don't know how accurate it is and sometimes i just go out and you you do the first swim and i come out and i check my watch and i'm like ah it might usually i try to go more on time because of that i'm like yeah you know is it if i'm trying to swim you know 400 meters is it like are we looking at eight minutes or did i just do 10 minutes swim and now we're like i don't really know how far i swam but yeah the thrusters i did a workout not that long ago with a very similar except it went devil press thruster push press and it was only three it was four swims and three dumbbell yeah um and it was lighter dumbbells but it was uh yeah i know definitely the swim after the

thrusters was the one where i was like michelle was getting it i was paddleboarding like next year she's getting the water she's like yeah you're just hurry and then also like your triceps and your arms just like devil's press is like it's a bit smoother it's a bit slower like it just doesn't it's annoying and it takes time but it's not it doesn't quite it doesn't treat you the same as the thrusters do and that was i felt the same the push press at the end you're just like rattling them off like breathing super fast in the water. You're like, okay. Takes you a couple of minutes swimming to get back to normal.

I mean, I know I wonder you, you guys probably do too. It's been not counting 2020 because the field was so small. It's been since the beach, right? It's been since the swim kettlebell thruster burpee that there's been like a mixed modal swim workout at the beach, right? It's been since the swim, kettlebell thruster, burpee, that there's been like a mixed modal swim workout at the games, right? I don't count last year's because it's just monostructural for both. So I wonder how many, it seems like a lot of athletes are expecting something like you're talking

about and like Taylor's talking about that if there is a swim, that it's like some CrossFit. I think everybody has been wanting it and expecting it for a long time. But I think that part of the problem is it's a bit of a logistical concern. And there's also some question as to what can you safely do

when you're all wet and things like that. And there's some there are some concerns around that. Like, are you going to put a heavy barbell overhead? Like, probably not. I think if I went there and they told me that that's what we're going to do, I might put my hand up and be like, ah, that's a bad idea. But, you know, that's why I think even that one in 2020,

when they used the slam ball, say, even instead of using a heavy dumbbell, which is effectively what it was because it wasn't a slam ball. Like, a slam ball is not a movement you can do because you're just going to pick it up and drop it like the harder you slam it you're burning energy for no reason right it's not a slam ball it was like a ground to overhead with the d-ball right but the d-ball is a little safer implement overhead than than a handle i think that's just got metal on it and stuff so i think that that was a really cool event and we all wish we could have done that one because it's probably the coolest swim workout we've seen since the beach. But,

uh, I think, yeah, we've been kind of wanting it, but there's like, you know, if we're at the pool again, I think that they're worried about wrecking the tile too.

And things like that. Right. And like, what, what can you do? Um, but it would be nice to see, I think it's a fun,

if nothing else, it's a fun way to train it like I have a lot more fun doing swim workouts that have those aspects to it rather than just like you know do a little beach entry and then I swim for a bit and then I get out and I run and then I swim and then I run and then I get on the paddleboard and then I swim again and like I did a yesterday two days ago Tuesday I did a like swim paddle workout where it was like 400 meters. You'd swim, then you'd paddle the same distance, and then every round you'd do a different position on the paddle. So starting with prone, then kneeling, then standing,

and just like, yeah, it was fine. It was fun, I guess, but it gets a little bit tedious doing that. How many different ways can you do a run paddle or a run swim? Right. And it's as the first workout. Yeah. Yeah. We hopefully will get a little bit more freedom for that. I don't know why, you know, in the past when we were at the lake, why we couldn't have just rolled out mats in the parking lot and like throwing some things down.

And you could easily do like dumbbell squats or something like that like there may be even if there's question about safety for certain things overhead there's a lot you can do without going overhead like you do a bunch of dumbbell cleans or do a bunch of whatever like there's tons of stuff you can do do you think do you think you're gonna see any single modality uh to start the weekend do you do you anticipate single modality to start the weekend prior to the cuts do you want it i i think there's i think i don't think we're gonna see so you mean single modality like a full score for just one thing ish yeah yeah to a degree i'm thinking like single modality as just one thing but also including like a crossfit total or a run swim rum where there's different movements,

but it's all monostructural based or all weightlifting base. Right. So like last year, would you call the shuttle to overhead a single modality? No, no, no. I would by that criteria.

I would, it was a hundred points for running. It was a hundred points for shoulder. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Then yes, but including that, you know, so that's, that's the question is like, does that count? running was 100 points for shoulder over oh okay okay okay yeah yeah yeah yeah okay then yes but including that you know so that's that's the question is like does that count that was technically two events but yeah you know i think that's it's still a fairly cross-fitty and like

interval style like there was some nuance to it it wasn't as simple as what you like row 1k or something like that right um so i think maybe we'll see some stuff like that you know the bike to work like some people could look at that and be like that was pretty monostructural but anybody who did it will tell you that the gymnastics was a lot more valuable than you might have thought going in uh and like that second round when you started doing chest to bars it was like you came off and if you were super lactic in your arms it took a while to feel comfortable on the bike again. And like people who were smoother on the chest of ours, didn't fight that on the last round of biking and maybe got right into their speed after a lap or two.

So I think there's like, we'll see looking at what Bosman did last year. It would kind of surprise me to see very single modality stuff. I think he likes to have complexity. Sometimes, in my opinion, unnecessarily so, but that's one man's opinion. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, everyone's talking about the cuts

and the implications for the athletes themselves. We all think about it more from a programming standpoint, right? It's not only important for Thursday to Friday to stand alone as their own CrossFit games, but in my opinion, it really breaks it up into three different competitions. So you have Thursday and Friday, then you cut, then you cut. So Thursday and Friday need to be well-rounded. You need to make sure you know who's strong, or at least maybe who's not weak that, you know, who has good endurance, who has good skills, whatever. strong, or at least maybe who's not weak that, you know, who has good endurance, who has good skills, whatever. But then to me, based on the order of the workouts, if you have, let's just

say Saturday's really gymnastics heavy, and then Sunday's just going to be heavy, like back nine type heavy type workouts. Well, if you're just one of those dudes that didn't get to do the Sunday workouts, you're going to get cut unnecessarily. So it's almost like Saturday has to be really, really, really well done because you're about to cut 10 really good people just to have them do maybe three workouts at the end of the weekend. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead, Taylor. I was just going to ask, do you think 20 to 30 is really, really good and relevant by Saturday? think 20 to 30 is really really good and relevant by saturday i guess you pat jr either of you so i think jr's point is why cuts shouldn't exist at the games um i i don't i think that there's too many and it takes away too many aspects of competition for what it adds um to

me it doesn't add much uh i know that there's an argument you made about oh it makes it a little more exciting people's backs are against the wall like people are competing like their backs against the wall regardless like there's money on the line there's things on the line like if you're an athlete who's on the games floor you're trying your best you're like and yeah there's some there's maybe like a little i don't know i don't want to say it's a little bit of extra fire because like frankly like you, like you're going to do whatever you can. If not, if anything else, it might force mistakes. But the reality is like, so last year's events,

your examples are reasonably good one about timing of events. That makes a huge, huge difference. So last year, what were Laura Horvath's Sunday finishes? Back nine, I would imagine. Back nine, I would imagine. Back nine, I would imagine. She won the back nine. She won Alpaca. And I think she took like a third maybe on the Jackie Pro.

