Europe Is Coming
Europe Is Coming
Weekly Update - 26.3 Review/Open Leaderboard/Wodapalooza 2026
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Good evening, everyone. And as always, if you are listening to us the next day or some point this this week when you work out, whenever you're listening to us, whenever you listen to us. Hello, welcome back to European podcast. We are live on YouTube 6 pm on Monday evening UK time and 7 pm in Spain, where John is. How are you, John? I'm good.
SPEAKER_01I'm good. Time seems to be flying. So one of those, you know, one of those phases where things seem to be moving too quickly. An extra day in the week would be uh would be valuable.
SPEAKER_00I know exactly what you mean. We're almost, I mean, it feels like we're not. We're kind of halfway through March, but in a weird way it feels like we're almost in April. So so yeah, it's gonna it's it's flying by 2026 already, and it's it feels like it's only just begun. And with that, we've uh the the open is almost finished. We've got a few few more hours for people to enter their scores, and we've we've almost completed the open already. What were your uh what were your thoughts on the open this year?
SPEAKER_01Um in it like general or specific?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, let's go general first, and then I guess we can kind of drill down into specifics afterwards.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I think it was good, you know, like the the open announcements had like a solid group of athletes, which is always cool to see. I think it's nice, you know. Maybe I'm biased because of the sports side, but it is nice to see the the best in the world throw down against each other. That was so that was cool, and I think they did a good job. I think it was fun to see it integrated with Whatapalooza. So I think that was like another nice addition. No, I think it's always interesting watching the numbers and so you know, all the day we obviously followed the data up, and I think it for better or for worse, for CrossFit side, it does give a bit of an indication on the health of the the sport. So we've always, you know, and you know, when it when it kept rising and rising and rising, I was like, wow, this is like hundreds of thousands, four hundred thousand or whatever it may be. Whereas you know, the opposite side of that is it's it's changed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, definitely. We're um we're definitely in a new era of CrossFit, I'd say. And you know, it's gone through many iterations, but it kind of definitely feels like there's a we're maybe in a between chapter where we're kind of not really sure what the new world looks like, but that it's definitely not what it used to be. And and the open maybe suggests that that that's the case. We talked a lot of times about identity and CrossFit's identity, and perhaps there being a bit of uh ambiguity around that and what the HQ want.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah. From how was the open question, it's we are going a bit esoteric, but but I I do agree with you. I I think it's just a the direction of the space is interesting, and it just gets keeps getting chipped away. There's a bit of a comparison analogy that people used in the clothing brand was with like Nike, for example, and they said you know, one of the obviously lost a lot of its market share in different directions, and one of the theories was like death by a thousand cuts, where you end up with all these brands coming in who you know, like take rad or whatever it may be, but and multiply that out between every sport where it got a lot easier for people to all of a sudden enter the bit production of clothes, production of shoes, however, all these things may be. There just became more access to this ability, and it obviously dilutes the market. And I think that in some ways CrossFit is suffering from that a bit. There weren't many options back. I mean, CrossFit's like biggest competitor back in the day was like Les Mills, and it was really easy to go against something like Les Mills because it's almost the opposite of what CrossFit's represents. Whereas now you've got things that are pretty similar popping up, and I think because CrossFit always controlled the but really restricted the Globo gyms using the word CrossFit, you started that process with whatever it is, like X-Fitness, or you know, everyone everyone will see. And so you ended up with all these non-official gyms kind of creating their own functional training classes, and that takes away, I think, a bit from the main body that is uh that is CrossFit. So yeah, I mean circling back to like the the the open number, I I think it's I think it was an okay result. Like it wasn't like they didn't get they got a few hundred thousand people signing up. It was, you know, whatever, 40% well, I mean maybe 60% of the peak or something like that. So, you know, it's not like it's booming up. So I'd say it was kind of an okay result from that side. I think they're doing the right things in bringing the big athletes on and telling like or trying to tell a decent story around that. There was obviously the same production issues, like on the 26.1, you know, you it basically you couldn't see the workout when it started because the live feed was going down. So you know you've had some of those errors, but that's kind of if you've been in the CrossFit space, you're definitely used to those things by now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and in terms of in terms of the workouts, did you have a particular favorite this year? Do you what did you think of the workout so far? Now we've seen all three of them.
SPEAKER_01Um I I got quite a few messages once that 26.3 was released. And I like your you know, your prediction of the heavy lift, I think was you know, people were expecting to see something heavy. It would make sense. But the one thing you kind of get to realize over these, or I've started to realize over these years, is like, well, the one thing that is with Castro is like predictably unpredictable and likes doing things that go against the grain. So it's like you you are completely right, like adding a heavy lift into this open would have made it a more balanced test. And I think people could see that, and so then it's like, well, no, so now you just go in with no heavy lift, and you make it like you know, you make an open announcement that no I think I don't uh that's I asked, I don't didn't get the answer. If it was the the first ever time that no athlete had finished open announcements workout, which is a bit weird to see. I mean, I think they could have I'm not sure why they didn't just do like one round of each or something like that. I think could have given the same name, but yeah, the programming I think advantage-wise, there wasn't anything crazy, you know, like they okay, you just needed a barbell and some space for this and a couple of weights, you know. So I think that's really good. The first one pretty similar. So I think it's nice that it's just easy to run. The gyms can have like really big groups of people doing it all at once. Maybe this workout was like uh a little too savage in terms of you know the amount of burpees and stuff people are doing, but uh but yeah, I I one thing I will say on this, as we've spoken about before, is that I actually don't, and you know, I think when we go to Waterpalooze, this conversation will come up. I think that CrossFit has moved too much into the strength side of things in general, and then I think it's really interesting when you just have these more high-rep body weight workouts. So I I actually don't mind the lighter programming because I think it's more accessible, but as we've got to know CrossFit in this idea of a balanced test, you would add in some kind of strength thing. I mean, people talking about the swap patterning as well. I mean, we had the thrusters and wobbles, and and you know, they are very similar movements. When you're only testing three workouts, it's not super balanced. But then, you know, the question I always come back to, well, when has it ever been balanced? You know, what we're getting a bit off subject here, but a question I I've put this question to you know, the guys at HQ who who lead the games and things like this, is what is the best ever programmed year of the CrossFit games? And I think it's just a really you know, there's probably never going to be an answer to that. And I think it's really interesting as to why there is no answer to that. Because if your objective is to find the fittest, and you know, you're using this objective criteria in order to do so, then there should be some kind of answer. You know, you go, well, whatever, I've had upper body pulling and pressing, we've worked through these time domains, we've lifted this weight, whatever it may be, there's some kind of defined criteria. But actually, as there's no real defined criteria because it's so broad, you enter into this world where you know you can't really say if it's good or bad programming because there's no definition of good or bad programming.
