#596 – Programming Show: Madrid CrossFit Championship

Sevan Matossian (00:00):

I had this thing set up, bam we’re live. I had this thing set up to go live at five. And then, uh, I went to out to lunch today and it just kept going and going and going. And then, uh, I got an invite to come out to the ranch and then I was like, well, I can’t say no to that. And then I had to come home and work out before the show. So that I’d be in my a game guys. I am so sorry. Soccer mom, Hector Fergie, Bruce Travis, Jeremy, Bruce Wayne. Thanks for texting me. The rest of you, Jack asses, have my number. Didn’t even use it. Jeffrey Burchfield indicate where you can get your shirt. Uh,

JR Howell (00:35):

Was that the reason why you worked out or did you have a little, uh, white monster cane with some Titos and you felt a little guilty about it?

Sevan Matossian (00:43):

Oh, well, all of that. I always work out before the show, but I was let’s see, I, I had a, actually I had two, um, skinny margaritas at lunch, but it’s nothing that the assault bike can’t fix

JR Howell (01:00):

Nothing. The assault bike at cadence.

Sevan Matossian (01:03):

Oh, this is my favorite kind of tailor. You can’t even hear. I can’t hear Taylor. Can you?

JR Howell (01:07):

No.

Sevan Matossian (01:08):

Awesome. My favorite. So guys, me now I can hear you now. And I, and most importantly, I apologize to the all consummate professional, uh, Jr. Howell and Taylor self. Uh, this is our, is this the second programming show?

Taylor Self (01:27):

No, we had several.

Sevan Matossian (01:29):

We have good memory Chevy, good memory. Um, nice guns Jr. Soccer mom. Uh, did your wife beat you for being late this morning? Seon? I, uh, fuck. I forgot about that. The podcast this morning ran late and I was like two minutes late to my kid’s soccer, private class E everything kind of, it’s been a tough, you know what the thing is? Is Matt SU’s getting married today.

Taylor Self (01:51):

Oh, that’s right. Congrats Suza. Heto we were texting about that.

Sevan Matossian (01:55):

That’s crazy. His wedding. His wedding’s probably going on right now.

Taylor Self (01:58):

He’s probably fucked up.

Sevan Matossian (02:00):

I went to his, uh, I went to like the, the, the party last night and I met all his like family and friends from the gym and friends from high school and this one dude, Carlos Mendoza. He’s probably like 6, 2, 2 45. He’s just like’s sounds big. He’s like, yeah. And he looks like Carlos Mendoza, like out of a fucking movie and he’s like, you going, you go the wedding. I’m like, no he’s oh no, come on. And he steps a close a foot closer to me. Like you go the wedding. I’m like totally I’m course

Taylor Self (02:28):

<laugh> oh, no, come on. That’s

Sevan Matossian (02:32):

Funny, man. Uh, did, did either of you guys, are any of you guys watching the ADCC Abu Dhabi combat club championships? That’s going on Las Vegas? No,

Taylor Self (02:45):

No negative.

Sevan Matossian (02:46):

Okay. All right. Fine. That’s good. Well then we could probably stay on track for this show a couple shows ago. I don’t know when it was, but we were talking and the Madrid show came up. I don’t remember if I was done with Brian whatnot. And I started freaking out, uh, about the torque tank being the last implement in the last workout of something that we’re supposed to consider a competition or a sport. It seems like it doesn’t make it competition or sport. And, um, Jr. And or Taylor, I can’t remember one of ’em text me or called me and said, Hey, dip shit. That’s why we do programming shows. Why isn’t this one scheduled? Or we should have done this a long time ago. And then we scheduled it. And I, and, and

JR Howell (03:27):

It sounds like something Taylor would say,

Sevan Matossian (03:29):

I pushed them aside for Brian. That’s

Taylor Self (03:31):

What you said.

