Misfit Podcast

The Open is Coming: What to Expect, How to Execute, and Why it Matters - E.385

Misfit Athletics Episode 385

The CrossFit Open is almost here, and in this episode, Drew and Paige go deep on what actually matters when it comes to performing your best.

This isn’t just another Open preview. It’s a practical breakdown of how to think about the Open: pacing, athlete IQ, movement efficiency, and why the Open matters no matter where you fall on the competitive spectrum — from first-timers to Games hopefuls.

They unpack:

  • What the Open is really testing (and why fitness still reigns supreme)
  • The most common movements and workout formats you should expect
  • How to approach strategy vs. effort, when to push, when to stay smooth
  • Why grip strength, pulling gymnastics, overhead stability, and leg drive are non-negotiables
  • The difference between training and practicing
  • How to use Open simulations to build confidence, sharpen execution, and uncover weaknesses
  • The role of objectivity, data, and self-awareness in leveling up as an athlete
  • Why “going hard” isn’t always the same as performing well

They also dive into mindset, flow state, community, and how to reverse-engineer competitive success, plus their usual Read / Listen / Watch recommendations and updates from inside Misfit Athletics.

Whether you’re chasing leaderboard spots or just looking to show up better than last year, this episode gives you a clear framework for attacking the Open with purpose.

Let’s get to work.

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SPEAKER_00:

Good morning, Misfits. You are tuning in to another episode of the Misfit Podcast on today's show. We got a little open preview coming. We've had some things happening within the Misfit Athletics program that really made me feel like we should do a full episode dedicated to the open, dedicated to what you can expect out of it, how to do well in it, why it matters regardless of who you are, as opposed to just talking through the actual programming that we're doing itself, like we did a few weeks ago with Open Prep. So we're gonna get into all of that stuff. As usual, we will do housekeeping pretty quickly here. There are, I don't know, a certain number of ways that you can support this podcast. I forgot how many it is, but the main one is by purchasing our programming. Whether you're looking for individual programming or affiliate programming, you can find the link in bio on our Instagram that gives you access to all of those things. Um and there are free trials associated with all of those. You can also head to sharpentheaxco.com, buy yourself some misfit gear. If you haven't signed up for camp, this podcast drops like 72 hours prior to camp getting started. Um, you still can get signed up. Hopefully, you live in the greater Boulder, Colorado area, or you have the kind of life where you can just snap your fingers and decide to fly to Colorado last minute. But I'm super excited about camp, and you can find the ticket sales in the link in bio. Some of you are just procrastinators. There's ticket sales still coming in, and it's like, thank you for that. It makes it really easy for us to for us to do our staff and all that. Most most mostly joking. Last but not least, this episode of the podcast, like the rest of them, is brought to you by GorillaMind. You can go to GorillaMind.com forward slash Misfit or just use the code word misfit at checkout. I am I have a three-day work week. Now you would think camp would mean I have a six or seven day work week, but what I mean by that is I have to fit six or seven days worth of work into three days. And my wife is out of town. So the product of the week is the Gorilla Mind energy drink. If you're watching on YouTube, there's one right there. That's actually my favorite flavor, the white frost. Yeah, it's it's uh not just an energy drink, it's packed with nootropics. I drink it before basically every podcast. I feel like I have really good word recall. Uh and yeah, I'm a big fan. I've seen Paige drinking them pretty regularly in the background.

SPEAKER_02:

You know uh who I just saw recently drinking one? I saw Hiller had it during one of his sit-downs. I was impressed with the first one.

SPEAKER_00:

I almost commented us the code word misfit.

SPEAKER_03:

You should, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and that's the new flavor everybody's freaking out about. They did like a I don't think they're supposed to say that it's Swedish fish, but it's red gummy fish. And I have the pre-workout, uh the non-STEM pre-workout and that that tastes really good. So I haven't had the energy drink yet because I have probably 10 cases in my closet. And whenever they do a sale and we can stack the code on, I'm I'm in there. And the cool thing is if you get if you start buying from them, they're really good about marketing. So you get emails and texts and stuff like that when stuff goes on sale, which is pretty regularly. And you can just stack that code on top of it. All right. Um, I kind of already did it, but I'm gonna do it again anyways. Shout out of the week. Um, it's different for me now. The shout out of the week on my end is the campers, the people that are signed up for camp. I am sequestered to this office that you see me in, basically, in all of the content. I don't have in-person coworkers anymore. When my son comes in here, he just wants to play with my Lego Lewis Hamilton uh car, which he usually breaks pretty quickly and I have to put back together. He also takes the football down and throws that around, tries to throw it at my camera and stuff. So I just I need camp more now than ever, right? I gotta go. Like I talk about it, but I really, really, really mean it. So I say it over and over. There's something special about being in a room with your people for a whole weekend. It's very motivating for coaches, it's motivating for athletes, it's motivating for fans of the sport just to get like a look at what we're up to and what we do. And I think it's really fun to be able to bring our personalities to camp, which could be cursing maybe a little bit more than we're supposed to. But there's a level of authenticity that we bring that I think keeps things light because we go really deep into the kind of the nerdy side and the nitty-gritty of movement um and execution and all of that stuff. So I'm just really excited to see everybody. Um and I'm digging my new life here in Colorado, but I gotta get out. I gotta get out and see my people. So shout out of the week, campers.

SPEAKER_02:

It's almost time for you to be on the competition floor too. You got me kind of competing in a couple weeks, so you're kind of hitting all areas there.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm excited to put my coach's hat on at camp. I typically go and I participate, but this year I get to be more behind the scenes, which I'm very excited to learn from you and from Hunter and Caroline. You guys have been doing camp quite a bit now. So I'm really excited about that.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm gonna give a shout out to a bunch of the new members in Telegram. And this is just like through, yeah, just through like the back half of January. We've got Jess Webb, Sergio Mendoza, Christine Ortega, Hunter Stewart, Jason Payne, Hussein. I don't know how to pronounce your last name, so I'm not gonna try. Dylan Thomas, Artang, and Abby Gibbs, which I'm pretty sure Abby Gibbs is a like long time.

SPEAKER_00:

It is fun to see the people that you know finally get into the group. Um there's still the holdouts on Fitter that cracks me out, those people. Like, because I'll de they'll message me on Fitter and I'll be like, this would be a great topic of conversation on Telegram crickets. So get your butts in Telegram.

