After 20 stops on the “B.Friendly Fitness Off-season World Tour”, Brian finally gets to sit down behind his monitors and review the travels he has been on since August. Those 20 stops were over the course of 26 weeks and included him eight different countries and nine states in the continental U.S.
PC catches up with him to discuss lessons learned and recap his travels.
This episode brought to you by HomeGrown Releaf
Use code “FRIEND20” for 20% off all products when you order from their site: https://hgrcbd.com
Um yeah I think first foremost I think we should uh well you know send our I guess our hearts and thoughts and prayers to uh Kansas City obviously uh you know what should have been a a cause for celebration which was a cause of Celebration ended
In a little bit of a you know disaster some shooting so those the victims those that were shot um hopefully they’re you know they’re recovering and everything’s going good there I I obviously I had some friends that personally drove over to Kansas City yesterday for the parade
And I have a friend that’s a newscaster whose mom drove in just for that and um they were caught up in a lot of that so um you know hearts and prayers to those in Kansas City which which should have been a a c for celebration as always
Can’t we can’t have nice things it seems like so you know yeah hate hate to see that um yeah good certainly appropriate and you you yeah you were you were a part of something similar not a part but you you know you can relate to that because of the Fourth of July that
Happened um a couple years ago where a couple members of the gyy associated with that time were involved in that so you know yeah it sucks that that’s where we live at and that’s where we’re at right now and you know I saw a meme the
Other day where it was like you know shooting and then you know people up in arms and then it it was a very interesting Meme and then it’s like eventually we go back to normal we forget about it until the next one but you know no answers for that but again
Hearts hearts and thoughts and prayers to those in Kansas City and um you know yeah so just be safe out there just head on a swivel that’s that’s what I it’s what I live by so um but on a better I guess yeah what you’re here for Let’s uh
We’re talking some CrossFit stuff and something I believe that came in the mail emails today right yeah like 30 minutes ago maybe 30 minutes ago I I didn’t receive it and I know I’m not the only person but obviously the hopper is back um oops shoot sorry let me I said
Stop sharing let me share this there it is um and by Hopper I don’t mean Jason Hopper I mean this is kind of like crossfit’s um basically newsletter for people that are associated with the CrossFit Games whether it be signing up as as an open participant and and this
Is how athletes are supposed to get their information but um yeah anyone athletes fans uh participants coaches affiliate owners if you want to know what’s going on in the CrossFit Games season you should figure out a way to subscribe to the hopper email and hope that the emails actually come through
And I’ve been getting them for years and years and I I would say this one in particular is about as good or thorough as I’ve ever seen um and I there are I get a question or two on a lot of days from different people about different aspects of the competitive season
Whether it’s um Masters there some of the new stuff with them the Adaptive being moved over to wheel wad which it actually has a separate registration Link in this email that you can follow uh will will be see a service open Cooper Marsh surprised me Patrick here we
Are that’s all right yeah um yeah Cooper we we were just talking about do you do you receive those these Hopper emails or not face H um yeah I received those yeah okay all right well well Brian before we go on we wanted to we wanted to bring Cooper uh Cooper on
Right now Cooper really uh I mean a guy who you know I mean a good friend a guy I consider a mentor as well Brian we’ve known him for a while but um yeah we wanted to bring him on because we wanted to kind of highlight him and what he’s
Got going on um recently so good then pull down this email and we’ll talk about this email later on so everyone can see his face there app if you if you uh don’t know Cooper Marsh um honestly I would write I would refer you to uh
Brian are you muted from I can’t hear you talking am I mut Patrick you hear me oh can you hear him now no he was in and then he was out oh okay freaking live you gota love live YouTube good I I don’t want to blow up
Your guys the show so I can just jump in and out but um no appreciate you bringing me on um essentially what I’ve got going on here besides sitting in the reign of Boyce Idaho uh and waiting on Daniel to join there he is um I am running the Boston Marathon for charity
For Boston scores uh which is an awesome kind of after school program that raises money for kids to participate in sport but also get academic help keep them out of the streets keep them uh out of trouble and you know you have to raise $10,000 I’m getting close to that goal
But you know any bit helps and you can uh find the link to support in the bio in my Instagram so um you know anything helps and obviously being that we’re all in love with a sport um you know I think we all probably have sports backgrounds
Growing up and you know those those things lend them to uh a lot of good character growth and um you know learning a lot of different character traits such as you know discipline hard work Integrity Etc so I think it’s super important to invest in those things and
You know if if anybody can who’s listening to this can help support it’d be greatly appreciated yeah I don’t know any can you hear can you guys hear me now yeah we can hear you I still can’t tell if you’re gonna have to tell tell me what Brian’s saying
Because I still can’t hear him yeah you can’t hear but I’ll I’ll I’ll take it from here then Brian if you can’t hear you you can hear me though Cooper right I can yeah okay but um yeah um I think right now uh I’ll pull this up right now share this tab
Instead you’re at 87% of Target race so that’s that’s impressive uh and you got what 56 days to go yep um so and the target is $10,000 so you got 56 days to get there uh for those that know who Cooper is Cooper is uh guess the co- you’re an
Agent and co-owner of lab management which represents some of the if some if not the top stars in the CrossFit space as well as other athletes outside of the CrossFit space but um and um you know and I guess I can’t pull up the picture but Danielle Brandon who is one of your
Dear friends and is one of your athletes uh Jessa mados I mean the list goes on Katherine David the list goes on but um but yeah we wanted to highlight Cooper because one he’s a he’s a friend of ours and someone that we deeply uh admire and
Uh when I saw that he was doing something like this Brian did as well we were like hey let’s let’s let’s try to support him to get to his goal so um I think it’s a great thing you’re doing Cooper appreciate that boys thank you
Yeah big fan of the show love what you guys are doing I think you guys are the Trailblazers into space um and you know if it weren’t for guys like you we wouldn’t have uh you know some of the validity of the sport so um please keep
Doing what you’re doing because we need it so so how’s train you been going it’s been good man just ran a half marathon this past Saturday we were down in Phoenix for the Waste Management Open with Scott Stallings um so the day before you know he had to make up two
Rounds in one day pretty much so he had we walked 32 holes which is about 13 miles you know in itself and then ran a half marathon the next day and then went back to the course um so legs were a little bit beat up but you know excited
To get there and you know now it’s this weird balance of uh getting to do the cross CrossFit open which will be fun but you know feeling feeling a little bit uh you know depleted when it comes to the CrossFit sense because of the amount of running but you know just
Trying to juggle it all and and and use my fitness so um yeah running’s been good uh just just trying to log you know some volume now and the Half Marathon went well was actually kind of fun to race and um yeah held about a 739 average on the mile wow that’s amazing
That’s amazing um and I’m I’m you know those who haven’t been following my fitness journey it actually was kind of inspired by you when I saw W pla I mean you look fit and you look you look great and I was like man I need to get back to
That shape so I started running again and I’m up to two miles a day at about uh a 9 minute mile Pace but uh it’s nowhere I have no desires to run the bus a marathon or a half marathon but uh you know definitely took some inspiration
From you on that have you um how have your athletes the ones from Lab management have they what type of support they’ve been giving you I mean have there been any challenges have any of them decided that maybe they want to do this or maybe you know participate in
Some other way yeah no so I mean a keep kicking ass and running because that’s awesome um yeah I mean I don’t doesn’t matter what it is you’re running or or doing right in Fitness as long as you’re out doing it so um but B yeah the athletes have been great man they’ve
They’ve shared the story a little bit um I haven’t relied on them heavily yet just to to promote it but I’ll probably ask a little bit more as it’s getting CL closer to the end um but yeah they’ve definitely supported by sharing it on their platforms and donating themselves
Um and then I know Danielle I think wants to run a half just because she’s you know having having fun getting strong but also still doing a lot of aerobic conditioning um and I think D talked about running a half too uh I know Ma’s running a half um so yeah like
There’s there’s definitely and then Amanda ran a half and honestly she fired me up to do one so yeah they’re definitely everybody’s everybody’s running man I feel like you got to use your Fitness and you know I just don’t think it would be that crazy to see a half marathon or something at
The games so I mean we’ve seen some god- a a rowing bits so running I think running a full Marathon would be a little irresponsible for the games but running half I think you could definitely see that or at least like a 10K yeah definitely um it looks like you
Might not you might be sharing uh you won’t be the only one in the space running the Boston Marathon uh I see that O’Keefe and the HWP crew a couple members of them will be running uh the Boston Marathon as well is there any uh is there any cross branding with that or
Any um or any challenges that you’re have I know you and o’keef are pretty competitive when it comes to things like that and that guy is a runner yeah I mean I’m definitely gonna bury O’Keefe um and that’ll be fun but O’Keefe is fast but I’m banking on the fact that
His joints have a few more years on them than mine so little bit if he blows up at Mile 20 I won’t be disappointed but but um no I mean O’Keefe’s running sami’s running and then Ben from rad is running as well so there there’s some awesome people um getting involved and
