#432 – CrossFit Semifinals Week 3 | Preview with Ben Smith, Andrew Hiller, Taylor Self, and JR Howell

Sevan Matossian (00:00):

Yeah, bam. We’re live. Where’s Taylor late, late. Okay. Uh, it’s too bad. He’s gonna miss this genius. I’m uh, I wanna try something on you Jr. Hiller and Mr. Suza, uh, thought I had today while riding the assault bike last week, uh, by the way, welcome everyone to the, uh, semifinals preview show show week three, everyone knows who Andrew Hiller fit is former affiliate owner, and now, uh, YouTube friend, Matt sooner, O Matt sooner, Matt Suza, owner of CrossFit Livermore, executive producer of the show got me to get off my ass and stop playing with my kids to make some content and my newest friend to the group who I met through, uh, Brian friend, who could not stop talking about this guy for the last year and a half, uh, and friend close friends with, uh, and training partners with Jason Hopper and Taylor self and owner of CrossFit crash.

Sevan Matossian (00:50):

Dar how correct? Last week I was like, Hey man, we have a whole new group coming in. It’s like, it’s happening? We got James Sprague down pepper, Colton. Mertons like, it’s, it’s here. Mallow, Bryan. You know, it’s it’s, it’s here. We had some trickle in before them, you know, we got ha Adams, you know, I’d say she’s like, maybe like approaching the middle of her career, but we got this whole new herd of people are coming in. And, uh, and the other guys are getting old and washed up and byebye, but I wanna propose something else to you that I think may have happened.

Sevan Matossian (01:18):

We started with Fran. And when we started with Fran, there was only Fran. You just went to, um, oops. Oops. When, when we started with Fran, you just did, uh, you just did Fran. The first time you heard Fran, you just went out to your garage or you went to the global gym and you just did Fran. And that was it. And maybe it took you 17 minutes or whatever. You didn’t have a clock, whatever. Then finally, as you learn more about CrossFit, you know, the workouts are timed. You figure out what a thruster is and you do it as fast as you can. And you break 10 minutes, seven minutes, five minutes. And, and, and, and, and that, that was the next evolution for, for Fran. And we started seeing the Greg Ahmansons and Annie Sakamoto and Josh Everett, uh, Josh. Yeah, Josh Everetts doing these world class times.

Sevan Matossian (01:55):

And with that, we started seeing unbroken Fran, right? And it was unbroken Fran. And then we saw bar placement. How close can you get your bar to the pool bar, faster Fran, faster Fran. Then we got butterfly Fran. Now we’re now just world class speeds. Then we get Miko Salo. And I don’t know if he’s the innovator of it, but we have someone pulling the bar down. We have someone pulling the bar down, not gravity, pulling the bar down to even get off those extra minutes. So we have innovation, we have nuance, we have evolution. Then we have chest to bar Fran, and then we have heavy Fran. And now the athletes are getting even stronger. And as you put those forces on them, it causes adaptations, which makes their original Fran even faster.

Sevan Matossian (02:42):

We’re seeing something like that happen. I think I would speculate. I would offer to you. We are seeing the newest innovation. And I think we’re seeing it with people like sax and pan, where chick, where this is actually a race. Now you could, you could, you could, um, I would even say I was, I was playing around with it’s the year of transitions. There are no transitions anymore. It’s a race. It’s just, it’s just one giant fluid. You just go from breaststroke to freestyle, to backstroke. There’s no transition. There’s nothing. It’s who, who can find that red line and hang out there. And just the transition is just part of the workout. We’re seeing these people who are just, it. It’s this, it’s this new group. And we’re seeing those innovations from col Mertons and the Barnes in Iowa. We’re, we’re, we’re seeing them come out of the mayhem empire. Um, we’re, we’re seeing them everywhere. Maybe Matt Fraser invented them all in the last five years, Tia toing, and everyone’s watching closely, but, but I’m speculating. Something is changing and we’re watching it happen. Uh, now with this new group

Andrew Hiller (03:44):

And rent

Sevan Matossian (03:46):

And of rent,

Andrew Hiller (03:47):

You got more, what, what else he got?

Sevan Matossian (03:49):

That’s it?

Andrew Hiller (03:50):

I just, did you listen to Ben Smith podcast? Is he coming?