SPEAKER_02:

They're like a 6 a.m. crew in an affiliate, like they're just their own breeding.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And they're always messaging us in the middle of the night because they live on the other side of the world. And then they're like, where the hell are you guys? It's like, dude, it's 3 a.m.

unknown:

Oh.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, shout out to those guys.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. It's been, I don't know, I feel annoying when I make a push for something like that, and I keep doing it over and over, but it's I think it's been working recently. And I do believe that people will get better results and stick around longer and work through those shitty times when they don't want to if they're part of a community. So I do believe that it is like a it should be like a mandatory add-on. Like there should be another column in the programming sheet that says get into Telegram and like talk to people about this.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's been really good. All right. Read, listen, watch. You want to go first? You want me to go first?

SPEAKER_02:

Uh, sure. I'll go first. My read, it's a quote I saw it's actually like maybe two weeks ago now, but I thought it would be very relevant. Um, let me just increase this a little bit. It says, if you want to get warm, you must stand near the fire. If you want to be wet, you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to or even into the thing that has them. You don't get results by wanting them. You get results by placing yourself in the environment where those results are inevitable. I'm just like, can't yeah, you can't find anything a little more badass than that for what we're about to dip our toes into with the season starting.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I totally agree.

SPEAKER_02:

Let's see. My listen. I actually had one of my athletes recommend fellas. This might not be as fun for you, but it's actually um a podcast with Mel Robbins and Dr. Stacey Sims on menopause. But what I really liked about it was that again, it was also for men and for the women in their lives, and how can they be more educated on it? And yeah, I just it was very insightful, very educational, with also just more of a conversational feel. So that's why I really liked it. Um Mel Robbins is pretty easy to listen to in my mind.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I like her. So again, very educational. Recommend that. And then my watch. I've been watching the following on Netflix. This is like an older, I want to say. Older show. Yeah. It's about a serial killer.

SPEAKER_03:

I feel like I know what that is.

SPEAKER_02:

It's about a s serial killer who basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's easy to know. Drummers, right? Multiple shows.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we're aging ourselves now. We are aging ourselves now. Back when almost all movies were bad, so you had to like bad movies.

SPEAKER_02:

True, true, true, true. So yeah, those are those are my three. The following's I'm pretty good. I did watch it not all the way through a while ago, so I figured I would go back to it.

SPEAKER_00:

My read is I was going to pick a specific book, but honestly, any book by David Sederis, I have one behind me called Happy Go Lucky. I have all of his books. Uh, and the cool thing is they are like short essays about his life, basically. And he's just like hilarious, incredible writer. I think he kind of fits into a lot of different categories. And when I was going through this with everything, all the crazy stuff that's going on in the world right now, it's like people should put their phones down and go buy a David Sederis book and laugh and go to sleep with a peaceful head. Listen, this one's interesting. So there is a guy named James Smith who is like online trainer, entrepreneur kind of guy. He does a lot of content about content. Um, but he has a podcast called The Problem With, and it kind of does a little bit of like devil's advocate type stuff. And the one of his most latest uh episodes was the problem with hydration. And he had an expert on that was just like, can everyone calm down with eating like 4,000 grams of sodium per day? And it's one of those things where again, I like the counterpoint to the point. Like we're probably like probably overdoing it on sodium with people waking up in the morning that aren't like endurance athletes, and he says, necking a gram of salt. It's like that's a lot to be doing in the morning first thing, if it's not like for a particular reason. So kind of an interesting listen. And I don't know that I would say take the advice 100% to heart, but again, kind of the counterpoint I think is is important, especially for for coaches and people giving that kind of advice. Last but not least, I stumbled upon. So I am I'm going all in on like trying to do the perfect garage gym in terms of like setup and what goes where, like, and you know, designing it all the time and looking at what I want. And there is a YouTube channel, and he's got a bunch of content elsewhere as well. Garage Gym Reviews. It is amazing. If you like equipment and like bodybuilding and like like weird attachments to your rig and stuff like that, oh my God. It's like it's incredible. So and the and the dude is is like I love uh I love a meathead nerd. Um makes me happy when someone understands our world, but isn't like a meathead in the derogatory like sense. So I highly if if you're if you're a a gear nerd in the fitness space, garage gym reviews is amazing. My algorithm now is literally just reviews of equipment and bodybuilding videos on YouTube.

SPEAKER_02:

It's completely multi-purpose squat rack that has like 50 different things you could do with it, those types of things.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, but there's this like there's this new attachment that everybody's obsessed with that is like computerized. So you like choose the resistance on a on the screen and it does eccentric loading as well. So you can like literally force like the eccentric phase of doing accessory work, which would honestly would be incredible.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And my whole thing is I have to have the gym. I'll do a video for you guys, don't worry. But I have to have the gym be what I want it to be, and then enticing for for people to visit me. And those two things aren't really the same, right? So that's what I'm kind of working through because I want like an actual rig in there. Like I would want two people, say, to be able to do like bar muscle-ups, ring muscle-ups, rope cleanup, things like that. And I want one of those fancy squat racks with like all the attachments on it for me personally. So we'll see how I figure that out. But I will watch hundreds of hours of garage gym reviews in the meantime and report back to everybody. All right. So again, the sort of main topic of today's episode is the open, what to expect in the open, what's coming, because we kind of know already. Um, and I think that's important for people, how to do really well in it, and then why it matters. So a lot of this comes from we were looking at going into open prep and talking about how you've got kind of the like the people who naturally are the athlete IQ people by nature. They talk about rep schemes and they talk about I break this up this way, and this is what I hold here, and this took me this long. And I like to go on broken, have slower transitions, I like to break it up and be really fast, whatever, that sort of thing. But then the other side of the fence, sometimes I think our advice is too broad. It's like you guys are doing this many workouts a week and you got to be dialed in and you got to know the split, you got to be doing all these things. And I think sometimes those ideas can be a little bit too big. So we decided to do open simulation um at Misfit Athletics during open prep. And we're there's some pageantry around it, right? Like we've got the naming conventions, and I'm like stealing some of the graphic design elements from HQ. You guys have taken enough of my money over the last 15 years. I don't feel bad. We're doing score sheets, we're doing athlete IQ sheets, we're talking about it, we're kind of hyping it up within the telegram. And you're starting to see the type of behavior that we were looking for all along that I think now we kind of know how to do a better job of having people work into that stuff, right? Because it's they're they're definitely willing to do that work. That is clear.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I mean, I I think it's fun to watch people learn it in a no pressure or low pressure environment right now to see like you could tell people in Telegram are getting a little like antsy, nervous, even with just our open sim. And it's like, this is great practice. Like, where are you breaking down? Is it mentally? Is it physically? You guys are learning in real time, and that's kind of the cool thing that you're gonna take into the three weeks of the open. Like, you should feel prepared right now. Like, that's that's the cool thing about this.