You know we’re all raising money so please like if you can if you can donate to me if you can donate to Ben or Sammy or or Matt um like please do because you know it’s all going to good places um I think I think Sammy and o’keef are is a
Is a veteran Tha um I believe it’s called one Summit so you know definitely take a look there they jumped into fundraising a little bit later than us so they’ve got to make up some ground so you know anywhere you know you can donate and spread dollars please do and
I know everybody’s kind of got the link in their bio and Instagram so any support is super helpful and what support is Daniel gonna be giving you during the this uh probably just talking trash and I don’t know he can’t run so he can run a little bit he can squat
Though of course you can are you guys on your way to the Shred Shed right now no we’re going we’re going to work um okay but you know Shred Shed maybe maybe tomorrow yeah so um yeah cool um anything lab management uh I mean I mean we’ve heard some rumors but obviously
The spell you you can you know you can share what you want but uh yeah we’ve heard uh any cool things lab management athlete wise coming up here in the new near future um I mean honestly we’ve just kind of had our nose to the grindstone been been signing contracts re-upping
Contracts I feel like we kind of move in silence a lot um but I think that there’s some exciting things going maybe we’ll start to shed light on those things more frequently um but for the most part as long as the athletes stay uh in the Limelight and in the topic of
Discussion and we’re happy because our role is behind the scenes so um yeah but I mean you know we’ve signed some some new athletes in in in more traditional Sports we just brought on a skateboarder which is exciting um and yeah we’re just continuing to to you know expand and
Crush and try to utilize um you know some of those more traditional athletes to bring non-endemic Brands into the space to try to help it grow so um yeah yeah and I mean pitchers and catches reported you got a couple uh baseball players I know Jason’s a little bit more
Involved in all that and same with Zach but uh you know that’s uh you know you just left Arizona so you’re not going to be around a lot of that all the reporting but um you know that has to be an exciting time for lab man as well
Yeah for sure uh some of the guys we get to work with such as Josh ha and and Logan web have have started throwing so uh one in Arizona and one now in Florida with with hater getting traded to the Astros so um yeah man season’s budding I
Mean you’re a big baseball guy huh you gotta be excited for your cards to get going I’m excited if they finish over 500 this year I mean that it was a rough it was a rough year last year really rough for us well you guys have some you
Have some bright spots though yeah we definitely is that kid’s that kid’s phenomenal I think he’s on track to be an Allstar here soon enough so yeah Walker Mason wi I mean we got we got the pieces there so we just got to get that pitching and we we’ll we’ll see we
Traded for some arms but I don’t know if any of them are Aces but we’ll see what happens but um you know we’d definitely like like to have a Logan web and a hater and the the close it up but you know you gotta pay to get those guys so
Yeah Cardinals aren’t exactly into the paying market right now Brian do you have any questions that um that I can for Cooper that maybe I can forward along since he can’t hear you no I just thought he was generous with o’keef only giving him a few years instead of a few
Decades he said he he thought you were generous about uh o’keef about you giving him a few years as opposed to a few decades I love it Brian thank you yeah we’ve seen o’keef run like me and uh was the West k yeah West Coast Classic in in Virginia
And he he just buried us when we were trying out the uh that Ruck run uh the dude’s got wheels I’ll give it to him he does he does he’s got wheels so I mean yeah it’s it’ll be fun man it’ll be a blood bath yeah so yeah those thanks for
Coming on Cooper obviously you know P please um go to Cooper’s Instagram um we have it up right now at Cooper uh Cooper Marsh um and uh help him get his goal $10,000 uh raise for this this you know amazing charity that you’re trying to do and uh you know we’re definitely looking
Forward to that you know um looking forward to see the after aftermath of that um and uh I mean you’re from the Northeast so you’re used to the weather you know what to expect right yeah and Boston is like the marathon for me right being from Massachusetts it’s it means
Something a little bit more so um very very excited and honored to be able to run it so yeah and support helps appreciate it and thank you guys for having me on to spread the uh spread the word thank you so much no problem uh you
And Daniel have a good a good day at work all right see you boys take care yeah sorry about that Brian we talked about it it was one of those things uh I thought he was gon to come on a little bit earlier but uh yeah Cooper’s definitely been um very helpful
For us you know and I mean the whole Lab management crew and he’s one of those guys that uh like he says he’s behind the scenes and someone that I I appreciate so yeah and if you’re if you are curious to hear more about him or uh
His perspective uh about what an a manager or uh agent for athletes does in the crosswood space he recently did a podcast with our friend Nikolai Rono on the fitness for Time Podcast it’s only about 45 minutes long it’s pretty good uh the depth of content in this amount
Of time is is pretty good so check that out if you’re interested in Cooper’s perspective on the manager’s role in the space of CrossFit yeah yeah so again help him out and then um maybe we’ll bring O’Keefe on when it gets closer to boson Marathon to help um to
Talk to him about uh what they’re doing to raise money and the foundation that they’re involved with um I believe like you said it’s obviously it’s a veteran type organization that they’re trying to raise money for oh here ke is uh is for the kids I believe yeah well actually uh
Yeah so it’s called one Summit a nonprofit that supports pediatric cancer patients and their siblings the kids are matched with the US Navy Seals for oneon-one mentorship experential what is that experiential learning storytelling and Community engagement so um that’s kind of what they’re doing um on the hwpo side so
Hopefully we can get Sam Sammy or o o’keef or any of those HWP people over and uh their goal is to raise 15,000 so yeah cool so that’s uh that’s some of the stuff that um we hwpo does uh charity collaborations uh quite frequently so not outside of the realm
Of Poss of of kind of Norm for them there as well yeah and they’ve been really involved especially with veterans and helping veterans um and it’s something that obviously being a veteran myself that I fully appreciate and uh I want to I’ve talked to o’keef about
Maybe helping him out with some of that or or at least being that bridge to kind of help them out so cool um but yeah all right so we appreciate Cooper coming on and uh we’ll switch back over to the hopper so yeah what I was saying is recently A
Lot of people have been asking questions about a variety of different aspects of The croset Game season from Masters to Adaptive teenage teams um whatever some of them are Logistics a lot of them are logistic questions this email from what I was able to look through before we got
On the show is where you should go first you should not instead of asking me go here uh if we scroll through it here we have a first of all a little thing from Dave um again he has I would say the most interesting thing in this little
Quote from him is that the programming this year is unique effective and simply beautiful in the classic CrossFit style he keeps alluding to the fact that there’s going to be something different about the programming and uh see he seems to be have this kind of a GL
Glimmer in his eye or smile on his face so he’s obviously excited it’s probably diabolical and also clever um so hopefully we’ll get to see that in a couple weeks and then you just a nice greeting from him but the rest of the email is where the meat of this content
That you need for whatever you want to do so first of all if you haven’t registered for the open and you want to it’s there if you want to register for the Adaptive open as I said it’s a separate link there’s the big links there and and the hyperlinks above uh
Super easy and then once you register you can get your open T-shirt If you go to that link it will ask you for a password you won’t have a password unless you register for the open and then when you get the password you can go in and get the shirt if you want
To um which is they have they haven’t done the shirt in a long time I think they I mean in your in your recollection have they done that ever not I’m not sure yeah uh I don’t know I don’t know I’ve never I get a lot of shirts t-shirts so I don’t
Us just let them come I don’t seek them out too often but open t-shirts can be cool and I’m sure there are people that have uh you know one whether it’s through their gym or something else from year after year of doing it which is always nice but if you keep going down
Uh everything you need to know about the season and these links are really good actually the first one there that’s just read here is going to take you to we can go to it if you want Patrick but it is a super indepth um it it links back to an
Article that was first published on November 8th as you see there I got to The 20124 Game season but it has been updated um the rule book is there at the top so that hopefully would be the most updated rulebook and it’s always a good place to go check if you don’t think
That you know the answer to something because it wasn’t in the rulebook last time you looked go check again because there’s always updates and new VAR variations of it that are coming out and then for every part of the season individuals is broken down by all four
Stages teams the same thing Masters the same teenagers the same adaptive has three stages and there’s links for all of those so hopefully you can at least be taken quickly to the section where you have the best chance of finding out your the answers to your questions if not there’s um there are
Even more details uh Down Below in each of the places where those links would take you to to learn more abouts they have important dates for each of these the registration periods the actual competition dates you can sign up to get emails um would that be the hopper
Potentially uh so if you’re not getting it mess around with some of these links here to see if if you can get on that list because it is going to be from everything I can tell the cross it puts out this is the best centralized location for easy to follow and also