Sevan Matossian (03:32):

And, uh, and here we are, and I am actually crazy, crazy excited about it. Uh, before we dig in there, there’s some things, uh, that, um, Taylor brought up to me this morning that I think we really need to talk about before we get into critiquing the programming and we need to find out, uh, what was the purpose? I think Jr was saying, we need to define some things, sorry, Taylor. So we need to define some things, what was some purpose of the show of the event? So it clearly wasn’t to go to the CrossFit games that’s

Taylor Self (04:00):

To credit Jr. Jr. Jr. Brought that idea to me, to, you know,

Sevan Matossian (04:04):

Super, super important. Yeah. Super important. We don’t conflate that it’s whoever puts on this event, it’s their private event. They can do whatever the fuck they want. Um, it’s it’s for all, we know that they don’t even care about competition or, or the sport or the games. It’s just their, they just like watching people work out or they just like making money or they just like throwing parties, whatever the reason. So I apologize for the times when we project stuff onto them and we are, we’re kind of aware we’re doing that. We’re gonna try not to do it, but, and sometimes we’re gonna make some pre-suppositions that this was supposed to be a sport. This was supposed to be a competition. It was supposed to be for athletes at the highest level.

JR Howell (04:43):

Yeah. I mean, when you have games, athletes in the field that just competed, you can say that your program gonna work out for the best and the best happen to be people that finished in the top 10 or 15 at the games.

Sevan Matossian (04:54):

And, um, and we know that these are, um, and we need to take into consideration, uh, the venue

Taylor Self (05:01):

And what

Sevan Matossian (05:02):

Way the, the limitations or what creativity, the venue offers.

Taylor Self (05:06):

Um, yeah, but that venue offers massive amounts of creativity. Okay. And, and I think very narrow limitations. Yeah.

JR Howell (05:14):

But I think they’re like, Syon point, like if they, if they wanted to use sleds, well, do they have a turf they could use sleds on, do they have, and do they have a pool? Like you can only program swimming if you have access to a certain venue. So, yeah.

Sevan Matossian (05:29):

And, and how, how, how many, uh, how long has this event been going on?

Taylor Self (05:33):

Hmm, no idea.

JR Howell (05:35):

Years. I think I’m not sure how long it’s been a, a licensed CrossFit competition.

Sevan Matossian (05:39):

Oh, it is licensed. Yeah. And what does that mean? Well,

Taylor Self (05:42):

That, that’s a good question. Uh, me and J were talking about it. I don’t know what that means. I know to be a semifinal, you gotta pay a big old paycheck to be a licensed CrossFit event. I’m not, I’m not really sure what that takes or how much money that takes.

Sevan Matossian (05:56):

What was the event where someone got injured? Oh, it the Scott, um, semifinal semi. So Scott pan incident, right? Yep. And because that was a CrossFit sanctioned event, that one also happened with semifinals. There was, there was a, um, there’s like an athlete liaison there though. Right. And when we can kind of see Becky marsh, Becky marsh, and do we know if this Madrid, um, event had that? Also,

Taylor Self (06:20):

I doubt it

Sevan Matossian (06:22):

For some reason. I think they would send someone out there for the safety, if they’re allowing the CrossFit name on it.

Taylor Self (06:27):

Hmm.

Sevan Matossian (06:29):

Okay. Word noting, maybe someone.

JR Howell (06:30):

Yeah. I’m sure. I’m, I’m sure they, they require that you take certain precautionary measures that you have a certain amount of medical professionals on site and at the ready, like that kind of thing. I’m sure that they, they definitely keep a close, close count on.

Sevan Matossian (06:46):

And, and when we say this is H WPO hard work pays off programming, the company that is owned by, uh, the Frasers and the CEO is Mr. The great Mr. Matt OIF

Taylor Self (07:02):

Is, is Matt the CEO?

Sevan Matossian (07:03):

I think so. Yeah.

JR Howell (07:04):

I think so. Oh,

Sevan Matossian (07:06):

Um, do we, do we assume that then Matt programmed it, or,

JR Howell (07:12):

Uh, I don’t think we can assume that he programmed it 100% alone. We can assume that he had input from the event organizers, for sure. And were from what we’ve been told by people there, and by people close to the competition that they were given pretty strict parameters to work around and we can get into that, but we can assume that it was him or part of his team, part of his other coaches, stuff like that.