Sevan Matossian (03:52):

I did not. No, no. I invited Ben on though. Today. He said he’s training someone, but, but I told him he can pop in any times. What, what, what are you seeing? What are you

Andrew Hiller (04:00):

Saying that he, he covered this right in the middle of his podcast, which was about an hour, right in the middle there. He was talking about how you see that it’s a race, but he sees that the programming is shit. He doesn’t say that exact same thing. He sees an issue with the programming and he sees that year after year, there was innovation within the programming that would almost limit the athletes to an extent and present day. It almost looks like before we were on, we were talking about one of these competitions and one of these workouts, and how Suza said it’s looks like something that he would throw into is affiliate. And part of the thing that happens at the games at the semifinals level, in my opinion, is that there’s another level to it. And some people might think that it’s heavier and that I think Taylor brought up somewhere that it was possibly, it should have been a peg board as sent like that it was at the games and then it filters down into the semifinals or the regionals.

Andrew Hiller (04:51):

And that’s what Ben Smith was trying to say, that there needs to be some sort of an evolution of the programming, which will almost make part of not the entire thing. Cuz there should be racing aspects of it. But part of the race should be how good you are at certain things. Whether it be like Parlet handstand pushups or large numbers of muscle ups or weighted muscle ups, that sort of deal. And he, he talks largely and I just made an entire video, which is why I could talk so deep into this, about how that’s one of the biggest things make missing in competition right now. What do you think? Is that?

Sevan Matossian (05:22):

Yeah. What, go ahead, Taylor.

Taylor Self (05:24):

I was just gonna say when a lot of these events make it, uh, Mac and syndicate, for example, when they make it so purely capacity based, that’s a huge part of CrossFit

Sevan Matossian (05:33):

Capacity. What do you mean by that? What do you mean capacity based? Define that for me. Explain that to me.

Taylor Self (05:36):

Um, so, so just power output on machines, for example. Okay. I guess, you know, capacity is a very broad and vague term in today’s world. When you say capacity, we think, you know, a hundred bar facing burpees for time or, or a two K row anyway. So they make it. So based on just that metabolic conditioning piece, it’s that’s important. But like Andrew just said, so is 30 muscle ups on broken for time. That’s, you know, in, in terms of the 10 general skills, when you’re looking cross its core methodology, all of those 10 skills are equal. So you have to have workouts that the skill is what’s slowing you down, not your ability to pull one 30 on the rower for five minutes, your ability to do par like you understand parallel handstand, pushups, ring, muscle up, you know, the, the obstacle course at 2018 regionals, um, stuff like that.

Sevan Matossian (06:25):

Jr. Do you have any thoughts on it? Are we seeing an evolution right now? Are we seeing a new blood come in? It, it, it almost makes me feel like now it’s finally a sport, like before there was a chance that some guy could be pluck off the street and do Fran and beat the 2009 CrossFit games champion. Now there’s no fucking chance of it because it’s, it’s actually, there’s, there’s nuances in, in, in speed to it. That that absolutely requires pat practice.

JR Howell (06:46):

Yeah. I’m gonna actually take another angle here. What I think has evolved more than anything is the programmers and the event director’s decision on whether or not to make the workouts fun, to watch or good tests. So instead of doing like a simple couplet, which is kind of funny, you, if you look around to all the semifinals that have occurred and then some of the semifinals that are gonna happen, you don’t see many couplets and I’m not gonna count the rope climb shuttle run because that was mandated by CrossFit and couplets. If you ask people in the gym, Hey, name five CrossFit workouts, I guarantee you that three or four out of the five with the exception of MERF are gonna be probably benchmark workouts that are couplets or triplets. So when you watch a couplet, it can be mourning, but it’s their responsibility as the organizers and the programmers to still make it fun to watch mm-hmm <affirmative>. So when you put all these transitions in there and you always are trying to progress down the floor, which is like one of the most innovative things Dave ever did, because it allowed the viewers to follow along and see who’s winning versus just doing 50 ring muscle ups for time. Sure. That’s not the most fun thing to watch, but are we trying to make it the most fun sport to watch or are we trying to test the fittest?

Sevan Matossian (08:07):

Can we have both?

Taylor Self (08:09):

We can’t a friend.

Andrew Hiller (08:11):

How about friend? That friend workout.