In-depth answers to most of these questions quarterfinal semi-finals games least amount of stuff about the games uh uh as usual that stuff rolls out as the season goes on teams a lot of people have had questions about the teams again it’s broken down pretty clearly there um you get to the Masters
Divisions teenage Etc so this page goes through every division every stage of the season and gives you guys a great overview if you go back to the original uh article below that there’s a section for scorecards and lesson plans um this is gonna give you links for those things
But more specifically it’s going to direct you to the CrossFit Games app which is a good thing to download usually I only have it active during the open and the CrossFit games but during those two times of the year it’s very helpful and so if you’re participating
Uh I would recommend getting it they have a link for it there the judges course is there I haven’t taken it yet but I’ll take it here soon I take it every year I’ve heard it’s refined and this year uh for many people compared to years previous um link for there and then
Teams for registrations all the details are there it’s pretty straightforward very clear to understand so if you’re interested in the teams below that is the service open and service cup which is the new service cup again we can click on this link if you want Patrick um people were I think quite frustrated
With the lack of this last year uh it’s back this year they go through all these different well they list out all the different ways that you can qualify from being an affiliate owner to a CrossFit trainer which are new categories and then the the classic ones with the
Addition of EMS first responder uh educators are in here firefighter military Etc if you’re not familiar with the history of CrossFit these the service members of the community we’re a big part of the origins um so I think it’s nice I think most people will be very will receive this very well
That the service open is back uh you can let use all those hashtags to get into the appropriate one um the way to do it is actually right there and then the service cup some information here about the service cup and how it dovetails a little bit with some stuff that the pit
Team are doing in terms of Collegiate qualifier eligibility rules and and then a picture I thought you might like below that Patrick so service dogs is that was that one of the um one of I didn’t see that one in the category but this this dog looks
Like he’s going to make a good case for himself yeah it’s a police dog so it’s a service dog so yeah so I know that the service open in general has been an interest for a lot of people good information on it here service cup is
Kind of this new thing as well uh so anyone who registers for the open and uses one of the service open hashtags will advance to the service cup which is a virtual competition to determine the fittest in each profession and then there’s a note for college students who meet the eligibility
Requirements um in the pit Collegiate qualifier they do not participate in the service cup and it lists some of the dates and Etc things for that um so that was kind of a new an exciting thing I thought in here and then they the last couple sections they have in the
Original email are Games season FAQs again a great resource that they’ve provided so go there and and see if your questions are answered there first uh listen to the cross it games podcast well I’m you know Chase Ingram Adrien Conway often putting out different things there that may be diving into
More of these and then upcoming crossed license events uh this is really nice uh you know this is things these are this is something that people have been asking for and here it is provided you have a link to see all of them but they have the ones that are coming up from
Around the world so I think this is great and then finishes out with the just very brief the dates again so Hopper email went out today tons of great information in there hopefully can answer a majority of your questions if there if you actually do thorough investigation and come up with a dead
End on something uh you can reach out to us we can reach out to Crosset and see if we can get more information there but um do keep in mind that they sometimes do release information as the season goes on for the further stages of the Season uh so sometimes that’s the best
Answer we’re going to get but in the meantime this is as good of a hopper email as I’ve ever seen with thiro information for the entire season for all divisions some new stuff as well so sign up for it if you’re into this Ty type of thing because they’re doing a
Great job with them Carl’s asking is there something new with Masters teams I believe that Legends will be they have I think I believe that’s one of their divisions and I heard a rumor I can’t confirm it but I heard the master Fitness Championship I think they might transition more teams as opposed
Individuals I don’t know that I know they they’ve played around with teams in the past well teams of three so uh Carl yeah definitely keep an eye on Legends and master Fitness Collective particularly Legends for The Game season um regarding teams in the Masters division but I believe there is going to
Be teams uh at Legends so keep an eye out on that um and then Scott you know get my pugs out there and they’ll show you what’s up so just hashtag service dogs I guess we can create that new hashtag the first 30 minutes of the show
Got some Cooper Marsh and CrossFit Games Hopper email neither of which were necessarily on my radar for the show but both uh very good topics to be aware of I would say live TV yeah those email those emails come through and you know I think that it’s
Uh I don’t know if everyone’s getting them I think that it’s good that people can be aware of them so like to draw attention to yeah well before we move on speaking of Carl Carl as you know he’s a friend of the show but he’s also the uh owner of
Uh our sponsor for our podcast uh hgr CBD so obviously use friend 20 to get 20% off your HDR CBD products uh Brian I know you just just came off your road and uh the couple times we talked you talked about man I’m so glad I had the I
Have these sticks with me and um it’s just the the relief sticks in particular are super easy to travel with and they just whether it’s for Recovery of muscular fatigue um or if it’s uh like I said I’ve will use it on my on my neck to just kind of alleviate some minor
Headaches or something like that um very practical and easy to have so pretty much always take that one with me here I got a lot more uh stuff available with the greens and uh the CBD gummies and things like that so nice to have when
I’m home yeah and they just had a they just had a Valentine’s Day Sale I believe it’s still going on but it’s only 15% there so if you use friend 20 you get that extra F 5% so use friend 20 at check out 20% off hgr CBD products um
You know as always Carl thanks for the support and the whole team there at HDR so make sure you head on over there support him support us and uh they’ve been with us from day one Carl’s a great guy uh you’re probably gonna see a lot
Of him on the as some competitions here in the near near future so um Jeffrey is asking just C CBD no THC uh yeah correct so um but still good stuff um don’t know if that Jeff if that’s the answer Jeff was hoping for or
Not THC you might want to just I don’t know where you’re living live at Jeffrey but you might want to look check out check out some the local local dispensaries they might be able to help you out with that so uh so really like you said the first 30 minutes of the
Show kind of you know uh un unscripted so let’s kind of dive into what we actually came on here is uh you’re home now you actually have a place uh that you’ve been paying rent for the last six months that you probably probably spent less than 30 days in in the last six
Months gez I think I I’m averaging five or six nights per month at home yeah yeah so and we the best just completed just completed stop2 and the final stop of the offseason offseason World Tour now the world tour it’s it’s the whole season um this was just the offseason so we
Still have other trips planned throughout the year and we’ll discuss that uh next week when we uh talk about the schedule ahead and what the world tour is turning into but we wanted to bring it on and kind of recap obviously you’ve seen a lot of the Memoirs you’ve
Seen a lot of stuff I mean some of the articles are still up there um but kind of you know just kind of recap the whole the whole world tour old20 stops and Lessons Learned so uh Brian we released an article out today that had some of
His lesson learns um but we figur we bring Brian on to can actually walk us through and talk us talk through this actual article yeah I mean look TW 12 months ago I was coaching full-time at the gym in Chicago I was uh what you know I guess was still writing full-time
For bar Bend uh till the end of February and um over the next and then we we were in the process of basically deciding if we wanted to do a be friendly Fitness or not we’ve been kicking around the idea several friends and mentors had kind of suggested and Rec recommended that we
That we try it out uh doing something on our own and we decided to do it in large part because of finding Chad Mueller as the kind of the third part of our team that really rounded out our skill sets and provided the areas of expertise that
You and I are maybe not as good in and uh and we decided to do that and then lost the job at barbend lost the job at the gym and kind of had a reevaluate everything from a financial business and life perspective moved down to Charlotte and
Large part thanks to Taylor himself and his extreme amount of generosity and helping me with that and I started pursuing the opportunity to travel more for Crossway competitions because I had time to and so I was kind of like a 180 from working in the gym full-time and
Traveling parttime maybe six to eight events a year at most uh to trying to travel fulltime and then coach parttime at CrossFit Charlotte when I am in town and with relatively little Runway we were able to schedule uh several things you know 20 stops in in since middle of
August after the games went out to Finland hit the road hard and then just finished up with Pamplona last weekend so that’s I guess what two weekends ago something like that anyway um and so here we are and now because uh of the the efforts that we put in and the you
Know trust that people put in us to be able to work with them and and bring us out to these competitions uh we’ve got a lot more opportunity to plan ahead for the next season and I in terms of CrossFit measure the seasons from open to open so I’m not doing any more
Competitions uh until the open begins um and therefore this for me the 2023 2024 season has officially wrapped up this is a little bit of a reset because uh we are actually going to hit the ground running uh two weeks from two weeks Y and we’ll
Kick off to 2024 202 2 World Tour season and we we we’ll talk more about that next week as Patrick said where I’m going to be what I’m going to be doing um and how it’s going to evolve uh but in the meantime yeah I we say little
