Total Athletic Podcast

We Love Wall Balls… Just Not With A 10-Minute Queue

• Mike Catris

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0:00 | 41:17

We break down a win at the ATHX masters final and a near sub-60 Hyrox Pro in London, then dig into course design, heat, congestion, and why hybrid sport is booming. Clear takeaways on fuelling, cooling, pacing the rock zone, and how to train for repeatable progress.

• ATHX’s fixed-season format and why it drives better training
• Hyrox London one-lap layout, rock zone impact and pacing
• Temperature effects on running, recovery and sled friction
• Congestion, wall ball queues and fairness for age-groupers
• Volunteer models, standards and credibility as the sport scales
• Sponsorship growth, brand pressure and athlete support
• Practical fuelling, cooling and transition strategies
• Upcoming races in Manchester and Amsterdam plans
• Listener Q&A and topic requests for training and nutrition

Please feel free, drop us a message if there's anything you want us to cover in the coming episodes. 


SPEAKER_01:

Hi guys, welcome back to the Total Athletic Podcast. Firstly, I just want to say a massive thank you to everybody that sent us messages and downloaded the podcast last week. We actually ranked in the top 20 in the Health and Fitness podcast in the UK last week. Wow. I have no idea. There we go. So that's um that was a nice pleasant surprise. Something we sort of just did off the seat of our pants last week and yeah, got a load of really good um messages and some positive feedback from you guys. So yeah, thanks very much for that. Um today we're gonna go in to basically just talking about ourselves for a little bit, about what um what we got up to last weekend. Um so I I was competing in the D A FX finals in the NEC in Birmingham, and Matt, you uh you did two high rocks. I was in London, yeah. So I did progue singles on the Thursday night in a horrible eight o'clock time. Pro eats these days seem to be all eight at night, which is not not nice enough to sleep. So I think I had about three hours sleep by the time my adrenaline had gone out, caffeine had gone out, I got home, um, and then I had 24 hours rest, and I was back up. I raced open doubles on Sunday morning. So yeah, jam-packed weekend, but it was uh it was a good, yeah, great weekend never. So go on in first of all, I'm uh everyone's got dying to know what were your times? What was the time? So I did uh pro singles in one hour and 41 seconds. So how good it would be you've not to be able to do it. It was. I think my well my two months into a month into doing pro races, the goal was a sub 62 or 63 by Christmas, so I achieved that by a lot. But I think in the back of my head, I was thinking, oh come on, let's let's send it and get that sub-hour. So it was I've probably spent where are we at now, nearly a week on, I've spent a solid four nights thinking if I'd done this in 10 seconds quicker, if I have trips up there, if I'd gone a bit harder there, but yeah, it is what it is. I yeah, come away very positive with it, and I know where where I need to go go right for next time. And then doubles on Sunday morning, we did a 53-minute dead-ups, which was cool. Um, but yeah, the main race was the the pro race, but it um yeah, it went really well. Nice and conserved to get conserved to start off with, so I know next time just to kind of drop the drop the hammer for minute one. But yeah, it was a good weekend. Um what about you? Because I think you were uh up to me. Uh yeah, we won. Um that was cool. Yeah, yeah, no, it's good. We um we did the so the first time I think it's the first time I've competed in a master's category. We competed in a 35 um or it's called the 70 to 79 category, but basically the 35 plus category. Um crazy does marks, clusters and marks. I know, yeah. I I've always said it shouldn't be. Um, and to be honest, we we did a man about it. Me and James talked about like should we do the the open one because we qualified relatively highly in in that as well. Um and uh I think we just let our let our egos go to one side and it's thought, right, let's just go and I haven't done a a turn of trainer only sort of been back in in training sort of last I guess six, maybe eight weeks, um with with everything with the bar and being busy, so I was like, let's put the ego to one side, don't worry about being in the open category, let's just go and do the best we can. And um, but I think looking at our schools, we would have podiumed in the open category as well, which is quite cool. Um it's just good to know you you know you can you can mix it where you want. Yeah, you can't lose what you never had. Yeah, um, yeah, but it was good. I really enjoyed the event. Um so for those of you that don't know the the format for for AffX is um I suppose it the the the easiest way to explain it is it's like a um a crossover between your CrossFit sort of functional fitness competitions are high rocks in that the the entire season the workouts stay the same. So you've got something to train for. It's more like a sport than you know with a CrossFit comp or a turf games or uh you know a throwdown that we run or something like that, where you find out the workouts maybe a week or two before, or on the day sometimes in CrossFit comps. With this, it's like they they've already released the workouts for next season now. Um, and that'll be the same for however many 20 events, and then the top X number of um