#407 – Torian Pro Event 1 & 2 with Andrew Hiller, Taylor Self, and J.R. Howell

Taylor Self (00:00):

I have, uh, a MacBook air. So

Sevan Matossian (00:03):

That’s why bam we’re live.

Andrew Hiller (00:04):

Yo,

Sevan Matossian (00:05):

Hey, before we start the show, I wanna say something that I’m SuperDuper excited about. Uh, in 2012, we started a series called, uh, killing the fat man in season. One was a story about Gary Roberts losing, uh, going from basically almost 300 pounds. I’m gonna say 2 60, 2 70, maybe two 80. I’m not sure, uh, down to a 200 pound man, uh, maybe even less. I think he went down to 1 98. Then we did a season two. These were the two most popular series CrossFit ever has run that are non-game related over a million views. On episode one, 10 years later, Gary Roberts, uh, is going to embark on killing the fat man. Season three, he got his blood work done a couple days ago. He started shooting episode one and, uh, and I suspect them that they’re gonna be some issues. He’s 50 years old now. And, uh, he’s working with California hormones and this is gonna be a year long series. And I think we are gonna see some amazing results that, um, will even make Andrew Hiller, uh, jealous.

Andrew Hiller (01:05):

Are we gonna be able to see the blood work?

Sevan Matossian (01:07):

Uh, we’ll see it all. We’ll see it all.

Andrew Hiller (01:10):

That’s gonna be cool.

Sevan Matossian (01:11):

Uh, Taylor, uh, self is here. Um, there’s a dude wandering around with PLA on, looks like the uni bombers here. The sweaty Jr. Howell is here

Andrew Hiller (01:21):

Jr. We haven’t met before. Hey, nice to meet you dude.

Sevan Matossian (01:26):

And Andrew Hill is here. We don’t have anyone running the back end today. Uh, so I apologize, but Taylor is becoming quite proficient at stream yard. Holy cow. I betcha. There’s not a lot of people who’ve watched in the world. Who’ve watched what we’ve watched. We had to get up, really stay up really late and get up really early to, uh, participate in this show. I

Taylor Self (01:44):

Was up at 4 55.

Sevan Matossian (01:46):

Yeah, I was up at four.

Andrew Hiller (01:48):

Yeah. I got up at six, but I stayed up till one. Wow.

Sevan Matossian (01:51):

Wow. Yeah.

Andrew Hiller (01:53):

Just trying to catch up. I fell asleep, like watching one of the box, jump over things. I woke up. I’m like, oh shit. Who won? <laugh>

Sevan Matossian (02:00):

Um, are, are you gonna, do we have anyone who can bring the schedule up? Are you gonna do that stuff, Taylor at all by any

Taylor Self (02:05):

Chance? Um, so I don’t have, I don’t have the schedule up on my screen. Let me, the only things I have pulled up on the back end, I guess I can, I can find it. Let me grab it from my, uh, phone

Sevan Matossian (02:15):

And oh, here and I also, I thought I left it in the other room. I, I have it, uh, at least here in front of me. So guys, uh, as we start to get organized here, uh, you, you have to thank Taylor self for this show to even exist, um, today, uh, or his injury. He was injured. Um,

Taylor Self (02:33):

Thanks.

Sevan Matossian (02:34):

I, I, I wanna say, I wanna say if I remember the story, right, like nine months ago, but it got pretty serious in this last couple weeks and he had to pull out and he could not participate. You did qual qualify for the semifinals, correct?

Taylor Self (02:46):

Yeah, I would. Yeah.

Sevan Matossian (02:47):

And then, and then you weren’t able to, um, participate. Uh, so he has just, um, done what any man does with a strong pathology. He’s trying to focus that energy elsewhere and he’s really dove into, uh, covering this and he’s brought in his buddy, um, Jr. Howell and Jr. You own, uh, CrossFit crash.

J.R. Howell (03:07):

Correct.

Sevan Matossian (03:10):

Uh, and we have day one under our belt, which, uh, which kind of, which is weird,

Andrew Hiller (03:15):

Not entirely right?

Sevan Matossian (03:16):

No, not so sorry. Thank you. Uh, not entirely. We have the, we have, uh, is it done though in Australia is day one done in Australia?

Andrew Hiller (03:23):

It’s done in Australia. Yeah.

Taylor Self (03:24):

In Australia, but not in, uh, Amster lowlands.