Sneak peek into that you know just our discussions I’m excited for you for us um and these competitions I mean it’s it’s it’s crazy kind of looking over the stats you kind of shared it with Chad and I this morning uh just the current world tour you know eight different
Countries you know nine uh nine states nine states here in the continental US um and I’m actually in the process of figuring how many miles flown and and uh how many hours spent on a plane um and it’s I mean just through two events you’re over 20,000 miles so um should be
Fun yes I I actually for the trip that’s coming up at the end of the month I booked it and it put me over another threshold of uh Advantage miles with with American Airlines talking to the this woman on the phone about it and she she’s like well anyone who reaches this
Status I just always like to tell him congratulations because it’s not easy to get here so it was a lot a lot of travel and more travel to come but uh I think traveling is kind of like anything the more you do it the more you get used to
It you know like like a flight from Charlotte to somewhere in the US to me is like ah whatever um an over you know overnight flight to Europe I still don’t love but outside of that not so bad yeah yeah Carl question right here big fan of
The be friendly Fitness tour thank you it’s difficult to keep up with the schedule we’re trying we’re going to streamline that what’s the fall 2024 looking like I think the chat should make suggestions um definitely send some suggestions out there uh we probably maybe already look at send me
Suggestions all the time I’m sure he does I’m sure he does but uh yeah the schedule we will publish a a schedule it may not have uh some of the competitions uh the dates aren’t not know not yet known yet but we’ll at least we’ll at least list the competitions that we’re
Going to be working at that we know of over the next 12 months um I can’t remember how many there are yeah somewhere between 20 and 30 already but uh yeah we’ll have those out next week so people can can see where we’re going to be but definitely send suggestions um
Um I think next year or this coming year starting with the fall we’ll be a little bit we’ll be at there be some additions to the be friendly team as youve seen U as you seen we’ve brought Bella on a couple times and stuff like that and she
Travels I might be I might be living in Europe during that time so you know we there might be an opportunity where be friendly is can be at multiple places at the same time so definitely send suggestions if they’re not we throw this out here as well is if you are a
Competition that is uh curious about other competitions that are going on at a similar time or or weekends that you’re looking for if you haven’t booked anything yet don’t hesitate to reach out last year we ran into a few situations where um you know competition organizers hadn’t talked to each other or weren’t
Aware of other things that were going on and we had some overlapping weekends which I think is to you know it’s not to like competitions there’s multiple competitions happening all the time of different but they’re not always of with Elite athletes and if you’re trying to facilitate multiple competitions on the
Same weekend with Elite athletes there’s a lot of kind of variables that are you know remain to be seen how they going to be handled um and and there are already going to be some conflicts this year that I know about uh but that’s in large part because they haven’t reached out
And asked and um or maybe they just don’t care to but if you do want to have a high level competition that tries to attract Elite athletes from either your region or from around the world and you’re trying to avoid some of the other ones um happy to to share with you what
We know in terms of trying to plan accordingly because I think it’s in the best interest of everyone to you know try to space out those Marquee events at least at least not have them on the same weekend as often as possible well I think this one’s probably already on the
Schedule but yeah we’re not going to jump ahead too much again but um is that desert or dessert I’m down for dessert City I’m I mean I I love being a good dessert City but uh but yeah desert city classic was one that we uh raid did so
This past year so next week we’ll preview the the 202 2025 World Tour as it is then and uh but but in the meantime I just took some time to reflect on what I observed and you know this is um it’s kind of it’s kind of interesting
Because I have a lot of friends who do a lot create a lot of content here in North America and we’ve done studies of our own demographics of who’s watching or listening to the stuff that we’re putting out or reading uh and it is very very North American Centric and this is
Not one of lessons that I learned in this article but it’s just a bigger picture thing that I have had suspicions about but is really really been heavily affirmed in the traveling I’ve had is that there what ex exists in North America and what people who live train
Speak and um spread the word of CrossFit to people in North America it’s really much more isolated to North America than a lot of people think there are some people out of North America that are consuming that content but it’s pretty sparse and there’s you know this is a
Kind of a stark example but uh when I was in Spain like multiple people who I would think would be pretty well plugged in with Crossfit could not identify or by name who chase Ingram is Chase Ingram who owns an affiliate for 10 years who’s a color commentator at the CrossFit games
For just as long I think who is on the affiliate Council who hosts the CrossFit podcast who’s a regular guest on talking Le Fitness death bu episodes who’s regularly on with seon who has his own programming podcast get with the programming which by the way if you’re
Not uh listening to that or haven’t been listening to that and you’re trying to run uh the best possible competition you’re not doing yourself or your athletes or your volunteers any favors just listen to it it’s there’s you can listen to two episodes uh any two episodes you want
About competition and you’re going to come away with something valuable that will improve your ability to run and program competitions MH um but people don’t know who this is and I showed them a picture oh yeah that that guy and it’s like if these people who are involved in
CrossFit internationally don’t have this level of awareness of Chase Ingram think about the other Personalities in the space in North America that have much less credentials than him across the board I didn’t mention the fact that he also competed at the CrossFit Games he coached teams to the CrossFit Games and
All whatever that’s just to put some things out there so there’s this and this is something that we’re trying to do is trying to increase awareness across the International competition scene um and so these are just some things that as the as the hopefully no one
Knows anyone by name outside of the top five athletes Dave CER major B there’s rodri friend of ours in Spain um take that picture down his back muscles aren intimidating me I know it’s like it’s he’s got so many dimples um so uh these are just some points of
These are just some I I guess I would call them suggestions that if you’re running a competition these are very simple things to do that I would say many competitions are not doing well or more competitions are not doing well than I would have expected um that can
Make new audiences who are coming to your events whether they’re on Instagram on a live stream that you’re doing on your own website uh just more likely to actually stay engaged and captive in what you’re putting out there the first one is just the basics who what where
When and how to watch if you’re having a competition uh and that means you have a a Instagram page and a website and when I come to your Instagram page or your website if I can’t find out these basic things quickly then you’ve Lo you’re losing customers basically um the dates
Should be so obvious the location should be so obvious that the what is obviously the title of your competition the who is the who’s competing there I can’t I do not understand why hiding the athletes who are competing at your competition is such a big thing and any other sport
It’s not like you’re going to buy I’m gonna go to the football game who’s playing I don’t know well how do you know that is it a team you like not sure I’m just going it’s on Sunday like this doesn’t happen you when you buy a ticket
To something you know who you’re going to watch the leaderboards aren’t always finalized and you can always put a qualifier there that says leaderboards are subject to change up until the start of competition ition fine put that there but it’s like this slow trickle out of one athlete one athlete one athlete one
Athlete if you want to do that fine but put a link to a leaderboard that just populates the athletes that you’ve already announced and then at some point a week or two not any closer to the competition than that prior to it just publish a full list of male and female
Athletes that are competing at your competition on Instagram and have a link to the leaderboard there so people can see it they want to know and late in the game that can Drive some ticket sales for you it can drive attention to your competition if you’re having a live
Stream of any kind which is the how to watch and at the events that we’ll be going to this year all of them will have some kind of streaming option so this is a basic for competitions make it easy to find the basics in every sport every competition every piece of ENT
Entertainment that exists in the world people want to know who’s participating when is it where is it what’s going on and can I watch it so make it easy to find going back to that who um me me me being a WWE wrestling fan WWE does a
Great job of this even for their Live Events non-televised events this is where they actually you know obviously they have their televised Live Events but it’s those House shows that they do throughout the week that have no live feed they still put promo posters or pictures up that promote the athletes
Are going to be there so that way you know fans will go and watch because they know Seth Rollins is going to be there or The Rock’s going to be there Etc um and I think CrossFit as a whole does that you know the games does because
They already know because we see the qualifiers but they do a good job and I think I think Granite games did a really good job with it a couple years ago when they promoted uh Mal O’Brien as soon as she was announced that she was going to
Be competing in that region but you know that generated some that generated some excitement um obviously she she withdrew but still you know that that’s the type of stuff why not sell your event ahead of time and the best way to do is a sell it with the athletes because that’s
Ultimately who the fans are going to see so I totally agree with that and I’ve always wondered that why why keep it a secret why roll why roll it out one athlete at a time you know be cre look look look if it’s if if we’re talking