teams or individuals in each category then will get invited to the finals, which next year are in Paris, which would be cool. Um and they'll then compete in the same events as they have all the way through the season. So you go into it sort of knowing where you're sort of ranked, what you need to work on based on your qualifiers. And I I like that from a sports point of view, having a little bit of um structure to your training, knowing exactly what you've got to train for, and that's exactly what we talked about last week with the pros of Hyrux. Yeah, so I think it's it's it's something that you you said you're like. I really think it's I think a lot of people who don't. I think one of the reasons some people don't do HIROX is there isn't enough strength element in both. So I I really like the setup of it. How do you crowd say affects the affects? I mean if I had this gammy knee and I could squat again, I would love to do one. I think it's high rock is probably slightly more tailored endurance-wise. I I genuinely think this affects is like 100% hybrid because it's what five rep max squat, 10 rep there overhead press, 12-minute max run. I mean, if you can squat big figures and run 12 minutes hard, like that to me is a is a hybrid athlete. So I wouldn't be surprised personally if this maybe kind of blows up a bit over the next 12 to it's been done. Yeah, for sure. I I I was speaking to a couple of people about it um that have been sort of big in the the scene, like the crossfit scene or functional fitness scene, whatever you want to call it, for for many, many years, and they're really excited about it. I think I I like the format, I like the way that it ran, I like that again, similar to a high rox in in the fact that you know you you our start time was 11 a.m. We that was the time we get allowed into the warm-up area. We start lifting at half eleven, we start our um run and and bike at 12, and then we have a half hour rest and then we do our mechanism done. So we were done by I think one o'clock, um, maybe maybe half one. Um we had to hang around a while for the podium, but that's you know, physical properties. No, no comment. No comment. Um but no we said last week, isn't it? In that high rocks have taken have learned from CrossFit, and I feel now I affects have kind of learned it from both of them because it does look like a really smooth setup. Yeah, it really was. It was it was flick, I think. I liked uh like I said, I like the the fact that you you know your your whole amount of time that you're working for is like that sort of two, two and a half hour window and you're done. I found it hard regulating body temperature recovery-wise in terms of that, because sort of different to a high rox in that you're working for an hour, hour and a half, sort of in that sort of time period. Um you're not considering necessarily fueling options, hydration, cooling down, all of that sort of stuff. Whereas with this, it was it was warm in there. We were sweating like hell just doing the lifting. You then go, you've got a 10 minute turnaround before you go on to your your run and your bike, or your bike and your run, depending on which order you did it in. Um get really, really fucking hot then. And I mean, I was flagging big time before the the Metcon at the end. What was the the break time between the the run bike and then the mechcon? 30 minutes. 30 minutes. Yeah. So how did you fuel them between that? So I I had a uh Lucas Aid and some sweets um to get a Rice Priscilla Squares bar. Just some simple carbohydrates to be honest. But the main thing that I struggled with was cooling down because it was it was really warm. Um and I was if we had had to go at 20 minutes, I'd be fucked. It was the fact that it was 30, I was James was funny because he's like he was quite stoic about it, but he said he was struggling as well. Really? And then like after about 25 minutes, 22, 23 minutes, I got my second win, and I was absolutely fine. But I was like, Christ, if that'd been if if we'd had to go nap like five minutes sooner, I'd been in the case. It's a fine, isn't it? Because you you say you have that rest as an hour, you then run the risk of you know what, I mean you're in a sweaty mess just going to cool down and you get shivery and cold. I think I'd rather be warm again, overheated and a little bit fucked to go into it rather than completely cooling down and kind of the body starting to seize up and kind of relax a bit and then having to really get yourself going again. So yeah, and this man is enough pizza troughs, isn't it? Because you get the adrenaline, you're like, okay, it's time to go now. And it's um when we did the qualifiers at a similar issue, but what I found was like I started on the row there and my heart rate just jacked really, really quickly because I hadn't hand cooled down properly. Um I was I was better this time round, which was great. And we did um I think we did the fastest time of the day on the MetCon out of all the categories, which is really cool. Nice. Um back into comms and wins his first one. Yeah, have a having a bit of question is can he win his first high runs? Absolutely not. I've got no chance. Yeah, looking at some of the times um across this last weekend, there was some tremendous it's getting beyond beyond it's athletic to come again. Right you you kind of come away and I think, oh, I wasn't really in the top 10 or whatever, and I think this time last year, an hour on our 