Sevan Matossian (07:39):

No, uh, various astute observation, Travis, I’m gonna apologize. No, his mic

Taylor Self (07:42):

Turn his mic around

Sevan Matossian (07:44):

His, his mic is yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the blue dot has to be facing you, but

Taylor Self (07:49):

To, to just wait, wait,

JR Howell (07:49):

Hold on. We’re good. We’re

Taylor Self (07:50):

Good. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Sevan Matossian (07:51):

<laugh> <laugh> oh, shit. I think when, uh, when they, when they talked about professional, um, media, uh, one of the criteria was, um, uh, production quality Mike

Taylor Self (08:04):

Face.

JR Howell (08:04):

I’m not at, yeah.

Sevan Matossian (08:05):

With just a simple turn of the mic we are now at, um, <laugh>, we’re now at professional professional

Taylor Self (08:12):

Level, you can’t sit on a bow suit ball either. And when I fart on this thing, it makes the weirdest sound

Sevan Matossian (08:16):

Great. Um, but, but I did see Mattke doing an interview with,

Sevan Matossian (08:28):

I can’t remember if I saw it. No, I’m sorry. I saw Matt Fraser doing an interview with Lauren kale and it was, it would be, I don’t think it’s any stretch of the imagination. It was near explicit that he did all the programming himself. And then, and then Matto Kee in an interview with the morning Chalkup, um, that did didn’t seem grounded in reality. I don’t know if it would be the writer’s fault or Matt’s fault or whose fault, but, um, uh, Matt, Matt, O’Keeffe also insinuated, I think more than insinuated that that Fraser did do all the programming that this was from the,

Taylor Self (09:08):

For, for Madrid or for Canada west games

Sevan Matossian (09:10):

For Madrid. Okay. This was, this was for Madrid. Lauren CLE interviewed him too, or no, no. It was some pat, Patrick ASBA or something from the morning chalk up and, and the, the, which makes me think that this programming did come from the mind of the fittest man to ever most winnings, most accomplished fucking beast ever to, to perform at the CrossFit games. Five time champion, Matt Fraser.

JR Howell (09:34):

Yeah. And I would love to know if what he submitted was what was actually put in, put on display.

Taylor Self (09:42):

Yeah. That’s a, that’s a good question.

Sevan Matossian (09:45):

What do you mean? Like they pulled, like they pulled, uh, a, um, like changing, like the, taking the shuttle run out of the open, like,

JR Howell (09:52):

No, no, maybe, maybe along the lines of, Hey man, we’ve got 500 teams, we’ve got 60 to 80 individuals in the elite division. You know, that like 20 minute workout that you wanted to do where we’re gonna have to trim that one back a little bit.

Sevan Matossian (10:06):

Oh, okay.

JR Howell (10:07):

Hey, you know, you know, when I said that we had seven event sponsors for workouts, well, now we have eight. So now that one that’s seven, you gotta turn into two workouts.

Sevan Matossian (10:18):

Okay. Sure.

Taylor Self (10:19):

And this is speculation, but it’s, it’s an educated guess. I think on Jr’s part. Um,

JR Howell (10:27):

Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, one of the things we wanna do before we dive into nonstructural weightlifting, gymnastics, and hinge movements and push movements and all that stuff is to talk about what what’s the goal of these competitions. And I would love to open up dialogue with the programmers and the event organizers, to explain some of that stuff. That’s something the community has wanted for years. Mm-hmm <affirmative> from the CrossFit games. Waap, ALZA rogue, all these competitions that everyone loves to consume. Why don’t you come on and say, Hey, no, the reason why we put that movement in it is for this reason. Yeah. Hey, we don’t care about having a test over 15 minutes because I didn’t want to do it. That’s why I didn’t do it. And I would love for people to hear it come from those individuals. So there’s no speculation and say, Hey, listen, like the days just got too long. So we had to shorten some workouts or, Hey, these sponsors pay this amount of money to have their products in the competition. So if that means we have to use paras that are six inches and four inches off the ground, instead of using full length, paras, people want to know that because people are wondering why so many parallel handstand pushups at a short deficit, why not just half the number of repetitions and use full size pair

Taylor Self (11:44):

Less? Was that what they used for the deficit?

