Sevan Matossian (00:00):
This is the second one we’re doing with you. Bam. We’re live.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome back into the 2022 Dubai CrossFit Championships. They are announcing the winners on the floor right now, and it is beneath it is Benito. We’ll take the championship here at the 2022 Dubai Fitness
Sevan Matossian (00:25):
Championship. How, how close are, are you? This just happened, uh, two hours ago, right?
Brian Friend (00:30):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (00:30):
How close are you to, uh, Fabian? Are you standing pretty close to him?
Brian Friend (00:36):
No, we’re up on the, in the, like the booth overlooking the stadium still.
Sevan Matossian (00:40):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Being chips. Let’s go down to the
Sevan Matossian (00:43):
Floor. Go ahead. Go ahead.
Brian Friend (00:45):
Uh, basically at the finish line, you know, then there’s the seats behind them, and then there’s a balcony up top. And on, on the right side was the dj, and the left side was the broadcast table, and also one of the cameras that we use for the broadcast.
Sevan Matossian (00:58):
Uh, this is, this is a pretty powerful moment here. This guy’s or this guy is like overwhelmed.
Brian Friend (01:05):
Yeah. I did talk, I, I just went out to dinner with some of the people who were down on the floor and, uh, I mean, he wasn’t just like, like he was sobbing. This was like very meaningful and emotional moment for him.
Sevan Matossian (01:17):
What, what, what’s this guy’s? Uh, what’s this guy’s background? What, what, like what is this the biggest event he’s ever won?
Brian Friend (01:23):
Oh my God. Yeah. This is the best day of competition that he’s ever had. And the biggest moment in his career so far. Um, he’s had a, I mean, he’s, he’s been close. Like a lot of people are often in this sport and, and, you know, sometimes people get a breakthrough and sometimes they don’t. He’s been, uh, the last two seasons have been pretty tough for him, I think in terms of competition. He’s 25 years old and he’s had a, you know, a few hard events, a few setbacks, a few close calls, and hasn’t quite materialized into what I think he believes is possible. Um, I don’t, I mean, he came into the day in seventh place, you know, we weren’t even really looking at him as someone who could potentially win, especially when you have someone like Brent Falkowski holding down the top spot guys like yo Koski that are, that are in the way and guys charging like Luca and Lizar Gik. Um, you know, it’s, it was a competitive top 10 this weekend. And, uh, he went first, first, second, and then edged out for Kowski and finished in exactly the place he needed to, to hold off the charging more. Its feedback. It
Sevan Matossian (02:22):
Looks like one of the most exciting final events in the history of CrossFit.
Brian Friend (02:26):
Yeah, definitely. Um, and, and when you realize how close that the points ended up being in the women’s division for second, third, and fourth, and in the men’s division for first through third, it’s definitely right up there, like you said.
Sevan Matossian (02:39):
Uh, does he speak English if I play this interview? Does he speak English?
Brian Friend (02:43):
This is a very short interview. And they, yeah, they told him he could say something in Spanish. I mean, he, he could do a little English, I think, but when you’re that emotional, it’s hard to think at all, let alone in a second language.
Sevan Matossian (02:55):
Yeah. Let’s get, let’s give it a peak.
(03:05):
Okay. Spanish. All right. Uh, well, it, it, it, it was crazy. We will get back to, uh, that event. Let’s, um, go back a bit. Um, there were four workouts, uh, today. Um, you can either check them out at, um, bar Barend has a, a pretty incredible, uh, spread of all the workouts, uh, the results and, uh, the times of everyone, uh, event by event. It’s an, it’s a pretty good breakdown, and it’s, what I was, uh, relying on is I, um, I, I watched this after it happened. I’ve been just cramming all of today’s events into the last hour. Okay. So we started with event five Bryan, uh, fast, like an oryx am am I pronouncing that right? That’s the name of that animal. Oryx.
Brian Friend (03:55):
Yeah. I think it’s comparable to a Gazelle, something
Sevan Matossian (03:58):
Like that. Yeah. We showed a picture of it the other day. He, it’s like a fan fancy deer with like fancy, like pointy antlers. Uh, why did they choose that name? What is it Oryx, like a, is it a animal that’s, is it Aian animal? Is it a UAE animal?