40 seconds would have been there were some elite 15s this time last year doing that sort of time. Yeah, it'd be top five most places. You've really been holding with every single race of the season last year. Right. And last week we had 54s, a couple of the elite 15 lads raced, they got 54s, and then a couple of lads who again names on Instagram but not necessarily kind of major athletes, getting 57s, 58s. Uh there are lots of battles. Some people say it was that I'm sure we'll move on to it now, probably in a minute, the course, but I don't necessarily agree with that. I think there's just some serious athletes. Yeah, that's interesting because I think it's one of the questions I I do a QA on Instagram on Sundays when I'm walking the walking the puppy. Call them the puppies of 50 kilo robber. Um but he uh and and I'm getting quite a lot now now that we're doing the the Hyrux program. Um and and generally because I think it's just getting more and more popular as well, but I'm getting quite a lot of um of higher rox related questions. And one of them was um, do you think it was a particularly fast course? Because people were getting these these great times. I don't know, I wasn't there. I didn't run the course, you ran it twice. Um what what my sort of answer to that was I think the it's the first time it's been a single lap, isn't it? Yeah, and I think in the UK, sorry. Yeah, there's one in Burlington. There's one in Berlin downside as well. But the the rationale, the Berlin one is an anomaly, people are getting PVs by about five minutes. Okay is uh crazy. But the the rationale for that isn't the one lap, it's outside. Yeah, I think there's been so much science done that the slow courses in the high rocks are the ones that are either in southern Europe or in venues where it's really hot and the difference that your body temperature has. Massive Berlin one is don't get me wrong, it's a one-lap course, less turns, etc. etc. But the reason that is such a quick course is like the stations are in an old airport air hangar, and then the rug is outside, and that makes a huge difference. So that's kind of another an anomaly. The one lap you're running exactly the same. The difference is if you do one lap as opposed to three, you've got less turns, so you're slowing down less. So it's not necessarily easier. Um, what about psychologically? I think like what I said in my answer on the QA was like I I personally think running one lap psychologically, seeing like I know it's a far away, so it's not necessarily like seeing the end, it's only there, sort of thing, but it's the fact that I'm only doing this once. I think I did the Cardiff one and the Toulouse one, I think they were similar. I think they were three laps, and Toulouse is like three and a bit laps. Um, and I I found that in the middle runs, there was like run like five, six, seven, whatever, mentally quite draining, being like, okay, I've got to do this another three times, or I've got to do this another three times. And I think for me personally, I like that psychological um boost, if you want to call it that, being like, okay, I'm out here. Once I get back, I'm done. It was yeah, it was it was the the the best course I've run, but I'm I am more of a runner, so it was it was nice to see a long open stretch. But it's there was I'd say probably 80% of our higher-ups courses are three lappers, so it's something you get used to. So, yeah, psychologically, one lap is amazing. Um but it was long, if that makes sense. It was with the sh the the more laps, it's kind of one or two, three. This was a long, long course, and the reason the second part to that is the rock zone. The rock zone was ginormous. So the way you'll have it is as if the more laps there are, the smaller the venue. So the smaller the rock zone. The the less laps there are, the the bigger the venue, the longer the rock zone. So yeah, it was only one lap, but where rock zones are normally about three minutes total time, these were people were ranging between seven was the quickest, and probably ten minutes the slowest. So the the rock zone itself was I'd say maybe five hundred metres. Yeah. So psychologically on the run, it was um it was lovely to come out of that rock zone and say, right, what happened back in? Yeah. However, you got into the rock zone, and then when it, for example, you'd go into the rock zone straight into the ski. When you came out of that ski, it's a long way to get back to the rock zero. You had probably a 500-meter run before you then got back to the rock. So that's crypto. Vice versa, on the last one, you come into the rock zone and go, oh, thank fuck for that, I'm done. But actually, you've got a 500-meter run to get to the war walls. And I think that's where it wasn't necessarily a quick course because if you look at people's runtimes, it was they were running two, three-minute kilometres, but they're not, because they were only actually running six, seven hundred meters. Right. That's what I was going to ask. And then you psychologically, when you get into this rockstone, you slow down. But because this rockstone took up maybe 20% of your overall runtime, which is normally maybe 5%, you're losing time when you're jogging. So, which is why there were such disparancies at time. I think if you planned the race well and you were a huge runner where you could literally come out of your station and go, if you ran well, you'd 100% get a PV. But it wasn't like a Berlin