Sevan Matossian (03:28):

Okay. So in this show, we will be talking about, um, uh, individual events, one, uh, and individual of individual events, two in Australia at auditorium pro and individual event one and lowlands. And for the first time I kind of saw what a bunch of you guys were saying, the importance of Having unified events

Taylor Self (03:54):

Of oh, of, uh, of

Sevan Matossian (03:56):

Just, it would just be so nice. It, it would really help if, if all the events were the same, they all happened in the same order, even if just the, the two events that CrossFit mandated happened in the same order, it would be awesome. Cool. Like, Hey, that has to be three and six. I mean, it is, uh, it’s a little, um, when you have, when you have two semifinals going on at the same time, and we’re gonna have three semifinals going on at the same time, it’s always a little jarring to me. When I look at event one and all the event, ones are different.

Andrew Hiller (04:23):

We know how easily confused you are though. Right,

Sevan Matossian (04:25):

Right. That, and that is true.

Taylor Self (04:27):

But I like that. I like that too, because you get, just see how in Australia attor, Victorian, they do that king Arthur event. One, which just fucking thrashes everyone’s legs. And then Ricky garage still goes out and puts up a time that’s faster than any of the men at lowland, which is, you know, that’s cool. But you would like to see maybe how fast you would’ve gone without that first event.

J.R. Howell (04:46):

Um, and they go to 15 feet there.

Taylor Self (04:49):

I think they go to 15 feet everywhere. Look,

J.R. Howell (04:51):

They, it looked taller. It looked taller and Torian than it did at the, with the blue CrossFit rigs, 13 or 13 and a half.

Taylor Self (04:59):

Yeah, I know. Wow. Lowlands also they’re all 15, I believe is what

Andrew Hiller (05:03):

They look like. I agree. It did look higher. It’d just be really hard to believe that it was different Heights. You, I wouldn’t be able to believe that that’d be so messed up. <laugh> get out.

Sevan Matossian (05:12):

And that’s coming from Andrew and that’s coming from Andrew Hiller. Um, do you have any confirmation on that? How do you have, has anyone said that

Taylor Self (05:19):

To you? Well, there are a couple things go Jr.

J.R. Howell (05:22):

You can just kind of count the number of pulls, especially with the males. And when you watch the Torian legless thruster event, it didn’t look like the 1, 2, 3 touch, like it did in the individual events for, um, like for lowlands, for example,

Taylor Self (05:37):

I actually have an ex I have an exception to that on the, on the Torian side. But, but I do think they’re all 15 feet watching all of the heats. I think, I think at lowlands and Victorian, they both look to be at least a lot higher than they were in 2014. For sure.

Sevan Matossian (05:52):

Did that event have a name?

Taylor Self (05:55):

Uh, 25th, 2014 regional event five.

Sevan Matossian (05:58):

Okay. Uh, and, and, and as you were saying about Ricky Gerard, one of the things that’s developed with him, um, is that, uh, we found out in his post interview that he had been vomiting all morning and not able to keep food down. He does say he’s better now. I don’t know if I believe him. I don’t know if he’s just saying that. Cuz you have to say that as an athlete, like he’s trying to convince himself, but uh, he looked destroyed after the first

Taylor Self (06:22):

Workout. I would believe he’s better because the next workout takes a lot of power and he won it. So I would believe he’s probably doing okay.

Sevan Matossian (06:31):

Um, where, where do you wanna start? Do you wanna start with, uh, Torian pro um, indivi. I wanna say this also about the coverage. Uh, last night people started bombing me with text telling me how horrible the coverage is. I didn’t see anything wrong with the coverage. I watched all the final heats at, at Torian and I watched all the final heats at lowland. I thought the commentating was fine and I thought the coverage was fine. Do you guys have any people

Andrew Hiller (06:50):

Just like to throw out the negativity at you? Huh? I know that’s

Sevan Matossian (06:54):

Negative people

Andrew Hiller (06:55):

Filter

Sevan Matossian (06:55):

It also may. It also may have been a lesser coverage prior to the individuals coming out. You know what I mean? They may had the be cameras and the B team.

Taylor Self (07:03):

I think I like the coverage so far, especially the camera angles. Yeah. I thought the cameras were awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Hiller (07:09):

I agree. I thought they were pretty good as well with the exception of maybe the first heat, which was always the case. Like the first heat to every event were always not the

Taylor Self (07:16):

Best they throw it, kinda, they iron out the, the wrinkles and heat

Andrew Hiller (07:20):

One they’re warming up

Sevan Matossian (07:22):

And Caleb you’re over at syndicate and, and nothing’s happened over there yet, right?

Taylor Self (07:29):

Nope. We won’t start for another couple hours. I don’t think.

Sevan Matossian (07:31):

Okay. Uh, so, so should we start with Torian? Um, yeah. Uh, Taylor, uh, individual event. Uh, one. Yeah, Which was, uh, that was the king Arthur, right?