Brian Friend (04:15):
I’m not sure. I’m sure that it’s, you know, a more familiar saying here than it is in the United States. I had not heard of that animal previously.
Sevan Matossian (04:22):
I know, I know. You can hunt them. Uh, you can go to Texas and, uh, and, and, and hunt them. They, they breed them there and they hunt them there. So anyone who wants to put one of those down, <laugh>. Uh, okay. Uh, Matt Frazier joined you in the booth for this workout.
Brian Friend (04:38):
He came on for the men’s, um, heats for this workout. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (04:42):
And, and like you said yesterday, uh, he added a lot of valuable information. I thought it was interesting seeing you in this role, by the way, asking him questions. I was like, holy cow. Brian’s giving him just all loop after all loop, which was very cool. You, and like you said, he added a tremendous amount of insight, uh, to, to the program. Was that fun?
Brian Friend (05:02):
Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if you’re aware or not, but kind of my, um, upbringing or whatever in this space I’ve spent a lot of time, uh, in, in, in live podcasts with one of the best question askers of all time. So I have a good mentor in that regard.
Sevan Matossian (05:16):
Oh, that’s fantastic. That’s good to hear. Uh, yeah, you, you absolutely killed it. And, um, and that, and that was fun. And we’ll get to some of the stuff that, uh, that Matt, uh, was, uh, sharing. Um, this was a, a four, a four round workout. Let me see. I apologize. I have no one working the back end here. Let me go over to the bar
Brian Friend (05:39):
Band. Yeah, I can, I can talk about the workout while you’re pulling it up. Okay. Uh, this is this. So there, as, as we talked about last night, and as I’m sure we’ll talk about today, there were some changes to some of the workouts that were made last minute for a variety of different reasons. Um, but this one stayed true to form and from the first version of the workout that I ever saw of this until now, it’s been exactly the same. Um, 10 shuttle runs, 10 burpy box clear overs as a buy-in, and then basically as many thrusters as you could do in the remaining time. Two and a half minute interval rest. One minute repeat four times.
Sevan Matossian (06:14):
And in. Hi Chase.
Chase Ingraham (06:16):
Hello.
Sevan Matossian (06:17):
Uh, so we’re over here on Bar Bend. You can see the workout, uh, event five, uh, day two, um, four workouts. Uh, Brian just went over the workouts, uh, 10 shuttle runs. Uh, you had to jump over the box. And then, uh, max dumbbell thrusters. Brian, you were saying that the third interval you felt like was the most important going into the workout. Why did you say that? And did you continue to think that, uh, after it was all said and done?
Brian Friend (06:41):
Well, I, it just in general, when you have a four round workout, I think, uh, almost any of the time, the third round is the critical round. I usually, uh, encourage, uh, people when we’re, you know, coaching in the gym to stick with it through that third round. Cuz if you can get to the last round, you know, almost every person is gonna find a, a way to get through the final round. But that third round, it’s painful and it’s hard. This workout in particular had a little extra el uh, element in it because if you were able to achieve 40 reps of the thrusters with the heavy dumbbells in three rounds, then you were gonna have a huge advantage in the final round when you got to the lighter pair.
Sevan Matossian (07:19):
Uh, did you like the weights chase for this 70 pounds? I know Brian asked Matt Fraser, uh, about that. Also,
Chase Ingraham (07:25):
The athletes handled him way better than I thought, which is usually the case the last couple of years of how you think it will go. And then the caliber of athletes that we have now in the game, I thought they did, uh, really well. And I, I’m with Brian too, and I, I would throw out the first round being hugely important because everyone’s fresh and getting a huge chunk off the bat, but not dipping too far in the red, maybe pacing yourself in round two. But we saw a lot of the guys that could get to those fifties in the third round and really buy themselves some good reps for the fourth, where I know Brian, like in the women, did only a handful get into the, the second set of dumbbells, but not until the fourth set I think I saw
Brian Friend (08:09):
On, as far as I remember, only Claudia Luck who won the event, got any, um, made it to the, she made it to the, uh, play Dub 40, 40. And in the third round, every other woman got that, got to ’em, only got to them late in the fourth round. Mm-hmm.