JR Howell (11:45):

Yeah, they were, they were like miniature

Taylor Self (11:47):

Mini parallels.

Sevan Matossian (11:48):

When you say the goal, can you gimme an example, cuz well

Taylor Self (11:52):

We, yeah, I gotta list right here.

Sevan Matossian (11:54):

Let, let me just, let me just say this real quick before you get that list because the goal could be to find the fittest, the goal could be to get it done in in three days, the goal could be to find something, um, that’s, uh, uh, a workout like, uh, what Adrian had to do with the games that everyone can do with a, um, a, uh, everyone can do. Right. What, what workout was that? Was that the swim or what did the, what was the event?

Taylor Self (12:19):

Swim, ski, swim,

Sevan Matossian (12:20):

Ski, swim, swim ski. So, I mean, what, what do you mean by goal? Because if someone could give you a really broad goal, the goal is to, to pick the fittest person to go to the games and like, it kind of gives us nothing. Right? Well,

Taylor Self (12:31):

What’s the point, you know, kind of that, that question is what is the point of running a semifinal level event? And when you just say semifinal level, you think of you have athletes there who could be the fittest on earth. Um, generally the field is a, is an elite caliber of athlete. It’s not 15 workouts like the CrossFit games, but it’s also not a single day event. It’s like six to eight workouts across a few days. Um, why? Well,

Sevan Matossian (12:55):

The only thing you need to do to put on a semi semifinal quality event is that’s determined by prize money. Isn’t it?

JR Howell (13:02):

Well, yeah. See, that’s the thing. And, and I think that’s a really, really good talking point because a lot of these athletes sign up for the competition based on the cloud of the competition are based on the potential earnings of the competition. They don’t care if there’s five hinging movements. I mean, they may care after they’ve won the money.

Taylor Self (13:20):

I think a lot of athletes care,

JR Howell (13:21):

They’re not gonna sign up for where they think they’re gonna make the most money. They’re not gonna say, well, let me wait and see if I, if these workouts are a, a, a broad test to fitness, they’re just gonna assume that those people are doing their jobs.

Taylor Self (13:33):

I, I, I agree in part, I do think a lot of athletes, I would say probably more of a vast majority of athletes look at, can I get meaningful experience at this competition? Is this gonna sharpen me for the game season? Uh, am I gonna learn some things or is this event fucking dumb?

JR Howell (13:51):

I think za was going there for one reason and that’s to party and win 30 grand.

Sevan Matossian (13:55):

I, I guess, I guess travel yeah. For travel domain

Taylor Self (13:57):

Were easy and there was nobody there to fucking touch him. <laugh>

Sevan Matossian (14:00):

I, I guess, travel, travel distance, um, also, uh, plays a big role in that too. Right? If you’re near the crash, no,

Taylor Self (14:07):

Travis may or went to Spain,

Sevan Matossian (14:10):

But, but what I’m saying is, is if there was, well, he, he may have been paid to go. But, um, what I’m saying is, is if you’re, if you’re a high level athlete and you’re near the crash crucible and the first pride place is only $500, you still may go to it knowing that you can sleep in your own bed

JR Howell (14:26):

For 500. I don’t know.

Taylor Self (14:29):

I think it’s,

Sevan Matossian (14:30):

Uh, no, really?

JR Howell (14:31):

Yeah, no.