SPEAKER_00So it's like people go, skewed by the fact that most of our champions have been the same people over a com quite a long period of time. So it you couldn't even say, well, that was more skewed towards this person's attributes because it was the same person and they always won, but like for for you know quite a long time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think this is a really interesting point that it always justified in some ways the programming because you had these phenomenal individuals, you know, the three goats of the sport, you know, okay, whatever. You argue the one goat, you go back and forth in the argument, but ultimately he's been three. Like Rich started that trend. The interesting thing about Rich was I wouldn't say he was super well-rounded when you look at say 2014 and the triple three event with the running and those things, but he he pushed the boundaries of the sport so far, especially with weightlifting. Because when you think back to the amount of weight that Froning was lifting relative to the other field was just insane. Like the idea of a 300-yeah, like a 300-pound snatch when he hit it, like the invitation. I was like, what are these weights? They were just unheard of, he's so far ahead. And actually, what happened was I think him being so good in that regard pushed everyone else to get stronger and stronger and stronger. Then obviously, the next champion that came in, and well, okay, the next kind of goat that came in ended up being an ex-Olimpic weightlifter. So you're like, Well, okay, there's an obvious correlation there. He just happens to be a phenomenal athlete alongside that with conditioning and gymnastics. And then you've got Tia, who I mean, Tia's just like uh I mean, she's born to be an athlete, you know, she's just like so strong, so well conditioned. I don't, I you know, I think you could put her into like most sporting environments, and especially ones that rely on some form of physicality, and she would she would end up on top.
SPEAKER_00And so they've always been able to be into the Olympics as a in weightlifting, did bob sleigh, which everyone sort of forgets.
SPEAKER_01She kind of decided, oh, I'm just gonna go do bob sleigh for a bit, and then the off-season, you know, I was spend my off-season training for a completely different sports, and then still come back and easily win, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then dabble with high rocks and start putting good times in there as well. Just yeah, she's she's a monster for sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I you know, I said this before, but I think that Tia is probably the only athlete that could transition over to high rocks and compete in the Elite 15, like at this at that kind of level, like be you know CrossFit Games winner and actually have some kind of contention to go into the Elite 15. And you know, she's just she's got so many highlights, but also the fact that she you know would go to rogue what six months after giving birth to her first child, is just again, you know, it's also rogue, it's like probably the the hardest competition to come back to because they they even further lean into the biasing of strength.
SPEAKER_00And push Laura, I think, to the very last event. It was it was still potential that she could have could have won it. So it was only just came second, which is just yeah, crazy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so and they've I think they've always you've always relied on these people to go, they they win not because of the programming, despite it. They could have put in so many tests. I mean, you'd have had to go, you'd have had to start choosing like really random stuff, uh, really, really outside the box programming for those three not to have win in the eras that they want.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I agree, I agree, especially when you saw someone like Matt just be like, I'm not very good at running, or I'm gonna become the best in the field at running. Or all of a sudden, you're like, Oh, okay, this guy's an absolute problem. If he can like take one season in his offseason and suddenly come back and be like one of the best runners in the field, like all of a sudden, from it being like you normally knew Matt was gonna finish sort of one of the last in a in a running event, and then all of a sudden he's winning them.
SPEAKER_01You're like, Oh no, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's incredible what guys do. And I I think that's where I do believe that the CrossFit athletes are the most superior athletes, just because what they the what they're able to achieve is so impressive, and that has been led by by those guys, but you know, coming back into the thing, I don't think that it's and this is why I think it's interesting to know the thought process or some of the actual what they want, because if they wanted a balance test, well, I don't that's not what they achieved if you're defining balance as we you know so we've kind of collectively come to know they just kind of throw together some workouts, and this is what you you end up with, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00And just coming back to the workout, I mean you mentioned no heavy barbell, and I kind of on our last show thought there might be. It does seem that that has now been moved to quarterfinals. Quarterfinals is where we're gonna get the higher skill, higher weight stuff come in, and the open is very much like you say, apart from some slightly higher skill gymnastics in workout two, this is gonna be pretty much gonna everyone can do this stuff, lower barrier to entry, and and I and I agree, I think I thought it was really cool to see it. It felt more sort of old school crossfit in the sense that there weren't outrageous weights and there wasn't you know stuff that that it felt like most of the community could tack these workouts and it was about fitness. So if I I'll pull up 26.3 so we can have a quick look at this and talk through it. So if you didn't see it, and again, if you're if you're watching our video, you'll see it. I'll read it out for audio only listeners. It was full time. There was two rounds of 12 burpees over the bar with 12 cleans at weight one, then 12 burpees over the bar again, then 12 thrusters at weight one. So you did two rounds of that, then you moved on to two rounds of 12 burpees over the bar, 12 cleans with weight two, 12 burpees over the bar, then 12 thrusters away two. So you did two rounds of that, and you fight moved on to the final two rounds of 12 burpees over the bar, 12 cleans or weight three, 12 burpees over the bar, finishing with 12 thrusters at weight three, did two rounds of that, and you were done. Now, the thing that struck me the most about this, there were the weights kind of went up. So for us, EU and Europe collective, it was 29, 34, 38 kilos for the women and 43, 52, 61 kilos for the men. But the time cap, which I can't see on the game's website, I think it was 16 minutes, was it?