Chase Ingraham (08:27):
<affirmative>, I thought the weights were, they, they were right. Like people got to the dumbbells ride around where you thought they would with an opportunity for a fourth round if they really, really wanted to put in the work in that third round. I thought it was good.
Sevan Matossian (08:39):
Uh, Brian, you did ask, uh, Matt Fraser why he chose those weights. Do you recall his answer? I know it was a long, long five and a half hours you were just on.
Brian Friend (08:49):
Yeah, I mean, I, I think that he, like you said, he tested this work in a variety of different formats before, um, settling on this. And it was not just the weights, but also the, the number 40. And actually, I dunno if it was on the air or off there when he spoke to him, but that was the thing he was most nervous about with this workout, was if they’d picked the right number for that transition, I think they’d flirted with 35 and maybe 45. Um, they’d flirted with the lighter weight and having to get to 50 before doing it, I believe. I think, uh, he was, I remember, uh, after we got off the air, you know, he said, thank you for having me on these two days. And he goes, man, I’m, I’m relieved that that one’s over because I was nervous that we, if we were gonna get it right or not. And after watching it, I think we did.
Sevan Matossian (09:30):
Uh, ed, I, um, ed, ed DeSantos, uh, makes a comment here. Ed, I I hope you will take, um, you will not mind my poetic license, um, as I slightly alter what, what you wrote, Brian, you were fantastic this weekend. I can’t wait to see you and Chase team up at the games, uh, this year and do the individual competition at
Chase Ingraham (09:51):
The, to click the commercial <laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (09:56):
I’m try, I’m trying to make that,
Brian Friend (09:58):
I thought that was a love sign for me and Chase.
Sevan Matossian (10:01):
Yeah. Perfect End. So, uh, ed, thank you. I also would love to see, uh, chase and Brian, um, as, as the leaders in this space, uh, team up. Maybe we’ll even get three, maybe, uh, throw, uh, Mr. Woodland there too. I think that would be, I think you guys are ready for, uh, three to be, uh, if I may be frank. And then, uh, and, and then, you know, I hope this isn’t an insult cause I mean, as a compliment and then get Bill grundler on the field like they do at the, uh, at the UFC or in the nfl and have Bill roaming the sidelines mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, interjecting and, uh, grabbing athletes. I think that would be a fantastic foursome. I am a huge fan of threesomes, but I’m not opposed to <laugh>, the occasional foursome. Um, I, I, I want you guys to really look at what at, at this, uh, for
Chase Ingraham (10:52):
Everyone’s
Sevan Matossian (10:53):
Going on over here. Talk to someone over there at Barb about that. I, I muted it. You see, I put the little X through it. What do I, what do I do here?
Chase Ingraham (11:03):
Maybe go to a, the leaderboard that doesn’t have that on there. <laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (11:09):
Uh, I want you to see this. Look at this score. This is where Fabian, this is really important here. One rep, one rep to win the event.
Brian Friend (11:22):
I wanna, I, I, I wanna go back and watch the finish the last maybe 10 or 15 seconds of this heat of men, because on the floor we thought that on Neil aka had won the workout. And the reason why we thought that is because he put the dumbbells down and took a bow to the crowd. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But if my memory serves, he did that with like five seconds left in the workout. And if he actually had five seconds left and hadn’t done that and had done two more reps, it would’ve been enough to beat Fab Fabian, which would’ve prevented Fabian from winning the competition at the end of the of the day.
Sevan Matossian (11:54):
Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s crazy. And then also, look down here. Where did, where is Brent in this one? Um, uh, he is 10th. 10th, and Brent is one rep. Notice this one rep. Imagine if Brent here would’ve gotten two more reps mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that would’ve jumped him over. 1, 2, 3 guys, these are all easy to look at.
Brian Friend (12:16):
Oh, the way the scoring works, those guys that got seventh all, you know, I think they all get the points for seventh, so,
Sevan Matossian (12:24):
Okay.
Brian Friend (12:26):
I think they would all have gotten 65, and then he gets 50 for 10th. So there’s actually 15 points on one rep.