So you're talking like if that's someone who is a stronger athlete and that sort of thing hasn't been tested as much, or the order of events just happens to fall a certain way where their strength is there. If that athlete is in, you know, 18th place or, you know,

let's say they're in 21st place, they get cut right before that happens. Those finishes would put them up to like 11, maybe even in the top 10. Yeah. That is massively significant. not just in terms of placing but like like that fucking pays you yeah money a ton so like that that's where it's just like i don't i have a hard time justifying it if the order of events plays any impact on the

leaderboard that's you know that's not great from a fairness perspective. We're asking people to take a different test. Some people are taking a full test, some not so much, but you're then you're grading them on the same scale. So that looking at the cutting system, what it does is it basically kind of invalidates anybody from 20th place, 21st place onward. And we get this sense that like all that matters is finding like the top top people in the right order we don't really care about the order of everybody else like as long as maybe the top three are in the appropriate order everybody else is just sort of whatever which just shouldn't be the case like opportunities

don't fall that way a top 10 finish is massively significant if you're a rookie and you even have a top 20 finish that's super significant like so i don't love it the changing scoring tables make a big difference the order of events make a big difference um it's just super challenging and i think it also handcuffs the programming a bit so now all of a sudden i can't i can't test certain things almost at all because I can't test them in the first part of the competition because it'll skew the cut too significantly. I can't maybe do certain single modality tests

or very, very specific tests that I want to do. And you'll be heavily criticized if some of that stuff comes up too early. And then post-cut, suddenly there's these specialist events and then, but the specialist has been cut and i think there's just it doesn't it doesn't add enough for me and so i don't know i'm like always defensive of the athlete perspective as well so i think it's like you know the guys in in 20th to 30th to 40th place they still matter and those are so oftentimes what's happening is we're cutting the

athletes from some of the the geographical regions that we're trying to grow the sport in so like we're just sort of like we're on one hand we're saying like yeah we want to grow these communities in africa and in asia and whatever and then we're just chopping them off the knees immediately and it's just like okay you know you say one thing and do another it's just it's tough uh so i don't know i mean i think it makes it makes it a tightrope walk for programming uh and i think that if you just knew everyone was going to take every test you'd be able to program a little more freely um but now you can't quite as much yeah because i mean as close as it was in in 2019 toward the end and as much as

we could dive into the placement of those events and the events that were on Saturday night and on Sunday that a lot of you guys didn't get to do and didn't get to maybe punish other athletes in the top 10 for poor finishes I always think about that year and think about something like that split triplet and I think about like you and Brent on the pegboard dumbbell workout and thinking to myself like I wonder what would have happened on that workout? Would Noah and Matt have still kind of finished where they were? And like BKG, would they still be pulling everyone along? Or like, could you or Brent have won that?

Could you have taken points away from either of them? Could you have made the standard really, really interesting? Could you have made the standard really, really interesting? But we'll never know those things because I think that year, above all years, the order of the workouts and when they did the cuts just played a significant role to the top 10. I also think going to 10 instead of 20 is still – is extra significant in that respect. I watched Dave's – like when they announced it, I initially was what all my, all my thinking was in line with what you were initially saying, Pat. And then I watched Dave's week in review and I let his explanation kind of

like swoon me towards, I guess it's okay. But I, I hearing you say it again and hearing your perspective, I, I, I agree. I don't think the benefits, like the viewership benefits, and he used the argument of, oh, now we can take the handcuffs off with programming. But your perspective, you have handcuffs. Yeah, you shouldn't. You have handcuffs in the early part of the event as well.

well and then so i think one of dave's comments that he tends to present in this is that well when we have a smaller field it allows us to do more interesting things with the programming yeah and i can understand that but we haven't seen it every time he says that we don't see it even in 2019 when we had 10 people perfect opportunity to do some really cool stuff and they did what toes to ring and assault bike burpees to ring and and yeah by overhead squats um you know they swam a kilometer paddle a kilometer all things we could have easily done with with larger fields especially there wasn't anything in there that wasn't doable with a larger field i think what it does do is it gives their team a bit of a break, which,

you know, I can understand that, but there's, you know, it just becomes a bit of a priority shift of like, I don't think it improves the competition. So I will say that fairly adamantly and I'll say it until the day I die. I don't think it adds or improves as

anything or improves the competition but are there other considerations surely there are and there's ones that you know we're less aware of but that's kind of my perspective on it he mentions he mentions bottom athletes towards the end of the weekend getting drug along and i wonder i mean you've been at the top of the sport almost you know essentially since your first year towards the top of the field do you do you ever see that or do you ever I mean you're I feel like you're so focused in competition it's hard for you to see potentially I don't know but do you think some of those bottom athletes at the end of the weekend or even at the start there's that category of athlete that's like I made the game that was the huge hurdle that was the big climb

now what I kind of just show up and participate. Do you think that exists? Because in his argument, he almost hints to that or alludes to that. I think it does. And I think that there's always even great athletes who are having a really bad weekend. You watch people who don't look like themselves, right? And I've been in positions where, you know, you're on a podium hunt on the last day and certain workouts come up and then you look around and be like, who's going to be competitive in this workout? This guy, this guy.

They normally would, but they're out. You can tell the light's just out of their eyes. They're just not going to be there. And I think that's often why on the last day of competition, you see very similar names trading positions in the top five. Those are the people who have that little bit of extra. And that's just like, you've got that extra bit of adrenaline or whatever because it feels closer

um but i don't i still like is that justification to get them off the floor like i'm i'm i just don't know if it is and i think that again if you're trying to develop athletes and create athletes who will then be in that position in a year or two to keep not letting them even compete a full weekend. It just seems weird. And not to mention like I just, the idea to me that suddenly at the games it's super important that we cut athletes. It's just weird to me. Like we don't do it at any other stage of the competition.

Every filter we've gone through, you don't cut. And, and, and like you, you do after, after the the competition we filter down but never in the middle of a competition are we cutting athletes so it just suddenly it becomes like it's a super duper important thing that we do it just feels weird um and i don't i don't know if it again if i'm trying to yeah and that's the thing there are there are other considerations right and i think that they're like yeah you know we are our staff are getting tired and like judges are going to make more mistakes if we've got to run double the heats and this and that and like maybe yeah maybe um but i just think from a purely like developed sport development and improving the sport and competition perspective i just i don't think that there's much of an

argument for i think it's just you know those guys some guys start in 30th place and then in like two years they develop three years they develop they grow and then they're top 10 athletes but you know if you're never if you don't feel the effect of a full games weekend you're never allowed to continue they can be demoralizing and you can just chop people out and then you know you're gonna end up with the same people rolling around in the top 10 until they retire and then it's just like it's a weird you don't you don't with the same people rolling around in the top 10 until they retire. And then it's just like, it's a weird, you don't, you don't get the same storylines of people developing and contending. And I don't know. I just, I think that there are,