Sevan Matossian (14:33):

Then that, then that kind of undermines what Taylor was saying that, um, people go for the experience

JR Howell (14:41):

For the, for the competition experience. And to know that, I mean, why

Sevan Matossian (14:47):

Do you think Travis went,

JR Howell (14:49):

I would say it’s almost a month out of your training because you taper for about a week, you compete and then you recover for about a week and you can only do that so many times in a season. So you’ve gotta pick and choose certain competitions to do. And I think what usually draws athletes to that is, is the field gonna be a competitive field that I can learn and get better from? Yep. Usually, usually that’s synonymous with prize money. And then maybe secondarily you think about the programming rogue, for instance, you know, a rogue competition. When you see it programmed, you’re probably not going to see a marathon rogue at rogue or a 10 K rogue for time at rogue, but you might see put on a ruck row, do some burpy, get overs, climb a rope, run up a hill. It has a certain feel.

JR Howell (15:40):

It has a certain aura when you go to guap, Polozzi, you know, you’re gonna be under the lights that you’re probably gonna swim. You, you know, these things about these big competitions. So Madrid is, this is the first time we have H w P O programming. It is this what we can expect moving forward, this style, this, um, variance in movements, um, lots of different odd objects, not very barbell centric workouts that are a little on the short side, or is that just a product of the organizers saying, no, this is what you can do. And you need to give us workouts because that’s what we paid you for.

Sevan Matossian (16:17):

And, and, and the event director and the program are often different people

JR Howell (16:21):

Often,

Sevan Matossian (16:22):

Always sometimes, sometimes. Uh, what were you rolling your eyes at? Uh, uh, Taylor, were you rolling your eyes at Jr. Something you saw in the comments?

Taylor Self (16:29):

Uh, not something I saw in the comments I wasn’t necessarily at Jr, but I, but I, I kind of wanna just dig into this.

Sevan Matossian (16:37):

Okay. Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. Uh, so, so then let me ask you this then. What do you, what do you think the purpose of the CrossFit Madrid, uh, championships is it called championships, CrossFit, Madrid, Madrid,

Taylor Self (16:48):

CrossFit championship.

Sevan Matossian (16:49):

What do you think the purpose of

Taylor Self (16:50):

That is? I think the purpose of that event is to showcase athletes, to offer opportunities within the sport and to grow the sport. I think that’s why the divisions are fricking huge. I think in line with that to make money and to grow their brand. Um, if all they care about is offering opportunities for the best within the sport, they’re not gonna have 80 people deep in the elite field. Um, but they wanna make some money and registrations bring in a lot of money for events like that, especially when you’ve got that number of people competing. That’s a ton of money. Um, and then maybe

JR Howell (17:27):

I think they’re trying to take over is like the biggest we have the most athletes we have the most division seems like they’re trying to take over, like something like a waap PZA the

Sevan Matossian (17:36):

Grain for Europe, for Europe or worldwide,

Taylor Self (17:38):

The granite games of Spain maybe, or waap PZA is a good, a good example. The, the granite games of old had a massive community divisions and was pretty, pretty huge. Um, I, to be honest, I think to find the fittest is probably, I mean, I’m sure they’re thinking of that, but I think it’s like a haphazard, like off, we just, as long as we do CrossFit workouts, we’re gonna find the fittest. I don’t think there was as much thought put into that as the amount of work goes into growing your brand, making money, um, ex you know,

Sevan Matossian (18:08):

They’re not worried about if someone wins the CrossFit games and we all know it’s not the fittest person, uh, they’re not worried about the wrong person winning their event. Wow. That’s interesting. That’s that burden only falls on the CrossFit games.

JR Howell (18:20):

I don’t think that, I don’t think that happens a lot though. I think, I

Sevan Matossian (18:24):

Don’t think it happens a lot, either the burden not on,

Taylor Self (18:27):

But the burden. Well, it doesn’t happen a lot because, and this is an example of why CrossFit is so potent, but it’s really hard to fuck CrossFit up.

Sevan Matossian (18:36):

But look at this, Travis mayor took fifth place.

Taylor Self (18:38):

The fittest person, there was LA ju and he won. But

Sevan Matossian (18:41):

If Travis would’ve won, no one would be flipping out.

JR Howell (18:46):

No, I don’t think so.

Taylor Self (18:47):

No.