where it was forgiven because it was exactly the same distance, it was indoors, it was just a case of there were less turns. If you were fit enough to run the rock zone hard, there was a PV there. But number one, you've got to be fit enough. And yeah, it was so so yeah, it was there were PVs there, but especially in the the the processing nostrils there, there was in the there was a lot of a lot of PB PB in there uh by quite a lot of way, which showed that it wasn't a it wasn't. I I had a good mix of two or three um guys on programme and two or three guys that are just friends of mine that were you know um that were doing it. And um I think two out of the three on program PB'd quite by quite a lot. The one was a minute off their best time, but just said I just had one a bad day. She said, legs felt heavy from the start, just had one of those days where things didn't come together, and the other three guys not on uh program, I think it was two didn't PB and one did. Um one of them again just had a shit show, just you know, wasn't it wasn't in it mentally, and the other one was like, I felt great going into it, and I just don't know what happened. Um that could have been that that that brought for me is when this got released in Gus, May, June time, the one lap, for six, seven months, we'd all be talking saying this is gonna be a mega quick course. I don't think it was, but I think we went convinced ourselves it was. When I was looking down at my clock, I was like, Well, I've got to pay B Tick, is this a quick course? So then I was pushing harder. I think a lot of people did the same thing. Give a Roger Bannister effect before Roger Bannister. So nobody's actually done it, but you all know where you're gonna exactly because I think a good way to compare it to Birmingham, because that was what, only six weeks ago. Birmingham again was a nice course and it was a two-lap or a big wide course. I personally think if you run the that course and the London course week after week, you're looking at it if you ran it exactly the same 30 seconds quicker. I and I I really don't think it was any quicker than that. Uh and you see some people that are so like if they're so convinced that it was a fast course. And the people that don't do value say, Oh, it wasn't even fast course. If you if you're a good runner, yeah, it's a B boy course. If if you weren't, it it was there if you wanted it, but again, I yeah, leave it at that. It would be was it uh it was uh an epic venue in terms of layout psychologically. You you haven't got to think as much because you just do and one lab. So it had everything there to be a good course to get your BB, but I wouldn't say it was necessarily a quick course. It's interesting. I think the um the we can touch and we'll probably do a whole other episode on this when we talk about the heating and overheating and then the importance of cooling strategies, keeping yourself heart rates, um, blood pressure, things like that, how they can impact performance. There's tons and tons and tons of science around that side of things. And it's interesting that I was talking about athletics and the thing I struggled with the most was the heat. And then you know, you go on to that and you talk about Berlin being a run outside and how much of a difference that makes. You look at across the years in um in Olympics marathons, when they run at certain temperatures, the difference in times is you know, tens of minutes potentially. And it's even the I think with HIRACT as well, that the the second part to that is not only does the heat affect your performance, but it affects the waves move. So the Spanish courses in particular are renowned for slow sleds, right? Because of the moisture in the air, it gets under the sleds and it can they they see it seems to be the colder the venue, the the better the sleds move. So it's not just your run. See, it's I mean, Thursday night when I raced about eight o'clock, it was it was cold. And uh it was the perfect, the perfect race scenario. Sunday was a different uh a different bowling, but it it yeah, heat makes such a difference. Again, probably a really good episode to do in terms of how much extra energy your body uses to to further regulate itself on your on your heart. But it didn't go without its issues, obviously, with uh this weekend. I mean, I saw a video before before we even get into the QA on the wall boards, um, I think it was the women's race on Saturday, and it looked like the London Marathon, the amount of people on that course at the same time. And all I thought was if I'd spent 130 quid to get boxed in by six girls running at a pace that isn't my pace, and I've either got to go slower or I'm being forced to run outside of my comfort zone because I've got fast people around me in front of me behind me, I'd lose my fucking head. I yeah, I do you know what it's it's a really hard one because for myself personally, and the the pro race isn't that the it's dead. The course are dead too, you're the only one on the course, you've got head judge, you've all got your individual head judge, it's run perfectly, so I've I've had nothing but. Incredible experiences with every single higher activist I've ever done. Similarly, when I was doing open race days, I'm fortunate that I was always in the 30s of the day to the course of the 15. It's a big difference. It makes a huge difference. So then to see to see what I've I've seen on social media, and unfortunately, it