SPEAKER_00:

And even if your highest level of competition is the CrossFit games, I think of the iceberg photos where it's like, okay, CrossFit games is here underneath. Did you do these sorts of activities related to semifinals? And did you do it in quarterfinals in the open and before? Each layer that we add to this leads to the next thing and informs the next thing. Um, and that's what's been really cool. And very intentionally placed MFA 26.2 after talking so much about pacing. We put something in there where it was like, if you get too cute with this workout, your ego is going to get stomped into the ground. Right. And again, that was very intentional. We want you to make those mistakes now. We want you to understand kind of the difference. I think people felt like they left something on the table in a workout like that. And that's a good thing right now. Like that's what we're looking for. And I think, and then realizing how hard you need to go can be a really tough thing to wrap your mind around. Like we are we are saying that you have to stomp the gas pedal and go into a significant level of pain every time and be really smart and careful and don't row too hard here and all that. So, again, that's why starting now is so incredibly important. So let's say you don't follow Misfit Athletics and you listen to this podcast. Choose one workout a week and do this. Circle it. Circle your workout, grab an old, grab an old workout. And then you could literally just go in and download the stuff that I'm talking about from the games website. But make this a practice now. And the athlete IQ exercise isn't going to be within that sheet, but it's basically each movement. Um, well, actually, you could just print a second judge's sheet and you go in and you write down what you think is going to happen from a time standpoint and a strategy standpoint. And then you have either a video to look at or a judge make notes for you or a coach make notes for you while you're going, and you go go back and compare the two. And that's the kind of thing that, like you said, you would think it wouldn't be a big deal, but people are literally in Telegram like, who else is nervous right now? And that's a good thing, right? Because the nerves go up, they don't go down. So we have uh, you know, a four out of ten right now. The open for you might be a six to a nine out of ten. And then each time you go up, that continues to happen, and you have to know how you deal with that that adversity. Do you feel like you're in flight or do you feel like you're in fight? Like that kind of that same, you know, two sides to the same coin sort of situation. Um, and again, the narrative would be like I wrote down here, Pen Sim isn't really like the open. And then it's like, well, the open isn't really like quarterfinals. That would be the narrative there. And then quarterfinals isn't really like semifinals, semifinals is like nothing compared to the CrossFit games. And it's like, if we can understand that moving from left to right, I think we could probably work backwards from what our end goal is and be like, wow, I get this much practice. Like the idea that there would be any other way to compare yourself to that many other people is it's just silly to me. Like, I think someone, especially an athlete, I'll use this example, an athlete at a high level that makes the like public proclamation, like, I'm not gonna try very hard in the open. I think that's like self-preservation, protecting yourself, unwilling to be vulnerable, right? Because there are, you know, and I know that you identify with this in certain instances and certain years, there are world-class games athletes that don't really love the open, right? You know what I mean? Like, like, so I and I remember talking with certain people about it and seeing their scores and just be like, what are you doing? And they're like, literally just go in, do it really quick, and kind of throw it away. And it's like, well, that's because you want to come in first and you come in 19th, and that really pisses you off. And it's like, you're gonna leave something on the table. There's this version of yourself where you admit to being competitive as fuck, and you lean into that and you use it versus like, no, I'm only competitive in the setting that makes me look the best.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I mean, like you said, like open sim isn't the open, the open isn't quarterfinals, quarterfinals isn't semifinals. But it's like you get to figure out like at what point, like where are you breaking down when the pressure gets harder? Like when you have to level up. Like, is it mentally I just like I put too much expectation on one? thing or the other? Or is it physically? I'm just not fig I'm not finding the proper pacing for the complexity of the workout that has now come. Like it's a level up when you get to quarterfinals. The workouts are different, the weights are heavier. Same thing is said with with semis and in the games, but like where is it that you're breaking down? I'd actually be curious. I guess I never really went too deep into the weeds for myself of like, I'm not great at open or online qualifiers, but I excel or thrive in a highly competitive environment. Like what is it for me that breaks down early on?

SPEAKER_00:

But then I excel I don't think you've convinced yourself that certain levels of competition are as big a deal as others. Because to reach flow state, one of the like you need a challenge worthy of your best. Like there's a lot of really good research on what happens to athletes. And I definitely, I I personally identify in the opposite way as well, where I would be motivated to train harder after doing well in a competition because I'm like damn like I'm leaving I'm leaving a lot on the table by being a quote unquote competitor and not the kind of person that that you know is as consistent in training or puts as much into that environment. And you know what's funny is I've had this conversation with athletes and it's not just like strengths and weaknesses. Cause sometimes like for instance I can think of an athlete who 21.1 was the in the the wall walk double under. And that was that felt like a letdown I think to a lot of people because they didn't understand it yet. We didn't understand the wall walk very well yet. And it was like double unders are actually a weakness but like like this workout looks dumb. You know what I mean? So like it's it's complicated to always pull flow state out of yourself because you can't fake believing that the challenge is worthy. You have to find a way to arrive at that place and mean it and feel it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You can't say nope this is the year I really really care about the open and then three two one go and you're like fuck this. You know what I mean? So you have to get yourself into a headspace where it's like if I'm gonna find out if I'm gonna find out who I am and what my potential is it starts today. It starts in this moment like that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I guess I never thought of it's definitely a part of it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah Flow State is is awesome. I love the first time one of my I'll call them intermediate athletes you know first time at semi finals I love the first time I see them in flow because all of this the crowd the scheme just all of the minutiae is gone yeah and they're expressing this thing. It's so cool to watch but then once you know what it is you kind of got to know how to reverse engineer that situation. Yeah. And the the cool thing is you see it from the greats in a situation where you wouldn't think would be worthy of their best, but they're just so like I'll I'll show you like which is crazy because it's like duh, you always show us like I get it. Calm down Tia like you know what I mean? But that that is fascinating. And to me that's like anyone can rise up to the that level if someone that's that good can rise up to that level for you know because you always hear it like you're you're watching the Super Bowl and they're like Tom Brady will punch you in the face if you beat him at checkers like that kind of BS and it's like Tom Brady's in flow state playing checkers. So yeah that whole world I think is really fascinating and I think you got to feel it for the first few times, which you've obviously felt it a ton of times but like then you got to ask yourself what was it about those moments in that headspace that brought that out of me.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. That's that's a good point. I guess like I don't I don't know if it's like maybe subconscious that I think that way that like you know this isn't as important of a level but I don't feel like I I don't feel like I feel that way. Right? Like I do still enjoy doing the open and so that's something I you know I'll dig deeper into for myself and go ahead.