About a competition like w paloa and you’re gonna start making athlete announcements uh you know one a week in uh October November two a week in December three a week in in January and then you P publish the full list the week before like that’s okay you can
Roll them out that way that’s fine you know you can there’s there’s different advantages to doing that but you know two weeks before the competition you know you you could like your leaderboard should always be populated so the athletes that are qu have made it through the online
Qualifier for Wala for example they should just if they’ve accepted their invitations their or whatever qualifications that should be on the leaderboard and then as you announce them just populate that and the link to your leaderboard can just be there uh on your Instagram all the time so at any
Point that I’m curious I I can click instead of scrolling through and looking for who’s been announced who hasn’t I could click on the link and see the current list of athletes that are announced to compete at waterl or any competition yeah I agree but this is like a perfect example now granted
They’ve updated this list with The Rock and took Brock Lesnar out but this was something simple that they came together and it it’s generating you know April 6th April 7th you know and they put this out there so you know and their Instagram post uh is the same thing but
That’s just an example Le but again everything that you’ve put on here is uh everything you’ve put out here in the story are suggestions things that you saw but um you know and you’re making suggestions to help help these competitions out so just keep that in mind know especially because uh you know
The the hope is that there’s more exposure that more people can watch competitions that are happening and when there’s more exposure there’s more scrutiny there’s more criticism and we want to try TR to avoid that as much as possible because the focus should be on the athletes that’s the goal and but
When uh you know competitions in large are missing on on simple things a lot of which is just uh you know doesn’t even have much to do with the competition um it distracts or detracts from where I think the focus ought to be yeah all right workout details uh including time
Of day um so I think thatd actually du bu was a good example of this this year they released a lot of their workouts early but not all the details and I was totally okay with that I think that there’s some some some element of surprise that’s all right so you know
They had a workout for example it was power cleans and Farmers carry and they did they it was 2159 power cleans and Farmers carry after every round so we were missing details of the weights the distances time caps Etc that’s okay but we have a good idea we can start to see
The pieces of the puzzle the programming developing as they announce more over time I like that actually okay here’s all the workouts maybe we hold one and there’s a few questions about each one that we’ll find out in the time of beyond that the this is kind of an
Interesting one that I contemplated putting in here or not but the time of day that people are working out you know I try to do this when I do this have done the streams on Instagram live where I’ll I’ll put at the start of each day
Um men’s event four is at this time women’s event four is at this time etc etc um the competitions all have this it’s so basically a run of show for every stage that they have for every Division and a lot of people are you know they’re very they’re very
Particularly interested in watching one athlete whether it’s a family member or someone they train with something like this in in in whether it’s elite division or Community divisions or they have a favorite athlete or a division that they’re really interested in watching and again it’s just like you
Want to increase the the likelihood of people watching your event don’t have a 12-hour stream with no details about it provide the specific examples because if I if I’m wanting to watch Patrick compete and I know he’s competing on Saturday two times but I don’t know when
I’m probably not going to sit there for 12 hours and hope that I catch his heat you know I might reach out to him and ask him but it would be so much simpler if I could just if it was just Saturday schedule and I could just search for his
Division um what what division are you uh I am a intermediate scale um for uh handicap Masters right yeah and I said just find that Division and then I’ll know when he’s competing it’s a like again this is information that already exists and just making it publicly available I think will increase
The likelihood of people tuning in for the things that they’re trying to watch and wanting to watch programming and floor plans yeah so this is what I was alluding to earlier with regards to get with the programming um there’s plenty of people that you could consult for this I just
Think that they’re the most experienced they’ve put the most resources out there they continue to have very relevant conversations about this and the big picture observation that they have highlighted on several of their shows over the past couple months that I will reiterate here there’s some really really really good programmers out there
And they’re actually programming pretty close to phenomenal competitions but Minor Details are being missed sometimes in the programming maybe maybe one out of three things is in the programming and two out of three is with the floor plans or floor layouts that they have for these uh and I’m specifically
Talking about at the elite level of competition for pro elite RX whatever you call your top division uh it’s a conversation that I’ve had with a variety of event organizers or programmers is that um those are different divisions there’s different things on the line there’s more prize money there’s more
Exposure athletes in those divisions are training full-time for this and trying to make it a profession if they’re not already successful as a a professional athlete within the sport and if you whether it’s one or two of these Pros that are there half of your field or the
Entire field it is different than the rest of the uh uh community community divisions everything below that that’s happening there it doesn’t mean it’s more important necessarily but it’s different and what I’m basically suggesting here I mean I’ve I’ve done this role at competitions myself it’s a competition consultant role and I think
That there are a lot of competitions that could benefit from reaching out to someone like Chase Ingram or Bill grundler or myself and there’s some others as well Jr for sure Taylor you know yeah yeah that would be good resources to have that are not involved in your competition team they’re not
Involved in the programming they don’t help design the floor layouts when you have that stuff done and a lot of these things that I’m talking about are really ways for competitions to hold themselves more accountable of being more Forward Thinking and having as much planned ahead of time as possible to avoid
Problems on game day before they happen so that we can focus on the athletes more which is what people are tuning in to see so uh think about that a month two months before your competition what would it look like to have everything planned and to reach out to one of these
Guys that we mentioned and uh do a little collaboration with them hey we’re going to send you this stuff you haven’t seen it before we’ve been spending months with it and we’re so close to it that we just can’t see it from this big perspective and you have to be open to
Uh you taking a little criticism with your programming which can be really hard to do and the floor layouts but I’m telling you these people are not nitpicking at you they want your competition to be great and based on 20 years of experience that some of these
Guys have doing this now that sounds crazy but I believe bill grunner has been doing this for close to 20 years now competing coaching training Affiliates commentary programming you name it you could have access to someone like that to just look over your stuff give you a few suggestions here and
There and I can guarantee you small refinements to Great programming or good programming can make your competition great avoid the scrutiny and focus on the athletes more and they would love that I mean bill is the type of guy like if you send him ask him a question
Regarding program and he’ll he’ll love that you know he’ll he’ll be one he’ll he’ll be honored to look over but he’ll give you his honest opinion too and um so don’t be don’t be intimidated by the name by those names or don’t think that your competition is too small or too big
For guys like these scoring systems pretty simple here uh I do give an analogy here to golf but basically unless it’s the open this points per place thing one for first two for second three for third it’s not appealing to people and the bigger picture here is
That we we need our sport to be somewhat more predictable 100 points for first and zero for last with some kind of taper in between depending on the athletes that are the number of athletes that are competing or if you’re using a zcore it still has the 100 down to to
Zero um feel is just easier for people to digest if I’m watching golf every week and all of a sudden and every week the lowest number wins the lowest number wins the lowest Strokes under par wins I understand that if I turn on one competition one weekend suddenly the
Highest number of Strokes wins the commentators have to explain this over and over again I’m constantly confused because it’s not in alignment with everything that I’m thinking about and it just kind of halts things and it detracts from the athlet Athletes Performance because you’re trying to figure out this other thing that’s going
On so I’m not saying we have to have a uniform scoring system for every competition because there’s different number of athletes competing um some people like to use the zcore which is a different conversation but 100 down to zero with some intervals is a recommendation for competitions to use
So that people who are starting to watch more regularly can have that element of consistency when it comes to how scoring is working at these competitions this next one I’ve seen you probably more involved than you should be when it comes to this type of stuff
And um the appeals process needs to be more consistent and I’ve SE I don’t know how many competitions I’ve been with where athletes have come to you directly and this is when you’re not even involved with the scoring or the judging or anything like that but they’ll come
Up to you and ask you hey to make an appeal on their behalf or to you know ask you how to make an appeal but um but I think that comes down to what this point here is make it more consistent athletes coaches managers um and then on the other side sometimes