Sevan Matossian (08:15):

Um,

Andrew Hiller (08:16):

I’m getting ahead

Sevan Matossian (08:18):

Real quick. Um, uh, Jr. These questions for you, what do you think, was there some sort of, um, implication there that you don’t like, um, like six movements, the transitions bug you when there’s like six transitions, you, you don’t like this, this back and forth?

JR Howell (08:35):

No, not necessarily. As long as is, as long as the amount of time spent per movement ends up mattering and the workout is not solely based upon how fast you can get from one movement to the next.

Sevan Matossian (08:47):

Okay. All right guys. Uh, can let’s move on to the granite game, shall we?

Taylor Self (08:52):

Yes.

Sevan Matossian (08:53):

Thank you. Great discussion. Uh, Susie, can you bring up the boys? Uh, for the granite games, I was able to watch, uh, morning cha ups, uh, um, uh, Patrick Clark, Tommy marque, Brian friend, and, uh, the miss, uh, Klei Lauren KLE. And then I was also got notes, a ton of awesome cliff notes from will plumber. Thank you will. So you guys are in big trouble. I know my shit. I know my shit. Uh, are these the boys? I don’t recognize these names. Oh yeah, there we are. Okay.

Andrew Hiller (09:21):

Those are, those are the men,

Sevan Matossian (09:24):

The men. Sorry. Um, do you wanna, um, do you wanna dive in on anyone in particular, I’ll start at the top Hiller that you think should we should watch or who is not going to do? Um, well this week, sorry. I’m deviating from your, your timeline a little bit. Taylor.

Taylor Self (09:38):

No worries.

Sevan Matossian (09:39):

Okay.

Andrew Hiller (09:40):

What’s Taylor’s timeline. Did I miss an email?

Sevan Matossian (09:43):

<laugh> no, no, no, no. It’s only for me. We can

Taylor Self (09:45):

Save the first part for Ben when he comes on. Cuz I wanna hear his thoughts on that.

Sevan Matossian (09:48):

Taylor’s such a boss that he anointed me, the boss, he’s such an alpha. He appoint me, the boss. He gave me he’s like, this is how the show is gonna run

Taylor Self (09:59):

Men, granite games, men Hiller. What do you think?

Andrew Hiller (10:03):

I think that SI’s wrong and pick how he’s gonna win.

Taylor Self (10:07):

I, I think, I think Brent’s probably winning too. And I think I

Andrew Hiller (10:10):

Wanna know what ground he stands upon saying he’s gonna lose.

Taylor Self (10:14):

Uh, yeah, let’s hear that.

Sevan Matossian (10:15):

He’s he’s an outlier and it’s always being overlooked. It’s always been overlooked. He has no better chance. He hasnt the only thing he has better than Colton Merton is experience

Taylor Self (10:23):

He’s

Sevan Matossian (10:24):

And he’s old and he’s old.

Taylor Self (10:26):

I wouldn’t say that. So,

Sevan Matossian (10:27):

And he’s, and he’s an outlet liar and he’s a pacer. And based on my premise that those days are over this thing has turned into a race and I haven’t even looked at the workouts

Taylor Self (10:37):

Well, so that’s way why I think you’re wrong is you haven’t looked at the workouts. Okay. I think Brent OWK does a lot of things better than Colton. And I think Colton would admit that himself. I’m sure that Colton does a lot of things better than Brent, but that being said,

Sevan Matossian (10:49):

Yes, stick with that second sentence. Stick, stick with that second thought.

Taylor Self (10:52):

Well, there’s three chips. And I think most people that are pretty familiar with men and the sport across it and the games would, would admit that Brent F Kowski is probably one of the best in the world at, at chipper, um, and pacing them correctly. And there’s two workouts that are 25 minutes or longer. And Brent’s another person who’s really, really, really good at those workouts. And there’s no handstand pushups, which is in your past his biggest weakness.

Sevan Matossian (11:17):

I think, I think that pacing is gonna hurt him this year. I think that there it, everything is more turned into a race. We even saw it in some of the 25 minute workouts last week. Um, people were just racing to finish that time cap the top guys. I think Colton has a, uh, a, a pain cave, uh, mixed with a brilliant movement. That’s gonna, that’s gonna keep him going. And, uh, F Kowski is, he gets behind and he needs all 15 workouts to win. He gets behind

Taylor Self (11:43):

Dude. He was third. He was third.