Sevan Matossian (12:33):
Yeah. Crazy. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I gotta double click it. Okay. And then, uh, and then Brian, what happened down here with, uh, uh, Simonon, uh, Lia? Why did you Oh,
Brian Friend (12:45):
Simon. He, he had withdrawn yesterday and it was for, uh, personal reasons, um, that
Sevan Matossian (12:52):
Oh, this is the boyfriend of, of, uh,
Brian Friend (12:54):
Anna Carlson, correct? Correct.
Sevan Matossian (12:56):
Okay. Okay.
Brian Friend (12:57):
Comp Porter Con Porter also withdrew after this workout.
Sevan Matossian (13:01):
Okay, we’ll get to that. Go ahead. Do you wanna say why did he injure himself?
Brian Friend (13:06):
Yeah, I mean, I, everyone pretty much saw it on the, um, on the clean workout yesterday, and he actually was joking around about it this morning and showing me this, the still shot of it, I receiving the clean and like this position with like 170 kilos on the bar was kind of a miracle. He wasn’t more injured than that. But he told me at breakfast this morning that the only thing that really bothered him was the ecentric, the deloading of a, of a weight from overhead. And we had that twice today, first with the thrusters, second with the, um, the barbell furious workout that we’ll get to. And it just wasn’t, it wasn’t warming up and it wasn’t feeling good. He barely did any reps, uh, in, in this workout as you see. And I think just in the interest of preserving next season, he figured it, it wasn’t worth it for him to continue on today, but he was in good spirits. He was walking around, interacting with the crowd, taking pictures and being just genuine and, uh, fun con porter despite having to withdraw.
Sevan Matossian (13:56):
And, um, what was when you, what was hurt? The elbow or the shoulder? Yeah, elbow. Elbow. Okay. Alrighty. Uh, and then, and then, and then we go, go down here to the women, uh, uh, Claudia Glu, uh, Lena Richter, Jamie, uh, Simmons.
Brian Friend (14:16):
Yeah. Uh, Claudia Luck, you know, she actually had an, a phenomenal day today. Uh, she started the day, I think in 16th place, and by the end of the day was all the way up in seventh Place. So a huge surge for her. Obviously winning an event always goes a long way. She’d done well on the jigsaw workout at the lowlands throw on, I think she finished third in that one. Um, and similar style workout here. And she was able to, you know, obviously, obviously win the event, which helped her make that big move.
Sevan Matossian (14:42):
Uh, and she was, uh, from what I think I heard you say in the commentary, she was the only woman to get all 40 reps with the heavier, uh, weight at the end of the third interval. So she got to start the fourth interval with the, uh, lighter dumbbells.
Brian Friend (14:57):
Yeah. And she likes, you know, being that low in the, in the rankings at the start of the day. I think I got that wrong. She was in 12th and moved up to seventh. But being in the second heat to start the day, she had set that mark to beat, I figured that some of the, because she was able to do it, that some of the women in the last team, like Jimmy Simmons or Ayana Moya or, or some of the others might also be able to do it, but when that third round came to the end, they were all still a couple reps short.
Sevan Matossian (15:20):
Uh, there was also some insight you got from Matt Fraser in regards to why they used the box clear instead of just the box over. The distinction being you had to actually jump over the box without touching it versus just, uh, traversing the box.
Brian Friend (15:33):
Yeah. He said, he said some stuff about the, the, the, the diaphragm and whatever else, but basically what I heard him say was it spikes the heart rate more than a box, jump over that little extra effort to get over the box. It’s a, you know, not an unfamiliar movement to do a burpy and get over a box, but it’s just slightly more challenging. And, uh, I thought it was, I thought it was a nice little wrinkle in the workout,
Sevan Matossian (15:53):
Uh, chase when I would see people jump over the box in, I, you know, we see this a lot. The big example was when you watch Danielle Brandon jump up, up on a box at the games, it really starts showing who is a, for lack of a better word, athlete, or who
Chase Ingraham (16:10):
Is a Yeah, I was gonna say Athlete <laugh>
Sevan Matossian (16:13):
Or who is a real mover. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the example I always use, it was remarkable watching, uh, Brooke Ens and Tia Tomi one time at CrossFit HQ do burpees next to each other bar over the burpees. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and Tia just looked like it was all the burpees looked like just one movement. Like, she’s like, someone’s just pouring a cup of water back and forth. Whereas Brooke, who was great at it, but it was more like a robot and it, it was like segmented and shit. Like each thing was happening separately. Yeah. Um, by the way, I hate driving with people like that, who they switch lanes and it’s like, like to just flow, just flow with your driving. Yeah.