Taylor Self (07:41):

Yeah. It started with 15 overhead squats at 1 55 and one 15 for the ladies, which I like a lot. And then it went into 15 burpy box, jump overs at a standard height. Then they went to 15 axle bar thrusters at 1 35 95. I believe I might be off a little bit, but somewhere in the ballpark. Um, and then they moved on to 15 power cleans at 2 0 5, 1 45, um, 15 ring muscle ups, 1500 meter run. And then back down to pyramid, 15 cleans, power cleans, 15 thrusters, 15 burpy box jump overs. And then finally 15 overhead squats. And it looked like a brutal workout for a lot of guys, except for,

Andrew Hiller (08:24):

I think you were off by a couple pounds on all of those <laugh> cause, cause they’re all on kilos, but you’re you’re, you’re like right there. I just don’t know what the conversion

Taylor Self (08:31):

Was. Kilos. It looks like a brutal. You’re good though. It looks like a brutal workout except for one dude Baen brown looked like he just, he beat the next closest male by a minute and 35 seconds.

Sevan Matossian (08:43):

Wow.

Andrew Hiller (08:44):

Wow. It did look terrible.

Taylor Self (08:46):

He fucking annihilated everyone. And he, I just think he out of at least Oceana, he has the ability to hurt worse than anybody else. And it’s not even close

Andrew Hiller (08:55):

Taylor. What sense of that workout? Do you get watching it? Cause you could’ve been there. You could like with, with your fitness level and everything, except for your knee. You could’ve been there competing right now. Yeah. I mean, it would’ve been, it was some semifinal somewhere, but with you’re watching the semifinal event, so you, how would I be doing right now watching this?

Taylor Self (09:12):

I see

Andrew Hiller (09:13):

If I got a little bit of that. I’m just curious what you thought.

Taylor Self (09:15):

I think this is a, is a pretty good workout for me. Um, just because I’m really good at overhead squats, power cleans. I’m okay at thrusters. Um,

Andrew Hiller (09:25):

But it’s oh the run too though.

Taylor Self (09:27):

I’m a really, really good runner and a really good at bird box shop boaters. And the long time domain suits me, I, I feel like the workout starts after the first set of muscle ups. And you can see the guys who will push the run and then you can see the guys who can push the run and then come back and stay with big sets or unbroken on the second set of muscle ups. Um, and then again, I think a lot of time can be made or lost on the power cleans cuz everyone’s going singles and then the burpee box jump overs again. And I think those two places are predominantly where a lot of the time was made. Um, with the exception of a couple people on the overhead squats,

Andrew Hiller (10:05):

I just couldn’t believe how devastated some of these people looked like even on the burpee box, jump overs on the back end and then especially watching Ricky not be able to finish the overhead squats at the 1 55 bar.

Taylor Self (10:14):

I wanna about that. Yeah.

Andrew Hiller (10:16):

You wanna talk about an now or later?

Taylor Self (10:18):

Let’s talk about it now. So I’m gonna go ahead and share the screen and we can watch this. I had Brian friend, you know, kind of reach out and say, I don’t think that’s why he was struggling. And then Ricky came out and talked about his, uh,

Sevan Matossian (10:29):

Vomiting,

Taylor Self (10:30):

Vomiting. Hey, can I share, who’s got this up.

Sevan Matossian (10:34):

Uh oh, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. This right here.

Taylor Self (10:38):

Yeah. Here we go. All right. So anyways talks about, you know, he had nerves, vomiting and whatnot, but I want to focus on his overhead squat cuz that’s really where he lost the workout. You know, he gets to the overhead squat second behind Baen brown to that point in the workout. He didn’t have a fucking chance of catching him to begin with he Baen brown. Baen brown was 40 seconds ahead of him off the run and then just absolutely annihilated the thrusters and the power cleans. And we could go back on the thrusters and see this same issue. Um, but I noticed let’s press play. I’ll turn the volume down a little bit. Um, so we got Ricky here he is. He’s coming into, uh, how do I, okay. This is pretty big. He’s coming into his overhead squats and I want you guys to just watch his toes. All right. So he fails his first rep one. That’s not, that’s not a food issue, unfortunately for him. Uh, and I’m not shitting on the guy. I just think that if Ricky watches this, he’s got the easiest way in the world to get a minute fitter. So

Sevan Matossian (11:37):

His midline looks a little wobbly there, buddy

Taylor Self (11:39):

Watches, heels, watches, heels. It’s not the midline heels off the ground, steps back toes heels off the ground again.

Sevan Matossian (11:50):

So you’re just saying he’s he’s coming forward. He doesn’t he’s squat.