I could name many reasons why I don't like them and I can't name many reasons why I think that they're beneficial. So. Do you think, do you think cuts specifically hinder the athletes that are 20 through 40 in terms of like partnerships sponsorships potential in the in the industry to support themselves um yes like i think that any opportunity you have to spend more time on a competition floor how many times a year do we compete generally yeah five if you're ambitious like so visibility for sponsors is a big thing

uh you know that's frankly there's not enough prize money or money in the sport right now so that's how most athletes generate the living so you know if you can say yeah well i've improved from 30th to 20th that can entice more sponsors you can and just more time on the competition floor i think it just it benefits that stuff it supports partnerships more and again again, I think I saw, I think Dave made a comment about being able to support their partners better

by doing cuts. And I don't really know. I don't remember what he was kind of, how he was making that work, but I don't remember that part of the argument. I think it's like, they give more time

for people to be out in Thunder Village if there's less. Ah, there you go. If they're competing. Sure. Okay. Yeah. That's not a very strong argument when you say it yeah i i don't know and there's like you know that people have said yeah

well the first two heats no one's watching anyways everybody gets up and goes pee and gets food and again i i like from the athlete shoes on the floor perspective i think if you pulled those athletes and said hey look you finished in 33rd place you got cut or like you're in a position where would you rather that we continue this competition you get to keep going on the coliseum floor and competing in front of a very sparse crowd or would you rather just pack it in no yeah i just think the athletes are gonna say yeah everybody's gonna want to compete right like oh no i could do better i want another chance to you whatever like like people don't get you don't fall over backwards and wind up on the games floor yeah like those people have worked for a long time to get there um and you know you earn your you earn your right

to compete at the quarterfinals you compete the quarterfinals you earn the right to compete the semifinals you finish the semifinals you earn your right to compete the games and then we just fucking get rid of you as soon as it's a little bit inconvenient like it just feels strange to me and i think that the question again there are arguments for and against to me the arguments for cuts are are soft uh and the arguments the games i think just hold more water in terms of improving the competition and improving that and pushing the sport forward but like i said one man's opinion i think I think that's a good segue into the specific topic we were talking about for today's show. And I think, you know what I wanted to call

the show. Yeah. Do you hope in terms of programming prior to the first cut, do you think workouts like that are important as important as maybe single modality specialist tests? Do you want to see a lot of balance between quote unquote, small man and big man workouts? What does that look like for you? I think it's important. And I think that, you know, as much as we often try to ignore it, those are realities. Like there just are workouts where it's significantly more beneficial to be smaller or lighter or you know different body types and that's why at the games a lot of the athletes are a very similar body type because it's filtered to people that are going to be successful in the big guy stuff and then and also the smaller guy stuff

right so we have a lot we have a few outliers which makes it really fun and that's part of what makes the sport fun to watch is you get to watch some of these outliers just absolutely smash the stuff when it comes across the plate so i think i hope they'll do a decent job of balancing a lot of workouts have a pretty decent balance anyway it'll tend to skew one way or the other but even if you look at semi-finals um you know workouts like uh the the ruck one it was more beneficial to be a little bit smaller based on how the finishes stacked up at the end. If you look at the top, you know,

five scores worldwide and that there's just no denying it. Yeah. The burpee box jump over. It wasn't a big enough hindrance for the small guys to overcome the big advantage they had on the rings and the pistols and the pistols in that, in that timeframe. So, you know,

it is the way it is. Like it was still, you gotta be fit to do it. Like there's no, and same thing with Linda, like guys that have small range of motion. Yeah. There's a lot of weight,

but if you have small range of motion and you can pump those things out across that many rounds, it makes a huge difference, especially on the dumbbells. Yeah. But you know, then you put those workouts, like the long run, rope pull, whatever,

like mass moves mass. And on those machines, especially, it's the same thing. Like everybody, same argument, reverse direction. The top five scores worldwide, like the average weight's like 240 pounds or something like that, right? Like people are just big and there was no denying it. But across those seven scores, was okay right i think we probably skewed a little large at semis

this year because of how many machines were involved and heavy stuff but um you know the games is a little bit as long as they balance on the first two days with a fair amount of uh i don't know how last year i think was kind of the first time that we amount of uh i don't know how last year i think was kind of the first time that we you know 2021 was the first time we did coliseum before the weekend but indoor events tend to to skew small and outdoor events tend to skew large at the games i would say i felt like for a while it seemed like the games were trending towards maybe a bit of a smaller demographic and then you look at this year at semifinals i mean you're one of the bigger people in the field. I feel like it's interesting having met you in competition once,

like we're relatively the same height. And I do not consider myself a big person at all. Yeah, right. Yeah. I was going to say, people think I'm bigger than I am. No, you look across the field and you're like, where did everybody go? Oh, and I'm 5'10", like 5'9", without shoes. But then you see guys like this year, like Jelle Hoste.

Yeah. And you're a huge guy. I mean, obviously, you, Brent, Jason. Do you feel like it's trending in one direction or another, or it's relatively balanced right now in terms of athletes in the field? I think it waxes and wanes a little bit. Like years ago, 2012- ish it was trending large yeah weights were getting really heavy much heavier than they were to start and then we kind of

reversed direction i love around 2016 17 maybe so after 17 probably where things got a little bit less heavy and a little bit more high volume um and a lot of more a lot more high skill gymnastics yeah and then now it's you know even then i think 2017 was probably 2016-17 we were starting to see a lot more strongman influence at the games so as that happened big bodies make a difference and some of the athleticism events on the field big bodies matter so the more outdoor events there were there was starting to be a little more skew but you got to get to the games right so that's why at the games it's still going to be a certain body type that's prevalent because a lot of the the arena style workouts that we're

doing at regionals they don't have those elements a lot of the time. So then if you can get through that threshold, a guy like, you know, like Brent can go to the games and be super successful and stuff. That's never tested earlier in the season. And it's a cool little card to have in your back pocket. But some of those bigger bodies are really good at those athleticism

events. Like, you know, and strong man stuff, moving implements point to point um those things matter a lot so i think this year was the first time we've seen yeah last year is weird just because everybody did different stuff right so hard to to really compare um in the qualification stage but this year was the first time i think at the qualification stage

we had very games-esque elements added in there were more than there has been in the past yeah the heavy sled drag even the ruck bag stuff like that that's like those are things that we've in the past seen more at the games um and it's trickled down now to the semis so i think we're starting to get that body type skew back up where the people who are successful at those things are now just going to be the ones that are going to the games instead of having to find a way to get to the games in order to find success with those elements later um so it's probably it's coming up a little bit i saw some stats about what the heights and weights were recently uh somebody like barbell spinner somebody posted and it's such a lot there's like zero chance it was saying there

was like like when you guys checked in why don't they just take weights just let that be that way we can we can speak to it and then you know what and then they should they should they should compare it against what you self-reported. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I think that's, I mean, it's really cool to be able to say something like, no, Cody Anderson is pound for pound the strongest CrossFit athlete if we base it on the squat clean pyramid workout, whatever. Like, it's just cool to know those things.