Sevan Matossian (18:48):

Where, where do I go? Uh, leaderboard, look at this leaderboard. And that’s what I mean. That’s

Taylor Self (18:54):

What I mean, there are some nobody’s on the leaderboard,

Sevan Matossian (18:56):

But, but that’s what I mean. If, if, if, if the wrong person wins at the games, everyone would know and everyone would be flipping out.

Taylor Self (19:01):

Yeah. And you’re right. And not a lot of people are gonna care about this, cuz this is the Madrid CrossFit championship, and they’re not crowning their athlete. The fittest on earth,

Sevan Matossian (19:09):

Let’s say Luka GI won this event. Everyone would be like, holy, they wouldn’t be like, oh fuck. It was the wrong guy. One. They’d be like, fuck Lucas’s games coming together.

Taylor Self (19:17):

Or they would be like, look at the workouts.

Sevan Matossian (19:19):

True. But if that happens at the games, the fucking programmer would get fucking destroyed if Lu won the games.

Taylor Self (19:27):

Uh, not necessarily if Lucas, the fittest on earth, he’s not gonna, they’re not gonna get destroyed. You have to look at the workouts again. I, I mean, it’s context.

Sevan Matossian (19:34):

That’s my point. We all, we we’re we’re okay. That’s fine. I think I drove it home. All right. We disagree. Bye.

Taylor Self (19:42):

Sorry. No, you, you, you drove it home. I think these events don’t really care and it’s, and to your point, I don’t think a lot of people care if they find the fittest per se person there. Um, but is that adding to the sport? Uh,

Sevan Matossian (19:57):

I don’t know. I’m just trying to figure out what the purpose of this event was and, and what

Taylor Self (20:00):

To make money.

Sevan Matossian (20:01):

What, so those are the two things we’ve come down to, to make money and to be the biggest and most prestigious event for sure. In Europe and, and possibly in the world. Well,

JR Howell (20:09):

That

Taylor Self (20:10):

Not a bad thing

Sevan Matossian (20:10):

Either. No, those sound like great things. Those sound like great things to

JR Howell (20:13):

Me. Well, you know, and there were a live stream, which is unfortunate. It’s ridiculous, but

Taylor Self (20:17):

Not unfortunate.

JR Howell (20:19):

It’s hard, you know, maybe knowing that going into it, their main goal is like, Hey, we wanna put on a show because we don’t have other people spectating other than those that paid a ticket to come in and see. So we wanna put on a show, we don’t want, um, certain movements in here because we think they’re boring. We want the workouts to look really, really good on the floor. I mean, I program competitions tailored us too. I know. And I’m willing to admit there are workouts that I knew would be better tests of fitness done a certain way, but because of the limitations I had at my space, and because I wanted the crowd to be able to look at the workout and tell who was winning, I tweaked those workouts because of that. And I think that’s something all programmers do if they know what they’re doing

Sevan Matossian (21:03):

Slash should do

JR Howell (21:05):

For, for sure.

Sevan Matossian (21:06):

Especially

JR Howell (21:07):

If, especially if you don’t have a stream with commentary and the ability to articulate what’s going on and not have to explain it to people.

Sevan Matossian (21:16):

Uh, good point. Okay. Taylor, I know you wanna dig in, let’s go really big picture first. And, uh, and, and describe the, uh, event to me in terms of you’ve, you’ve done, uh, how many competitors there were, uh, average time domains. How many days just paint, paint the event for me a little bit.

Taylor Self (21:36):

It’s a three day event. Uh, I think Brian talked about there being 60 to 80 athletes in the elite field, men and women, not combined, but in each field. So in just an absolutely, uh, a crazy massive field, I’m sure the

Sevan Matossian (21:53):

Gap compared to water. PZA how many

Taylor Self (21:55):

Water Polooza is 40 max. So many

Sevan Matossian (21:57):

How many and 40 at the games?

Taylor Self (21:59):

40 at the games. So double

Sevan Matossian (22:00):

How many, how many at rogue

Taylor Self (22:01):

20.

Sevan Matossian (22:02):

Okay.

Taylor Self (22:04):

Uh, so you think about the gap between lizard GI and last place at that event is probably fucking laughable,

Sevan Matossian (22:12):

Um, in terms, in terms of their skill and the points, et cetera.