always tends to be the Saturday afternoon, it always tends to be the women's open race days. And I don't know if that's because more people enter for the women's thing. I I I don't obviously the men's singles and men's doubles is in the mornings as well. So it tends to be the afternoon spot where you've got a bit of an overlap of the slower men finishing off and the women starting. It's all bought up like filled through, isn't it? The later you are, the more chance you run of having slower people because you can't account for people who you don't know what times people are going to get. But yeah, I I completely agree. If I was someone who would train for six months and couldn't run, because I mean, even just doing a double swing, it's infuriating. We put a shout to people. I couldn't imagine that, let alone I saw someone's story and it was I I couldn't agree with it more. She said, to have trained six months to get a PB, to then get into the war walls, to then wait ten minutes to do your war walls and say, don't worry if we're taking off your time. But then it was completely fresh to go into your warballs. And she said it wasn't the time that we got, because the time was the time we got because they took the time off. It was the fact that she said, I wanted to finish that race on the floor, gas, absolutely fucked. I don't get everything. But because she had 10 minutes rest before she went into the warble, and I completely get it. There is no better figure than crossing that line, giving it everything. So and it's so unfair on the people that um both ends of that spectrum, right? So the people that that do run straight in and start their war balls, you know, and then it probably takes them two or three minutes longer than somebody that gets a 10 minute rest. And I'd, you know, any I'm not gonna decent athlete, you know, very decent athlete, whatever you want to, however you want to categorize it, 10 minute rest I'd expect to do them war balls unbroken. Yeah. Um, especially if you train for it. So, and there's not that many people. There's a reason to give out a bad for doing unbroken war balls. They don't they they don't come that often at the end of the race. So, yeah, you get your 10-minute rest wiped off that score, but it's just not a legitimate score, is it? No. I think it's uh one thing I would say is that it was this event was all day Thursday, all day Friday, all day Saturday, all day Sunday. And I as far as I'm aware, this wall ball issue was for maybe an hour or two on a Saturday afternoon. It was one percent of the whole the four-day event, and I was there all day Thursday and every day Sunday, and I saw no issues whatsoever. It was an incredibly run event. Shouldn't event of this size be having issues like that? No, it shouldn't, and I'm not gonna back higher ups throughout because what they've probably done is is oversold tickets and or over relied on on volunteers, relied on volunteers. The company's probably making enough money now that they don't need to be the head judges. Yes, they're all full-time and they they get paid, but they're probably at a point now when they need to stop getting volunteers because what's probably happened is the volunteer has either had a bad experience. Been there for three days. I'm I'm knacking that I've had enough. Yeah, I've got my t-shirt, I've got my shoes or whatever it is. It's it's tough because it's the unfortunately, it's the people that if I could keep saying going back to the all the pro races, the races where the times matter in terms of qualifications, they they are on it and not not a not a finger is left on zone, but it's perfect. It tends to be the the races where times don't necessarily matter for high rocks where and that's not fair because it it's uh yeah, it's they're still paying their money and they're still training them for it. It's like turning around and saying, Oh, you know, your time in the London marathon doesn't count unless you're in the top ten. Exactly. And it's like, well, you're still you're still putting that time. It's a million why people do these races, and it's everyone should have the same should have the same experience. How they get around it, they've got to get. I think what one of the things I said was that you know, uh I as far as I'm aware, it's the first time this anything like this has happened. I know they had something in in Berlin because it didn't rain. It was rained, but it was raining, so that was more of a health and safety issue. To put it into perspective, we had the the last before Birmingham, the last UK event was card. And I think there were six to ten thousand athletes, there were 40,000 athletes at them over the last four days, which was incredible, yes, but it's probably too many people could argue about there being greedy attempts to tickets because yeah, yeah. What what I said um somebody was asking me about and saying, you know, they the the long-term plan for Higher Ox is to get to the Olympics, and I think we spoke about it last week where I said, you know, that they're obviously looking at getting governance in place, getting the logistics and getting the the organization to a place where um it to be considered as a as an Olympic sport is gonna be of the highest sort of level, highest sort of standard. Um and somebody said, Oh, how can it be taken seriously as a sport when something like this is happening? I said, Well, it's happened once. Um, I don't think you can use that as a