Hey, you know, Jason Hopper's got a 30 pound advantage on, on Will Morad and they finished one, two and echo press. What does that say about the workout? Well, maybe it's not a small man's workout. Maybe it's just a good CrossFit workout. Like those are stories that analysts can use to bolster arguments or can like make people like idiots when before the workout, they say, Oh, this workout's all going to be about this type of athlete. Right. It reminded me of my lacrosse days when i was like padding the you're padding the program with everybody's two inches taller and 20 pounds heavier than they are on the floor this is wild do you think everyone does the opposite everyone wants to say that they're

lighter and they want to say that they're shorter they don't want to say that they're heavier and taller what people want to say they're shorter i sure as fuck don't well that's what i was that's i'm like oh yeah there's 10 guys that are six foot plus that qualified i don't believe it like i was standing on the i was standing at the west and i'm like like who like brent is and out of our field he'd be the only one i think maybe maybe sam is might be six feet i thought he's about my 11 yeah i thought yeah he's about 11 so that was like and like gray shaber like i think he's about 5 11 too like i feel like brand was the only one in my region and then i'm like you look at in the east it was probably uh jason and and uh roman're at like four and then yellow hosta probably is five

even if both the brazilians are we're at seven and it's like is shrunky a big guy i'm like man they're they're just like it was it was looking a little bit outrageous and i was like i don't know about that i don't know if the average height is now 6'1 and average weight is 220 it's like i just don't buy it i was looking at now 6'1", and average weight is 220. It's like, I just don't buy it. I was looking at the guys in my region, and it certainly wasn't the case there. JR, do you think it's worth giving a couple examples of a quote-unquote big man versus a small man workout? Paul Bunyan versus Wee Man? Yeah, I think so.

I mean, in a way, just because it's so, it's so relevant, like to semifinals. I mean, I imagine Pat is, is in the camp of when you add a ruck to anything, you're actually helping the bigger athlete in the gymnastics test. You're not making it harder for them, which is what a lot of people that maybe don't know the sport as well. Assume, oh, well, that big guy's got to wear that pack back or he's got to wear a vest. So the gymnastics are now going to be even way harder for them. But what they don't understand is what that relative to your body weight

relative, right? So let's just, let's say that that workout is just 50 burpees for time with no ruck. And they add a couple of complexes. Let's just say that for the sake of argument, like to me, you look at a workout like that and you say, okay, that workout is probably going to be won by a smaller stature, less range of motion. I disagree. I actually think that workout would have been won by more of the big guys if that was what it was.

Really? Because I think all the small guys, they turned over the ring complex faster and they also turned over the pistols significantly faster. So all the small guys were getting to the box with a 10 to 20 second cushion over guys and then they were they were maybe faster on the box but the height is significant so like the last round i was moving a lot faster than both tetlo and uh and mertens were and i made up a lot of ground on the box in the last rounds and i could do like a step down off the box where they couldn't do that i think that they the advantage all the small guys won that workout you know yanakoski the top five scores were all quite small and i don't think it

was because of the box i think it was because of the muscle ups and the pistols probably mostly the pistols okay so taylor like for me there there are movements that kind of muddy the water like let's just say running on a runner if you guys if you guys do those two back-to-back workouts as shuttles does it does it does it skew it does it skew it does it make it more balanced does it make it like specifically the second part of it that you did so well on i'm under the i'm in the camp of if you have a good if you have good capacity you're not a terrible runner the load that you can put into that belt pulling that thing is going to make you help you beat someone like james sprague although when you guys run outside it might not be i. I think, I think, I think running.

Shuttle is also a very different running type. It is. If you're smaller and the shuttle distance is shorter, you're going to crush people who are bigger because you're just to hit the brakes and turn around all that momentum. When you weigh a lot, it'll blow your legs out really fast. So I think a shuttle run would have been much more beneficial for a smaller athlete. The longer you made the shuttle,

that that difference would start to decrease. Yep. But the runner for sure benefits the big guys. There's no question. If it's an 800 meter run on the track versus the runner, I think the big guy has more of an advantage on the runner because you can carry momentum a lot on it. Sure. For me, I can relax and run quite a bit faster on a runner than,

than on a track and taylor i'm sorry for d-row and your question i've completely just went in another direction you're good uh celebrate tin that's an easy one yeah like i was gonna say that that's my example perfect example for a small guy workout colton yeah smashing it and it's it's always it's like stuff that's that had a high a lot of gymnastics, which has a body weight component to it. And the weightlifting component to it was very cycle rate dependent. Yeah. So Colton, like I remember before we even did the event,

I congratulated him being like, I'll fucking wait for me at the finish line. I remember you saying that. Don't mind. And he's great, right? He's like, I think he kind of knows when he's got a good pitch coming and he's very humble about it but he's like oh you know we'll see and then i think he beat second place by two minutes two minutes in a in a in a 10 minute workout or something like that right

like just it's ridiculous and there's just nothing you can do like those sort of things you're if i'm sitting next to him and I'm squatting the same speed as him, he'll finish three reps ahead every time. It's just like, you just have to not watch. What do you, what do you think about, would you guys say that Echo Fran is, was the, was the, was the other end of the spectrum at that competition? I thought the flip side was probably more big man dependent.

I would say I would agree with that. Echo, because you guys are one too two and you guys are both talking about how you're not one of the biggest guys in that field maybe maybe but we're yeah i mean the thruster and chest to bar were just too big of a component in the echo bike one like you have to be moving the 135 thruster was a big piece of it and if that's significantly easier for you or you're moving it at double the speed then you all of a sudden you bought yourself a slower bike and that feels really nice but uh i would say the flip side one maybe because every piece was weighted as well like the weighted med ball and yeah but yeah and just yeah and just leverage on that apparatus it just like scott and colton are just gonna like as as good as they may be at flipping something like eventually like being farther away from it kind of like being taller

on those sleds makes a big difference right just because of the angle where you feel the weight um but even that like that year at Waterpalooza the the swim workout we did was heavy on machines right yeah it was like if you were you needed to be aerobic and you needed to be able to swim decently well but if you could do those two things the bigger athlete would have an advantage over the smaller one because we use the runner and we use the rower and then we only swam like a 250 or something like that yeah and uh taylor who was third on that it was you james and dallin was the down third who was third no uh no it was the matt pooling oh oh yeah and then i feel like vigno or somebody was in there was he there that year maybe not but

hopper dallin like it was a bunch of those guys were in the at the end i thought i did do well he was there i thought i think he took a hit on that one oh really okay yeah like i don't know if you spoke to actually i think colton gave some pretty cool insight he went on savon show not too long ago and they were asking him about the finale and the semi-final workout how everybody was like oh well you know once again it's a power athlete test because the toes tomorrow being the number that they were and maybe not 30 like they kind of took out the like strategy they're like well if pat can hold on for three sets of 30 versus holding on for three sets of 20, it makes a big difference.

The sandbag was kind of negligent. It's just going to come down to the bike. And Colton was like, yeah, you know, what's funny is that these workouts come out and they're like, oh, well, you know, that's a big guy workout. And then if I do well, it's no longer a big guy workout that I'm just better at the big guys on. It's just like, well, no, no, no. Maybe it's not a big guy workout anymore. That's a big guy workout for sure.

He said, yeah, that's, that's where this topic comes from. There's just like, there's a cutoff point in that workout. So I actually did that one in testing and I biked slower than in competition. I biked like 85 to 88 RPM. My goal was just like bike above 85. But I did all rounds of toes to bar unbroken and pretty fast and was very quick on the bag and i ended up putting me like a i don't know what like 420 some low 420s time um and then in competition i was like i'm gonna bike 90 rpm like i'm gonna ramp it up significantly more and i was not not able to hold onto the last set of toes to bar.

Cause you just get way more lactic and you're, you're like just a little more beat up. My last bag was, was quite a bit slower. And I ended up being like, it was like four 10 or four 11 or something like that. So, or no, maybe four Oh nine. I don't know. I was like around the four 10 mark.

