Don’t hold back.
Taylor self (00:08):
How hot is it in Spartanburg right now?
JR Howell (00:10):
1 0 1 today?
Taylor self (00:12):
Yeah, it was 1 0 2, 1 0 3 in the back.
JR Howell (00:15):
Of course it was 1 0 2.
Taylor self (00:16):
Dude, look at my stop, dude. Look at my story. I tagged Colton. I said, listen, noodle of pork sword, you might have a cute little video be falling off a box, but you don’t know shit about training the heat. Boy, I did that workout this morning. You were there. It felt hot as shit then and it wasn’t, and I went back and did this.
JR Howell (00:38):
I wasn’t there when you did it. You probably did it at sunrise and nice and cool, balmy 87.
Taylor self (00:45):
It was a nice and cool balmy 87, but key emphasis on balmy, super humid. But I went back at like five and did a 21 minute imam. Nothing crazy minute one, 200 meters run minute two 14 overhead squats, nine five pounds minute, three seven bar muscle ups in the back block
JR Howell (01:04):
You ran in the morning and the afternoon.
Taylor self (01:07):
I’m getting my miles up buddy.
JR Howell (01:11):
The old, you know what? You want to know how to get better to 5K? Just run a 5K all the time.
Taylor self (01:15):
You listen bro.
JR Howell (01:18):
Professional coach
Taylor self (01:19):
Taylor, you like that? Here’s the thing, dude, I am never going to take an L in a running workout. I’m just so ashamed that I wasn’t prepared to run at semifinals. Not ashamed. It just eats me up inside. I don’t know how to articulate that. I don’t know how to articulate it, but my running’s coming along quite nicely. I’ll say that. Anyways, that workout was hard in the heat and then we went and did a five by three overhead squat, so I had a day on Monday too. It was a lot of what I did on Monday, so I’ve been kind of recovering from that all week. So we’re going to talk about, you guys are here. You’ve seen a thumbnail we’re about to talk about. We are to talk about the first announced workout of the 2024 CrossFit Games. Chad 1000 x couple things we’re going to start with. I want to get incredibly uncomfortable to start.
JR Howell (02:23):
I have a question before we get uncomfortable.
Taylor self (02:25):
Yeah, go ahead.
JR Howell (02:28):
If you don’t do a thousand box step ups to a 20 inch box with a prescribed weight backpack on your back, are you doing Chad?
Taylor self (02:36):
No. So you’ve answered the question and we’ll get to that. We’ll just give you guys a brief outline of the show. We’re going to get incredibly uncomfortable in a philosophical sense and I am not sure where I stand on this bit of a discussion. I’m really not Just regular regularized
JR Howell (02:57):
Going to figure out where he stands as
Taylor self (02:58):
He both I I’m going to figure out. No, it’s not. Trust me, bro. You don’t know where I’m about to go with this. None of you do. And look, I think it’s an important thing to talk about. It makes me uncomfortable to talk about it, but everyone’s fucking thinking it and I want to talk about it. So we’re going to talk about that. Then we’re going to talk about the implications of Chad one, the order of events. When would it make sense to perform this workout? What twists Dave Castro are talking about is any movement done a thousand times appropriate at the CrossFit games? We’re going to talk about Hiller’s Post and how he changed my mind a little bit.
(03:39):
Yeah, so let’s start with this. Chad is a hero workout to my knowledge, the only hero workout who was not killed in the line of duty, the only hero who wasn’t killed in the line of duty. Chad committed suicide and he left behind a wife and children and there’s some uncomfortable things about that that I want you guys in the comments. I want everyone’s opinions. I want this to be an open discussion. Dave said that he knew Chad and that I don’t know if he served with him or if he knew him very closely. I would imagine if you know a guy like that and you serve with him, you see him do some incredibly heroic shit just serving in that line of work insane. On the other hand, it makes it, I don’t just, like I said, I’m uncomfortable already.
(04:33):
That’s tough, man. Leaving behind a family and kids is tough and yeah, I’m just also not sure why they announced that and talk about suicide awareness and they don’t partner with any sort of charities. I mean, I’m just am curious on the whole topic if we’re going to talk about it, let’s fucking talk about it. Yeah, I’m unsure on where I stand on the whole thing. It just seems like a whole fucked up situation, something that we’re kind of bringing awareness to, but not really. No one’s got the balls or the stones to talk about it on a public forum. Jonathan Ortega, do you think he’s a coward for it?