SPEAKER_0116 minutes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Which if I I'll be honest, when I first saw that, I was like, what is that time cap? That is a lot of volume in not a long time, and I was not confident many people would finish. Oh, there it is. 16 minute time cap. What was your thoughts?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, what when when the announcement came out, I mean, I really had no idea what Dave was saying.
SPEAKER_00I think I've I've heard a lot of people say the same that it was really confusing, and no one really what is this?
SPEAKER_01I mean, what is this? But um yeah, I I like I said, I I think you know you can argue so much the nuances on the program, okay, though it's wall balls were tested and etc etc. But I think one of the changes and maybe just done one round of each, you know. Yeah, I especially it's especially knowing you're gonna do it what a paloza with so many people. It's like, well, you know, I'm sure it makes it easy for everyone to get through and do everything if you don't make this 16 minutes. Also for the gyms, you know, you get through so much so many more people, and honestly, I don't think it would have affected the the results too much on a general scale.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I agree. It felt like a lot of volume. I or or that you could have done something if you wanted to kind of add a bit of interest into it, so like less reps at the front the front with more rounds, then in the middle it had like the same as it was, and then the last one it's it's one round but less like more reps or something like that. So it's still sort of similar, but I don't know. You could have been a bit more. I felt like it could have been a bit more interesting as a workout. It just felt like I've got this idea of cleans and thrusters with burpees, and I'm just gonna do it three three times and two rounds or three times just to put a nail in it. I don't know. Felt a bit, yeah. Wasn't it felt like the bones of a workout for me again? It just felt like an unfinished workout, felt like a first draft of something someone writes down on a whiteboard when you're all kind of gathered around and you're kind of deciding what workout you want to do, and it's just like, oh, I've just come up with this. Wasn't yeah, I wasn't my I think Dave's been really creative over the years, and I just felt like this wasn't for his standards up there, my personal opinion. Yeah, but it was something that I we we kind of talked about off-air and that I kind of wanted to ask you about. I feel like this era of CrossFit that we're in now is the volume era of CrossFit. I know you've talked about how heavy stuff is, and we've talked on the pod about how like the weights and also the the machines that that we're now seeing in CrossFit, they seem to be quite a lot on that. There was some there's been some good content out there in the CrossFit sphere around this topic, but it does feel like we do more and more volume. Like the longer I've done and have been around CrossFit, the more volume it's been in. If you hark back to like the original benchmark workouts in CrossFit, something like Fran, how it's like you know, a sub three-minute workout for really good athletes, and now it feels like we only really get towards like 15-16 minutes as a as a sort of a minimum.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's a good question in general. So it's like we it would take live competition because I think the the online stuff, you know, I'd just disregard that anyway. But for for live competition, everyone just followed the games, so games became just gold standards. Like if games had pegboard, well, everyone suddenly has to have pegboard. If games does four days and every competition has to be four days, if games has 16 events, okay, logistically that didn't happen, but you know, you kind of get the drift that people just followed the games, and it also seemed to be like people then associated that with good games, is then like higher quality than a semi-final, you know, whereas semi-finals classically, you may there's maybe even just been five events over three days. You know, maybe had a part A, part B, something like that. But it's like per like no one questions, no one no one's gone to a semi-final and been like, oh wow, they you know, that guy's not the person that should have gone through because they didn't do enough events, and and so I believe that you can find you know the fittest. I think you know, again, we enter into a whole discussion, like really, if you want to find the fittest, the idea of testing throughout a season with multiple events, etc. etc. obviously is like a great one for that. The more events you do, in theory, you know, the broader a test you start being able to have, etc. But no, for the most of these competitions, why not just have like four or five events? Now, ironically, Wadapalooza, because of the uh the two-day individual two-day team, has been forced into that, and so they were originally only supposed to have five events. I think they got well, the guys only had four or whatever, and things changed around, etc. But it's more than enough to find the the fittest field, like you don't have to do this this like crazy volume in order to find this, and actually, I think you can create a more sustainable season doing it that way. You know, we we're I don't think we're gonna talk about it this um today, but Xenom have released their workouts, you know. It's gonna be a tough two days. Like if you if you look at what's what's programmed on there, I mean it's it's pretty savage. Uh and I think there's new no, I I do think one of the reasons that Hyrocks has been so successful is it's like this, you know. Imagine the average is somewhere around 90 minutes to finish this. So it's like you've got this 90-minute event, you know what you're gonna be doing, and it just seems a lot more achievable for general population. Whereas if you say to someone, hey, this weekend I'm gonna do 10 different things, it's like uh it's a big jump from this like barrier to entry going all the way here. And I think somewhere like the ethics or the turf, the some of the events the turf games do, for example, it feels like it's maybe somewhere in the middle of that where you've got this two to three hour window, you hit three workouts, and it's like you know, it's uh it seems more like achievable, I think.
SPEAKER_00I think I I sort of I sort of think even just workouts themselves seem to be more reps than I remember. And maybe maybe I should go and do some data, get an XL and start putting some workouts from back in the day versus now, because you know, someone like no no noble can probably probably tell me that I'm I'm wrong and that the the data doesn't add up. But it just feels like you know, every a lot of comps that I kind of either watch or I I take part in myself, feels like there's just a lot more volume and it has to be harder. And and when I speak to people who have who go to competitions, I'm like, how was the comp? And they're like, Oh, it was horrendous. I never hear that uh someone be like, Do you know what this is really fun workout? I do hear that, but very rarely these days it feels like savagery is uh is the benchmark for whether whether a comp is good or not.