So not seeing, and like a time, like I did in training, which like Colton could do what I did in training and he probably did. And it's not a bad strategy. It just means like, you don't gas the bike quite as much, but then you feel way better on the toes to bar. You can snap them out quicker, but there's a cost. Like you can't, if you bike at that, like 90 plus range or like way faster, then suddenly you're, you know know you're a little

heavier your legs are a little heavier on those toes to bar like you're a little bit slower there's some risk in that breakdown of that last round and it's worth it like you know what we saw in the east with four guys going under four minutes all of them broke the last set of toes to bar but it didn't matter so like i think that if you're a big enough guy to push the bike that hard, manage the first two rounds, scramble at the very end and just get the bag in. That was the best strategy to be successful. So big guy, I didn't have the capacity on the bike.

If you didn't have the capacity on the bike, cause you're a bit smaller, you could 100% get away with going, you know, five to 10 RPM less than some of the big heavy hitters were on the bike and have a great score. Like be in that in the mix of like that four 20 to four 30 range where you're in a lot of regions that'd be putting you in like a six, seventh, eighth place kind of a position. And so that's just like, I think that as a smaller guy,

you weren't going to crank up top three, probably in that one, but you could definitely manage it in a way that could put you in the top 10. So you think more of a balanced workout? I think it was more balanced than people gave a credit for on, on, and I think it's trap, right? Like the problem is everybody looks at it and goes, Oh, it's a big guy workout. I got a bike really hard. And if you don't have the capacity to bike really hard, now you're like, you capacity to bike really hard now you're like you've buried yourself in the second round and you get to that last bike and now you can't bike fast and you can't hold on to your toes to bar but if you're like like i think colton just had the composure

to be like i'm not going to be a hero on the bike and he biked at like a hard but sustainable pace that allowed him to just move really fast everywhere else and there's a lot of time like if you're running with the bag even versus like waddling, like my last carry, I was like waddling with the bag and it was probably four seconds slower just to carry the bag 50 feet

or 60 feet or whatever it was. So like, yeah, I think that there's, you know, and like, again, there's Colton's a bit of an outlier himself, right? Like I think he's better at the machine power output thing than most people his size. So, you know, I think he just managed it well.

Like, he made good decisions for him. But do I think that a guy his size could win that workout? No. Hence it being a big guy workout. From a programming standpoint, specifically at the games or just any competition where let's just say there's like more than seven or eight. At Best Western, when you stay three nights this summer, you earn 10,000 bonus points. And while you're reliving your summer childhood road trip memories, they're creating new ones. So check into any one of our more than 2,300 hotels and make more memories to look back on.

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gives you the peace of mind you deserve. Let us help you plan every detail with professionalism and compassion. We are your local Dignity Memorial provider. Find us at DignityMemorial.ca. your local Dignity Memorial provider. Find us at DignityMemorial.ca. Events. Do you like it where you see a workout and think, okay, cool. Yeah. That one's probably for the smaller, more gymnastic guy. Okay, cool. This one's probably for the power athlete. Okay, cool. This one's like, this one's just fitness. A little bit of both could go either way. Or would you like it better if it, all the workouts were like the big guy's mad and the little guy's mad for different reasons? Like, do you like that there are specific workouts that do maybe bias toward a type of athlete

that then get offset because you see a lot of like leaderboard shifts and stuff like that? Or would you rather see more workouts maybe like that finale? that finale? So this is where the cuts, the cuts thing kind of makes a difference now, right? Is I think that I'm definitely guilty of trying to look at every workout in a silo and being like, well, this is clearly skewed this way. Like it's a bad workout, which isn't the case. If you can zoom out and say, Oh, we have 15 workouts to do. This one fits over here. These ones fit over here. And those ones are going to balance each other out as long as you get to do both of them. And that's the problem with the cuts, right?

So I think that that's where it becomes a little more nuanced. But I would say my bias is I'm very guilty of wanting everything to have like a good flow to it in a single workout and being like oh well here's a piece of this workout that's going to benefit a certain athlete's phenotype and then this part's where they're going to stumble but that's going to benefit the other guys like oh these guys are going to crush the ring muscle ups but now over here we've got to do heavy walking lunges and like oh that's going to be like more of a flip of like the big guys are going to have an advantage there and and whatever, oh, that's going to be like a more of a flip of like the big guys are going to

have an advantage there and, and whatever. Right. So I like to see that, but it's not necessary as long as you have a full balanced overall test. Like, yeah, every now and then you're going to take a hit and the people who are

really good taking a hit maybe means only 10th, but then the stuff that they're really great at, they are taking top threes and then that's how you, that's how you win the games. But I think that as long as you have a, you have an offset for those things when they do come up, like if we're going to run a, you know, one mile time trial on a assault runner,

you better offset that with something that the small guys are going to crush or whatever. Right. Or that's very high skill in some sense where that's going to, at some point, balance those things out at least a little bit. So yeah, I think that it's important to have those things in mind when you're programming a full competition. And in this case, you know, JR, you kind of said it's almost like three mini competitions. And so that's where you might have to be paying attention to that. Like if you are going to have, say on Saturday, you're cutting from 30 to 20 and Saturday is going to have one piece that heavily skews one direction. You should hope that in that same day, we've also got something that's going to pull the pendulum back a little bit.

So you don't just do like even if it's like three tests on on Saturday and two of them are really heavy and one of them's like you know neutral like that's a pretty big skew for for a certain type of athlete right um so hopefully we see some of that but those are the things to keep in mind not everything needs to be perfect within the one workout but it should be everything's going to move the needle one way or the other and you should hope that at the end it's, it's close to the middle. I've, I've heard Dave say before that he doesn't look at big man, little man when programming question one, do you believe that too?

Do you think the games team in general takes that into consideration when programming, or do you think they just try to rely on variants of modality and movement variations and patterns? Do they look at big guy little guy probably not in those terms or at least they may not admit it but i think that there's ways to still analyze those things and just use different language like i think that being like this is a heavy workout this is a light workout this is a gymnastics workout this is a weight lifting workout which i think is tends to be the language they use right they might be like oh weightlifting gymnastics monostructural and

whatever and i think that those terms are loosely applied in a lot of cases but uh you know like i wouldn't call a wall ball a weightlifting movement but i believe that they do but uh you know i think that when you look at those things it's hard to ignore certain trends like if you're programming and then you're like hey you know four out of six of these are like heavy okay like you notice that stuff so i think that you would just be like oh we're you know we're skewing heavy we got to add in some light stuff or like some quick stuff um and you know i think that they overall honestly i think that the games has done a pretty good job of that in the last bunch of years um i don't think when i look at the overall work like set of workouts for a whole the whole weekend i've very

often looked at it and been like oh this is extremely skewed one direction or the other um you know the questions of years like uh 2019 where they they cut a lot of people at different stages then when you're like you're making checkpoints and you're looking back from the checkpoint and you're like, well, yeah, before this, there was like all one style.

And then on this was like all one style. And that changes the view. But if you look at the whole, the whole weekend of that, it actually was a pretty good set of workouts. What's your favorite year of games programming? Ooh, that's a good question.