Sevan Matossian (11:45):

He might be in the last chance. Qualifier.

Taylor Self (11:48):

No boy, uh, in an online format, like catless games. Yes. An in person. I mean he won Dubai. He, he was third at the games last year. I don’t know, man. That’s, that’s a, that’s a hard, that’s a, that’s a hot take.

Sevan Matossian (12:03):

Well, the fact that you’ll even talk to me about it makes me feel like you’re either lying or you think I’m a complete idiot. <laugh> I think you’re idiot. Mr. Howell. Go ahead.

JR Howell (12:13):

Yeah. So there’s a couple things here. Yeah. The more time Brent has to do workouts and play with him and strategize pacing, the better he’s gonna do. So at the games, he doesn’t have a ton of time. Typically, sometimes he finds out events on the fly and that’s what, he’s the best at. He’s the best at knowing his ability and his limits. And then pacing that to make up for maybe shortcomings he has in range of motion or you know, anything like that. So when you have two of the workouts this weekend, like Taylor said were long, the busier, the workouts are the longer they are and the more stuff that’s in them, the better it’s gonna be for Brent

Sevan Matossian (12:53):

What’s Hillary what’s Hillary wave. You gotta fly in your face.

Andrew Hiller (12:56):

No, no. There’s just way too much stuff. And I Jr’s completely right. The, the entire granite games workout deal is full of stuff. And the more stuff the better for cow season’s to do every workout’s a chipper. That’s all. That’s what Taylor said. They’re all chippers. And have you ever watched the cross set event Sivan? He, he wins every single chipper.

Sevan Matossian (13:13):

No, I’m at

Andrew Hiller (13:13):

The

Sevan Matossian (13:14):

Out. I’m in the back talking to the athletes.

Taylor Self (13:16):

He’s the king of chippers. You’re

Sevan Matossian (13:18):

Right though. But I’m telling you those days are over

Andrew Hiller (13:22):

Telling you you’re wrong and uh, should we, should we make a bet? What’s the bet. What do you want? Bet. Yes. I let you a hundred bucks steady wins this competition. Yes. Yes.

Sevan Matossian (13:29):

This

Taylor Self (13:30):

Guy in the comment, Nick Flores is calling Brent pussy. I think we should put the comment up on the screen so Brent can see it and go Savage this weekend.

Sevan Matossian (13:37):

<laugh> uh, this, this one right here. Uh, Brent’s paint came is not large. He does not live in the pink game. He does not. And Colton does live there and Phil tune lives there and all these new cats live there. And I’m concerned that my homeboy, Travis Mayer is also going to, uh, try to pace it and forget that, that, that, that there’s a bunch of young kids here who are, uh, just hungry as shit. So what, so what if I have the pig blinders on? I don’t give a shit.

Taylor Self (14:06):

I, I, I agree. I like the, when you said hungry, you made me, you know, you swayed me a little bit hungry.

Sevan Matossian (14:11):

Sam quant is not gonna be Colton. Mertons this weekend.

Taylor Self (14:15):

That’s a wild card. That’s one we can, we can talk about as well. That’s a huge

Sevan Matossian (14:19):

Didn’t realize I was gonna get so wound up.

Taylor Self (14:22):

So, I mean, here’s the thing, here’s the thing about Sam? Are we done with Brent? Are we done talking about Brent?

Sevan Matossian (14:26):

Yeah.

Taylor Self (14:27):

The Sam Quan thing is really interesting cuz you look at a guy who I think his first year was 2014. Um, 2014, he comes in, makes a huge splash. 2015. He has injury. I don’t think he comes back. He, I think he comes back in 2016. So he misses out 2015 comes back 2016. Um, again, 2017 misses out 2018 and 19 maybe. And then boom, 20, 20 COVID games. Second. So I, and, and I don’t know that, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, you know the format’s favoring him. But I think he’s had some really, he’s just, there’s just been some really weird consistency things with him. Like he’s missed out for some stretches a couple times, but then he comes back and it’s like, wow, where, where was this? The last time we saw him compete. And if this is Sam coming back outta hibernation this year, I think we’ll find out I’m very, it’s just he place 20th or he could fucking win and crush everyone.

Sevan Matossian (15:29):

And he believes, I’m sure he believes in himself.