SPEAKER_01You know, I've just had a thought as well that we spoke about this last time is that the demographic's getting older. It's like I'm the same, like you know, you just don't want to suffer as much. So it's like ironically, maybe. It's just that we're getting older. Yeah, maybe I'm gonna be the old man. Yeah, well, I know. I I think but the the trouble is the demographic of CrossFit is you know this, whatever. Now moving into the 40s. You know, I can tell you is that you you know the the want to put yourself into a hole multiple times a day, just get a bit less, you know. You want to like you want to be able to walk the next week. It's kind of like drinking, though. You can go, well, when you were when you were younger, you could drink as much as you want in the night, and okay, you wouldn't feel great the next day, but wouldn't be the end of the world. This I mean now, like, you know, have a couple of drinks, and it's like planning out the next three days because I'm gonna feel like shit after.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I stopped stopped drinking like a decade ago, so I I basically was just like, maybe that's maybe that's enough of a sign for for my views on fitness in the sense that I was like not willing to feel rubbish with alcohol, so I stopped knocked that on the head a long time ago.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, but yeah, I think you're right. I you can see why, like it's it's just no one wants to feel especially if you're in the fitness space, you just don't want to feel bad. So you don't you don't drink because it just makes you feel bad.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely. Let's pull up the leaderboard from the open and have a little look at where people are. So this is the we're looking at the overall leaderboard for the men at the moment. Um, I did have a quick look before we jumped on at 26.3, like the total leaderboard, but there does seem to be some people putting in what I presume are tie break times in there, which have messed it up. So at the moment, I think Colton is top. So the two people above above him in the workout, because he's currently third, even though he sits atop the overall leaderboard. He's third in 26.3. But looking at the other times, one of them's like five minutes. There's no way there's and and that you know, their previous two workouts were not of that kind of calibre. So I don't think that person's beating Colton on this workout. But looks like Colton's gonna win the open, which I think last time you were saying that you reckon Colton may do it. So yeah, it looks like he's gonna win the open with a third, a sixth, and probably a first place finish in in the workouts.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I think it it doesn't matter what other scores come in now. He's he's got it in the bag.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's looks like it's gonna be really hard for him to be beaten. And then yeah, in terms of the in terms of the leaderboard, you've got Pete S up there. We've got I'm gonna get pronounced his name wrong. I know it's not Nika because it's remember you telling us last week, is it Nico?
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, it's so it's like pronounced and spelt uh in different ways. So as you see on Libel, it's written Nika, but pronounced Nico.
SPEAKER_00Nico. So Nico, who who we highlighted last week actually from coming from being at the crown uh events.
SPEAKER_01Um or no, Nico's uh program athlete, so not uh not crown events.
SPEAKER_00Sorry, getting that mixed up. So Nico, program athlete from Georgia, he's uh sat in third at the moment, which is looking awesome. Have you spoken to him at all about his open performance?
SPEAKER_01With uh his his coach, he's he's got a couple of coaches that he's spoken about with, and he could do well. I can't remember that I he'd have to kind of screenshot the leaderboard from last week. I don't know if he but he's gonna be up in like top ten, maybe top five for sure. I can't remember some of the other names that might sneak in. The thing is, he's his like he's currently 11th. I mean it's still a very good time, obviously. But the you know, the a few guys might sneak in ahead of him and then he'll get more points. Like James Sprague's obviously out, so it might Harry Lightfoot might actually overtake because if more people come in between Nick Nico and Harry, then that might take the points up, and there's only a six-point gap. So it those kind of things could move around a bit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so there's it like as mentioned, we are recording this on Monday evening, so there's there's a few hours for people to get scores in, so they might jumble around a little bit, but but yeah, really, really cool to see the the leaderboard. You've got some some other big hitters. You mentioned James Brague and uh Jay Crouch, and you've got Rico Zanoni, so we've got another European athlete currently in in seventh, while it looks thing, Saxon Panchek, Dallan Pepper in ninth, Victor Hoffer in tenth, another European athlete out of France, and Justin Madeira. So, yeah, strong, strong top 10. Good to see a couple of uh Europeans uh representing on on top of the leaderboard.
SPEAKER_01And then yeah, and I think this is what we spoke about last week as well. But we thought because they introduced a heavy lift that it would mix things round, but actually, I think Europe's gonna stay pretty dominant because we haven't seen the heavy lift, so we'll have to wait till quarterfinals to uh test our hypothesis, indeed, and then if we have a look at the women's side of things, I will go to the overall again.
SPEAKER_00We've got a couple of a couple of athletes that I think have put in tie break times that are currently skewing the overall the the results for 26.3, but the overall leaderboard, and it looks like you're right about this one because I picked Miriam van Roor to to win the open.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm gonna put it in the barbell. I'm gonna put it in. I I wonder if Miriam's playing some some psychological games here.
SPEAKER_00Oh, do you think she's put in a uh a first score and she's redone and perhaps gonna put in a second score tonight?
SPEAKER_01Like when you watch 26.1 video, I mean, like you would think this is like a Colton, her and Colton in this. I I mean I wasn't I will say I was a bit surprised when I saw her score. Yeah, I'm maybe there's an injury or something going on, but this is like you know, for Miriam for Colton should also because of the range of motion, should just be like uh like you know, top three, top five, whatever it may be, workout. And based on how well Lucy did, Miriam would have because the the points difference, I think it was like 10 or 11 points. So she would basically with the score as it is now, Miriam would have to win more or less, and Lucy would have to stay where she is in. Well, she won't, unless she I doubt what Lucy's gonna redo, but no, basically Miriam has to win in order to to win the open. Yeah, and you would think she has the capacity in order to do that.
SPEAKER_00It did feel like, even though I mean we were talking last week, and I said because I thought there might be a heavy barbell, I thought she would win because she there's some something that she is is pretty good at is a bit of a heavy barbell. And even so, when I saw the workout, I was like, I still feel like that's quite wheelhouse. And at the moment she's 35th. Again, there's going to be some scores taken out for for um, like I said, the the top two times at the moment are are people who who've probably put in tie break times, but even so, 35th at the moment doesn't feel particularly um where she is based on what we've seen her do before, and especially in 26.2.