I mean, I think 2016 was pretty fun. I'm only going to go to years I competed in. Cause I don't, I don't think, I wouldn't say I was paying that close attention if I wasn't competing. 16, I think was really fun. 18 was really fun. 21 was pretty fun um i liked 2020 like i watched some of that when they did the five person one the only one i didn't like was the trail run yeah the out and back i thought it was the only one that was out of place other than that that whole set of workouts i really liked and not including stage one i think stage one was terrible i think it was a last minute throw together and what we saw with the five people was the initial plan for what the games was going to be and then stage one was like

a panic like we got to do something to filter this thing and they threw it together super fast and it was really bad but i think like every workout but one was like five minutes long or shorter it was just like it was super weird but uh i think that the yeah the the full games of 2020 was really cool too i just didn't like the the twist of the trail run i thought it was nonsense stupid stupid how they didn't tell them prior to and then yeah i just think it rewards it rewards the wrong thing basically it's like if i say hey taylor like go run your best 5k and if you do that if you do that you've got no gas in the tank you did exactly what you're asked to do and you nailed

it and then at the end i go ah just kidding run another like so let's say if you put this in a different a different context it sounds even stupid let's say i go okay taylor one rep max front squat and then as soon as you stand up the bar shaken barely got it up i go whoa wait one more so like i've never thought of it like that and that's the person the person who executed the objective the poorest and came in super fresh around that first lap is then disproportionately rewarded overall with points which is just insane to me i was like that that's like i get the like drama of the twist but from a test perspective and a programming perspective it just it doesn't reflect properly it's like you know and in that year i think you know tia

for the men it didn't matter as much but tia had won the first half for the women. And then I think Katrin came out of like third and ended up winning the 10 K cause she just like paced the five K like what? Like she went from being literally middle of the pack to winning because of the twist like that. I just like that one. I didn't sit well with me with but the rest of it was great i actually think that year that was one i was sad to miss so i i that's one i i really liked talking about like knowing things last minute i mean just last year you know boz really wasn't the kind of guy to like put out teasers like dave used to kind of put out some teasers or maybe put out some incomplete uh notepad scribblings where you had like the movements,

like I think the sandbag ski rope climb year, there's like, you kind of knew some stuff. He had that guy announced the, like the pig workout one year, right? It was like that, you know, to just to kind of give some hints to kind of create some excitement. Boz seems like, I mean, he's even said a lot

in really, really old videos. Like I'll wait until the Metcon for the class before I told my classes what the workout was going to be. Like, I'll wait as long as I can possibly wait. Are you in the camp of like, I'm a real athlete? That's even better for me? Or would you like more heads up than less? I would like less. I think it's good for generating excitement to give something.

I think there's other ways you can do it other than programming, but for a couple of reasons. One, I tend to do well at unknown elements when people have less time to practice. And I'm a pretty good first try guy. And the other thing is I just, I'll ruminate. Like if I know kind of what's going on,

whether it's partial details or full details, whether I've practiced it or not, I'll just like, I think about it too much. And if I don't know it, I can't think about it. I sleep better at night. It's no problem. But if I know, I tend to kind of analyze every aspect of it and probably overanalyze it a little bit and i you know i've been fine both ways like

i've been very successful in events and weekends where we know very little uh and i've also done well in ones where we have all the details so i don't think it, you know, it matters a ton performance wise. But personally, I would prefer less just because it's, I think it kind of makes it exciting and there's some drama there. And I think that I am a, I think I'm a better athlete than a lot of the guys that are there at figuring that stuff out on the fly. I'm a very diverse athletic background, which I think benefits me a lot. For sure. Like to me, and I asked this question to

Taylor maybe a month or so ago, and we were talking about the way that strength is traditionally tested and what we've, what they've kind of always done in CrossFit and just thinking about ways that you could test the same thing, just in non-traditional methods and being like, hey, Taylor, which one's more important? A one rep max power clean or a max vertical jump and he thought about it and he was like you know what like like both of them show an extreme amount of explosive power generation right yeah so it's like to me it's like you can wait until 30 minutes before to tell them that they don't know what they can hit. They have no clue, a technique. They haven't had time to work with

apply a metrics guru or whatever. Just in the same capacity as if you were like, all right, guys, we're gonna do a 100 max power clean. Just gotta catch above parallel. That's all you gotta do. Okay, cool. Well, I know what I can hit. Maybe I'll have some juice.

No problem. Like I think things like that, like standing triple jump, right? That is standing broad jump when you're, okay, cool. Well, as soon as your feet land, you have to leave again. And as soon as your feet land again, there can be no foot movement at all. And it's going to be total distance over three jumps. And we're not going to do a traditional barbell test. And people are like, oh, that's not, you know, weightlifting is on the pyramid with throwing and jumping isn't on there and ever.

But like to me, that kind of unknown and unknowable stuff is perfect for the games. Now, even like you just said, right, right next to throwing might be good to know. Might be good to know a couple of days before. I think when there's equipment considerations, it makes a difference, but yeah. So here's the biggest problem with that is we we're trying to generate a spectator sport right so it's there are certain things that are more visually appealing uh so it would be trying

to find ways to make a vertical jump or a standing broad jump super enticing um but i mean is there ways to make it work by the point being other ways to test strength or to test explosiveness or power. Yeah, there are. We get used to doing certain kinds. I think actually what like Boz last year was pretty good at coming up with some different looks to test things that we've been testing in the past. And, you know, some of it was met with criticism. But I think it was fun to have a different look to things and to do so many new things in a year like I in a normal year we're maybe doing one new

thing so it's kind of cool to have a few different things pop up and just see how people behave with it so I like stuff like that I would love to and I admittedly do a lot less of it these days actual athleticism drills. I feel like I only do a lot of plyometric agility stuff, basically post semifinals time for like a couple months pre games. I don't really do a lot of jump training anymore. So, you know, I think it would catch a lot of people off guard and it's, it's a fun style of training. Like, well, you know, I mean, you know, some things, some things you've done so many times and like taylor can speak to this also

like i think about the wadapalooza workout you know with the hurdle hops and how some people just look like athletes like they had done stuff like that before with hard running and some people had to pause on the ground and recently on main site you know they posted that sumo deadlift high pull lateral jump over a 24 inch object and you just had to clear it back and forth. It's like, okay, cool. Well, that is a jumping in a in a way that most people don't train it that does blow up your legs, but also shows a little bit more explosiveness, athleticism, coordination, all that kind of stuff. And I kind of hope that it's not just like, oh yeah, there's this box. We just, that's what we used to jump. That's it. That and this jump

rope and that's it, you know? And I think up and over was such a, was such an overlooked workout because that was cool. Like you did a get over with hands, then you did a high box jump onto and over, then you cleared the pig. So it was at least just some more athleticism mixed in with some traditional crossfit. For sure. Taylor, did you have something to add there? No, I was just going to – well, I was going to ask if you didn't like the fact that last year they didn't have any kind of burpee at the games. I hadn't even really considered it.