Taylor Self (15:32):

Yeah, no doubt. And I’m sure he’s fucking pissed about last year. That’s another thing you gotta look at when you see somebody who gets their back, put up against the wall. Somebody who’s a competitor to that degree that he is, um, you know, he is been training all year with, with last year’s finish in the back of his mind. And that’s probably scary for a lot of guys.

Andrew Hiller (15:49):

Can we? Best thing he’s got going for him is he’s no longer in Bergeron.

Sevan Matossian (15:54):

Geez, Louise

Andrew Hiller (15:55):

<laugh>

Taylor Self (15:58):

Mad.

Sevan Matossian (15:58):

Listen, Ben Bergeron had had K David’s doer and Matthew Fraser the same year. You cannot dog him.

Andrew Hiller (16:06):

Come on. We talked about this and we

Sevan Matossian (16:08):

Know much. You love,

Andrew Hiller (16:09):

You just love cat.

Sevan Matossian (16:10):

I’m just telling you he trains champions.

Andrew Hiller (16:14):

Yeah. Matt Frazier. Nevermind. We’re not talking about this again. Okay. Talking about

Sevan Matossian (16:19):

Games, you already took a shot at him. I got to

Andrew Hiller (16:21):

That’s talk about Phil tune

Sevan Matossian (16:23):

Tune. Sorry, Ben. I wish someone was defending you. Who, who wasn’t. Um, also saying Falkowski he’s not gonna make it to the games. <laugh> uh, Jr. What, what do we think about Phil tune and another young up and comer? Super camp down pepper. James Sprague. Uh, Emma Carey, I mean, is, is Feig off, over there too?

Taylor Self (16:45):

No, Emma Carey

JR Howell (16:46):

MCCA.

Sevan Matossian (16:47):

Okay. Oh yeah. She’s the only girl. Okay. Uh, what, what do you think about Phil?

JR Howell (16:50):

Yeah, I mean, I’m super excited to watch him, you know, equally as excited as I was last weekend to watch Allen after seeing him both compete at guap polou in person, um, Phil is, you know, talk about like twitchy athletes, right? Type two athletes. I I’ve probably never seen someone more explosive other than like on a basketball court than Phil tune. Um, it it’s, it really is impressive with his squat speed. Um, just the way he cycles all of his movements. You know, the one question I have is if you look back at his previous year’s workouts, I mean, it’s almost been, you know, eight or nine months, the only workout that he really did poorly on the last chance qualifier was the squat clean ladder with the Lego rope climbs. And we can assume the squat cleans were not the issue. So looking at the last event, which I think is the most well placed CrossFit mandated workout of all the semifinals so far, putting the legless rope, climb workout. Last it is a sprint it’s fun to watch as a final. And let’s see where Phil is heading into that workout. And the questions will be answered then.

Sevan Matossian (17:53):

Wow. That’s that’s sorry, Taylor. Uh, just to clarify, you’re saying on June 5th, this workout that I see at 2:05 PM is the legless rope sprint event. Yeah, that’s smart. Huh?

JR Howell (18:06):

Yeah. I really like that. Yeah.

Taylor Self (18:08):

Last

Andrew Hiller (18:09):

Place. Are you telling me the granite games website has them in the wrong order?

Taylor Self (18:13):

Yes. The website on for granite games is never in the right order. If you go on their Instagram, they have the schedule laid out and on the schedule, it has the names of the events.

Sevan Matossian (18:23):

Hey, they’re taking a page outta the CrossFit games website. So it may be the fifth event. It may be the sixth event. It may be

Taylor Self (18:31):

The thing about the thing I wanna mention, uh, Jr. About Phil’s last chance, qualifier, legless workout. And I just came across this tidbit of information, which not to give feel an excuse, but does make a big difference is a allegedly, he used an nylon rope for his rope climbs in that workout, which is exponentially harder than the standard, you know? Absolutely. Burlaps sack colored, you know, tan rope. You use a white fucking nylon rope. It’s like a slip and slide.

Sevan Matossian (19:02):

Um, you’re referencing something he posted on his Instagram.

Taylor Self (19:04):

No, no. I heard, I heard from, uh, somebody that he, that when he did that workout and I don’t know if his gym was like back in Nevada at that point in time, they have nylon ropes. A lot of gyms have like either the black or the white nylon ropes and doing they’re just slippery. Um, so doing a legless workout on them a whole lot harder.