SPEAKER_01No, and also our uh Europe managed to keep any oh no Rebecca Fouslier managed to sneak into top 10.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And also keep the Will Austin is in third at the moment, but other than that, other than those two ladies, it is a uh Europe top. Well, there's there's only two non-European athletes in the top 12 at the moment, so it's a bit of a shutout from the the European side, European ladies showing up hard in the open this year.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, they just did so well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's cool. See Taylor Hau up in seventh at the moment, really, really good result for her.
SPEAKER_01Um great open, and also you wouldn't typically think of these as wheelhouse workouts for her. You know, she's known as a bit more of a strength-based athlete. So I remember watching her at Madrid last last year. She was super close to qualifying, and actually, I think had she taken a bit more bit more risk on the cleaning jerk, she'd have punched her tickets because she was very, very close to doing it. And um, so yeah, I mean maybe she's she's gonna put herself on the on the map this year. I mean, she she's not on many people's radar to get a games ticket, but she's she's obviously doing very well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, very cool to see, and with Lucy at top as well, and then seeing we've got Amy Kringle and Lawson as well within the top 12. So, yeah, really from a British side of things, awesome, but from a Europe side of things as well, just really, really sort of taking over. The Europe is coming podcast as well, named from the ladies' side of the house in terms of the open so far.
SPEAKER_01Um, you know what's interesting is like you know, from the first naming of that, or that kind of hashtag of Europe is coming, how little has changed. You know, the the European female still dominates, we still have like huge participation, etc. etc. But everything is still so US-centric.
SPEAKER_00I know, I know. Um, and I mean, speaking of Eurocentric and speaking, I was gonna ask as well, is Lucy's time her on this from Wadapalooza?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think so. I think her and let me just I can quickly uh double check, but yes, I believe so.
SPEAKER_00Because we were gonna move on to talk about Wadapalooza, and I didn't manage to catch all of it, and at first I thought it was just being a bit rubbish and not being able to see stuff, but it did look at look it was a bit disrupted because of Web.
SPEAKER_01And that some of the workouts haven't describing it describing it as a bit as like the most generous most generous, yeah. So she Lucy, yeah. Lucy finished second at Wadapalooza with 1429.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, which is really, really impressive to be able to do. I mean, we talked about having times that stand up from the open announcement, but also to do this in competition and then have that stand up against other athletes who are kind of doing it in their home gyms is is still really impressive as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but yeah, I mean, is that is that a segue into What a Palooza?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, into Whatapalooza. So so yeah, it apparently, I mean, I again I didn't see all of it. I've seen clips of some of the rain. The rain looks like it's pretty biblical. And one of the questions I was actually going to ask you is do they need to think about moving Miami to a slightly different time to avoid the weather? Because it seems to be getting worse and worse every year.
SPEAKER_01Well, ironically, they moved it this year. So it's like this uh obviously Water Balooza had its January slot, and now they moved it into to March. Um, you know, but there would one thing I would say is like pretty much every year there is, you know, every year there's at least disruption. And honestly, a a lot of years divisions start getting cut. So it's like or workouts change. I mean, just every every year something happens because of the weather. And you would kind of think, like, after a decade, I understand there's probably cost and logistical implications, but you should probably start thinking about having one of the stages being covered. Like, I get it, you don't want to move it to an indoor venue because it's the the vibe and all of those things, and it's cool it being outside, but you're like it why why you know you know it's gonna happen. Like, at least one of the venues should have some form of cover or to allow the events to continue in some way, like you might not get away with everything, but at least you could keep some stuff running if there was a shelter. I think you know, obviously, this year it was so extreme that people had to evacuate anyway because people were told to go indoors, so that's a bit of a different scenario. But you know, each year something because of the rain has uh been done. You think there'd be some kind of contingency plan around that. Like the athletes on Sunday were basically called in at called in in the morning and then just sat there, delayed, delayed, delayed. The irony, obviously, is the first workout that everyone was waiting to do was 26.3. I think like one heat got to do it, and the rest delayed, delayed, delayed, and then had to go to gyms, which they kind of closed down for the athletes to do the do the workouts, which you know I think was a fun thing to do. I'm obviously not in in Miami, but from what I've heard, it was like a cool vibe. One of the troubles was obviously you couldn't get spectators and things in. So for the people, the athletes, etc., it was really cool, but uh for the spectators who'd been there, it wasn't cool because you didn't get to see the athletes thrown out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I did see a couple again, a couple of clips from Insider Gym on the socials, and it looked it looked really cool, like a cool vibe. Friday night lights-esque, and and yeah, some of the top athletes in the world just kind of like hammering it in a gym next to each other. I imagine the few people that were in there spectating coaches and family members and whoever's lucky enough to get in there probably uh probably have some pretty fond memories of it. I imagine it was an epic experience, but the people who paid to go to go watch their favourite athlete, probably uh bit of a bummer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I agreed, and I think that's the you know, a lot of the fans. There's some like super dedicated fans in the space who travel around these things, and you know, it's nice for them to get to see the events.
SPEAKER_00For sure. Well, I imagine that it'll be there'll be that something they look at. You put on an event like that, and I know that they're all about the experience as well, the fan experience, the athlete experience, and to uh have to shut shut your competition kind of early uh and not run some some events and stuff like that. I imagine is not not what they want to be doing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's also weird that talk about the programming being passed because obviously there's you know, teams basically didn't get to do many workouts. I think they had three or something, and then you've got the leaderboard, or you know, and it's like really lucky for some athletes, really unlucky for others. Like if you the workout you have gets cancelled, like on the guy's side, they didn't do this handstand workout. Well, if you're good at handstand walking, that sucks. If you're not good at handstand walking, that's great. It's like this you just start playing this luck game with the programming based on what gets changed, what gets cancelled. I think at one point they they had clean and jerk, and then they changed it to deadlift, and then they changed it to cleans. It's like so, and and that programming will really affect which athletes do well and which athletes don't do well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and to be honest, I had a bit of trouble kind of keeping up what was going on and what was getting changed, and what workouts actually got finished. So, do you want to have a quick look at at the workouts and you can tell me kind of some of these that did or didn't happen? And I'm sure there's listeners out there as well who are like maybe having the same experience as me and not not seeing everything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I believe this got changed. So, yeah, if yeah, the because obviously people can't see the uh workout who aren't listening.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so if you're if you are just listening, we've got we've got the workouts in front of us. We've got the first one, which is called No Easy Way Down, the individual workouts, and it was four-time, four sets of every three minutes on, one minute off, uh 40 or 32 calorie row, 40 wall-balls, four legless rope climbs, then it went into 30, 24 cal row, so 30 for guys, 24 for ladies, thirty wall balls, three legless rope climbs, then 20 and 16 cal row, 20 wall balls, two legless rope climbs, and then a 20 uh 10 and 8 calorie row, 10 wall balls, one legless rope climb.