Taylor Self (11:53):

He, yeah, he comes forward in all his squatting and it’s not the worst shift in the world. But at the same time when your overhead squatting and your heels are coming off the floor, it makes things pretty hard. Your bar’s bouncing all over the place. Now watch Bailey Martin sitting into his hips. Heels are standing on the floor, his feet look flat, and then just watch how much of Ricky’s weight shifts forward in the bottom of a squat. It’s subtle, but it’s an overhead squat. You can’t do that when you’re overhead squat. And he drops the bar, he says, fuck. Cause he knows he’s fit. He knows he is fit, but he’s struggling with the squat. So he is going to,

Andrew Hiller (12:24):

You wanna know what I think

Taylor Self (12:25):

What’s up?

Andrew Hiller (12:26):

I think, I think he went from the burpee, which was pressing from the thruster, which was pressing from the muscle up, which was pressing and everything on the front of him is all wound up so much that the bar is pulling him forward. So you’re seeing him in his toes.

Taylor Self (12:39):

Well, let’s watch this thruster too.

Andrew Hiller (12:41):

See it with a lot of people, actually they’re all dropping it forward. Like that

Sevan Matossian (12:45):

Crouch looked amazing by the way we

Taylor Self (12:47):

Want, do we, do we wanna watch him finish this? Or we wanna go back to the thruster and watching toy there

Sevan Matossian (12:50):

Either way. Yeah. Oh,

Andrew Hiller (12:52):

Is toy there as well?

Taylor Self (12:53):

He’s toy on the yeah. So let see.

Andrew Hiller (12:57):

He’s always had the interesting squat

Taylor Self (12:59):

He’s got, he’s got, he just shifts so much into his heels. Um,

J.R. Howell (13:05):

He’s got a pretty narrow stance and he is got super mobile ankles, which doesn’t help

Taylor Self (13:09):

Cause no, he can, he can get away with a lot. Um,

Sevan Matossian (13:14):

It does or doesn’t help Jr.

Taylor Self (13:17):

Well, it helps a squat, but it doesn’t help him in terms of needing to rely on technique. It can rely on mobility to get away with some stuff.

Sevan Matossian (13:24):

Okay. Alright.

Taylor Self (13:25):

So, all right. So

Sevan Matossian (13:26):

I wanna throw one thing out there while you try to find this, uh, you guys were talking about how great, uh, Baden brown, uh, did in event one and event two, he took 20th, which has already knocked him down to seventh place. And that really lets you know that there is no room for the, that kind of stuff here. Oh no, no room at, at, at, at the semifinal. So you have Jay crouch choosing first with the third and second you have Bailey Martin with the second and third. Wow. And Ricky Gerard with the sixth and first Matt McLeod with the fourth and seventh and Roy dun with the seventh and fifth. And once you start getting squirrly and you start getting, um, uh, finishes in 20th, then you, you you’ve lost control of your own destiny and you have to have other guys that screw up. There’s only six workouts. We’re 33% of the way through the, uh, semifinals already in Australia.

Taylor Self (14:10):

So did you see that Andrew in those thrusters?

Andrew Hiller (14:13):

Sorry. No, I was looking at the leaderboard. What,

Sevan Matossian (14:15):

What? No, he was listening to me, Taylor. He was listening

Andrew Hiller (14:17):

To, I was also listening to some yeah.

Sevan Matossian (14:21):

If I can get Jr to smile on this podcast, I would be extremely happy.

J.R. Howell (14:25):

It’s gonna happen.

Taylor Self (14:26):

Okay, good. So he coming up?

Andrew Hiller (14:29):

Oh yeah. I do see. Okay. Yeah. So you saying he’s been doing it, you’re saying it’s something up with his position in general.

Taylor Self (14:35):

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think he’s just a, a toy squatter and that’s

Andrew Hiller (14:39):

Yeah.

Taylor Self (14:40):

Where I think it’s just, you can’t have a bad overhead squat or an, or an inefficient overhead squat and do well. So I think he spends a couple weeks working on his squat and just simply sitting into his heels and that’s maybe 30 seconds to a minute faster in that workout.

Andrew Hiller (14:53):

I hope he watches this and he uses this information. He goes, thank you, Taylor self. I just won the CrossFit

Sevan Matossian (14:59):

Games. No he’s gonna contact Taylor and ask for, uh, online coaching, online

Andrew Hiller (15:02):

Coaching.

Taylor Self (15:04):

He’s probably DM. And tell me to shut the fuck up.

Andrew Hiller (15:08):

Quit. Talk about my squad.

Sevan Matossian (15:10):

Uh, Colin, Lawrence. Wow. This is where Ricky fucked himself. If he would’ve been a good dude and not cheated a bunch of people would’ve fixed that. Geez. Colin. He’s not a cheater. He’s a good dude.