People from the scoring team or people from the judging team will will consult us for for different things uh and those things are okay like you know yeah but in general it’s it’s a it’s another one of these things that like we know that the human error of judging is a real
Thing and that whatever number of lanes you have whatever number of judges and athletes are on the floor there’s going to be something that happens and therefore there’s an opportunity for an appeals process it’s no different than having a challenge system in the NFL MLB whatever else you know there’s there’s
These opportunities to review things that could have a dramatic effect on an athlete’s performance um that was missed in real time that’s why the appeals process exists at all but it is so widely varied liter like the extremes that I saw this year are there’s no appeals at our competition sorry and on
The other side is is members of the competition team asking people in the fans for videos from different angles to get accurate insights into what’s happening both of those things are crazy to me those are as as usually the extremes are but somewhere in between I
Think that there is a best practice for competitions that could be utilized um I’m not I don’t think that independently I’m the best person to give that I think that there’s people I would love to have a conversation with to kind of put that into effect I’m not sure if that’s I
Know that fikowski and the pfaa have a lot of best practices for different things outlined I’m not sure about on the appeals process side of things because um that’s a competition organizer sort of a thing maybe they have something or not but I do think that there’s a big opportunity for a
Hopefully simple appeals process to be widely used so that it’s predictable so that from competition to competition if you’re a coach who’s coaching a dozen athletes that each compete three times during the season that at you’re those 36 competitions that you’re going to go to or whatever that you don’t have to
Hunt down someone that you may not even know who they are to find an appeals process that could be similar or very different from what you’re used to some of the differences are only the athletes can make the appeal but at this competition the coach can make the
Appeal but at that competition the coach or the manager or the athlete can make the appeal why why is it why is there so much variance there some competitions say You must make an appeal when you’re on the floor others say you have 30 minutes others say you have until the
End of the day why why is there so much Variety in terms of the time others have discrepancies about what you can appeal we can make that probably a lot more simp simple this is the last one Chelsea M what your thoughts on using outside video for appeal so some competitions
Will say no videos will be used for appeals others will say only internal videos others will say that you can welcome outside I would think more competitions are leading towards we’re not taking any outside videos but if you’re doing that then you should be thinking about what internal videos you
Have that are can provide an angle that you can actually review things that you’re putting out there to review so the the thing is like if it’s a finish a close finish that’s easy to review because you can put a camera on either side and you can go back can watch it as
They cross a Finish Line if you’re going to try to review the squat depth of a particular athlete and let’s say it’s a Chelsea Miller’s coaching that athlete she might have a straight A great video of it because she was filming that athlete independently but not every competition has an athlete that’s a
Camera that’s isolated on every athlete for every movement for every workout throughout the competition that’s a huge demand and ask to have even at the CrossFit games where they do use some of the broadcast stuff for for review when necessary they don’t have a a camera on every athlete every rep every movement
Every workout like that’s nearly impossible to do yeah or it’s not financially viable for most people so that’s where I think that a group of people can come together have these conversations and make a process but then there’s there’s this need for uh competitions to apply the process and
This is something that we are having conversations about and working towards but I would say of all the things in here this one might be the furthest away from like a simple solution but man would it be a huge win if there was more consistency in this regard yeah oh
Before we move on to the next one this is a very good suggestion this probably should have been brought up earlier sport needs T Swift to break up with Travis and start dating briyan that would bring millions of fans to the CrossFit games I don’t know why nobody’s thought of that
Yet I mean [ __ ] I agree I can work on that is Taylor Swift your type of girl I mean well I mean you think I don’t know I wonder if she watches our podcast or his podcast I don’t know I mean I heard that Greater Heights uh podcast is it’s it’s building
A little momentum you know I haven’t watched much of it but um yeah I don’t know we’ll have to find Taylor if you’re in the comments drop drop us a drop us a comment a suggestion uh moving on Awards Ser this one really caught me off guard and you
Brought up a really good point about this too something again that I wouldn’t have thought of award ceremonies the number of people I don’t even want to say groups of people because they’re widespread that have mentioned to me over the course of this offseason that the award ceremonies
Process in CrossFit is outdated and just quite frankly frustrating is numerous and more or less how this works is uh at the end of competition on the last day there’s an award ceremony for all the divisions that’s basically how how it works more often or not now there are some
Differences uh to this so for example at the CrossFit games that’s not how it is they have a separate award ceremony for all the other divisions now that won’t matter this year because they won’t won’t all be competing in the same location on the same weekend but they
Had an uh age group or or divisional games award ceremony then they brought those athletes onto the floor with the for the award ceremony for the elite teams men and women um Wala has done stuff like that in the past I’ve worked with them as a script writer in the in
Years ago and we would have a comp uh uh award ceremony for a certain number of Divisions at this time and then for the other divisions at this time because if if you were at w PL and watch this year they ran through all of them at the end
And by the time you got you they they didn’t announce the elite I think it was Elite women Podium on the floor and you had to wait an hour basically to find those results officially from them this dovetails a little bit with the previous one is that uh depending on what your
Appeals process is and sometimes competitions have a different appeal process for the final event than every other event because if it’s Friday afternoon and the competition is going till Sunday I can make my appeal about something that happened on Friday and it’s not a stress for me even if I go to
Sleep and it’s not changed I can wake up in the morning and see it’s change if it’s not I still have time to go talk to him and see what’s going on if it’s the last event that can’t happen there’s a time is at a premium so you might need
To have a builtin system that’s different specifically for the final event but I still think that with the right tactics in place there’s no reason why within 5 minutes of an of the final heat of a division ending you can’t have the results finalized um I know there
Are people on scoring and judging teams that would give me push back on that but I’m basically saying that don’t give me the excuses find the solutions I think there are ways because I’ve done it myself uh in the shadows and with teams in you know meaningful situations that
You can get it done quickly you just have to be organized and ready for it ahead of time um so that’s you know I I think uh maybe it was one that surprised me too I wasn’t expecting it to be such a consistent critique or complaint that I
Heard but you know I think that the award ceremonies is a is a you like it should be enjoyable that like when you if you win your division or get second or third and you’re going to be standing on on a Podium of some kind there and
Your family or friends are either in site or on site or watching from home they want to see that and so can we imagine a way where it can happen more quickly after the end of the division so that the relevant people are present to see that and this is comes
Down to you know planning and programming timing wise during that final day of competition maybe having a you know there’s tons of different ways but I do think that it’s something that should be reimagined I I definitely agree with this I mean like I said I was
Surprised to see that but after reading it and thinking about it mik you’re you’re 100% I mean we did a competition this past weekend a little in-house competition not in-house we had we had had over 40 teams competing at those competitions and we were able to wrap it
Up in you know less than five minutes you know we had everyone on the podium took pictures and then we took a giant group shot all within five minutes so it’s doable um but I think another you brought the appeals process um I I have heard instances where athletes
Particularly at Water paloa where you know they were given I believe two appeals throughout the whole weekend and some of them they just used their Appeal on the final event because they’re like oh I have it might as well use it sure yeah and there’s a they have that right
Because if something does come out of it whether they thought they needed appeal or not I mean it could have gave them an extra thousand or $2,000 or whatever yeah and there’s nothing wrong with that I know that uh at some competitions on the last event they have a member of the
Scoring or judging team that walks by every lane and checks in with every athlete are you appealing yes or no and you got to tell them right then and for the final event like that’s okay um and then they you know they’ll collect the ones that are appealing and they’ll go
And try to process them like they are trying to do it quickly once in a while there is a legitimate appeal that takes some time to review that you need to process but again this is the end of the competition weekend you can allocate resources appropriately to that team or
Process at that time that you can’t the rest of the weekend because there’s tons of other things that might be going on so that if there are a heavy influx or one or two legitimate appeals that require a high degree of attention attention that you have people available technology available whatever to process
Those quickly I mean um the only the only time I ever saw was involved in any kind of a review that was that I could have seen taking more than five minutes to really get was the the ride event where Ricky came from out of nowhere at the game oh yeah yeah