stick to beat them with. If it happens twice, then you can. Um they've got to learn from this and they've got to turn around and look at whatever the issue was. Was it oversold tickets? Was it undersubscribed judges? Was it breaks for the judges at the wrong times or whatever it might be? Um, you know, I'm I run events myself and I understand how important judges, volunteers are, um, and relying on them is is the bread and butter of most competitions. And let me forget if that was a funny. Again, it's not excuses, but the event is run incredibly, impeccably. I have never had a race seat go even a minute over 99.99% of those events are incredible, and how they manage it is is amazing. But they got to a level where it's probably not acceptable to have these issues. Going back to how can they be taken seriously as a professional sport? I guess their argument would be the elite side of the sport is perfect, the pro races are perfect, the majors, there's a major in Melbourne this weekend. All the majors, the races themselves are in a completely different hole to where the age group races are. So I think in terms of them as a professional outlook, they've got it back on. The difference is they're running two different events now, and it's not they they need to be careful, I guess, not to take take an eye off the other side of it, which is kind of made the sport or it's made them their money, right? You know, it's the same as with with CrossFit gyms, if you like, having you know, run CrossFit gyms. You you you don't um you don't make your bread and butter with athletes or guys going up in winning competitions, they're few and far between. You make your bread and butter from you know 50-year-old Karens coming in and doing their first ever wall ball or trying to trying to get a pull-up, and and you've got exponentially more of those guys. And it's the same in HIROX, you've got exponentially more people that are trying to get a sub-two-hour HIROX or a sub-19-minute HIROX than you have got, you know, maybe 1% of people that are trying to get a sub-105 or a sub-1. And at every event I go to this weekend on the Sunday, I kind of took a minute and just sat down before I had the bath. The HIROX is epic. Like people live and breathe for this sport, and the people that live and breathe it are the people getting one hour 30s, one hour forties, absolutely, and they're the ones that made the sport what it is, and they're incredible people. They they work so hard. This people travel down just to watch it. It's like hilarious. On Thursday night after I finished, I had my classic Hyrux there, my goat for Athletics bag with my mobile badges on the back. And and I was on the phone to my partner saying how I got on, and I was like, She's like, Who are you speaking to? And there was a lady knocking me on the shoulder to ask for a picture. So I turned around and said, No, I don't want a picture of you. Can you turn around? I want to take a picture of your bag. And again, it was just someone who would come, not to race, just to watch, see what it's all about. And it's it is epic, and it there is a it's an incredible setup and the people in it, and they need to be really careful that people don't go away from this and go, oh, hire ops. All they care about is that because yeah, you're right, that the guys get in the sub the sub-hours, the sub 70 minutes, that they have 0.01% of the people competing in higher ops. Yeah. And as you know, to live, we talked about last week about learning from CrossFit's mistakes. You see, with the CrossFit Open every year, um, and how those numbers over the last sort of two or three years have dwindled down a little bit. And one of the big things was people not wanting to give CrossFit money. So people didn't want to spend$20 to sign up for the CrossFit Open when they could just do the workout and not put their score in the leaderboard, or they can look on the leaderboard and say, Oh, we're looking at this time out, still do the workout, still do all of this sort of thing. And with the more and more, and then there's another episode in this sort of knockoff HIROCs or HIROX sims or whatever you want to call it that are coming around now, you know, you could do one every week in probably South Wales, but certainly South West, you know, between all of the gyms that are running HIROXIMS left, right, and Chelsea, you can go, right, okay, do I really need to spend 130, 140 quid plus travel, plus staying up the night before to get to London or Birmingham or Manchester? If I can go and do one in Ion or Unit 9 or wherever, that's five minutes down the road, then it's costing me 30, 40 quid. Um, so I think we know why you would go and do a higher ox. We've done one, it's an epic event, and I think the venues are great as well, and they're only getting better. I think the the vibe of the thing, good being in that tunnel beforehand, when they're playing a bit of Led Zeppelin, it's like it's a it's a cool thing. It's a thing we're like, yeah, this is this is something like not everyone can do, and it's a cool thing. Um so they've they've got something they need to cultivate that. But what they need to do is keep an eye on those sort of that that low-hanging fruit of those people, then they're not losing them to the subpar venues and subpar events because they're pissing them off. And that's the only reason they will lose them. Um because people happily pay, as you can see, 40,000 people or whatever it was, paying