SPEAKER_01And they here they changed legless to strict pull-ups, which okay, which I think makes sense. Like I remember at the games one year, they had the weather problem as well, and they had legless rope climbs, and they just took them out. And this and you know, as one of my many discussions. I started discussing with them, I was like, well, why are you you know, so if you change the test, it doesn't matter as much for Waterpalooza in the sense that you know the the quest is not finding the fittest, that's not the tagline, etc. And it's a sensible change putting uh strip pull-ups in. But the games one year they took away legless rope climbs and just had this kind of like prowler kettlebell thing. So obviously, doing the prowler push biases a certain type of athlete when you exclude having the legless rope climbs in there, and I'm like, Well, so if you take was the programming better or worse with the legless rope climbs in general to find the fittest? I obviously didn't answer these questions directly, but you go because if you originally programmed it to have some form of upper body gymnastic pulling and you take that away, is the programming now worse, therefore you haven't done a sufficient test in order to find the fittest, is kind of the thought process that I started going through. But because you could argue no, this substitution of strict pull-ups makes sense because the workouts are not the same as Logos Road Climb, but you've kind of substituted the pulley gymnastics in some way. When you just start taking things away, then you go, Well, you know, is that the is that like a legitimate full test of fitness or or not? And you know, there's obviously safety reasons, like you don't want to expose the athletes to just to get a balanced test to have uh to be unsafe. But you know, I think in in terms of pulling movements, like strict pull-ups, is if you slip off the bar, like you you're like an inch away from the floor, it's like probably one of the safest movements to to do in that setting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you've got no dynamic movement as well, so you're not kipping or anything like that. So you're just it's a straight pull. If you slip, you're most likely gonna land on your feet.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So so this workout, did everyone complete it? It was just it was just they so the men and the women both both did the workout, they just replaced it with pull-ups.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I believe everyone did this one.
SPEAKER_00Nice, nice. We'll have a look at the leaderboard in a second. We'll just go through all the workouts so again, everyone's got a clear picture of what they went through. Then there was complex actually, which I really like the look of. This is definitely uh uh my kind of workout, something I I like the vibe of. So it starts with six bar complexes. A bar complex was five toes to bar, three chest to bar pull up, plus one bar muscle up. So that was one bar complex. So you have to do six of those, then six of a sandbag complex. The sandbag complex was one clean and two squats with the sandbag. So you started with six bar complexes, six sandbag complex into 15 sandbag burpee over the log, then six sandbag complex, then a 1200 meter beach run, which I imagine was pretty tough after all those squats on the sand, then another six sandbag complex, then 15 sandbag burpee over the log, and then six sandbag complex, and then six bar complex to finish. This feels like grippy all over.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think they changed this the the bar, the complexes didn't have to be unbroken. Okay, so you just had to like you could divide.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it says with a vest for this one.
SPEAKER_01Did that was was the oh I don't know that actually.
SPEAKER_00So I'm not 100% sure because again, I like it. I saw bits and stuff. I can't I don't can't remember if they if people did it with a vest or without it, a vest in the end. Uh one to one to try and check as well. But you would think so sponsored by 511. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure they were pretty keen for them to keep the keep the weight vest. So yeah, that's punchy with a weight vest as well to do all of that, all of that work with the sandbag as well. Moving on, we got heavy after dark. So for total combined load, and it's was this the one that they um they changed, John, in the end.
SPEAKER_01Yes, this I think they changed originally deadlift and then just took the jerk away, so just had to clean.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so the original workout was one minute on, three minutes off for three sets with a buy-in of a calorie bike into a one rep max cleaner jerk. Set one was 21 and 15 cows, set two was 15 and 12 cows, and then set three was 12 and 9 cows. Again, cool workout.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's a fun workout, and you know, some athletes made some pretty if you missed a litter like score, was like your total number of lists, like your like if you say, for example, you hit one clean one weight, you get that count, etc. etc. And on the set three, I mean, some athletes like Austin Hatfield miss from set one, and therefore your workout's done, you're never going to catch up. It's pretty much guaranteed bottom finish, and that means you'll with this few workouts means your weekend's over as well. And some athletes on set three, for example, end up the same, they just bottomed out basically, and that and you know that's interesting at this level. It means your weekend's over if you're looking for a high placement.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so people just sending the bike too hard.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, probably overestimate overestimating the amount of weight they they could do. Fair.