SPEAKER_00:

We're gonna get to if we can, if we have the time, we're gonna get to subjective versus objective and this is one of those moments where our feelings are are valid and they're a part of the picture. But it's like well I know that you can go faster than that and you didn't so how do we you know what I mean like how do we get that out of you? That sort of thing. Okay. Um so I want to do movements next. I want to do movements because I love this this idea of how simple this can all be right. Yeah I will start working with a new athlete and during the open and quarterfinals and semifinals they'll be like you're a genius you guessed all the movements and it's like well I I keep track of what they do and then I ask you to do it. Like if you've got a coach or a program that doesn't do that I don't I don't know what they're up to. Like because it's someone leaving another programming coming over and being like oh my God how'd you know there's gonna be rowing and wall balls and I'm like is this a joke? How would I not know that? Like what are you doing uprises all the time? Like what I don't understand what you're up to. So from 2019 to 2025, we're gonna go sort of in reverse order here seven out of seven years we've had double unders. Six out of seven years we've had thrusters um any year we didn't have thrusters we had wall balls by the way so I'll just kind of put that out there. Rowing five out of seven years bar facing burpees five out of seven years guest to bar five out of seven bar muscle ups five out of seven toes to bar four out of seven wall walks four out of seven but they've only been around for five years so four out of five years is is you know sort of slides that up the list a little bit. Snatch four out of seven but every year there's no barbell snatch there's a dumbbell snatch so seven out of seven basically deadlift four out of seven and again wall balls are at the bottom there with three out of seven I'll ask you first you can obviously see my notes but what do you think when you see that list of like you gotta be good at these things, these ideas, these overall concepts I mean there are movements that can expose bad mechanics.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Fit fitness that's some cheating here but like you know you're you can expose inefficient movement or movements that are gonna really tax the lungs. You have to be able to move efficiently when you're under fatigue or you're gonna be exposed in any workout with these.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. So the first thing that I see when I look at that list is well we'll go macro first. I only see four things on that list, which is incredibly important. So first and foremost fitness is king double under thruster row bar facing burpee. If you cannot express your fitness within those things you are going to be in deep trouble. And there is a reason why the best athletes in the world don't really leave their spots on leaderboards, right? Like there's some fluctuation depending on the style of the workout you have your outliers but if you remove outliers you then just continue to see very similar things when it comes to leaderboards. And that's because that base of fitness is very real and you know your muscle ups and your handstand walking and all of these things are so especially with the way that they like tier a workout and just stick you know maybe muscle ups or strict handstand push-ups towards the end you can't the natural order of things is general physical preparedness to start. And if you are really fit double unders thrusters rowing and bar facing burpees are the kinds of things where you're going to be able to express yourself. So that's the first thing that comes to mind. There's a little bit in my opinion a bias for this next thing but guess what? Doesn't matter I think it probably has more to do with accessibility than anything else. More people can do toe to bar and pull-ups than they can handstand push-ups. So that's probably where a lot of this comes in but grip strength and hollow arch movement efficiency is like right there, right at that point. Like if you cannot hang from a pull-up bar in a really good position, if you cannot go through hollow arch in your toe to bar, chin over bar, chest to bar, bar muscle up and even into the the ring muscle up, that's going to be a problem. If you don't understand the idea of creating leverage over your hip and then using your hip, you know sort of hip-driven movements so that it can be more based on your grip than than it is for other people. But there is a stupidly high premium on pulling gymnastics in the CrossFit space. And if you don't have again the grip strength and the movement efficiency to express those things and you're focusing elsewhere all of the time, you're not doing your farmers carries, you're not doing your dead hangs, you're not thinking about the way that you move as you progress through those things, it's gonna be a massive issue. And there's this level of responsibility here. So if there's only four things that you need to be good at, then that is a good thing to know. It's a good thing to realize but if you're bad at one of them and not addressing it, then we've got some problems, right?

SPEAKER_02:

A little bit. Yeah. Yeah I mean I like to think of like grip like grip is part of your engine when it comes to open style workouts. Like if that goes and I mean there goes your workout, you know? Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. It's very true. Barbell slash dumbbell pulling is a huge focus. My mind in the maybe in the novice would go towards midline stabilization a little bit. But when I think to intermediate to advanced, it's like do you know how to use your legs in pulling movements? Right. Like and it obviously matters more the more reps there are, the sort of the total tonnage that you're going to be pulling. One beautiful example that we'll talk about later in the podcast is the ladder up and down with the deadlifts, which is just one of those workouts I think that messed with people because they didn't know what they were getting. It was disguised as not like the craziest deadlift workout. And then turns out for a lot of people, even really good athletes, it was pretty gnarly. But I just think through those movements that we're looking at here and we're looking at the snatch and the dumbbell snatch and it's like as we pass the knee and come down, is that butt dropping are we getting into a position where you can drive with your legs or is it bend and snap? You know, is it really that sort of hinging RDL? And you're going to get yourself into positions where you can't turn your erectors on at all. So your spine is doing things. So not only are you not being efficient because of how incredibly powerful your legs are in that kind of quarter squat, you know, stand-up to knee extension realm, you're also compromising basically your entire body like once you start to go vertebrae by vertebrae of telling your body like we're in the danger zone and we get into muscle spasms and things like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

It's not good.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah like the the moment that back starts firing up and is burning, it's like your legs are shutting off too. So you know really that inefficient movement is a a big reason that that score is going to drop off from you know what you think it could be if you're moving well.