(05:19):
I think I’ve never committed suicide obviously, so I wouldn’t know. I do know that when I was, before I got sober after my dad died, there was a long period of time where I’m not sure that I wanted to live. I definitely questioned it. My mom put me in a psych ward because she thought I was suicidal and obviously what the fuck do I know? I have like, okay, no experience with it. I do know people who have committed suicide. My uncle’s father committed suicide when he was a little kid. It seems like to me, I would put it this way, if my dad had committed suicide, I already was angry at him for dying. So fucking angry and I would feel fucking abandoned I guess. So for me to say, do I think he’s a coward for it? I don’t know that I would go that far because who the fuck knows what that guy went through? I sure as fuck don’t, but damn, I don’t think suicide is heroic. Maybe everything he did when he was alive for sure heroic. I don’t know. It’s uncomfortable. This is uncomfortable. Let’s keep it going. Who’s got some virtue signaling? Yeah, I’m definitely not virtue signaling.
JR Howell (06:36):
Yeah, I mean I don’t think it’s a conversation you can have lightly or easily for that matter, but a good friend would do right now. I would fact check you first of all and saying that he is not the only hero workout that did not die on line of duty. Kelly Brown, which was one of the workouts they did for the service cup. She died of cancer.
Taylor self (07:04):
She was level
JR Howell (07:04):
One. So yeah, just trying to lighten the middle
Taylor self (07:07):
One. When people say Kelly Brown, you
JR Howell (07:08):
Wrong.
Taylor self (07:09):
When people say Kelly Brown, I think of the other Kelly Brown who was also a Navy Seal and you think Adam Brown? Adam Brown, that’s right. Fuck wife’s name was Kelly. That’s an amazing book. Fearless have you put on Taylor? You look fluffy compared to JR Magnus, fuck off. Here we
JR Howell (07:27):
Go. I have the touch up my appearance on the highest level right now. Magnus, that must be
Taylor self (07:32):
Why touch up? Yeah, Jr everything he films, it’s with a filter on. Taylor is dancing around a great point. Suicide is awful, but it is not heroic in any way. Quite the opposite. Tragic, yes. Heroic. No, that’s my gut instinct on it.
JR Howell (07:44):
I think that’s a good way to put it and I think the way you put it was very simple and eloquent and obviously your situation. I think also, I don’t know if anyone has more or less of a right to talk about stuff like this, but
Taylor self (08:01):
No one does.
JR Howell (08:03):
You’ve been through something where the death of a loved one, an immediate family member you were really affected by and the feelings and emotions you have are not those that other people can say, well, if I were that person, this is how I would feel. No, you don’t know, and so you’re in that situation,
Taylor self (08:20):
Right. Jonathan Ortega, I asked because my friends who have committed suicide, the first one that did it, I was angry and thought he was a coward for it, but now there’s a different thought pattern. I would ask if you’re comfortable sharing that current thought pattern you have. I would say what frustrates me most is we talk about this subject but we don’t say, Hey, this isn’t the way out for you. If you’re thinking about doing this, this isn’t the right way out. Where I would think if we’re raising suicide awareness, wouldn’t that be the whole point to say, Hey, it’s fucking bad. Don’t do that and not that that’s how you say it, but we’re raising awareness on it. Let’s not say, I don’t know. I guess when we’re talking about that specific thing, the word hero has a particular connotation where it’s something to be admired and commended, whereas suicide in my mind has a completely different connotation where it’s something to not be, definitely not be admired, it’s for sure sad, but it’s something you wish you would say.
(09:18):
You wish the people who are considering it that they could understand or you could share with them how much people care about them and how it’s not the right choice. In a sense it’s quitting and those around you don’t want you to quit and how do you, I don’t know. It’s tough, and this is another great point. He had TBI and I mean fuck Junior. Say I was an example, not a military. One of someone who’s really famous who had TBI and concussions from the NFL and committed suicide and it’s just a all around hard thing and I just wish that it wouldn’t be, oh, we’re doing Chad Honor a hero. Well, let’s fucking talk about it. If you’re going to broach the subject, don’t dip your toe in the water and then go dry off. I don’t know. This is good. There’s no right or wrong answer here, IO and I agree. I don’t know that I’m right or right. I’m not trying to be right. I just would like to talk a bit on it. I don’t know. Get uncomfortable.