Taylor Self (22:15):

Yeah. And everything you’re probably last place at that event probably did not qualify for semifinals in Europe.

JR Howell (22:20):

And this is very important to remember when we start digging into movements and stuff like that, because I contend that

Taylor Self (22:27):

People are pussies

JR Howell (22:29):

<laugh> as is not my contention.

Taylor Self (22:31):

<laugh>

JR Howell (22:32):

My contention is that if you want people to keep coming, if you want people to keep doing the online qualifier, which brings in money, you don’t program eight workouts where half of the field can’t finish slash even do the movements to participate. AKA making it too heavy. AKA. If the goal is to take over, if the goal is to say, Hey, dude, you’re not gonna have to do X, Y, and Z there. The weights usually aren’t as heavy, but look at there’s, you’re not gonna have to swim. So don’t worry about that. I would argue though, you’re not gonna have to do pegboard. So don’t worry about that. These are all things to remember when you talk about, Hey dude, I can get into Madrid, they take 80. I’m gonna get to say I competed elite against games. Athletes. That’s a big deal to some people. It is

Taylor Self (23:20):

A big deal, but I would argue that look at guap Polooza I know the field, isn’t 80 people, and it’s not as large, but look at how massive the fucking event is. And they make you swim. They make you do shit like pistol squats and swimming and cleaning a de ball. <laugh> a fucking rubber de ball. After swimming, they make you do, uh, like celebrate 10 that I’m sure that embarrassed a lot of games, athletes that out with the muscle ups and the handstand pushups and the overhead squats. So they make workouts fucking hard.

Sevan Matossian (23:45):

Are you saying that a lot of people didn’t finish the events at this, um, event?

Taylor Self (23:49):

No. He’s saying if you look at the workouts and you’re wondering, why are these so fucking easy? It’s because he thinks maybe, well,

JR Howell (23:55):

That’s not that that is not what I’m saying. That’s what Taylor is saying.

Taylor Self (23:58):

I’m being a little more aggressive. He’s saying, he’s saying some of the programming may have been persuaded by the notion that we want people to keep coming back rather than we’re a little nervous, uh, to make people do full depth pair, handstand pushups. Cuz if we embarrass half the field, they’re just gonna say, fuck you. We’re not coming back.

JR Howell (24:14):

I would say, I would say this one of the workouts started with seven rope climbs, seven road climbs, 500 meter run, four meter run. And then an overhead lunch. What I’m saying is if you make that work out seven legless rope climbs, half of the field is gonna be like, all right, cool. Now it’s legless, whatever. Maybe half the field doesn’t even get past the rope climbs. So if you want that spread, if you want heat 10 to be like, all right, cool heat, 10, nine, and eight. No, one’s gonna get on the air runner. This is dumb, but then heats three, two, and one fly through ’em and crush it. What, what was, what was the point of even having those first heats? And if I’m an athlete in those heats, I’m gonna, I’m gonna think about that. When I think about signing up for the competition,

Sevan Matossian (25:02):

Do you have that same criticism for the game games?

JR Howell (25:05):

Absolutely not.

Sevan Matossian (25:07):

Not, no not, but what about like the skill medley?

JR Howell (25:12):

No, I don’t have that same argument at all. Those,

Taylor Self (25:14):

Yeah. No,

JR Howell (25:16):

Go ahead Taylor.

Taylor Self (25:16):

No, I was gonna say you, you, you sign up for the games, qualify, you sign up knowing, uh, unless you have won before that, you’re probably gonna show up and there’s gonna be something you’re not good at. And you’re probably pretty nervous and anxious. And, and that’s the point. And I think what frustrates me about an event like this is it’s put on, is this massive CrossFit license event. They’re giving 30,000 euros away to the winter and you’re like, oh shit, there’s gonna be some cool shit here. And there’s not, that’s my, I mean, so yeah,

Sevan Matossian (25:47):

That’s a good, that’s a good segue to go into the programming

Taylor Self (25:51):

And I wanna, well let’s yeah, we can go in in a second, but I do wanna say like, I’m not, you know, here shitting on HIV P I, you look at the Canada west games workouts, and I fucking love them. I mean, I was just talking to Jr. On the phone before the show, it was crazy to me, the contrast between the two, the Canada west games, workouts. Amazing. Really? For lack of a, I mean there’s no, no better word for that. I would use to describe it. It’s amazing programming.