SPEAKER_00:

And this is one of those things where like I'm reminded of going back to batting practice in Little League and we would always want to do the like Mark McGuire swing or the Ken Griffe Jr swing and our coach would be like for the love of God you're nine years old and you suck at baseball. If you could stop that it'd be amazing. So we see these examples of top athletes doing some movements and it's like you do not understand what it is like to have that kind of engine and they are also leaving things on the table. They came in 14th in the world and that is amazing and super cool but seconds better, you know? So that's why our shining examples in the sport like just move so incredibly well. It's like they're putting all of these ideas together. And then last but not least every single year overhead mobility instability is going to be tested the hand pressing is is interesting especially when it comes to strict trying to devil's advocate myself but basically if you have really good overhead mobility and shoulder stability you are going to do incredibly well compared to people with the same level of GPP as you in wall walks, handstand walking handstand pushups. When you watch gymnasts move or people that are good at moving their torso angle and their head and their neck just don't change at all. They're making the movement easier on themselves and they're developing their capacity because the movement is easier. If you do every time you do your misfit sets of strict handstand push-ups, you kick up and you you know sort of banana back and head to the wall and then you know head way back through your way to five or six handstand pushups and I kick up and do 15 really quickly not only can I do 15 and you can do six or seven like think about that over the course of a year and how many more reps I get and you just create this gap, right? And the very first time that I noticed that was when they would follow Froning around and he would be doing workouts with 135 thrusters. And it's like oh my God, no one puts more than 95 or less than 95 on the bar like ever, right? How much bitter is that guy getting when he's doing the same workout as you with 135, right? Yeah. Like he's touching going 155 power snatch things like that. So like when you allow for that kind of gap to be there used to be in programming and hopefully not so much now regardless of whose program you follow. But like man, when you think about efficiency in gymnastics in general and especially when you're getting upside down, how big is that gap getting if you're just continuing to do it wrong instead of finally one off season being like I'm just gonna slide up and down through space and I'm gonna hate that I did three the first time and then I'm gonna love the first time that I do 10. And it's like that's how that movement's supposed to go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah I mean clear example is I mean watch Danielle Brandon do that World Fitness Project workout at Tor Stop 2 with the handstand walk and the pirouettes like just look at her upside down.

SPEAKER_00:

You if she was and her handstand pushups in those workouts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah if you freeze her in time it's like and you flip that upside and you flip it back to right side up she looks the same. Like she's so stacked and it's just like again she just has that organization foundation underneath her.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. So you got to be fit got to have grip strength and good hollow arch mechanics through all of your pulling gymnastics. I think a big focus is you got to know how to use your legs and be efficient in pulling from the floor with a barbell deadlift, power snatch, dumbbell snatch, power clean we're gonna see more of that than you know going overhead with the barbell or a bench press or something to that extent. And then overhead mobility and stability can you you have to have access to positions to get into them to start and we see I mean that's that's pretty close to the the biggest issue that we see with mobility that can really just stop someone dead in their tracks. Some people have long femurs or struggle to get into good squat positioning and stuff like that, but can be compensated for I think a little bit easier than I everything turns off muscularly when I'm upside down because I'm in a compromise position. So get good at those four things. That's the rest that's the end of the episode. Congratulations you did it I'm joking. All right style of workout what did we see? I switched this list to just 2021 to 2025 because the numbers would be skewed in the years that had more workouts. So like this data doesn't I've done all of it all the way back and it doesn't change a ton, but it changes enough where like I think they're how many workouts there are, how long the workouts are how many movements, how many implements, I think they've listened and become significantly more friendly to affiliates than they used to be. So that's why this list is based on that. Let's talk about time domains. 17% of the workouts are short a lot of them you know in the five ish minute range on that list but that would be you know eight minutes or less roughly for most people 5% of the workouts over those five years are medium duration. And there's a bingo. Yeah yeah yuck. And we'll talk about how what to think about that, how to get better, etc. Six percent of them are long and they've definitely changed over the years to not again bombard I think affiliates and judges and dealing with all of that at the open and quarterfinals level in terms of how often because quarterfinals will do another episode for this but quarterfinals most of the workouts are short and they've kind of gone away from the the super long ones which is which is interesting but like another side tangent we talked about it when we talked about the uh games programming there are certain workouts where you're gonna get the same like if you're just watching someone do a 20 minute AMRAP, like the 14 minute one is that is going to be really similar in terms of who finishes when. So like are we going to force the issue here? So I think there's kind of a trimming of the fat in a lot of these situations. So 6% long and then 12% being lifts. And to be clear that's only two that's only two lifts there's been one long workout in those five years which is kind of crazy to think of that is kind of crazy to think about we have sixty seven percent of the workouts are timed. So they used to be almost all amraps back in the day right yeah yep and that has switched in a really big way so 33% are amraps three percent couplets 53% triplets I think a lot of that is like hey we got three workouts so we got to get some movements in here. Yeah and then seven seven percent being chippers what I will say about the couplets and triplets is that the what we internally refer to as movement family chippers are part of those numbers. So if there's basically two movement patterns but one of them changes from toe to bar to pull up to chester bar or something like that, we're still going to call that a couplet um a lot of times executed in that same way. And then the same thing for triplets there have been a bunch of triplets that have that like we're progressing from you know the wall walk or the handstand walk or whatever. So those are included. So if you're wondering why there aren't more chippers in there, that's why for people that don't follow the programming I'll do some quick definite definitions we have cardio stimulus, muscle endurance stimulus, gas stimulus. So we have the cardio stimulus which is basically like the rounds can be a you know solar sort of similar pacing we talk a lot about merry-go round workouts. There's typically one movement in them like a row, a burpee, a box jump over something like that, where you get to choose the pace like you have a different pace than other people whereas a lot of CrossFit movements, if you're doing them, take a similar amount of time as other people. Muscle endurance is going to be workouts where the combination of movements makes it so that you cannot continue doing those movements or the number of reps you have to do at a time are so high that it's actually the muscle endurance, you know, my grip burns, my legs burn, I can't do these anymore sort of a thing. And then gas stimulus would be kind of the same idea as muscle endurance in those two instances, but it's your lungs that are just like we got to break this up because if we don't, we're gonna run out of gas. So 20% of the workouts cardiostimulus uh 40% muscle endurance 20% gas stimulus, and then 20% remaining are kind of ambiguous in terms of whether they're muscle or gas. And that has to do with your fitness level, basically. I would say muscle endurance for general population. So you're all the way up at 60%, and then gas stimulus if you're really fit and can kind of push through those movements, which would make it more even with the muscle endurance. And I'll ask the question again. So you see the short, medium, long lifts, what's timed, what's a couplet, what style of workouts there are, what pops into your head when you look at that information? Can be as an athlete, as a coach, whatever. Like, what do you see when you look at that?