JR Howell (19:21):

Yeah. I mean, we’ve already mentioned the fact that the rope climbs are probably closer to 14 feet than 15 and Phil. I mean, Phil’s a, he’s a fellow Hooper. I mean, the dude can jump out of the gym. I’m sure he can jump high enough to where he only needs two or three pools to touch. So, I mean, I, I still think he’s gonna do well in that workout,

Sevan Matossian (19:39):

Phil, the Hooper and he’s young, he might be over trained.

Andrew Hiller (19:46):

Oh, why do you say that? Oh,

Sevan Matossian (19:48):

Well, cause last

JR Howell (19:49):

He had Mitch on a podcast before that his, his training age and his body’s age are a lot different. You know, he played basketball growing up. And then I think he went into a deep power lifting stint. And he’s been on the show before talking about how his, you know, back and knees and everything are a little bit acre than the, than the average 24 year old.

Andrew Hiller (20:07):

He’s also way stronger than the average 24 year old. It’s a lot of bad on

Taylor Self (20:10):

Those you take, uh, yeah. You take the, take the good with the bad buddy.

Andrew Hiller (20:15):

Sean, how did you know,

Sevan Matossian (20:17):

Did Beon bang one of Hill’s ex-girlfriends or something? I know. I, I it’s exactly where I went.

Andrew Hiller (20:22):

He he’s banged all of them. Just like Dick. He gets the seconds from all of them.

Sevan Matossian (20:27):

Dick butter, who asked Jr. To talk. I was wondering the same thing.

Taylor Self (20:31):

<laugh>

Sevan Matossian (20:34):

Go back to that overhead again. Uh, um, SU watch how the bar comes outta placement and he pushes it back. This fucking guy is strong

Taylor Self (20:42):

He’s he moves really well too.

Sevan Matossian (20:44):

Yeah. Um, he was doing those lunges and the bar started coming forward and he shoved it back.

Taylor Self (20:52):

He’s got great overhead position.

Sevan Matossian (20:54):

I thought it did. Yeah. Wow.

Andrew Hiller (20:56):

I thought it was you for second.

Taylor Self (20:59):

The only thing thought that was you for a second.

Andrew Hiller (21:03):

Oh, nothing. I just thought it was you for a second.

Sevan Matossian (21:06):

Oh, the birds. No, that’s you, you have birds at your house.

Andrew Hiller (21:09):

Yeah. I’ve been mute. I’ve been trying.

Taylor Self (21:11):

The only thing I worry about, um, with Phil is the two long workouts this weekend is I, I think obvious also previously it seems that some of the longer workouts and some running have given him some issues. So we’ll have to see if he’s cleaned that up, but the guy is, uh, super fit I’m to watch him.

Sevan Matossian (21:30):

Do we wanna wait till Ben’s on before we talk about the, that there’s 2 25 minute events before we break down the programming a little bit, Taylor.

Taylor Self (21:36):

Well, is he guaranteed to come on? Cause if not, this is some, all right, let’s talk about it. Then we gotta talk about

Sevan Matossian (21:41):

This. Okay. So there’s 2 25 minute. Well, first let’s talk about Travis Mayer and then we’ll do this LA LA another big name. Is Travis going?

Andrew Hiller (21:49):

Yes. Yes.

Sevan Matossian (21:52):

Done. Sorry. Travis. No air time for you. Uh, Travis may is going no workout. So right now we have, we we’re in consensus that Colton Mertons and Travis may are going,

Taylor Self (22:00):

Uh, I have Brent one Chandler, two Phil three, Travis four, and then five is a toss up for me between Colton and Tim Paulson. Wow. And, and Sam is just too much of a wild card for me to depend on. But again, like I said, he could win it or he could place 20th

Sevan Matossian (22:17):

Jar. Doesn’t have Colton on there at all. You have no, you, he has no emotion. See, he was not gonna be swayed by an emotional pick. You like that? Yeah.

Taylor Self (22:25):

You like that?

Andrew Hiller (22:27):

So what

Sevan Matossian (22:28):

She goes to his 10. Hey, is your 10 month old baby? Like just right at your feet of sleep. No, she’s upstairs. Oh, all right. Go ahead. Hiller.