JR Howell (10:17):
No, that’s good. I mean uncomfortable conversations are usually the ones that need to be had. Thinking about the workout, well, let’s back up a second. You are on your phone, you get a text or you see the announcement. What is your initial gut reaction?
Taylor self (10:40):
Sorry, I’m reading comments here. I just want to read this one. Jared Ellis, suicide sucks. I’ve had to arrive at the scene unfortunately too many times in the past where mental illness can make the strongest people feel like leaving is the best scenario for everyone, right? It sucks. It’s not responsible, but when you’re struggling there that bad, you’re not thinking responsibly. For sure. Yes. Chad had TBI. Yeah, that’s not the solution either gave I don’t know what the solution is. Correct. Jared, in this case, I think hero part is because he was in the military and when you serve at that level, again, I would imagine anyone that served with him has seen him do some incredibly heroic stuff. All right. Let’s see. I’m still kind of high. All right, we’re going to get out of this initial reaction.
JR Howell (11:36):
Go more, read more, read more. If there’s more
Taylor self (11:38):
Here we go. A lot of times suicidal thoughts are related to addiction illness, and many times it’s hard to find help treatment for addiction, even if you want the help for sure. Who knows what it was in his case. I’m sure a lot of the PTSD and TBI had a lot to do with it. Yeah, that’s the real, I think here the solution is having uncomfortable conversations about it and when somebody is going through that or having enough uncomfortable conversations about it so that it’s not so taboo to talk about. Do you get what I’m saying? I feel like if you’re in that particular situation, or at least when I was, there was no way I was telling anyone and I was going to therapy at the time. I for sure wasn’t fucking telling my therapist that because it was incredibly taboo. I was not okay to talk about, so having the uncomfortable conversations, it’s like if you’re not ever having the conversation, you don’t ever hear somebody say like, Hey, if you have a wife and kids and you commit suicide, you’re leaving them behind.
(12:37):
If you don’t ever hear that out of somebody’s mouth, you might not even ever think of it like that. I don’t know. Anyways. Right. Men need to check in on their leaders. Leaders are constantly investing in others with no one investing in them. That’s a good point. That’s a good point. Okay, so when Chad was announced, my immediate thought was, are you fucking kidding me? Dude, you are the bleep, bleep, bleep bleep, bleep, bleep. That’s about everything that ran through my mind. I thought, no one’s going to want to watch this. None of the athletes are going to want to do this.
JR Howell (13:13):
Yeah. I was going to ask you those initial reactions, do you think they came from a athlete’s perspective or from a spectator fan perspective?
Taylor self (13:21):
All of the above. Actually. I would say mostly spectator fan analyst, not as an athlete. As an athlete, I’m like, I would annihilate that workout.
JR Howell (13:30):
It’s just something I have to do. Okay, let’s get prepared for it. That kind of mindset,
Taylor self (13:34):
Chad, I’ve done it four times and I know I’m very good at it. That being said, from an analyst standpoint, I’m like, geez, there is a better way to test psychological tolerance. There’s a better way to test the long time domain endurance. There’s a better way to test repetitive stress than 1000 repetitions of something that is not cyclical or mono structural. It’s not. It’s just not, and I think it’s going to beat their body up too much cave. I just don’t believe, can’t believe someone when they say this. They’re excited to see a time of doing something, not something the exact same thing a thousand times over and over again. I don’t understand how you could possibly be excited for that.
JR Howell (14:20):
When I first saw it, I didn’t think there was going to be any variation. I didn’t think there was going to be any twist because of all the hero workouts. You would have to go back and look, but I really think this is the only hero workout. The only hero workout, single modality single movement, the only one that I know of because even there’s a ton of couplets and there’s one, I think Clovis is what, one mile
Taylor self (14:49):
Run
JR Howell (14:49):
Burpee Pullups 10 K Run or 150 bur pulp or something like that. But I really
Taylor self (14:53):
Jerry’s another close one where it’s
JR Howell (14:55):
Like run row. Yeah, row and run. I think there’s one
Taylor self (14:57):
Randy.