their nine million pounds to do iROX in in London. Um, they're happy to pay that money, but they won't pay it again if they've got a Q10 reward. Yeah. No, I think you're dead on the head. I think as an as an event, I think they nailed it. I think there were some really cool takeaways from it. The course was great. They they had a new in the I saw it in the World Champs and in the last major in Hamlet, they've got this new almost like a stadium next to the wall balls where you can go in and have a drink, and it's in like a multi-floor. It is making it feel I felt like a professional athlete on that Thursday night doing that record. And it they are naming it, they for example, the wall balls now that we had last year where you'd have the old race where you had the electric board. It's now every single race. It is every single race they are improving at. And one thing I would say is that they've made a huge amount of mistakes. But one thing, and I think you mentioned it on your Q ⁇ A the other day, is one thing they are incredible at is they address their mistakes. They they're open to to debate, they're open for people. I've listened to a few podcasts now with the two guys that own it, and they listen to everything. They they are looking at people's stories. They will already, if it sat down after this weekend, right? We fucked up here. How are we gonna make it better? Last year it was the sleds at Chicago. They've already made that, but again, it's not fixed, but it's a working process. And I think hats off to the like, yeah, they're making mistakes, but they are trying to make it trying to make it better. Yeah, to go back to what we talked about last week. I think it's the the real opposite of what it is with CrossFit, which is a very closed book. It's our way or the highway, we know best. Oh, you're gonna give us feedback, cool, go fuck yourself. Um, sort of mentality um that has has cost them uh an awful lot along the years that I think Kyrox have definitely learned from. Um, and I think that if they continue to have this open forum and learn from mistakes, you know, I I'm I'm all for people making mistakes because you know you're doing stuff wrong. Um I'm all for um people making mistakes as long as they learn from them. Um so you know, if we have these these, I call them a minor issue, it's a major issue if you're involved in it, um, but across the the whole season or the whole year for that to have happen once, you'll look at it and go, okay, it's a it's a one-off. How do we stop that happening again? And I think, yeah, it the fact that they're learning from these things and improving these things bodes well for the sport, as well as making these small changes that you're talking about with the electric counters on the wall balls, improving the stadia. Probably, I would imagine next season we're gonna see some bigger sponsorships, some cooler brands. I think that could be the next the next big thing. I I know they signed with Puma until another five years. But you look at the all the Elite 15 athletes now sponsored by Nike, sponsored by Adidas, it's it's gotta be it's gotta be something where one of these big brands comes in and steps in, doesn't necessarily take over from Puma, but at least gets themselves through the door, has a store because it's not yeah. Again, going back to the cross, I think that's what happened back then was it was always Rebok, wasn't it? And and Nike came in with Nike Metcon, and that competition raised the bar. You know, a handful of athletes, Josh Bridges, Matt Fraser, Adrian Munloiler, Sarah Sigmund's daughter, they became Nike athletes. Um and then Rebock had to raise the bar and look after their athletes better rather than just having the the pick of the bunch and doing what they wanted. That money then led to improved performance, improved outreach, improved social media, improved fan base, and so on and so forth. So I think it's completely right. I think last year it was you've got a decent prototype. Oh, here's a pair of Puma trainers, like give go other season. And and now it's this year it's it's another level. You've got a fuma deal, you're a Puma contracts, but I know five or six people now that have are on a full-time contract at Nike. And they're not even Elite 15 athletes. These are young lads who Nike have picked up early and gone, he's gonna be good in a few years. Yeah, rolling dogs. Flown them out to headquarters in the US, they start a contract, and that's how this sport is seven years old. To be getting a full-time contract to be a hierarchy is shows that it's it's going somewhere. This this you know, if you've got a brand like Nike signing up a full-time time time contract, this sport isn't a part.