Chase Ingraham (16:46):
Uh, and use your blinker for crying out loud.
Sevan Matossian (16:48):
Yeah. Thank you. What? There were some athletes out there that look like they had never PR practiced the box clear. Like they were, they were jumping over it and landing like basically on their heels and shit. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then there were other, other of these women who were just like flowing mid-flight, turning and then bouncing back. And it just looked like more like a, um, those things that swing underneath, you know, a grandfather clock, like a mm-hmm.
Chase Ingraham (17:11):
<affirmative>. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (17:12):
Isn’t that something the co isn’t that your coach supposed to be like, Hey, uh, let’s do five of these and let me assess them, uh, before you
Chase Ingraham (17:19):
Go out. I mean, you like to see that, but like you said, is that if we’re talking about an athletic advantage, which is somewhat natural based off, you know, some of these athletes, like they’ve kind of tapped into their athleticism potential at this age, right? This is something that’s developed since you were like five and six, right? So am I gonna teach someone how to be more athletic in the, in the warmup area? Probably not. Can I teach ’em to be more efficient in the warmup area? That’s a better, better chance as far as the coach’s impact going into the event.
Sevan Matossian (17:48):
It, it, it’s crazy what movements you see exposed, uh, athletes shit like you don’t even expect. Did you notice that, Brian? Was it pretty obvious? Like, you’re like, Ooh, that’s not gonna work for you.
Chase Ingraham (17:58):
<laugh>,
Brian Friend (17:59):
I di you know, just the way that that workout was going, I, I didn’t really have the best opportunity to assess technique as much as just kind of see who was able to make a move where, you know, there was, there wasn’t a really easy way to, uh, necessarily count the reps on the thrusters. So I was trying to get as, as good of a feel as I can of, of who was making moves on, um, each of the separate implements and, and keep that in mind round to round.
Sevan Matossian (18:22):
Uh, we’re talking about, uh, the first event that happened today, the final day of the Dubai Fitness Championships. Uh, Matt Fraser was in the booth today, uh, for this, uh, for one of the men’s heats. And he shared a lot of good stories. One of the things that he said is he really sung KO’s praise. Uh, he basically said that, uh, he held hos uh, koski basically on a, on a, on a pedestal, uh, of, for his conditioning. Uh, w I’ll start with you, chase. What, what is like, cuz you hear people say, oh my god, to is so strong or mm-hmm. <affirmative>, oh my god. Uh, Danielle, Brandon is such a great athlete, or, um, holy cow, Sam Briggs can really run. What does it mean when he says, yeah, at the very top of the mountain if you talk, what is conditioning? I don’t even know. What was Fraser referring to?
Chase Ingraham (19:08):
Probably, what do you think just like anaerobic conditioning or, or aerobic capacity is, is that the be being able to do long distance at a high intensity for that duration. And Kiki’s always been traditionally very good at that. You know, the event ones at the CrossFit games that were either had a swim event in there. Obviously his swimming background, just with his background alone and how successful he was and how long he did it for. Swimmers have an amazing, like aerobic capacity just based off the sport and the training, which they do for near a decade. And that’s what Kiki’s background is. Take that and bring it into the crosser world. You’re already walking in as one of the most aerobic condition athletes in the game. And now it’s like coming in with a weightlifting background for Matt is like, Matt didn’t really have to focus on weightlifting anymore, he just had to lift like a normal person so he could pour all of that into the other side.
(19:59):
So it’s a huge weapon to come in with that capacity. I think it’s a lot easier to develop, I would say. Um, it’s, it’s a bit easier to develop that aerobic capacity than it would be say, someone who’s really, really weak coming into CrossFit, like strength gains take a long, long time to develop. Yeah. You know, Brian raised his hand, I’ll raise my hand, I still haven’t got there and I’ve been doing this for almost 15 years. I mean, look at someone like Haley Adams elite aerobic capacity, but she’s gonna have to focus on strength and really, really focus and singular that. And we see you’re doing that now just to get herself a a just a notch up from the bottom.