JR Howell (14:58):
There you go. Good. Wow. Very
Taylor self (15:00):
Nice. Jeremy Unfuck.
JR Howell (15:03):
There’s a, there’s a gr right? Is run forward run backward.
Taylor self (15:08):
When is not a hero, is it? It’s just a girl
JR Howell (15:10):
Benchmark. Yeah, it’s just like a benchmark. So yeah, when I saw it, typically I see something and I start to just get over analytical and say, okay, is there a twist? What are they going to do? This is one of the ones that I saw and it was like if there was one workout that I would bet my mortgage on that I would bet the gym on that would never be programmed as a hero workout. The CrossFit games, it was Chad, that was it. And when I started watching some of the interviews catching up on those and he says a few things that lead you to believe they’re not going to be doing straight up stand in one place, have a box 20 inches in a backpack and step up and step down a thousand times that there’s going to be something else with it. Then I thought, okay, well that’s probably better from a, people are going to want to watch this. How do we make it more watchable? But then my snob, my CrossFit purist came out and was like, that’s like someone telling me they’re going to do 21 15 9 thruster and toaster bar and telling me they’re going to do a version of Fran. No, you’re not. You’re just doing that workout. It’s not Fran, it’s not
Taylor self (16:20):
At all.
JR Howell (16:20):
So if you’re not doing a thousand step up and opening up at the top, wearing a ruck at the prescribed repetition, I’m sorry, the prescribed loads. Are you doing Chad? I don’t think we need to call it Chad and put his picture up and put the workout description. The only way I think you can do it is if they did something like this as terrible, as brutal as it sounds, bike a mile, do Chad bike a mile, run a mile, do Chad run a mile bike? I don’t know, bite 10,000 meters, step up a thousand times. So you’re still doing the chunk work at one time. Then I would still say, okay, they did check
Taylor self (17:13):
Even if they split it in half, you wouldn’t say, okay, no, I didn’t think about that. What I thought about was something like the opening scene of the season two of physical 100 where you’ve got all the athletes on the treadmill and it’s like, okay, after 10 minutes the people in first continue cut. The massive problem with that, obviously massive, is that you have a select group of athletes that have a massive amount of volume accumulation and several that don’t, but that would be the only twist in my mind that is a twist that would preserve it actually being Chad until you said what you said. Like you said, if you do anything different, if it’s a step over, if it’s rounds for time, it’s not Chad. Now I wonder it wouldn’t make sense for them to do interval Chad that would for the most part kind of preserve everything, but that would just be stupid.
JR Howell (18:05):
And here’s the deal, here’s the deal. You can do MPH thousands of different ways because the workout is partition as desired.
Taylor self (18:17):
What if it were this?
JR Howell (18:18):
So this workout doesn’t leave a lot for that. Now it doesn’t say how you have to do the thousand steps.
Taylor self (18:25):
It doesn’t say it could
JR Howell (18:27):
Be an interval.
Taylor self (18:27):
What’d you say? Partition is desired. It does say that.
JR Howell (18:30):
No, no, no. I’m saying people are thinking about, well, you can do, they did Murph one year straight through and then they did Murph the next year. Does that mean they didn’t do Murph? No, no, they did do Murph because the workout is partition is part desired is desired. So you can do that and still call it what it is. I mean I think Tyler Watkins the first person that said this, typically what is Al’s razor, right? The simplest answer is usually the answer is that That was right on Tyler. Thank you. Is Chad
Taylor self (19:03):
X like
JR Howell (19:04):
Latinx? This is not what Tyler said. He said they’re just going to step up stairs. They’re going to do a thousand stairs in the stadium and that makes a lot of sense to me and that’s cool, but it’s not Chad,
Taylor self (19:18):
But that wouldn’t be the twist because it says 45 pounds for guys, 35 for women, 20 inches. So the steps aren’t 20 inches. This was an interesting point from Travis bur I don’t know how to do the voice thing. I don’t have a soundboard, but Travis says, the only twist I can see is two scores and a first score being your first time for the first two 50 or something.