SPEAKER_00Very cool. And then moving on to press to impress, which is the fourth workout and last workout. I don't know if it was done in this order, but this is the order that's on the site. Three rounds of time, 15 dumbbell bench, 50 foot uh front rack, dumbbell lunge, 100 foot hand-sand walk. Um I saw I managed to catch the the ladies. This I think this was was this the last final workout of the day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was final workout, ladies got to to do it, and it was great. Yes, this is where it like the luck played in, but it was a great for Lucy because yeah, she was sitting in fourth and ended up winning because of this workout, and then literally just after the girls, they just cancelled the guys. So, you know, the uh the CrossFit gods are on Lucy's side for for this weekend.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you mentioned the leaderboard. Let's go have a quick look at the leaderboard before we go through the teams. And speaking of the women straight away, and Lucy Campbell, Lucy Campbell comes in top and wins. Back to back water losers, which is got to be very cool for her. So you've got Lucy, Lucy top, Andrea Moises in second, Erle in third, and then Abigail Domit in fourth. And as you said, it could have been all changed because of going into that last workout.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I'm interested, like Matilda bottomed out, so she was placing quite high, but then didn't get the lift. Lean, I thought, would have done maybe a bit better with these workouts. Emma Tall, I'm interested to see. I don't know what she's doing, if she's doing the season or WFP, actually. I haven't seen her on the open leaderboard. And Lydia Fish is an interesting. So I would say Water Pluze was generally quite light, which is why you'd see like Danny just outside the top 10. You've got Hannah Black, who's super strong, she's not facing as high. And then you know, the Andre Moistus, for example, like placing second, she's got a phenomenal engine. She's won some. Most people probably don't know her that well, but she won like uh Wad Sloan or a few other competitions. Again, obviously great engine, but lacks the strength part. And this is where the programming you see ends up dictating the really influence in the competition.
SPEAKER_00And if we go over to the guy side of the house, James Sprague wins and also makes it two years in a row. So there must be some kind of what a palooza juju for both um James Sprague and Lucy Campbell here. But James James comes in number one. Ty Jenkins, who's really starting to break into the scene, now comes second. And then Yonikoske and Austin Hatfield joined third. Great to see Yonna up there. And then Ilya Moskalenko. Hopefully I've pronounced your name right. Ilya came in fifth.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I the one the communist message had from the weekend was how impressed people were at James Brake. And I think you could argue that the you know the Waterpalooza field wasn't as deep as it has been in previous years.
SPEAKER_00It seemed like certainly on the guy side that a lot of the top usual top ten did the did the team have been gonna be able to do that. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01So team so there was there was like a bit of a gap in in level, arguably, but still he delivered and showed, you know, he kind of demonstrated that that gap is is there and and people were very aware of it. Really? Yeah, like he was just you know so dominant. It was it was really interesting, uh, I think to see how far ahead of of the that this pack he is, and then shows you. I mean Austin Hatfield's an interesting one, like he had a really good start to last year, then's fallen off a little bit.
SPEAKER_00Um, he got caught in the too much volume from doing WFP and and uh he pulled out of the WFP, so he didn't do the final.
SPEAKER_01He he you could argue, for example, he actually placed pretty well considering he bottomed out of the lift. So he was the guy who he missed his first lift. So actually, you could say he's you know, it probably doesn't reflect where his fitness is because uh if he'd have made, you know, obviously if you've taken 10 kilos lighter or whatever, he would have placed a lot higher, but it just took a risk and and it didn't pay off.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he's someone who's known for his lifting as well, so maybe he just uh just went yeah and uh perhaps perhaps didn't quite have it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's true, like his clean at WFP was insane.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, strong guy. So if we have we'll do the we'll do the team leaderboards for for the women and the men as well. The workouts were actually kind of kind of similar. I I caught the last workout for the teams, which was the relay of Legolas Rope Climb, Heavy Dumbbell, Box Jumpovers, and Heavy Dumbbell Snatch, which was actually really fun to watch. It's kind of one of my I think one of the team workouts I've really enjoyed the most in recent time that sticks in memory. Um it was just kind of like a cool sprint full send workout, and it's had some good races. And the top three teams, just girls, which I'm gonna forget who's on the team now, Gabin Megala, I think Alexis Raptus, and forgotten the last person who'll come to me. Uh they they they ended up winning the uh the event, then Yeti Girls, which was Daniel Brandon, Emily Rolfe, and oh come on, Brain. This is also what happens when you start getting into 40s. Not only can you not recover from workouts, you forget things quickly. I've forgotten.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna get you for this. So just girls was um it was Gabby, Alexis, and Paige Rogers.
SPEAKER_00That's it, Paige Rogers, thank you.
SPEAKER_01Yeti girls was Emily Rolfe, Daniel Brandon, and Alex Gazan.
SPEAKER_00That's it, and they were really close. There's only four points in it between those two, so they uh that and they were really close in that final event as well. It was a good race.
SPEAKER_01Then you had Bad and Bogier, Boget, Britney Wise, Sidney Smith, and Trista Smith. But I don't know if Britney Wise was subbed out, actually. But that's what's on the leaderboard.
SPEAKER_00Okay, cool. So they were your top three on the on the ladies' side, and then the elite team man. I mean, the team that won is probably the most stacked team I I think I've ever seen in a comp. I know there's been some stacked teams in in Wadapalooza, you know, with like Brent Fukowski, Jeffrey Adler, and Pat Velner one year, but team Go Ward were two two CrossFit games champions on it, and one who's been a podium contender multiple years now. And Dallan Pepper, Justin Madeiros, and Jason Hopper, what a team. And they got 370 points, beating the boys who came in second, who had 342. So they clear winners. The boys, the classic boys team, uh with uh Charles Smith not making it this year, and I wasn't familiar with uh their third member, but Travis Mayer and Noah Olson, the uh the usual usual two.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Roldan Goldbrum.
SPEAKER_00Have you have you heard of Roldan before? He was new to me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I haven't hadn't seen him before.
SPEAKER_00Seems like a really really strong, strong, strong fit, lad, as you'd expect, but fill in the place of Chan Smith, and they still came in second. And then Oryx Smart Gear had a had a strong team as well, which Guy Maharas and Saxon Pancheck. And I've forgotten the name of the last guy who's Jorge Fernandez. Thank you. Jorge Fernandez, who uh obviously was part of a team at the games and then became a mayhem athlete when he went went as an individual. So yeah, some strong teams on the on the team side of things. Did you have any thoughts watching the team competition? Do you know one thing actually before I before you answer? I thought it was really cool, and I I kind of forgot how cool it was to see some of the best games athletes in the world on a team together, how much fun that that is, and how we kind of don't get to see that much that that often. Obviously, we've got SoCal, but I don't know where this team competitive environment when you get the best of the best. It's it's it's pretty fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think the the athletes love it as well. You know, what a Palooza is obviously locked this down. There was another one back in the day called the Swiss Alpine Battle, and it was a guy and girl team, and the athletes loved it. Just like the guys did a really good job organizing the events, it was kind of like in a good time. There was no prize money either, just people wanted to go over to Switzerland and do this event. It was like a really cool thing, but yeah, I agree with you, and this is where I would say that I think like the season has opportunities for things like this to you know, imagine bringing the best athletes in the world to wherever and having them team up with for some of the work, you know, whatever it may be, but taking these athletes around the world and developing CrossFit in that way through the sport, it's just like seems like such a no-brainer to do these things, but it just you know it just doesn't get done.