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, mostly when I think of like those medium duration workouts, I think of like, all right, I have to pick a pace on this workout that I can defend throughout the entire duration of it. Like if I go out too hot, I'm I'm gonna wreck myself early. Even when it comes to muscle endurance, it's like there has to be intention between behind, you know, how am I breaking it up? Things like that. Like I have to be able to defend the pace that I'm choosing and be very intentional with it.

SPEAKER_00:

So for me, I look at it in two different ways. It's like as a programmer, am I programming enough things that it would actually get somebody better? And am I programming enough things, and this would be less often where people can practice? Because those, those are two really very different things. You know, to get good at medium duration workouts, you need to go short and go way harder than you would in a medium workout. And you need to go long and get as close as you can to how hard that you would go, but log more reps. So you're basically really pushing the like neurological side and you know, the energy system side on the short end. And then on the long end, of course, the same things are happening and building an aerobic engine is important. But if you don't want to be the kind of person who's like cramping up or annihilated by quarterfinals, you need to get the volume of reps that is necessary. Cause like you're gonna get a lot more reps than you think in these workouts compared to training. Like you can really push these things. So we need to have enough volume within a given workout or a given week or a month or a phase that can actually get you better at those things. And the same sort of thing applies when I'm looking at like you don't need to be, you need to be really fit to crush a couplet. Like you got to have the athlete IQ, of course, but like a couplet is no man's land for like someone who's skilled and has athlete IQ, but just doesn't stack up in the engine department. In a lot of instances, that is a situation where an athlete is gonna struggle a little bit. Whereas a triplet, we've got more transitions, more time to be smart, more breaks, you know, from said movement that might get you in trouble, that sort of thing. So we're thinking about once again, how would I get someone better at things like this? And my mind goes to monostructural conditioning on one side and maybe interval work on the other side, where again we're really able to push there. But then we flip over to how to learn how to execute. And it's like, you have to do these things. Like you have to do the open sim, you have to do enough medium workouts and you know, enough triplets to understand where you're at. You have to do enough interval versions to find the line and step over it every once in a while or not go hard enough and know that that's, you know, not gonna cut it, sort of a thing. So knowing that we have training and practicing, I think is a good headspace to have because then you can put these concepts together. Like the person that's coming to mind right now is Kyle Malin, who is strategizing and pushing pretty damn hard in the open sim workouts, right? And that's a skill. Like that's tough. You have to practice, you have to know kind of when and where, but you also have to put in a lot of work. So my brain goes to the idea of the training versus practicing and knowing, you know, when you're gonna do those things, what you're good at and what you're not good at, which would skew maybe how often you do one or the other, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Yeah. I think I I'll think about like a workout that I had yesterday in training, 14-minute AMRAP with the wall walks, the deadlift, echo bike, and like again, a bit of practicing of like what happens if I go harder on the bike than I actually want to. Like, you know, you force me to get out of my comfort zone there. And like, you know, you kind of you have to like give and take a little bit when it comes to to kind of practicing strategies as well of like, you know, what does work, what doesn't work. And, you know, if you are someone that doesn't like machines, well, you're probably gonna have to push on the machines more than you want in a lot of your workouts if you want to get better at that.

SPEAKER_00:

So and the pushing is very mental too, right? Yeah. Because like I try to make sure, depending on who the athlete is, that if I give an instruction like that, it's very clear that like we're literally looking for one to two RPMs over what you think is right in the moment, which is 10, 20, 30 watts, something like that. Um, and it's subtle, but what it takes to stay there mentally is where the intensity is really brought to the equation. I think instructions that aren't detailed or in the wrong hands will go the wrong way. It's like, yeah, I'm gonna send the bike. It's like, well, the literally the workout's gonna be over in like 45 seconds. Like you're gonna be screwed. So I really like that sort of stuff. Like, just like don't like it the opposite would be like, don't take that break and give yourself the three, two, one on the last wall walk or two. Like, just do it anyways. And then hello, thruster, like what happens now? Because if you make it subtle and you make it about the mind a little bit more than anything else, you might find out that you now actually know what your pace is supposed to be, like that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly. Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

That sort of deal. Yeah. So we talked a little bit earlier, we hinted at this idea of objectivity versus subjectivity. And this plays a huge role in the entire conversation that we're having today. And one of the examples to kind of build a bridge to this idea in relation to this episode is we talk about the athlete that thinks that they're going hard because it hurts, like not going that hard, like going sort of hard in a CrossFit workout hurts really bad. And one piece of media that I saw not too long ago that I thought was really helpful for this, Hiller did a video with Jason Hopper and he was doing a burpee box jumpover workout, and there was no music on. My God, listen to that man breathe. Now, he's fitter, gentlemen, than all of you. All of you. And you aren't breathing that heavy in your burpee box jumpovers, right? Like, well, you have the right of passage where you get to tell your friend who's starting CrossFit, like, this literally never gets easier, right? True. You get better, it does not get easier. And I love little small things like that that we can pull from. It's like that's what it looks like to be alone in your garage, just kind of getting after it, right? Because he's still holding a good pace, he still has good form, he's just putting in that work, that grunt work, that dirty, just kind of go for it. And we can think that we're going hard enough. We can think that we have our athlete IQ figured out, we can think that we care enough to put us into flow state or that we're in the right mindset there, but we have data. Like this sport is really cool in that way, where it's like I am much better at this level and much better in training than I am in testing. There's all these different worlds, and you will be fed that data. And no chance I'm gonna call anybody out on this podcast, but I just know of people who are the shining examples of like, you're gonna get your ass kicked on Wednesday in October, and then they get their ass kicked on Wednesday in February or Thursday or Friday in February or March. And that's you have to know that about yourself. That's all I'm saying. Not saying that, you know, the the person who's great in practice isn't, you know, just as good as the other person, but like you have to have objective data on all of the things that we're talking about to figure out how you could get better in the offseason and how you could execute when it's actually time to go.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. There's there's a bit of like an emotional control that you have to have when it comes to objectivity of like, I have to have enough self-awareness to know that my emotions are playing into my effort right now, versus like, you know, I've done a gear three training piece how many times and all of a sudden I can't hold this. Is it because of my effort, or is it because of, you know, I'm distracted somewhere mentally and it's just taking me away from my workout?