Andrew Hiller (22:38):

What are your top five athletes? We, we see Brian put out his top five every week. Well, I wanna know your top five athletes. Can,

Sevan Matossian (22:45):

Can I see the list?

Andrew Hiller (22:47):

Yeah, he’s got OWS mayor Chandler tune. Tim Paulson. I wanna, I wanna know who you got.

Sevan Matossian (22:53):

I got Colton me’s first place.

Andrew Hiller (22:56):

He’s in Bailey. Colton Meson first. Okay.

Sevan Matossian (22:59):

Yeah. Rich Fring second.

Andrew Hiller (23:03):

Hey, look, who’s here

Sevan Matossian (23:05):

Mr. Smith.

Taylor Self (23:08):

Oh, right on time.

Sevan Matossian (23:09):

You’ve entered the, uh, Ben, we got a question for you. We’re coming in hot. We’re coming in hot. Um, what are we talking about? Welcome to the show. Ben, down below Ben, we have a Jr. Howell from CrossFit crash. We have, um, Hiller fit. He’s probably made a bad video about you. We have Taylor self the one time, uh, man who dreamed of going to the games and got smashed by a pig. And, uh, then myself, um, have you looked at the events at, uh, granite games? Ben? Is he frozen? I’ve been show. Yes. I’ve seen them. Uh,

Ben Smith (23:47):

I haven’t like, no, no. Uh, sorry. Can you guys hear me?

Taylor Self (23:49):

Yeah, we got you now.

Ben Smith (23:53):

I probably should try to connect my, yeah. That’s all right. Um, yeah.

Sevan Matossian (24:00):

Susan, will you bring up? Oh yeah, there you go, baby. Good job. Okay. Let, let me, I’m gonna go. I’m gonna go through some of the notes here that, uh, Mr. Self gave me and, and I’m, I, I know you, it doesn’t sound like you’ve looked at ’em closely and we’re ambushing you, but, um, we’re very curious to hear your opinion. There’s two events, sub four for the men’s field, the legless run and the something HSW what’s that stand for Taylor? This work

JR Howell (24:23):

Out on screen.

Sevan Matossian (24:23):

Yeah. Handstand walk, Fran hand, walk, hand three events. There’s three events with running. Two of which include shuttle runs two events with 25 minute time cap or greater. That’s what I’m really curious about. What you think about that? No handstand pushups, no sandbag, three events with the chipper format. Uh, we’ll start with you, Ben, what do you think about having two events at the 25 minute, um, time cap?

Ben Smith (24:47):

Uh, I guess I don’t really see a problem with, is it CA is everybody gonna get close to that cap or is it gonna be like, some people are finishing at 18 minutes? You know what I mean? Like, cause if one of the workouts is like 17 or 18 minutes and the other one’s a full 25, I think they’re different workouts, you know, different time domains. Really?

Sevan Matossian (25:04):

Yeah.

JR Howell (25:04):

I think event three is actually has a longer time cap because of that chunk of 30 ring muscle ups. Cuz it’s the same for the females.

Ben Smith (25:11):

Oh, that ship. Right. I did see that.

Taylor Self (25:14):

I thought the, I thought the run workout was the one with 27 minutes and the Minnesota mashup was 25, which I thought

Andrew Hiller (25:19):

You are correct. The muscle of one is shorter.

Taylor Self (25:22):

Yep. I thought, and I thought that workout though has probably been to what you said is, is for a lot of the guys probably gonna be a little under 20

Sevan Matossian (25:29):

Matt, scroll up to the workouts, please, uh, event the chipper ones. There we go. There you

Taylor Self (25:36):

Go. I think that one for guys is probably sub 20.

Ben Smith (25:44):

Yeah. I think you would get a big separation field in that one.

Andrew Hiller (25:48):

Can we talk about how pointless those dumbbell cleaning jerks are at the end? If there is doing it to make it, the workout look pretty for no reason Ben’s laughing. He knows 70 pound and they have to move it forward. Every two reps,

Taylor Self (26:01):

Every two reps.

Andrew Hiller (26:02):

It’s like, yeah. I, I just read that on the, the, the website, which is in the wrong order.

Taylor Self (26:07):

Wow.

Sevan Matossian (26:09):

That doesn’t make any sense

Ben Smith (26:10):

That doesn’t done things like that.