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think um you know, AFX this weekend did to round things off and go back to that was that's sponsored by Adidas. Really cool. So, you know, we get a full staff package. I think we're getting a video, a t-shirt, shorts, uh, shoes, the the whole kit gaboodle. So um yeah, and it's like little things like you know, back in the day, jokingly, like when I was fit and and competing a lot, we you know, I'd look at what where the where the prize money was, I'd go and do the stuff with big prize money. Yeah, but it's not always about that, especially you know, Afflex is a brand new thing. Um I've I'd looking at the the stuff we're getting, it's like 500 quid's worth of it. And it's nice stuff. And little. If you uh if you're like we are and you've grown up playing sport, and you know, when you get your kit for your football team and your report, there is nothing better than a bit of stash. I mean, we've just you won't be able to see it today because we've once again copped up on camera. Copped up the camera, so we're audio only. But come Friday, when we do the next episode, we will be live on camera. We've just had our our new tap clothing come through, and it is uh we're like kids, we're going through the boxes, putting our hoodies on, putting our t-shirts on. There's there's nothing better than stash. So when you've got grounds like you and I kind of dust get involved, it's yeah, I can't explain it. I'm 32 years old and still like I get as excited as I was when I was. Don't say tell everyone you're 22, and you might be getting like I'm knocking on your door. Yeah, yeah, I'm brand new into that, but number 15 is ahead of me. Yeah, uh no, I think that's great. I think um a little bit of a shorter one this week, but it's just to to to round off, you know, basically stuff that we've we've talked about and we've had questions asked of us about. So, you know, the I think the the the big sort of contentious issues were number of people and the the war wall side of things, how fast was the course? Um and and time will tell, right? Because I think you know they they come in thick and fast now, these these these hieroxes are near enough every weekend, and we'll see the trend. So if suddenly now next week, uh not necessarily Melbourne, but you know, the the next sort of three lap course, times go back to 59 minutes, one hour. There's three or four lads that I reached against night who were doing posthand this weekend. Right. Um, which I was also gonna do, but to the knee. The knee said no. And and I said no, because no. Um, so it'd be really interesting to see. I would be shocked if they run any quicker than London, because I do think it was slightly quicker, like I said, if you run well. But it'd be interesting to see if they get about 30 seconds slower in positive, as opposed to maybe if it's if they're going two or three minutes slower, seven days off then we know, then yeah, then we know London was an anomaly. But yeah, obviously we'll I guess we can talk about that next week. That's interesting. And then um just to to look on towards the the future. So Manchester's next for you. Yeah, Manchester's does that next for you. And then you've got Amsterdam. Amsterdam, yeah, it's on the on the Wednesday I'm doing Amsterdam. Um so yeah, now Astex is out of the way. I'm I'm Hall Hog, full-time Pyroxer for six, seven weeks, which would be fun. It'll be exciting, and then we're hopefully off on a foreign trip in February, it's time to get our first. Yeah, so Sofan um and Anne Marie, who who ran uh London this weekend, um, are actually doing Warsaw, which is a month or month later, two months later than what we were looking at. Um so yeah, I might might maybe look at doing that one instead because it seems easier to get to. Yeah. Um but yeah, so and and now we're we're starting working together now, looking after your knee, getting you fixed, and see we can uh knock a couple of minutes off those stations and get you into some really, really quick times. Yeah, that's the plan. I think it was London was a really good boost because I know I'm nowhere near where I'm my my peak is, so it was a nice confidence booster. But yeah, the plan is to to work together, get my knee fixed, get the stations fixed, and hopefully we'll be going well out of the hour um the next few months.

SPEAKER_00:

And then I'm gonna go and do athletes again next year in uh in the the pro open Mohammed I'm hard.

SPEAKER_01:

That's the profit machine kicking off for me. Yeah, I'm gonna go do it in the in the hard division and uh win that one as well. Obviously. This guy doesn't have a bit of wheel. Yeah, I think next podcast will probably I reckon we should maybe well you guys let us know, but look at more. Maybe jump into something a bit more training related. Um be good. So that any anything that you guys guys want to do. I know we've spoken a lot the last few weeks about CrossFit and higher up to maybe time to give a bit more informative content, have a have a chat about a bit of training, a bit of nutrition. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah, as always, guys, and I'll I'll do my my Q ⁇ A on Sunday, but we're gonna we're gonna film a um another podcast on Friday, and we're gonna try and get a little bit of a head with on that side of things. So once this is out, please feel free, drop my message, drop me a message, anything you want us to cover. Um we want this to be sort of broad strokes and we want to talk, like I said, nutrition, training strategies. You know, we could talk about what it takes to become a better runner, not necessarily for high rocks, but they you know, they might be one and the same, how to get stronger, nutrition for you know, training for hypertrop uh hypertrophy, training for strength, all of these different things that are stuff that I get asked an awful lot. Um, and you know, we've got a we got a bank of tock ups that we can talk about. But there's if there's anything pressing or anything that you guys want to hear of, you know, you're the people that are listening, the other people we want to talk to. So let us know. And um, until next time, thanks for listening. Thanks for listening, guys.