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. Yeah. And that's, I think that's a really good point to make is like you get maybe a little bit esoteric here, too far down that rabbit hole, but like having people in your corner that will tell you when you're not being objective is incredibly important. And you just have to be able to fall back on the idea that like I would there are way more important things in like who I want to be as a person and the way that I carry myself than like, well, I don't think you care about the open. Like if that is like the death blow to your ego, then you maybe have your priorities a little bit mixed up. But like having the people in your life that can tell you that um is very important, especially if they mean well and they're not, you know, projecting onto you or whatever. But making sure, I'll say it just one more time, that whatever opinion you have of yourself or your abilities, positive or negative, that you have some level of objectivity, whether it's through actual numbers and data or someone else who probably has the ability to give you an objective opinion over yourself. Because obviously that's not always the easiest thing to do when it comes to yourself as a person. The other thing that I see is just the idea of the stimulus spectrum here. And one point that Hunter made years ago that's really stuck with me is like the CrossFit Games champion, all the way down to someone just starting CrossFit is like the ultimate form of the top is everything is a cardio stimulus. Everything has the ability. That's the ultimate expression of like you watch the person, someone who's dominating a competition versus the rest. And it's because they've gotten themselves to the point where their energy systems, their movement efficiency, their strategy, their athlete IQ, their ability to crush all the different modalities have come back together. And it just looks kind of like a different thing. So that's what we would be striving for. But it's important to know that the data on the stimulus is very murky in the setting of competition, because we can give you guys Pro and Hatchet and GPP, we can give you masters, we can give you scaling suggestions, we can lead you to that place if you're willing to go there. But when we get into a competition setting, that just doesn't, there's nothing you can do about it. Your workout is your workout, whether you're at that point in your career yet or not. So important to know, you know, we'll try to do our best, but like we start doing open content like after an announcement or something like that. Really hard to give generic advice to CrossFit Games athletes, to someone who's signed up for their first, second, third, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. All right. Um, where are we at? I actually don't know where we're at. This is our second uh second go of recording. We're 49 minutes into the second one. We will go over some workout examples just because I think it's it's cool that we almost always have kind of one of each. It feels like a lot of years we have one of each when it comes to the open. So our first one is what I would refer to on the negative side as CrossFit Amnesia workouts. Okay. So we have, as an example, Amrat 15 minutes, three wall walks, 12 dumbbell snatches, 15 box jumpovers. For in an intermediate to high-level athletes, this is unbroken wall walks, quick transition to the dumbbell, unbroken snatches, quick transition into your very first box jump, quick transition out of your last box jump, right back into that freaking wall. And then what is your pace on the box jumpovers? What is your rep speed to allow that to take place start to finish? Okay. That is one of those ones where it's like if you don't know how to execute on that workout, if you don't know how to execute on that as a misfit, I'm very sad. But if in general you don't know how to execute on that, it's just not being a student of the game, not knowing again that you have that mountain of objective data that's there. And you know, sometimes the the workouts that are really easy to plan for are also like 24.1, the dumbbell snatches in the lateral burpees. It's kind of like 26 MFA 26.2. You leave anything on the table in a workout like that. Like, of course, if you're like truly sprinting the 21 and you burpees and you shouldn't be, I get it. But like descending rep scheme, simple movements, you better know what that means, right? Like people were in people are in pain after that workout, and some like real fit people were in pain after that workout. So it's not always long or medium cardio. It's also like sometimes it's pretty clear that we are being asked to just go and like find out what happens, sort of a thing. And honestly, even the people who go a little bit too hard at the beginning of that workout just get ahead and then fall behind. Like that to me is one of those workouts where you like come up with nine different strategies and you keep redoing it and you're like two seconds slower, one second faster. Yep. So sad.

SPEAKER_02:

I heard a few of those.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh-huh. It's like you probably the only reason you should redo it is if you're like, I didn't go hard enough. Otherwise, like you're gonna regress to the mean a little bit. So there are typically one to two of those workouts each year in the open. And again, probably brings us all the way back to the beginning of the episode. What is pacing with also pushing hard, right? Like, how do you know how to do that and that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, Hunter Hunter said something a while ago. It was the, I forget what workout it was, but it was essentially like being smooth in the movement, but maniacal in the transitions. And like those two workouts you just said right there are like two perfect examples of that of like, but how do you get your brain? Like I understand it, I've done it before, but for an athlete who maybe feels maniacal all the time, how can you get your brain to just relax when you're in the movement versus like, all right, now I can be a little crazy on this transition, you know?

SPEAKER_00:

I think show up and blow up uh is just as bad from an ego standpoint as the person who like overpaces because you can always just be known as like, I'm that guy, you know, ha ha ha, like elbow, like um, I'm just I'm one of those people. Like, I don't know if Xander still listens to the podcast. Xander, you know, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Like, please just try and hold 300 watts at the beginning of this workout. Just hear me out, just try it. And then you see 700, and he's laughing. Um, and or honestly, probably faster than that. There's it's just I don't know, it comes down to like how much do you want to improve? If you just want to be part of the community and you want to be the fun guy that's like redlining, hey, good for you. But then, like, if you're gonna complain about where you're at and the progress you're making, it's like, so if you don't ever feel in control of yourself, you know, this goes to both sides of the spectrum. If you never feel absolutely horrendous in a workout, that is a problem. And if you never feel smooth in a workout, that is a problem. We're trying to find this like balance between these things. And you find that out by going too hard and going too slow and finding that sweet spot and taking notes, basically. Yep. Yep. There's also what I consider unique workouts. So my mind goes to um new movements, right? So that 21.1 that we referenced earlier, that was crazy for some people. The wall walks and the double unders, um, you know, the volume of of those movements, but like there's not really a whole lot to them. Um, and some people were just able to go like mind-bogglingly fast in that workout. It was like, I don't, I don't understand how those scores exist. Um, and then you watch them and they're just, you know, controlled and continue to do their thing and they have efficient movement and all that stuff. Right. High rep short duration is interesting. You see that one to ten back down to one of deadlifts and bar facing burpees, and you do the math on it, and you're like, 10 minute cap? What the f what? What are you talking about? But like deadlifts don't take very long, right? It's a ton of deadlifts and it's a ton of tonnage when you do the math out on the total pounds that you're lifting, but there's not a whole lot to it, right? Like you got to know how to break something like that up, even though you're like some part of you is like, oh, one's not a lot, and two's not a lot, and three's not a lot. And it's like, yeah, but you should add them all together to figure out how many there are there. So high rep short duration, I think, are are very unique. And then there are ones that are unique as written. I thought 25.3 was fascinating as just uh, you know, so five wall walks, 50 cal row, five wall walks, you know, it's 25 deadlifts. You got deadlifts, hand snatches. What the hell is happening here? I thought he was gonna go deadlift, clean, clean, and jerk. Those wall walks, like turns out this easy movement that people have figured out isn't very fun when you're torched.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, going back to that wall was not fun. So there are workouts that are worthy of like you better watch the open announcement and do a little bit of math and then know that you're not gonna row like James Brake. You know, you don't weigh whatever 230 pounds, whatever he does, and you know, watch, you know, podcasts and do whatever. That's when I think a lot of that stuff can be a little bit too much advice sometimes. But that's those unique workouts as written are like, okay, I gotta kind of figure this out. So again, unique workouts, new movements, you know, your burpee pull-up shuttle run workout. That was one where it was like, I don't know if I have the data on this. Right. Like, cause you can't really be fast in burpee pull-ups, but then can you even do burpee pull-ups if you run the shuttles? Like, I think that was the one where it was Roman and Pat, and like it got ugly. Like you could tell like the adrenaline. Yeah. You could tell the adrenaline and the like, wait, what are we doing? What is this? Mm-hmm. Was interesting there. So, so I think of again the ones where the strategy should be very simple, ones that are unique, kind of, you know, potential for a redo sort of a situation. And then the last category that I have are workouts that are just very like based on you specifically as an athlete. So we had the year where we went from the wall walks and snatches and double unders to strict handstand push-ups. So you're doing rounds of 20 strict handstand push-ups and an open workout, like that's different, right? That's very different. We have workouts with high rep bar muscle ups. I find bar muscle ups to have like a even at a high level to like pretty big spectrum of like random athletes can just do 10,000 of them. And then someone who you would expect to just crush them, maybe hasn't figured out how to like relax during them or whatever. So there's always going to be workouts, depending no matter what level you're at, where it's like my strategy and what I need to do in this workout, like I gotta, I gotta put, you Earmuffs on for all the noise that's surrounding this thing and talk to somebody who knows me, you know, my remote coach, the people in the Telegram group, whatever, and like work through it. Because again, it's not easy for us when we're doing those, those podcasts, and it's like, I got to give advice that's gonna hit for every level of athlete for the same workout. Like that just feels kind of insane. So there's always gonna be workouts that are like that. And my last example of that type of workout, you tell me if you think this is true or not. I kind of I almost didn't do it, but like last year's 2025.1, hammer at 15 minutes, three lateral burpees over the dumbbell, three dumbbell hand cleaning jerks, 30 foot walking lunge, and then you added the reps to the burpees and the hand clean to overhead during it. That one to me was very personal because you had to know whether you were the athlete that could just stomp the gas pedal or not.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. 15 minutes on a workout like that's a long time, too.

SPEAKER_00:

It is, right? And it's hard to that, you're not repeating the reps. You're not, you know, you're adding to it. And it's like, well, but the clock is winding down. So I know that I'm a diminished version of myself, but can I keep my shit together for X period of time? Because I just watched a lot of people with similar fitness levels look very different in that workout. And it was really, how long can I be like just behind too fast? Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And like you're should I go for multiple reps at a time per arm on the dumbbell? What's too many? What's not enough that I slow down? Or, you know, like where's the breakdown there? And again, that is yeah, very personalized, I think, for the athlete themselves. What's their upper body endurance, their capacity like?

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Yep. So it's hard for me right now to go back and summarize this entire podcast because I think there's been a lot of information in it. Um, final thoughts probably circle back more to the beginning of the podcast and understanding. I think that the importance of the open is that you are given the first stage of a competition season where you're gonna get a ton of objective data about how you pace, how strong you are, how fit you are, you know, just all of these things, the full athlete IQ spectrum like is going to be put on display. And that includes whether you're willing to say that you care or not, because again, that would that would be potentially an issue with your competitive drive, you know, sort of staying high throughout the season. How to execute on it is this world of continuing to know how it's even possible to pace and push. Like, can I be really smart and just have that? Like, I'm a six out of 10, 7 out of 10, 8 out of 10, 9 out of 10, I'm flirting with that 10 out of 10 as you know, the the time unwinds, um, that sort of thing. And then you gotta be fit, you gotta have grip strength, hollow arch. Uh, you gotta be able to use your legs in in pulling weighted pulling movements from the floor, and you have to have overhead mobility and stability. Final, final thought. Let yourself go to that place to finish a workout. I find that if I can help someone in person, it is because I don't let them give in when I know they've got, depending on the workout, 10 seconds, 30 seconds, one minute left of like stick to it. If I can keep someone on, that's when that person is like ripping their shoes off because their feet are hot or like like just being so dramatic and rolling around and yelling on the floor. And like even the most seasoned cool, cooler downers are like, coach, go fuck yourself. I cannot move. Like, like it's all battery acid, like I can't do this. Let yourself go to that place. Don't be that person that with one minute left and people are cheering you on. You tell them to shut the fuck up. Like, that's the one time a year where just let yourself let that kind of thing happen. Cause you just you rock it like a hundred places up the leaderboard by being that person who didn't give in for just that little bit kind of at the end of the workout.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah. I I'll agree with that. I I love that. I mean, I'll keep it to, you know, kind of within our misfit community of like, you guys are practicing this for six weeks right now. So like use this experience as best as you can. And again, continue to get in Telegram and and keep the chatter up. And, you know, you're feeling the pressure now in a low-stakes environment. So just remember that these feelings are going to intensify a little bit, but know that your environment around you should still remain the same, right? Like you're still in your affiliate when you're doing these workouts. Again, a lot of this experience right now in these six weeks can really, really go a long way for you when it comes to uh when the open begins in those three weeks.

SPEAKER_00:

True, true. Did we do it? We did it. Thank you for tuning into another episode of the Misfit Podcast. And thank you to GorillaMind for sponsoring this podcast. I truly believe that they are the best supplements in the game, and you can get a little bit of a discount and support the podcast by going to gorilla mind.com forward slash misfit or using the code word misfit at checkout. All of our programming, whether it's GPP competitive affiliate, is available at our link in bio on Instagram, sharpenheaxco.com if you'd like some gear. If you somehow made it to the end of this show and are still listening and still on the fence about camp, I don't know that that person exists, but it's gonna be awesome. And you should sign up. Link in bio January 30th through February 1st, Crossbow Roots, Boulder, Colorado. We'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_04:

All right, you big bunch of misfits. You're a scrappy little misfit, just like biggest bunch of misfits I ever said either.