Andrew Hiller (15:20):

So look

Taylor Self (15:22):

He,

Andrew Hiller (15:24):

Are you familiar with Bailey Martin? He was in, uh, heat number three, I believe.

Taylor Self (15:28):

Yep. Now I wanna show you his rope climbs when you’re done.

Andrew Hiller (15:32):

Okay. When, when I’m done, what? Well, I believe he was in the same heat as Roy Dunn. If I’m not, I, I, cause I’ve never heard of him before.

Taylor Self (15:40):

No, he was in the final heat.

Andrew Hiller (15:42):

He was in the final. Was he in the final heat? Okay. Then I’m speaking of the wrong individual and let’s carry on may. Maybe it was uh, no, it was just somebody who was going head to head against Roy Dunn block. Yeah. It was a younger, it was, was a younger guy, guy just looking, looking at the two of you. Would’ve had no idea that they were in the same league of fitness, but this guy was blowing Roy outta the Yes I Reese. Michelle who? Uh, yes I am Reese. Michelle.

Taylor Self (16:07):

He doesn’t have any apps at least in the video.

Andrew Hiller (16:09):

Well, no, he, he looks, I don’t know. He looks like he’s an in shape affiliate member, but he’s just blowing Roy Stone outta the water who looks like he’s put out

Sevan Matossian (16:16):

<laugh>

Andrew Hiller (16:17):

It was pretty awesome. I was watching like this guy’s the fucking man.

Taylor Self (16:20):

I kinda look awesome.

Sevan Matossian (16:21):

It’s wait, what’s the guy’s name? Say it again. Reese.

Taylor Self (16:24):

Michelle. R R E E S.

Sevan Matossian (16:27):

Okay. It’s a dude who has two girls names. He’s in eighth place right now. Okay.

Andrew Hiller (16:30):

Yeah. He took faith on that event. I, I remember he beat Roy. So that makes sense. That’s the name, correct?

Taylor Self (16:34):

Yes. Yep. Reese Michelle. So we were talking about the rope climbs being at 15 feet and, and at Torian and at lowlands, I, I’m very, very confident that they are, um, extremely confident. So, but I wanna, I wanna point out Bailey. Martin’s kind of one of the guys that Brian’s been saying to keep an eye out for. And I noticed this on his leg list and was just blown away that he can get up the rope in two poles at a touch to a 15 foot target. Watch that

Sevan Matossian (17:03):

15. And, and who is this again? Taylor? Uh,

Taylor Self (17:05):

The green shirt. You’ll see this guy, green shirt, green shirt on the left jump one, two touch. Did everybody see that?

Sevan Matossian (17:17):

Yeah, that’s little stuttery, but I saw it. Yep.

Taylor Self (17:20):

Let me go again. This is nuts. Look

Sevan Matossian (17:23):

At this. We don’t know his name.

Taylor Self (17:25):

This is Bailey Martin jump one, two touch.

J.R. Howell (17:28):

Yeah, dude. I, I don’t know, man. I think the cut rope may be kind of messing with us a little bit because I’m six one and I can jump that high and take two poles and still need one more to touch 15.

Taylor Self (17:40):

Maybe, maybe it’s not quite.

J.R. Howell (17:43):

I still think it’s the same rigs they’ve used at all the regionals and semifinals forever. I think it’s, I think it might be that cut rope. That’s kind of throwing us off a little bit.

Taylor Self (17:52):

Gosh,

Sevan Matossian (17:52):

I, oh, you weren’t suggesting that that rig was low. That rope was shorter. Were you Taylor right there? You’re just saying how amazing he is.

Taylor Self (17:57):

Yeah, I was thinking

Andrew Hiller (17:58):

That’s what I thought.

Taylor Self (17:59):

Yeah. I think that’s, that’s what I was saying. I, I, man, I really think this is a 50 foot rope cuz most of these guys are taking, you

J.R. Howell (18:06):

Know how tall he is?

Taylor Self (18:07):

He’s five, nine. I looked it up. Yeah.

J.R. Howell (18:09):

Yeah. I don’t think, I don’t think that’s two poles to 15.

Taylor Self (18:12):

Well, this next one is watch.

Sevan Matossian (18:13):

Oh, I see what you’re

Taylor Self (18:14):

Saying. One, two touch. I think, I think it is. I don’t know, man. He just takes

Andrew Hiller (18:20):

It’s entirely possible. Some people are just much better. The legless rope line making the rope appear shorter three. I, I couldn’t believe that the, some of the ropes are shorter. There’s no way. There’s no way they

Taylor Self (18:29):

Would be doing that. This 1, 2, 3. Yeah. He’s struggling. I mean, he’s really reaching, like he’s reaching hard.

Andrew Hiller (18:39):

All right. We need to get, uh, one of the members of the team to the Torian and measure the ropes before they down.