Sevan Matossian (26:17):

Any truth here with the guy says the guy with the Cannonball biceps, uh, rogue second biggest, but weak athletes are afraid of slight strength bias.

Taylor Self (26:26):

No. See, this is where I think this, I here’s another thing. All these events have like slight biases in their programming for sure. But I think this notion of what this guy is saying is a result of what we do and what people like Brian do. And we break down the programming, et cetera, et cetera, the athletes who are good enough to compete at these events, aren’t looking at it like, oh, well, I’m gonna do really, really well at rogue or I’m gonna do really, really well at waap Polooza pat ER, did rogue pat, ER, did waap Polooza uh, you know what I mean? That that’s kind of just a, to me it’s it’s not a super relevant argument. Other than to say that each of these events have their own flare, the best athlete the events are waiting.

JR Howell (27:07):

Yeah. And I think it is really, really important to keep driving the point home that when you program something, you’re not you’re you’re, you’re not gonna program it without your biases. Mm-hmm <affirmative> people have things they really enjoy. They have things they hate. Some people love light barbell, cycling type workout. Some people despise it. And the only time they use barbells is when it’s heavy. We, we talk about this all the time. I’m sure Brian will do a show where he predicts the finishes at rogue. He will come on and say, listen, Rogue’s programming is usually a little bit more robust. It’s usually a little bit more grunt working heavy. So these are the athletes that you will probably see because they finished this spot this year, this spot, this year, this spot this year. And they typically Excel there and maybe not at the games as much. So, I mean, there, there are some biases and that’s okay. We love to know those type of things as fans and as people who program competitions,

Sevan Matossian (28:01):

I don’t think Adrian gave a single clue intentionally to the 5, 6, 7, 8 things that Jr. Predicted that came true. I think that, I think he gave clues that weren’t intentional that basically. Yeah, for sure. That basically Jr. Did his homework and found out what Adrian’s biases were and brought them to shed light on them. And bam, we had the pirouette. I mean, that’s crazy. Did anyone else, could anyone else guess the pirouette? Yeah, but they would’ve had to done their homework like Jr did. And that’s the bias you’re talking about. That was just my point.

Taylor Self (28:40):

Yeah. Everybody has stuff that they really like, and they’re gonna program with that.

Sevan Matossian (28:43):

You would’ve never put the PI you would’ve never put the pirouette in me. Yeah. You don’t have that biased. You would’ve put in the curtsy.

Taylor Self (28:54):

Yeah. The Cury lunge

Sevan Matossian (28:56):

You put in the Curie. Okay. Uh, do you want to, um, Jr. Predictions were absolutely insane. I agree. It was crazy, but that’s because he read, he read, uh, Bozeman’s bias. I’m just driving home. Your guys’ point. It’s a perfect example where he’s he? Uh, he, he read into, um, Adrian’s biases. Okay. You wanna dig into it? Workout one?

Taylor Self (29:15):

Uh, well, let’s talk, let’s start with what makes good. Uh, yeah, I mean, we, I don’t know. What do you, I wanna ask Jr. What he thinks?

JR Howell (29:27):

I think,

Taylor Self (29:28):

Well, I, I wanna ask you what you think makes good programming before we go. Just

JR Howell (29:32):

A general. Yeah. So if, if we’re talking about a competition light Madrid, or like other three, let’s just call ’em three day, weekend long competitions where you’re probably gonna six to eight workouts scored workouts and your field is gonna be, let’s just say, um, fringe, semifinalist level to games, athletes, for the most part, those are who you’re probably programming for, or you should be programming for. So when I look at something like that, I look at.

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

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