JR Howell (19:38):
Shout out to Travis for putting something in the comments of Spins post that got a lot of engagement. I never comment on any post and it got me to comment. He said something about elimination style where it’s like musical chairs and they all start with a box, but then after the first a hundred there’s one less and then after the second a hundred there’s one less and you’re just eliminating people. And I think my comment was something along the lines of rewarding fitness with more work. Cool.
Taylor self (20:00):
Right? This is what I was getting at Julia. The time cap essentially in cutting athletes, but the problem you have with that is you have a particular group of athletes that have done a thousand reps, a particular group that have done seven 50, a group that’s done 500. The only way that could make sense is if they drastically adjusted the scoring outcomes or table for this particular event where you were actually rewarded proportionally for doing all a thousand and the people who did two 50 were punished proportionally, meaning you got fucking zero points and if you won it, you got 200. That would make it worth it potentially. I’m not the smartest guy in the room, so I’m not going to pretend to figure unfuck that thing, but
JR Howell (20:44):
I will say I am, since they’re not going to do it exactly as written since Dave has pretty much said that there are unknown details and there’s twisted. Well, it’s not a very detailed thing. There’s one thing, there’s one movement, there’s a weight and a height and that’s really it. So I am excited to see what the variation is.
Taylor self (21:04):
This is a good idea. The pig on its side is 20 inches.
JR Howell (21:09):
It is.
Taylor self (21:10):
So that would be cool. A hundred step ups, two flips or one flip on the minute. I don’t know. Every minute you do a particular flip and you step up that, I mean
JR Howell (21:27):
It’s almost like a death buy.
Taylor self (21:30):
That would be cool. That would be very, very, very cool. What if that is it? Could you see them doing something like that?
JR Howell (21:42):
I don’t think they’re going to have that. Dave said on one of the interviews, and I’m going to allude to this a lot, and I don’t remember which one. I think Ricky asked him, are you thinking we’re going to go all in one heat, guys and girls? And he said, I’m not sure. I think we might have to split into two heats male and female. So no, I do not. Do not think they have 40 pigs of each weight. No,
Taylor self (22:09):
They had what, 10 last year? They definitely have 40 of each weight. Dude. I mean maybe that’s not the actual event. I’m curious.
JR Howell (22:19):
I’m just thinking logistically too, and a lot of people have said surely they’re not going to do that as a Friday night Lights. I actually think that that might be the Friday
Taylor self (22:27):
Night. I thought it was. I’m pretty sure one of the Friday night events is a benchmark benchmark because remember he was interviewing Hatfield. Who that?
JR Howell (22:35):
Oh,
Taylor self (22:35):
Okay. He was interviewing Hatfield and Hatfield was talking about being good at the girls and then
JR Howell (22:40):
No, he said event one will be good for you.
Taylor self (22:42):
Oh, oh, okay. Okay. Interesting.
JR Howell (22:45):
And someone did ask him about when they were doing Chad and he said it’s not going to be the first event, but it’s in a place of the weekend where everyone will have to do it. So I would assume that it’s going to be either early Friday or late Thursday. But I mean that’s a lot of field. That’s a lot of space. I mean the football stadium seems like a, seems
Taylor self (23:06):
Like
JR Howell (23:06):
A place where they could execute. I hope they don’t, but I mean
Taylor self (23:09):
That’s not an event you want to do outside in Texas. I think if you’re actually taking the heat into consideration, doing that workout in the heat is like that’s the worst one you could do in the heat.
JR Howell (23:29):
The conversation goes. And I actually think does a really good job with the interviews of the games athlete stuff and there was a conversation he had with someone that the Marathon Row was brought up and this, he was talking about how they did the half marathon and then he did the marathon row before he programmed it and it was really upset because he didn’t go as hard as he should have and then he did it again and he said he really enjoyed that event, like watching it. I mean if he really enjoys watching a marathon row, a thousand step ups would be one of the things that would be more exciting. What I
Taylor self (24:04):
Think you have to understand or to give that enjoyment on Dave’s parts some context is he was a buds instructor and a big part of Buds is hell week and you’re watching these guys do a very long and grueling endurance event. That one hour or one 10 minute element in and of itself is not that exciting, but watching them drop and drop and you watch the thought of quitting, enter somebody’s mind and then this guy starts to think about quitting and then that person starts to back off and then the guys who are digging in and seeing that and feeding off it, you start to see that group start to separate. I think that kind of thing really excites Dave and that’s why he sees something like a marathon row as exciting or something like Chad exciting and I was thinking about this a lot.