Because they didn’t know if he did yeah if you didn’t know and the review process for that was pretty involved um but it’s like a oneoff in my memory and all of the other situations that I can think of it might not have only taken five minutes but it could have at the
Right planning preparation yeah and that one that particular event like you said there wasn’t a camera on every single athlete and you had offs events offside lot going on there were Mis counting by judges athletes was there were a lot of variables there but they did go through
A great length to try to get it right and uh yeah I think it was actually Chase who put a his detective had on and explained it to everyone event it was it was didn’t Choy was it Choy that did an extra lap wasn’t there a female that did one female ended up
Doing an extra lap I forgot I think it was Troy but uh uh squat lower please yes couldn’t I could not avoid putting this in here um and and again if the award ceremonies was your biggest surprise this was probably mine uh but this is I mean it was it was crazy it
Was alarming to me I actually sent the Andrew Hiller a message the other day I was like dude the the squatting depth globally is appalling M and he was like LOL yep I know and he does know and if you want to take Andrew Hiller at his
Word that he wants people to be better and we go back to some of his initial motives with this stuff it was movement quality move better and squatting take away competition just as a lifestyle movement the ability to stand at full extension lower your body so that your
Hips are below your knees and stand back and fully open your hip is something that every human who cares about their themselves for the duration of their life should want to be able to do easily and well and yet in Affiliates all over the world in divisions from scaled
Beginners Masters teenagers all the way to Elite and I’m talking semi-final and above athletes I watched Time After Time week after week people who either could not squat below parallel or refuse to squat below parallel that are regularly engaging in the CrossFit methodology not squatting below parallel and participating in the cross
Methodology is a contradiction we need to be better at this I could not agree with him more when it comes to this if nothing else that the squatting and it’s from a athletes you have to you just do it and judges have the confidence to call the
No reps if if you’re not sure just give them a no rep most of the time they can get lower if there’s an athlete that actually physically cannot get lower they should be declaring that to you or to the competition team prior to competing that never happens and yet I
Go and I watch and I and it’s like you know I’m watching a competition floor and there’s 20 athletes on it I can’t see every Squad of every athlete but when I’m in my hotel room later that night I’ll go through some Instagram I’ll see some videos and I see athletes
Posting videos of themselves and I’m like you didn’t that’s that was three ra that you got credit for on the competition floor that were nowhere near below parallel and you just posted that video and it was like so many times that I’ve seen this this year I could not
Believe it so judges have the confidence to give the no rep up especially on squatting depth and athletes don’t give them any reason to just as a kind of a side on this one if you’re an elite athlete in the sport and you can’t do a pistol squat while keeping your heel on
The ground that’s a problem like I don’t understand that why can I do that and you can’t do that are you doing it unintentionally so that you can get a faster rep or something like that but like ankle do deflection is something that Elite athletes should have supreme
Supreme ability with um and I just think the standard of pistols should change that the heel has to stay on the ground and that that will encourage better squatting patterns across all the squats true and if you have big a big uh legs especially there can be some
Challenge with that you can but there’s workaround especially with the pistol by the way I’ve seen some athletes who have the toe toe up or heel up and they’re on their toe and they literally cannot get below parallel in their pistol and I’m like well work on your ankle Mobility
But there are also some uh adjustments that you can make um I don’t think that we would be writing standards that that people physically could not adhere to um and like I said uh I have yet to see the person especially at a high level competitions that cannot do it they’re
Just choosing not to do it um and if it if you can’t do it then maybe it can be a goal of yours to work towards for a lifestyle which is more important than competition anyway yeah well those are your seven suggestions again there suggestions things that you’ve taken
Over over the last 20 stops 20 stops in 26 weeks you know you’ve been all over the world from Dubai to Finland to Utah you you you’ve been there I mean um there’s other places to get to but we did a decent job for six months yeah particularly I mean I know
South America Oceana region uh Asia those are all some things that uh you know that we hope to make um and we we you know we’ll we’ll find out if we do that next week or not um but uh yeah seven suggestions give a give a if you’re a competition director go ahead
Um you know send Brian some suggestions send reach out to chase uh bill you know J are any of the guys uh but give this article a read these are again suggestions um we’re just trying to make things better and easier uh for this to succeed as a sport it needs to be
Simplified it needs to be more understandable and it needs to be more uh athlete and viewer friendly and I think somebody suggestions hit on a lot of those things yeah and it doesn’t it you know I don’t think that it has to take away from the fun element of the
Sport that that was unknown and unknowable there are still there’s still room for that that’s what I alluded to with the example of the Dubai programming released uh a lot of the workouts but not all the details um and there’s certainly room for creativity but there are definitely some some basic
Things that I think are best practices for competitions based on these are largely not even my opinions these are just repetitive ideas that I’ve heard from different athletes coaches organiz gers volunteers judges um people who work on these scoring or competition or event athlete control teams at a lot of
Competitions uh that just will allow for more engagement and uh less criticism of the competitions and hopefully with the result of having more focus on the incredible things that the athletes are doing that’s what got like that’s what I want to see and talk about uh and so
It’s you know it’s frustrating when the same mistakes are made over and over over and over again and then those become the same topics of conversation because people like to point point fingers and be critical um and it’s easy to get distracted with that and not and lose sight of the really incredible
Things that are happening on the competition floor yeah so we got about 15 minutes before uh everyone that’s on here we highly encourage you to switch over to seon uh seon’s channel to watch the latest episode of shop and scribble one second here uh yeah what’s today’s top
They’re going to look back through uh open workouts I guess uh from 2011 to 2020 only I don’t know what these little things are but basically they’re going to say which ones still hold up as good tests of Fitness yeah and I I wanted to this morning I just
Ran out of time I wanted to kind of go through all of those years and pick out a few that I think would still hold up um but the the one that I would throw out there I’ll be that I’ll be curious to see what they say about I don’t remember
The I think it was 14.2 was the first time it was programmed which is overhead squats and chest our pull-ups uh ascending reps in a in a fixed window and you keep unlocking more windows uh they did do that as a repeat workout a few years later um and that that was one
That came to mind this morning is something that I still think well I think it would hold up as a good test for the community but but I would be nervous about the capacity of the elite athletes being ex exceptional there were a few back then Josh Bridges
And Camila Blanc baz in particular that were already pushing it into a really ridiculous threshold um and obviously with the increased capacity that athletes have I’ll be curious to see how they address that one yeah so head on over here in the next 14 26 25 um and
You know good transition see what those guys are about they love the comments so make sure you’re engaged over there uh another thing I want to talk to we’re we’re kind of going into this catching up on the news type stuff and um uh this something that you brought to my
Attention is that The Syndicate Crown three-day passes are available for The Syndicate Crown yeah and I wanted to I wanted to highlight this because um you know I know that everyone’s uh been really pushing the open pushing the open and and now that the offseason behind us our
Attention is starting to shift towards this upcoming calendary SE season but also the cross the games competition season and another thing that I that I know people often were asking me about when I would travel to these competition is what’s the crowd like and for those that have watched consistently I think
That you will see that internationally people are showing up in more quantity or abundance than they are in the US um there are you know we’ve had these kind of feelings about that being true with uh you know during semi-finals especially people will look at the torian pro and they’re like wow
They look at the copur and they’re like man there’s that crowd’s packed and then they come to North America ones and it didn’t have that same kind of feeling um this you know this uh venue in Knoxville they’ve hosted competitions before and I’m going to tell you if that venue
Fills up it’s going to be an electric environment yeah but it was pretty sparse last time um and so their events are the tickets are available three-day passes are a better bargain than the other two if you’re a fan of CrossFit and you want to support the sport and
See it continue to grow pick one the West Coast or the east coast and see if you can make it happen you know it’s uh it would be nice to have like 12 months heads up for some people so they could schedule their vacations accordingly but
We get about six in this case um and the tickets are out there now so if you can make it happen these competitions are going to be incredible it’s be uh about a third of the field that qualifies to the games maybe 11 12 out of 40 so just
Under a third um and the the spots are at a premium you’re not going to have 60 athletes we’re gonna only have 80 total men and 80 total women in North America that even make it to this stage of the season five years ago it was over three
Times as many athletes who could make it to this stage of the season the pressure is on the quarterfinals programming and review to get the best possible slate of athletes for the semi-final competition there and but regardless you’re talking about the 40 best men in the East that’s