Sevan Matossian (18:45):

I, I, I wanna say that they would absolutely tell us that,

Taylor Self (18:49):

But yeah, they wouldn’t say 15 feet of one. I don’t

Sevan Matossian (18:51):

Believe, but they, they have to be, but man anything’s possible. Yeah, exactly. Mr butter. Yeah. I totally agree. Richard, anything, anything is possible at this point, but it, but it really doesn’t matter. Right? If the rope is shorter because we’re not comparing necessarily, we’re still gonna get the right guy. Yeah. Yeah. In terms of it’s it’s even amongst those guys who are competing there, they’re not competing against the guys at the other regionals or the other sanctions or the other semifinals. Geez. Correct.

Taylor Self (19:19):

I think it’s fine. Yeah.

Andrew Hiller (19:20):

How do you feel about everyone finishing close to three minutes and it’s the repeat workout.

Taylor Self (19:26):

Yeah. I mean, I knew that was gonna, I knew that was gonna happen. It’s

Sevan Matossian (19:30):

Jr. Why don’t you like that? I really liked that workout. I had fun watching it. Why didn’t you like it?

J.R. Howell (19:35):

I think it’s fun to watch, but I think it’s more of an appropriate test for the women now in 2022 and not for the men. I think they should have, I think they should have done 15 rounds of the same workout or they should have done two climbs every time.

Sevan Matossian (19:47):

Wow. 15. Would’ve been amazing. So we get some people kind of failing like we did with the women. We need a couple people failing the road climbs towards the end there. Yes.

J.R. Howell (19:53):

Yeah. I just think that when the workout was originally written, it was written for the reason of seeing who’s a good legless road climber or more importantly to see who maybe can’t do them and who blows up. And when the test now is just about who can run faster and who can descend the rope, the fastest, the test is not what it was originally created for. Therefore I think it should be progressed.

Sevan Matossian (20:13):

I like it Hiller.

Andrew Hiller (20:15):

I do think that in 2014 they should have run it the way they ran it this year without moving the chess pieces because watching them do the run shuttle run style came across a little bit more cool. If you will just like going down and back, there were hauling ass. That was nice to watch. It was much more entertaining than it was to watch. And like, oh, here, we’re gonna move this chess piece. And now we’re gonna basically shuffle step down to the rope and oh look how high you can jump and think it’s in a shuffle step. Not take it on easy, but it was just kind of boring compared to this year, which was better. Not saying they should have repeated it. Cause I still don’t think they should have, but it was more fun to watch.

Sevan Matossian (20:48):

I agree. What a great observation that is. I totally agree. Normally I would that you would think no, the chess pieces are vital to the fact so we know who’s in the lead, but I think the commentators did a great job. Yeah. Well,

Andrew Hiller (20:58):

Cause it’s so short. You don’t want, because you’re short. It was kind of a waste of time having the athletes move them.

Sevan Matossian (21:03):

And it was obvious who was in the lead because of that. It was like you’re saying it was so short that everyone was staying together. So unless you last someone,

Andrew Hiller (21:10):

We had another judge moving the Che piece forward.

Sevan Matossian (21:12):

Yeah. Oh, right, right, right. Right. One more thing for the judges to do. I mean, one more thing for Hillary to judge the judges on

Andrew Hiller (21:20):

How, how many, how many, no reps have you guys seen thus far? None. None. None of the judges didn’t call. Um, good. <laugh> good. Uh, it’ll be a surprise then.

Sevan Matossian (21:33):

Uh, this is the guy, uh, Reese, Michelle that is competing in, uh, at the auditorium pro that Andrew Hiller described as a guy who looks like he just a fit guy at an affiliate.

Andrew Hiller (21:45):

I’m not trying to fuck him up here, but it was I’m saying it

Sevan Matossian (21:47):

Was awesome. You’re not trying. You did fuck him up. You did

Andrew Hiller (21:50):

Damn it. Sorry. No. What needs to be done is we have to go to the event where he is standing next to Royce. Cause it not so much his physique. It was his physique next to Royce’s physique. And Roy is just, he’s freaking huge. He’s like two 20 and 10% body fat. Yeah. Giant shoulders. It’s mostly like his hip area. He’s not like the world’s biggest S

Sevan Matossian (22:13):

<laugh> look at he. This guy’s a dad too. That’s a, that’s a, that’s a dad Bo you’re seeing

Andrew Hiller (22:19):

He’s he should change his Instagram name to dad. Bod xFi or something like that. Yeah.

Sevan Matossian (22:24):

For this dad in the world.