SPEAKER_00Did you have any other thoughts from from Wadapalooza watching it or did you hear anything else from the athletes apart from the competition? Obviously, the weather's probably gonna be the main thing that gets spoken about.
SPEAKER_01The the weather was the obvious topic of communicate like because it just it just messed things up pretty much every day. There was something affected by the weather, which you start to feel sorry for everyone involved, you know, it's it's just sucks a bit. I have to run a competition at the best of times when it's not getting delayed and rained off and yeah, and I also think that the you know the date within the open, there are financial reasons obviously why they change the date. But I think that January window was a good opportunity. It I think the one thing that's becoming established is like there's the game season. We we knew this, but it's just a fact that you know athletes don't want to do stuff inside game season. So right now you could argue it's only the open, but even still, I think they'd have probably got higher attendance in terms of elite level athletes, had it not been so close or within the season, which is why rogue, you know, rogue have just done that so well. They kind of owned this window that's off season, doesn't conflict with anything, and now it's become a staple in the diary. And a few competitions Dubai managed to do that, but then changed Waterpalooza, was obviously that in January.
SPEAKER_00Um, but yeah, I mean there's no how come they can you remember why they moved it? I I can't remember why they moved it from Jan to March.
SPEAKER_01What a Palooza just basically the so Miami, it's like spring break there, and they want to move away from drunk tourism to sports tourism, and so they gave uh maybe we're like in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for Waterpaloo to Wadapalooza to for them to move the dates. Now I think there was supposed to be a Hyrux this next weekend, but Hyrux pulled out and Athics ended up taking the opportunity. Oh, interesting. So Athics is actually happening this weekend in Miami.
SPEAKER_00Oh, very cool. Um what do you think they do next year? Do you think they they keep the March date or do you think it goes back to January?
SPEAKER_01I think based on the amount of money that the the uh government gave them to probably keep the dates that the government tell them to keep. I mean, this is the one thing with CrossFit events is that you know what events have been consistent in the CrossFit space? You know, there's there's maybe the smaller competitions, most of them that are successful have government support. Like there are very few CrossFit competitions that are financially viable. Um and so if you don't get that kind of government support, it becomes very hard to make a profit from it. You know, we had Alfonso on, and there's just lots of event organizers that we'll speak to, but like organizing events, it's not an easy business. And also, you know, when you think that we're trying to, you know, if you do like some kind of concert or gig or something and put an artist in there, you know, you're organizing all of that for a couple of hours and you're getting tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people to go. Okay, then you start to make it profitable. But you know, when you've got one of the biggest events in the cross of the space, two and a half thousand people, it's a four-day event on Miami Beach with all of the expenses, like even that could be hard to to make the financial dynamic work, which is where the concept of Xenom is going to be interesting. Can they can they kind of make a CrossFit event repeatedly profitable?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, it is it's such an interesting topic. The fact that you know, some getting the right mix for it. We've talked at length about how high rocks are doing such a good job of of monetizing their events and making it profitable and being able to grow like they have, and then CrossFit on the other side, as we've all talked about its struggles to financially kind of keep these events unless you're a rogue or the games to kind of keep them year on year.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, just CrossFit of Smash. Uh, cross- I mean CrossFit. High Rocks have just really smashed, they just like I mean, just great decision making up to this point, and and just run away with the the event space. They and also they managed to show the world that fitness events could be highly profitable, which is why there are so many of these events trying to chase that model now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, I'm sure we'll talk more about this on future episodes to come. Have you got anything else, John, we want to you want to chat about before we wrap up this week?
SPEAKER_01No, next next week we have a break note, but actually we're gonna have um our head coach Chris is gonna do a each we do like a block video. So Chris is gonna go through the next programming block and we're gonna schedule that in on YouTube live. So if people want to ask questions to Chris, he'll be on the YouTube live and we can take that. So the same time, same time spot next Monday, 6 UK, 7 European time.
SPEAKER_00Perfect, very exciting. So, team, if you are listening, especially if you're on the on the on the program program, uh join next week. We won't have a podcast episode, as said, it'll be it'll be Chris doing his thing on the live next week. But yeah, get in touch. There's a the email in description if you want to ask any questions. I'll put the link to the YouTube channel as well. So if you're not sure how to find the program academy YouTube channel and you're listening to this on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or somewhere like that, the link is in the description if you want to click through. You'll find all of our previous lives. So if you want to watch us as well as listen to us, you can do there. And it will, once you subscribe to the YouTubes, you'll be able you'll get a notification of any time that we go live. It is as this as I've mentioned before, Monday at 6 p.m. UK time and 7 p.m. Spanish time. Awesome. Well, it feels like it's been a busy couple of weeks with the open and what a pelooza after kind of having a bit of a bit of a break at the beginning of the year. So uh yeah, it's feel like a bit of a whirlwind starts to the year, as you say at the beginning of the podcast, John.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we'll come into CrossFit quarterfinals and start to see all these other events, ethics, see, starting getting closer to take shape. So it's gonna be a very interesting year for fitness.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And uh team, we'll catch you on the next one where we'll we'll be diving into all of those topics. So again, if you uh if you like listening to the pods, please subscribe, like, and and yeah, we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you very much, John.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.
SPEAKER_00And we'll catch you on the next one.