I'm hung up on that, dude. I'm hung up on that so hard. Is that the first time? Ah man I think so JR I don't think that's right I think there's one other year I think there's one other year

We could figure it out probably pretty soon Did we do any in 2021 i don't i don't think so man yeah 2021 they had the yoke workout with the burpee getovers right was that 21 that was that was stand back it was a burpee too though hey yeah okay um yeah i mean yeah i don't know i i don't know if i care that much but uh i don't mind i usually do pretty well in burpee workouts maybe it would have helped me out a little bit but i would have taken it um i don't know i think that the reality is you're always going to miss things right there's only so much testing that you can do and and there's only

so many events you can run before you you know we're not going to do 20 so i think it's just you gotta sometimes you gotta miss a few things i don't like when there's things that get missed again this is my like ocd around wanting things to be perfect i hate when we miss certain things but then there's things that get repeated um yeah so that that always bothers me like like 2021 we did a one rep max snatch and we did the snatch and the echo bike and like extremely different but if and i haven't really thought about it uh but if there's things that we like that are very normal that we would have missed to make space to snatch twice it would bug me or the run clean where we we ran and cleaned heavy twice yeah and then like if we had made space to run and clean heavy twice by like skipping a super

like not having any uh whatever double unders or something like something that's very common uh i would sort of like it would it would sit in the back of my head funny and make me feel weird about it but again everything's not perfect and as long as you're testing skill sets and things like that, I think it's fine. It's doesn't need to be everything all the time. And what do you think about the format? This is another question I had hat trick from last year, where it was that one round for time, wall ball, dumbbell snatch, sprint to finish, rest an hour, repeat, you know? Yeah. yeah i i'll be honest i didn't like it initially i didn't really get it um i felt like it was just yeah the rest was too long it was like

if whoever's the fastest in the first one it's just going to continue to be the fastest i don't know like i reflected on it a bit and I think that the, the risk is then what becomes the, the biggest factor is like, okay, have I got to try to like really blast out of the bottom of the squat, maybe get close on depth. Like I can't just like float through the bottom of this squat. I got to try to hit the bottom of this wall ball target to shave time across 20 seconds for this wall ball target to shave time across 20

seconds for this 12 foot uh target like you need to try to find ways to move a little faster and then if you cut it too close and you miss one that's a huge hit so it becomes an execution test and like who can go three for three on execution and then for the most part anybody who is three for three for execution is going to be in one pile. And then people who had one mistake is going to be in another pile. People who had two mistakes will be in another pile up. So I'm okay with that. I don't mind high execution value workouts. The one thing I didn't like is I felt like the judging was not consistent on

that one. And we were, we were told in the warm-up area that initially we were told that you were allowed to just like drop your dumbbell somebody asked they're like yeah just drop your dumbbell from overhead and then people were like well that's kind of sketchy we're pretty close and they they'll like cartwheel and if the guy in front of me has just dropped a hundred pound dumbbell and it's flying into my ankle as I'm like pulling a squat snatch, that's not very cool. And they're like, huh?

They did a little powwow and they're like, yeah, good point. So what we're going to have you do is you have to come down and like throw it between your legs. So you're releasing when it's like up below your hip basically. And then you're just like stepping through. And then you're just like stepping through. So they said that. And then on the floor, all the fastest people were just dumping it straight from overhead to the side, like right into buddy's lane. And it was just like, man, come on. Like, and you see it happen, but I don't know what the judges have been told. So I want to do that, but I'm not gonna, cause if I get no rep on a fucking dumbbell squat snatch and I've got to go now run backwards, pick up the dumbbell again, do another dumbbell squat snatch. That's a death sentence. Yeah. So it's like, I'm going to take the extra one second or half second per rep, but now you're doing, you know, you're doing that across your six squat snatches for each round and it's going

to cost you five seconds in your overall time. And you know, other guys are just getting away with murder out there. It's super annoying, but that was one thing that stuck with me from that workout. And that's just, you know, other guys are just getting away with murder out there. It's super annoying, but that was one thing that stuck with me from that workout. And that's just, you know, flooring consistencies and we don't know, you can ask all the questions, but you don't know what the judges get told. And you just have to like, I guess I was too risky for me.

I was not willing to take the risk to get the, the no rep that could just like totally sink your event. And, you know, could have, I could have like bumped me up to like a top, like a fifth place finish or something. I finished like eighth or ninth or something in that one, and you know could i could have like bumped me up to like a top like a fifth place finish or something i finished like eighth or ninth or something in that one but you know might have bumped me up to like close to fifth but could have sunk me down to like 20th so i was like ah you know what are you gonna do but i think there's room for those types of events i think we did a

lot of them last year was one of the parts where we got there was some criticism like shuttle overhead was very similar uh in terms of execution value and so was the skill yeah the pegboard pistol workout right so i think those were all you know uh shuttle overhead less so than the other one probably just because the rest was less but uh where you had some rest and you were testing intervals and execution mattered a lot. Would you put back nine into that? Just because if you go for that first front squat a little early and you miss that clean, that's 10 or 15 seconds. And in that workout, that's crazy expensive.

Or would you not really put that in the execution category? I mean, those other ones are all intervals. So I was kind of putting them in a different category because of that. Back nine, yeah, I guess. Yeah, but in a different category because of that back nine. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. But it was, it was like a sprint. It was short.

So we had quite a few tests that were determined based off sprint efforts that were high risk, high execution. so, you know, there was probably four or five overall in the weekend or four, four, four intervals,

right. Counting that with the swim, right. Four interval tests out of... Yeah, that's a lot. And then back nine being like a three-minute workout. So a lot of very fast, high-execution-style events, which, you know, nothing wrong with that.

That's kind of a way to keep the sport interesting too. If you just kind of know who's fitter and mistakes don't matter because they get washed away if you got a thousand reps in a workout and i make a mistake here or there but i'm just fitter than everybody else those mistakes wash away but it's like having a significant time penalty per mistake where you know you see someone even as dominant as tia you know you miss a few single unders and then you're eliminated. And suddenly like, well, I just took a 30th, like shit. So it can make the, the overall competition a little more exciting. So I think we always,

athletes get frustrated because you want, you want your score and your points to be a perfect reflection of how fit you are or how fit you feel you are. And, and it's just not the case, but that's the same in every sport. And I think that we've kind of gotten a little too used to that. So it's just a different look where like, look, man, I could be, you could be the best team on the field, 364 days a year, but like everybody loves an underdog story.

And if you mess up on a couple of easy routine things, cause you're not paying attention or your focus is elsewhere you know it opens the door for other people so i think that there is some value to that and you know you asked me after i've made the mistake and i'll hate it but if you ask me like you know i've had a little bit of time to get clear-headed about it yeah it's i think that it's it's an okay it's a great thing to have as part of a sport it keeps things exciting and interesting right but i think that there's room i think that it's a great thing to have as part of a sport. It keeps things exciting and interesting. Right. I think that there's room. I think that we could, like last year was maybe slightly an overcorrection.