(24:53):
It’s part of Dave’s background, obviously it’s incredibly noble and it takes a crazy amount of stones and fortitude to be in that line of work and to accomplish just even going through that school. But does that style of we’re going to give you an event that’s essentially just mentally not quitting. Does that have a place at the games? I do believe testing psychological tolerance has a place at the games, but before you comment 15 events over four days intensity in every single event it’s relative, but you are pushing yourself to the fucking limit. The person who wins over that weekend displays an unreal amount of psychological tolerance. You can still test it in one workout. I think that is not so boring to watch and potentially harmful to the athletes because it’s the CrossFit games. It’s a sport. It’s not a training camp designed to see who’s going to quit on the field of battle. These guys aren’t going to be overseas potentially dying next to each other. It’s not. That doesn’t matter. People’s lives aren’t at stake.
JR Howell (26:21):
Yeah, I see what you’re saying. You’re basically saying is there a line and where is it when it comes to just testing grit and finding ways to test grit that are not something as long and simple and potentially damaging due to the overuse of specific.
Taylor self (26:40):
Yeah. Listen, listen, it’s not boring and they all have plenty of time to condition their legs for it hurt the athlete’s. I know both of you guys have probably done, Chad, I’ve done it four times and I don’t think either of you understand the level that these athletes can push themselves to. And if I were doing Chad at the games, I wouldn’t be able to walk for a week. And it really fucking annoyed me when Dave talked about doing Chad. Oh, I’ve done it a number of times and every time I’ve done it, I’ve actually been okay. And that simply, Dave, is because you’re not fucking fit enough to go hard enough to make that workout fucking rape your asshole and neither are you extra sloppy and neither are you. Ca so shut the fuck up. Love you guys. But I just know this, if I were dying for points in that workout, I wouldn’t be walking for a week.
JR Howell (27:26):
Yeah, the question is like, hey, we can fatigue the legs, we can fatigue the calves, we can fatigue the low back in a lot of other different ways. And I mean the fact that those two guys said that they seem optimistic and positive about it, that they’re looking forward to it. That’s cool. I hope there’s a lot of other people that feel that way.
Taylor self (27:47):
I know there are a lot who aren’t
JR Howell (27:49):
Sure and I mean that’s cool. And after the debacle and quarterfinals, what’s the most Dave thing you could think of? It’s this.
Taylor self (27:58):
Andy
JR Howell (27:59):
Said it really is. It’s the most, oh really? You guys thought there was a problem with the step-Ups? Watch this. That’s the most CrossFit thing I could think of.
Taylor self (28:11):
Andy, Andy said this today, Jimmy, he’s like, you know, dude, since the beginning of CrossFit, it has been incredibly controversial, incredibly against the grain and it’s just so true to CrossFit’s nature to do something like this where it’s incredibly polarizing and I couldn’t agree more. And part of me can’t help but wonder if that’s just because Dave thinks fuck you. And I don’t know, who knows if he’ll ever admit why, if he’ll ever admit that. That’s a part of it. If it is, to me that signifies that you don’t have a place programming because there is no room for ego and fuck you, it should be, does this test find the fittest athlete on earth? Is that the absolute best test of fitness? Is it going to grow the sport? Part of growing the sport is making athletes want to fucking do it. Dude, kids grow up dreaming of throwing a fucking touchdown pass in the NFL.
(29:10):
Half of these athletes around the world are not thinking awesome. They’re doing Chad. They’re thinking, what the fuck? And I’m not saying that in and of itself is why it shouldn’t be programmed, but that just seems unnecessary. It seems unnecessary to program a workout that every, or not everyone even, but even half the athletes hate. Think about at Atlanta, dumbest fucking workout ever as a final. So stupid and half of the field at the games didn’t try. They did not fucking try. Why you program a workout that half the people aren’t going to fucking try? That kind of thing to me is a massive miss. And I’ll finish with this. This is the last hard line fucking approach I’m going to take. When you say something like, I need.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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