Andrew Hiller (22:26):

Yeah. He he’s he’s the man. It was awesome. Watching him be down Royce. Not that I don’t like Royce either. It was just, you know, it’s just fun to watch

Sevan Matossian (22:34):

Caleb. What are you doing? Are you just hanging out or what’s up? What’s up? Yeah. I

Andrew Hiller (22:37):

Was just helping out

Sevan Matossian (22:38):

A little bit. Oh, you’re good. Okay. Good. Okay. You’re good, dude. You’re good dude. Alright. Okay. I, I didn’t know if you needed, like you wanted me to do something. Okay. Good. All right. Uh, I really liked overall. I really like the workout. Uh, and I totally agree with, uh, what Mr. Howell is saying. It, it was actually fun, um, to not to get too far ahead of us, but in lowlands to watch lower Hove, uh, come out and just destroy the workout. And then in the 10th round, start to struggle on the rope climb. They, you start seeing them kind of like doing that hanging thing. I mean, I remember that in Del Mars and that was the funnest thing to watch is people get so close and then you just see just fingers peeling off one by one and then the crashing. It, it is a pretty cool thing as a fan to watch.

Andrew Hiller (23:18):

I thought you were about to talk about that giant Kip swing that the females almost automatically go to. That drives me insane. Well,

Sevan Matossian (23:24):

Oh, why I, I, I was, I was kind of, I took notes on that and I was talking about how that that’s the athleticism that we’re seeing. No.

Andrew Hiller (23:32):

Yeah. So the, for the same issue, I see a lot of the females really driving away from the rings and not hitting the lockup. I see it as a lack of upper body pressing endurance on the ring muscle up. So they kind of move away from the lockout. So they don’t have to waste the muscles on their like pressing chest, shoulders, triceps, whatever. I see the same thing on the mu or the, the rope line, the Lego that is when a female knows that she’s gonna struggle with it. And she doesn’t have the upper body pulling capacity to get up a rope leg. And she knows she’s gotta do 10 of them. She’s like, okay, well, how am I gonna do it? I’m gonna start tipping immediately. And it’s almost like it removes the upper body polling. And it’s like, okay, grip, strength slash pull. And I guess you get the same argument that tipping ups do the exact same thing. I just think that I was watching this and thinking about Taylor’s workout. That was the pegboard workout where you’re unable to do that sort of thing, which would’ve made a better test of upper body pulling endurance,

Sevan Matossian (24:23):

But there, they put their feet on the wall.

Taylor Self (24:26):

Yeah. And I also think on a peg board, you can still use your legs to a really high degree and you can see the difference in people who know how to do that. And don’t

Andrew Hiller (24:34):

Correct. Okay. Fuck. Thank you. They

Sevan Matossian (24:37):

Did. But, uh, and they also did have that rule, um, that you can’t pinch the rope with your thighs on even your thighs on the way down. I mean, they’re pretty, they’re be strict about that. What do you think about that Jr? I, I like the, um, I like the swinging,

J.R. Howell (24:53):

Uh,

Andrew Hiller (24:55):

Oh,

Sevan Matossian (24:56):

And let’s say, and let’s say Hiller, doesn’t like the Kip. Um, how would you even stop that?

J.R. Howell (25:01):

Here’s the issue, right? Is the athlete limited by upper body pulling endurance? Are they limited by grip endurance? The catch 22 is if they’re limited by pulling endurance and they go to the Kip to use more hips, they’re actually increasing way exponentially the amount of time they’re, which is just gonna blow their grip up more. So instead of pull release, pull release, pull release, both hands are on the rope almost the entire time for longer, just to take one, pull at a time versus faster, more aggressive pulling.

Andrew Hiller (25:37):

I’ll admit it was me being finicky. For sure. It’s just like a personal thing with me that I hate seeing females automatically go to it. Like if it’s the last couple role plans and you’re trying to get up there. Yeah. And you gotta implement that kit, then it’s okay. But I almost always think right away is the issue with the testing in the beginning. It’s like if you’re testing upper body pulling, like eliminate the fact that they can Kip, and I know that they’re going to do what they can do because it’s allowed to tip. So I thought the pegboard was better. I wanna, you can use your legs anyway.

Taylor Self (26:02):

Yeah, no, no, no, no. You’re right. I, I like the pegboards way harder on upper body pulling. I wanna see how GE my arrows does this workout. And if he does his fucking stupid butterfly kit, I hate that.

Andrew Hiller (26:15):

Yeah. You think he will, or you think that was just a cool gimmicky Instagram post

Taylor Self (26:20):

It’s it’s a lot slower, but I also don’t think he’s probably got too many people to worry about in Latin America. Um, so I don’t know. I mean, we will see, I thought,

Sevan Matossian (26:29):

What, what world record, um, time on this? That it’s, it was easy, right? It was,

Andrew Hiller (26:33):

I think it was three 30 by Jay Newberry.