Going to be a Throwdown and there are going to be scores I believe there will be scores in the first Heats that will have impact on the leaderboard for all the events because the depth of the field being so small is going to be as high as it’s ever been in North America
And Europe this year at a semi-final meaning the worst athlete there is going to be better than the worst athlete at any previous semi-final that you’ve ever attended in North America or Europe um and so this seems to me like a great time to find a way to get to one of
These semi-finals and like you said that venue is perfect it’s elevated it feels like you’re on top of the action yeah no bad seats there you see none and then uh they do a really good chob job with the vendor Village is really accessible literally just walk right out into the
Vendor Village area downt it’s right across it’s right there in the heart of Knoxville and Knoxville there’s a there’s so many cool places in Knoxville there’s like a little area that just has nothing but restaurants and you know plenty of hotels like I said it’s Knoxville Tennessee so they’re used to
Having you know large groups of people come in they have hotels it it’s it’s cool I like it and The Syndicate Crown you know they have a history uh that dates back before they were even a semi-final um that they’re very proud of and um you know the the two years
They’ve had it they’ve had exciting finishes well the one year they’ve had some exciting finishes um at the event so you’re going to see the top men and women women in the East which are I mean it’s it’s getting tougher and tougher you’re going to see you’re going to see
Roman competing you know just two what an hour and a half away you’re gonna get you’re gonna get Roman and Jeff Adler exactly what else do you want you know talk about the other 38 guys and there’s some amazing ones but we didn’t get to see that finish at the games last year
The Rogue was okay yeah but you could possibly see the you know I mean you know we’re hoping uh the return of Haley Adams to a competition floor um I mean there’s just so many story lines coming out of the East I mean just everywhere but but those are just some
Of the things so if Roman and Adler Haley Adams and Emma Lawson I mean if those those names I mean Brook Wells if those names The Comeback of Brook Wells those names aren’t getting you excited for Syndicate Crown then I I you have to kind of ask yourself are you really
Truly a fan of CrossFit and uh as a sport so you know uh yeah so send some shout out again three-day passes um I expect of these other competitions to do the same but like Brian said pick pick one you don’t have to go to both but
Pick one um it’s you know yeah and enjoy you know help the community out uh another thing I want to talk to before we send everyone over to shut up and scribble is you know the the news that the pit and legends being scheduled the same weekend um it’ll be it’ll be what
Memorial Day Weekend Labor Day Labor Day weekend sorry Labor Day weekend um um your thoughts on that I mean I mean how how does that happen I mean I’ve have yet to hear someone say this is a positive thing um and just your thoughts on that and
Just you know how how is this a how can a mess up like this or Miss become like that yeah I I understand maybe venues might be an option or the locations but you know I I just I just don’t get how this happens yeah I mean uh as soon as I saw
This I reached out to CrossFit to just get their perspective because um I don’t you know I don’t see ton you know it’s always good to just see what’s going on and see what they have to offer uh the response was basically a lot of people are asking
This question so we’re going to send out a communication which they did um and they more or less in their response kind of ignored the conflict and in instead chose to celebrate it and it you know from their perspective I don’t know what what else that they they could do they could
Either do that or they could say this wasn’t this wasn’t optimal but it uh it’s how it is this year and with more planning we’re going to hope to have these on separate weekends next year uh so those would have been the two options the one that they chose is very much in
Line with how they handle any kind of you know criticisms questioning or or problems historically so not really surprising uh you know I think it’s just a matter I think the reason people are disappointed with this is because of how it was sold to us is and again this is
Me receiving this information in a way that could maybe it’s not their intention I don’t know but how I received it was that we’re we’re splitting the CrossFit Games into four separate weekends or four separate groups of athletes with the intention of highlighting each of those four groups
Of athletes independently you get the elite teams and individuals great makes sense you got the teenagers yep absolutely you got the Master’s Community we get it and adaptive Community four separate weekends for four separate groups so so every group has the attention on them for one weekend that’s how I was sold this
That’s how I understood it being advertised um and it hasn’t happened you know first you have W ploa uh SoCal already with the schedule on the date and they announc the Adaptive Wheel wde games to be happening on that same date that’s a bummer because W pla SoCal
Is going to be a big draw for a lot of people and I think that as a result of that y wide games is going to suffer in terms of the investment that they could have had from the community it’s not that people don’t want to support the
Adaptive Community but if you’re running the same weekend as this kind of mysterious new exciting water palusa event in Southern California the home of the sport of of crossfit’s birth that’s been advertised for over a year which you can expect Elite athletes to be competing at where if you’re only going to watch
One that weekend that’s what people are going to watch and it’s not a slight at the Adaptive Community it’s just a fact so that was a little bit of a bummer and then pit Throwdown coming on Labor Day that’s it’s always on Labor Day there’s no surprises about that and it’s like their
Weekend I would be kind of disappointed if I was them that the Masters is also going on that weekend because I’m pretty sure that from the first conversations that Brock and Stephanie had with Crossfit they were probably saying hey we really like running on this week can
We have that weekend and they were probably were told yes we’re making some assumptions here but um you know then the Masters comes on that weekend I don’t think that was the first choice I think that they were trying to find some other things you and I had heard some
Different um possibilities in terms of dates and locations uh and then this is the news that came come out and it was underwhelming to me um so I’m not sure what else to say yeah well before we go off um leave here guys for today um you
Know uh crosss made two of the athlete announcements for the open workouts they have um obviously the first one was um Adler fikowski Alexan Alexis raptus in 24.1 and then just recently they made the announcement that we will have two athletes going head-to-head um in Justin M and Colton
Mt so um yeah I’m I’m excited about all those matchups so far I think it’s a good um a good mixture of athletes so yeah I’m probably most excited about the raptus and um gazan you know Adler and fikowski like uh just in terms of the
Open like I If I had to make a blind bet I would bet on Jeff every time the guys freaking ninja in the open I mean he he might win it again for all we know and there there are some one-off open events that fikowski could compete with him in
But you know the wall balls or rowing you know yeah sure yeah um heav you know if it’s a a heavy snatch ladder that ends in a in a heavy weight paired with one or two of those things potentially but um Alex and and and Alexis is a very
Cool kind of story you know they right neck and neck at the games last year uh gazan seems to be like on this Ascension a lot of people are saying can she have Podium aspirations what’s the ceiling for her Alexis has been excellent the last two years Within she’s kind of
Pulled back from this offseason with some some health stuff seems like she’s still training and doing very well um so I think that’s a really intriguing matchup I’m excited to watch them go at it yeah so it all it makes me wonder what uh what they have planned for 24.3
I mean right now we’re seeing a lot of North American based athletes so that’s making me think that these events will happen in North America live announcement wise uh we’ve heard rumors so my thought is 24.3 I mean you gotta you would think they would go International with it
Don’t you think with International athletes I mean if we’re just looking we have uh you know the the reigning champion on the men’s side and the previous champion on the men’s side in the first two announcements uh we don’t have any Podium finishers from the women’s side at all uh from either of
The last two years so um I think that I mean and look sometimes CrossFit reaches out and the athletes say no but yeah you know exactly Laura horv and Gabby MC are right there training together all the time seems like a possibility you got Ariel Len fittest in the US if they’re
Going to keep it all domestic you might like to see her go against someone like Emma Lawson that be a fun a fun match for the last one so they’re usually trying to get some of the best not they don’t always uh agree to it we’re fortunate to have six great athletes
Commit so far and I would you know if I was gambling I would gamble on on two women from the top 10 going head-to-head in the last week yeah cool well uh we have a show next Monday we’re going to be speaking of competition directors and event uh you
Know organizers whatever you want to call it we’ll we’ll talk to them but uh we’ll we’ll get uh the opinion of a a dear friend of our Roger gillos will come on next Monday um and uh maybe we can walk walk through some of those seven uh things we you discussed in your
Article with him so we have him on Monday and then uh I believe next Thursday around this uh 11 12:00 Eastern 11 o’clock Central we will have another show um what the season what the upcoming tour season looks like for bendly fitness and then um yeah who
Knows we might surprise you with another show as well just like I love given Brian surprises just like I with Cooper so once again uh make sure uh go to Cooper Mar support him in his uh his excellent uh Foundation uh or what his the charity that he’s raising money for
For the Boston Marathon so support him um and also thanks to hgr CBD for their support and um I’m trying there’s anything else I’m missing I think that’s pretty much it um but yeah again we’re all about support so head on over to seon’s Channel watch uh shut up and
Scribble leave some comments and uh as always be friendly are friends