Sevan Matossian (20:33):
And lemme take a stab in the dark here. When it comes to, uh, swimming, one of the byproducts of swimming, whether you, um, are, are in intentional about it or not, is learning to regulate your breathing, right?
Chase Ingraham (20:44):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yes. Uh,
Sevan Matossian (20:45):
And so and so, not only are you you building this massive, uh, you know, aerobic capacity in this conditioning as Fraser said, but you’re learning to really pay attention to your breathing and not be sloppy with your
Chase Ingraham (20:56):
Breathing. And that is, I am actually shocked that you picked that up because that was something that was a huge weapon. I’m
Sevan Matossian (21:02):
Offended. I’m offended. I’ll talk to you off.
Chase Ingraham (21:04):
Well, because now okay, that’s fine <laugh>, but it, it’s, it was a huge weapon for me. It wasn’t. So I swam in college, so I had a, a good, um, aerobic background coming into CrossFit, but my biggest weapon was my ability to control my breath under maximum fatigue in, in high heart rate. And that comes from the nature of swimming. You’re holding your breath and releasing air through your nose, constantly throwing maximum intensity, uh, movements. So when you think of something like a wall ball shot, how do you breathe freely during a wall ball shot? Some people don’t know how to do that. They hold their breath and then like, take breaths intermittently during the re of breathe freely. Can you do that while you do squats? Can you do that while you do kettle swings? Can you do that while you do box jump overs? And yes, it’s a huge, huge weapon for swimmers because that is basically what they’ve been working on and it’s one of those things that isn’t really picked up on a lot in the fitness community about how easy it is for swimmers to breathe freely during maximum intensity efforts. And it’s a huge, huge weapon for people that does need to be practic and trained, I think in and is vastly overlooked in, uh, CrossFit training.
Sevan Matossian (22:11):
Fair.
Chase Ingraham (22:13):
That’s a good pick. Proud you Sahan.
Sevan Matossian (22:16):
Thank you. Brian, were you gonna say something?
Brian Friend (22:19):
Yeah. And yo KO’s been able to leverage that skill set into other aspects of CrossFit. We’ve seen him at the Rogue Invitational and also in this workout today and, and many workouts throughout his career be good at moving, uh, lighter, moderate weight for high volume of reps because like Jay is talking about, he understands how to breathe through that stuff. It’s also, he has hobbies that are like good for maintaining that. He likes cross country skiing. He likes going for long bike rides. And so that’s not even something that he is necessarily doing to try to improve his fitness. It’s just a, the fun thing that he does on the days he doesn’t have to be in the gym. And, you know, he is at four top 10 finishes in his career at the CrossFit games. He’s only 27 years old. It’s pretty, pretty notable stat and Matt Fraser recognizes that,
Sevan Matossian (23:03):
Uh, Victor Maha, I’ve seen this question a few times. Uh, it said that the church were CrossFit championships and any, do you have any insights into why it didn’t say, uh, Dubai Fitness Championship?
Brian Friend (23:14):
Yeah, they had ordered and printed them before that decision was
Sevan Matossian (23:17):
Made. Oh, okay.
Brian Friend (23:18):
You know, all the, all the names and stuff on them are, they’re like, uh, heat pressed on or something. The shirts had been been ordered a long time ago.
Sevan Matossian (23:27):
Uh, uh, Dubai will be hearing from, uh, the general counsel at
Chase Ingraham (23:30):
CrossFit
Brian Friend (23:31):
<laugh>. That’s not true. I know because, uh, reached out and, and talked to CrossFit about that and, and alerted them that that was, was the situation and they, they worked or you know, they worked through it together. Great
Sevan Matossian (23:44):
Dudes. Um, uh, you asked Matt about why uh, he chose to just have the athletes on the shuttle run cross the line and then return as opposed to touching the line. Thought his answer is fantastic.