Sevan Matossian (26:36):

Oh. But I mean previously,

Andrew Hiller (26:38):

Yeah. Three 30 by Newberry. It

Sevan Matossian (26:40):

Was that one was there might have

Andrew Hiller (26:42):

Been there at 3 29. But I think that what I had found was Newberry was the quickest, notable athlete time. But I think there may have been somebody in Europe who was 3 29, 3 28, but it was right there.

Sevan Matossian (26:55):

Uh, yeah, this isn’t, uh, legless, uh, pegboard. Is that even a thing? Yeah. Up until crossing.

Andrew Hiller (27:00):

I a do one right now.

Sevan Matossian (27:02):

I never, I’d never even seen anyone do use their feet on a pegboard until CrossFit, like all through high school and in college, I never saw anyone use their feet and then it, it, it it’s actually a CrossFit thing. Right. I mean, have you guys ever seen anyone use their feet before CrossFit?

Taylor Self (27:15):

No.

Andrew Hiller (27:16):

No.

Sevan Matossian (27:17):

Yeah.

Andrew Hiller (27:18):

Have you, have you seen the backwards pegboard? That was the big thing. When the pegboard first came out was everyone would doing ’em backwards and they’d be going up it this way.

Taylor Self (27:25):

Oh, wow. That’s crazy.

Sevan Matossian (27:26):

Yeah. All,

Andrew Hiller (27:28):

It was just a bunch of people doing like a bunch of stupid crap. It wasn’t like a real thing.

Taylor Self (27:32):

I think one, go ahead, Simon. What?

Sevan Matossian (27:34):

Uh, I was gonna go back to the king. Arthur.

Taylor Self (27:37):

Yeah.

Sevan Matossian (27:38):

Um, I

Taylor Self (27:39):

Have some layman’s notes on that.

Sevan Matossian (27:41):

Did you, what did you guys think about it before? And what did you think about it after? Um, watching it go?

Andrew Hiller (27:49):

I, like, I thought it looked a lot like the chipper at the 2013 games, that finale where there was the burpee ring muscle up at the end, it was the down and back one that thrown won. And then I think bridges did it in the season.

J.R. Howell (28:03):

I think it’s burpee bar

Taylor Self (28:04):

Muscle up in the middle.

Andrew Hiller (28:06):

No way. It was burpee ring muscle up at the games, the, one of the games where they had the overhead squad, the box jump overs, and maybe it was 2012, then that I’m thinking, cuz there was a finale where I know there was Bebe ring muscle up, like right in the middle of the chipper, it was the down portion. And then you came back, you went to the toes to bar and then you went to the power cleans that were at 2 0 5 and then there was the overhead squats. And then there was like an axle. There was also an axle bar thruster. So that, that it, it reminded me of that event, which made me kind of like it I’ve come out with a video today, which I’ll kind of get into that a bit.

Taylor Self (28:38):

<laugh>

Sevan Matossian (28:40):

Uh, Royce, um, Roy Dunn, uh, paced that one incredibly. And I, when I, when I watched him do that, I was like, okay, there’s the veteran. There’s a guy who just completely stayed in his own game. Um, which, which was pretty, which was pretty darn impressive. What place did he end up taking in that? Do we know?

Taylor Self (28:59):

I don’t know that. I agree with you. Savan

Sevan Matossian (29:01):

Okay. Tell me, tell me

Taylor Self (29:02):

He took seventh. He took his seventh. He

J.R. Howell (29:04):

Was also in the third heat. Which kinda, yeah.

Taylor Self (29:06):

Which, which heard him for sure. He was in the third heat and he won his heat. I think if he was in the final heat, he probably races a lot harder Royce. Yeah.

J.R. Howell (29:13):

No, he got beat by Michelle.

Andrew Hiller (29:15):

He did.

Taylor Self (29:16):

Oh, he did really,

Andrew Hiller (29:17):

Um, the event of the weekend. Oh,

Taylor Self (29:19):

You’re talking about sorry, king Arthur. I was talking about the legless rope climb. Yeah, no, I agree on king Arthur. He for sure. Looked like he paced a little bit, but I also think he looked wrecked on the burpees and I mean, he was just like, he was hands on knees after like every burpee for a few burpees and then picked it up a little bit. So I don’t know he paced, but I still think that workout really hurt.

J.R. Howell (29:43):

And Jake, I know if you guys even watched heat too, but James Newberry was actually in heat too, which is kind of a odd spot for him. And if you watch him perform that workout, everyone’s looking at him like what’s wrong with him? What’s wrong with him. He’s doing his first 15 BRS and sets of five. He looks like he’s in. No hurry. He’s the.

The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.

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