Ben Smith (26:16):

Sorry, sorry. Go ahead. Past, they’ve done things like that where they like to end on a, uh, an implement or a movement, you know, that’s challenging to finish or whatever. Like they did that with a, like a sandbag sprint where you had to move the sandbag. It was like a bike sprint burpees and then a sandbag where you had to move it every two or four or whatever it was. Um, like Dave did that a lot with like a movement at the finish line where you had to finish. But in this chipper, it doesn’t really get any

Andrew Hiller (26:41):

Sense to have freaking 70 pound dumbbell.

Sevan Matossian (26:44):

Yeah. If it was 150 pound dumbbell, I would understand. But 70 pound dumbbell for men, every, in every two reps, you have to move forward. It that doesn’t even make sense.

Andrew Hiller (26:52):

I’m pretty sure the year won the games. They had a hundred pound dumbbell squat snatch on the final and they had to move forward. Every two reps. Is that right? Ben, do you remember didn’t Spencer? He win that event?

Taylor Self (27:03):

No, it was pedal to the metal. I don’t know that it was, was it a

Ben Smith (27:05):

Squat sound?

JR Howell (27:05):

Yeah, there was that one

Ben Smith (27:06):

Pedal. The metal ones. Yeah.

Andrew Hiller (27:08):

Yeah. So yeah, they need make a hundred pound dumb, easy.

JR Howell (27:14):

I think spin jerks might be double dumbbell also. Not that it metal. They still yeah.

Ben Smith (27:19):

Double dumbbell. They should be two double dumbbell. 100 pound dumbbells. Yeah.

Taylor Self (27:24):

Agreed. And what do you think about the 20 pound ball? Do you think it should be a 30

Ben Smith (27:30):

50 in that workout? Prob I don’t think it needs to be, yeah. Okay. 50 <laugh> no, I don’t think it needs to be, uh, a 30 pound wall ball and that workout if you’re gonna not Jr. Anything about that workout, like if you’re gonna just keep the workout and you know,

Andrew Hiller (27:47):

I know Jr. And I were talking about how it’s essentially 150 wall balls and then the GD set up. So I think that the workout would’ve been cleaner, if it were just 200 double under the wall balls, the muscle ups and then that’s it. That’s the whole workout. <laugh>

JR Howell (28:01):

Yeah. I’m actually curious to

Andrew Hiller (28:02):

Hear just my good

JR Howell (28:03):

There about like, about movement redundancy on back to back movements. So going from 20 wall balls to 40 single alarm dumbbell, overhead squats to 30 wall balls, the only time I can really remember that happening, and this is digging deep into the past is the wall ball, hang squat, snatch workout at the games one year. Oh, then also 30, 30. And then also I think in chaos, they went from pistol to dumbbell, overhead squat in, in chaos. That’s the only time I can really remember that sort of movement redundancy back to back. What do you think about stuff like that?

Ben Smith (28:39):

Yeah, that is true. I don’t, and I know that Dave changed that 30 and 30 workout, like on the fly. Cause I think he had planned for five rounds and I think he, it was just gonna crush people because they had so much volume in that first day of the games. Um, I was thankful that I got cut before that, so I didn’t have to do that workout cuz I don’t think I would’ve made it through that workout <laugh> uh, but yeah, I don’t, they haven’t done something like that. The movement, the workouts have always been much simpler than this chipper.

Andrew Hiller (29:10):

You’re telling me they changed a workout on the fly at the CrossFit games. They can do that. They could have cut a rope. They could do that kind of stuff.

Ben Smith (29:19):

Yeah.

Andrew Hiller (29:21):

Oh, okay. All the time. That’s all.

Sevan Matossian (29:23):

<laugh> that’s all Ben, I got a question for you. This is all, this is off subject a little bit. Um, is what happens? What do you think Ben? Uh, FOW key’s feeling at 220 pounds, 6, 10 30, 1 years old. Is he, is he feeling his age?

Ben Smith (29:43):

Is he feeling his age? I don’t know. He looks pretty good. Yeah.

Sevan Matossian (29:49):

How old are you?

Ben Smith (29:51):

I mean, I’m just turned 32.

Sevan Matossian (29:55):

Okay. Are you feeling your age

Ben Smith (29:59):

Sometimes?

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

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