And maybe we can, I don't know. Some, but not too much. Do you think the games team is going to trend more towards, have you witnessed at least over the past year since Boz has been at the helm and then now Dave being back as director of sport or general manager of sport or head of sport um do you see them it seemed like to me in the past they weren't very receptive to athlete feedback or feedback in general from the community that could be wrong could be just my limited perception um so I guess that's the first question second do

you think that'll improve or has it improved? I think that that would that has been the perception for sure. Overall, I don't think that's just you for a long time. And I think it is improving. I think that it's taking time. And I think, you know, that's part of the work we're trying to do with the PFAA is being, is even just creating actual information and data, like surveying large bodies of coaches, athletes after every major competition for things, not even events that CrossFit Games is running. Just like, Hey, you were at the French throwdown. Was there anything really awesome that they did that you thought more events

should be doing this? This seems like a no brainer now that I've seen it. Anything that was really crazy that you wish nobody ever did again and can we compile some of this information to make you know just create a list of items that we can say hey cross the games here's things that generally everybody loves in competition here's things that generally people are like they don't really like to see can we trend towards a better better competition as far as execution athlete experience fairness all these things just creating tangible targets uh and having conversations with them like god everything's doable all the time and i think that that's the i think that crossfit games in the past the reason maybe they've looked or people have felt like they're very non-receptive is i do think to

have a tendency to be a bit defensive uh and right after the game's finished like everybody it's i get it like you just put poured your heart and soul into something got super i feel the same fucking way like i hop off the floor and somebody says geez you know you really look like you're standing around out there i'm like do you get out of. Like, I don't want to hear it right now. We just like, I tried my best, whatever. So I think there's, it's good to create it, gather information, try to generate feedback, let there be a little bit of a time delay. And then in the off season say like,

hey, like here's some things that have been routinely causing problems. Is there a better way that we can calibrate running machines? Is there a better way that we can choose what sleds to use? Like, are there better ways to do this and that? Like this year, I think also one of the problems nowadays actually is that every issue and

mistake is highlighted in a massive way because everybody's got a YouTube station that they're just blasting people on. But so I don't think that they've, you know, made more mistakes than in the past, but every time they make one, it's just gets like waved around in everyone's face. So this year there was lots of little things from like mixing up the

weights at the open announcement to like the runners and the sleds at semifinals and this and that, but they've also been doing some really great things that I think they deserve to be praised for. Like when we did that running snatch workout, there were warmup bars right next to the floor that people could continue to stay warm on until right before we took the floor. Instead of having like our corral time would have been like 30 minutes between

touching your last heavy barbell to getting on an 800 meter run and then having to snatch heavy in like two minutes, three minutes. So that was really awesome. And we were like, man man we've been begging competition fields to do this everywhere and like this was perfect they're just like it's right behind the grandstands hang over there when we have like a one minute warning we're going to grab you guys and reline you up and we're like this is just like beauty so there's stuff like that that they're like you know they've been learning and collecting information and trying to make things better where they can. But I think that they will,

our hope is that they'll be receptive to organized information. I think it's hard when you're just being accused and criticized openly on platforms that sucks. And everybody, I don't care who you are, you'll get defensive. So our hope is like, that's why we're trying to be like a little more diplomatic maybe about it. Let there be some time post events when everybody's emotions are raw, get the information and survey athletes like, hey, I see you're pissed off. Why are you pissed off? What did you hate the most?

and say like it seems like these are the themes of things that are bothering coaches these are the themes of things that are bothering athletes like are the ways we can improve this that's not going to affect you know super adversely affect the way the competition runs the timing the spectator experience whatever because there is a lot of balls to keep in the air um but our feeling as the athletes of course is that better conditions for athletes and coaches and things like that is going to help to drive the sport forward. Nobody wants to keep competing in a sport where they're just getting kicked in the face every five minutes. So if we create a situation where athletes are feeling, you know, feeling supported, you know, the event cares about them, their needs are being met, the things aren't being dangerously run or reckless then and they feel like it's fair they're going to keep showing up and then you're going to have your top athletes surviving for 10-year careers and things like that like to me honestly it's pretty wild even up to the sports young but like what if we have like cole and uh bk and

noah this year as like some of the few guys ever to run a 10 year career. Like that's pretty wild. Like we should hope that we have more people who can survive for 10 years. So let's make that more doable. Right. Anyway, so we're hoping like the diplomatic approach is going to help a lot and make them a little more receptive to that stuff. But yeah, it's tough. I think that sometimes you just get met with resistance because it's defensiveness and a knee jerk and just try to like it feels funny if you guys have played team sports

like you know sometimes you have to give people feedback that's like you know compliment sandwich or or you gotta you have to like massage them in a way that makes them feel like it was their idea it sometimes feels like that like we're like hey look like no not trying to get in your face at all about this but like we were just kind of thinking you know oh hey wouldn't it be cool if this or that and if we can present it in a way that doesn't feel like an overt attack of like you should be doing this no no no that that's that's how we're gonna make improvements so i think that there's already enough of the attacking going on like i said that through youtube and stuff um so we're trying to be understanding of everything that they need to balance to make this

whole thing work and just be like hey there are other ways we can fit some of these other things in and they've done some of it like the bars were a great addition uh you know coach access in the last couple years of the games has been much better uh like people might not know but for the last bunch of years in madison coaches weren't allowed to go to the north field warm-up area at all they would just send the athletes out there with their bags and be like okay coaches stay here athletes you're gonna go warm up there and then you're gonna compete like you might be there for an hour or more uh depending on your heat and coaches just weren't allowed to go and now they are and that was because we were like hey

why is this? Should we just, is it just like a space thing? Can we set aside an area for coaches to come? It would be really helpful. And so they, you know, they've allowed that to change. So I think that sometimes it's just, you don't see things because it's not in your direct line of sight and you're focused on a thousand different things. So that's the hope is we can just draw some attention to little areas and be like, hey, did you ever notice this? And people will be like, no, actually no.

Okay, well, maybe have a look at this and see what you think. And sometimes the solutions are pretty obvious and it's just that nobody's really shined a light on it yet. Dope. JR, anything else? This is, we typically cap ourselves at 45 minutes, but we've had a good, we've had a good talk.

We had a good flow, yeah. No, that's it, man. Do we have a conclusion on size mattering? For CrossFit? Yeah. Smaller the better or what there you go dude smaller the better i don't know i think over the pat uh i think really really i i think until until someone's six foot or taller wins the crossfit games you're you're gonna you're going to say that it's more beneficial to be smaller than the average than it is to be taller than the average. 5'8", ish, maybe.

I think that in the last – what do you think has been happening with the trends of size for athletes, average size? I think this year it's trending bigger. They're getting bigger. Yeah. I think it's trending bigger. They're getting bigger. Yeah. I think it's getting bigger. I'd say that overall height and weight has been getting higher for sure for the men. Again, I pay less attention to the women's field just because I'm actively competing in the men's field.

But I think that right now that's how it looks to maintain the balance of skills that we need to. Size is getting up there. We're getting more people that are around six feet, maybe a little more, um, and heavier for sure. And they, people that can still do that and still, you know, do the gymnastics and run and all this stuff. Fine. So, um, but I will say there are certain instances where you can't beat size.

I line up on the start line to a lot of events and I know exactly who I cannot beat based on what the test is in front of me and who's standing next to me. And the best you can hope for is to stay close. But, and the fact of the matter is there, there are more of those tests in every competition where you're the athletes that you know are smaller than you versus you saying that to yourselves that the athletes bigger than you. Probably. Yeah.

And that's just because we were turning over a lot of reps, I think. So range of motion ends up mattering more, especially in other competitions. Like the games where you are covering distance in a lot of different events, more so than in other competitions. That's where being bigger matters more. But yeah, I would say it's nice to shave a couple. I wouldn't mind shaving a couple inches off these arms, you know? I'm not playing real sports anymore, like traditional sports.

It was nice when I had to like reach to guard a defender or something, but I don't have to do that anymore. Now they just hang out and flap in the breeze. All right. I got to run to the gym. I got to coach. All right, buddy. Thank you, Pat, for coming on, dude.

Good luck, guys.