Brian Friend (23:59):
I mean, yeah, the shuttle run was introduced to the global CrossFit community this past season during the CrossFit game season and in every iteration of it you had to get both p feed, pass the line and reach down and touch the ground. He basically wanted to make it easier on the judges as as simple as as it could be. And I think that that’s a good, like, recognition of the circumstances that you’re in. Um, you know, there weren’t a ton of judges there and so to make it a little bit easier on them and the fact that we couldn’t have a judge on both sides of the floor, that was an easier standard to uphold.
Sevan Matossian (24:31):
Brian was it 10 judges who worked the entire day today? The same 10 judges?
Brian Friend (24:36):
I don’t know for sure. That’s what Matt had said. That’s a broadcast.
Sevan Matossian (24:40):
Yeah. And, and that’s pretty impressive, right?
Chase Ingraham (24:43):
That’s rough.
Brian Friend (24:46):
Yeah, I mean it’s uh, like you said about the broadcast earlier, it’s like five hours or whatever it is and there is a little bit of downtime between, but that’s a lot of heats. Um, it’s a big time competition. You know, the races were tight and uh, it’s a lot of responsibility if it’s, if you don’t get a break every once in a while,
Sevan Matossian (25:04):
Were the judges told to be, um, were the judges briefed on, on, on movements like, hey, um, if you’re not sure if there’s HIPAA extension, give them a warning first. Or it seems like I just didn’t see a lot of no reps and by no means is that a criticism? Maybe it’s just all the athletes were amazing or, but I’m suspecting that the judges were brief like, Hey, don’t interfere with the competition unless it’s flagrant
Brian Friend (25:34):
And, and the build up to the, uh, competition and competition days. I always try to be like as tuned into everything as I can, but it’s, it’s impossible to be everywhere at once. What I do know is that there were, there were athlete briefs both days, two hours prior to the start of competition and that the judges were present for that. And then additionally after the athletes left to go starting getting ready for their competition day, the judges stayed behind with the head judges for a further meeting. So they were definitely there for both the athlete brief and the judges’ brief to follow what was communicated at the judges’ brief. I wasn’t able to be at, because I had other things to
Sevan Matossian (26:09):
Do. There seems to be the least complaining about the judges. So I guess this is a prop to the judges that I’ve heard in a long time coming out of a, uh, an event. I haven’t heard, I, I haven’t heard any complaining.
Chase Ingraham (26:23):
I think cuz it was, regardless if you think it was lenient or not, it was at least consistent. Right? We didn’t have a lane five judge out there that was different than everybody else. Right, right. You’re just like, oh I got lane three, which is a skinny one, but you weren’t worried about what judge you were getting possibly. Right. Fair. So I think when it comes to that, it’s like as long as we’re all playing by the same rules, if everybody gets soft lockouts on their dumbbell thrusters, as long as everybody gets them and we’re all doing the same thing, you’re not gonna hear a lot of complaints. But if one person is getting hammered by one judge and it’s different than everybody else, that’s where you see the, the complaints and the uh, frustrations start to rise up as an example. Not to. Yeah, that’s,
Brian Friend (27:12):
Uh, you know, Fraser has talked about this in the past also where he thinks that there are certain movements that are, you know, very difficult to judge in competition and in in particular, he has said in the past that a box jump should no longer be programmed, especially in a, in a online competition, make him jump, do a box jump over cuz it’s very clear you start on one side and you get over it, the hip extension of the top of the box jump becomes a gray area that people are gonna nitpick to the end of time. He chose the burpy box clear over even less room for error in that really jump all the way over the box. What else are you gonna do? Jump over it. So, and of course there’s certain movements like dumbbell thrusters, like ring muscle ups where you could have those little nuance things that people have been pointing out throughout the season. But like Jay said, until there’s something obviously different or noticeably strange compared to everything else happening on the floor, then things just go on as usual and the consistency wins at the end of the day.
Sevan Matossian (28:07):
Uh, so, so, so maybe some kudos also to the programmer, uh, h h Wpo
Brian Friend (28:13):
For being conscious. No, I think that Matt is, um, you know, there’s a lot of factors going into it. You know, he, he wants, he wants the program, the best competition that he can. He wants to factor in is this a balance estimate hitting the time domains, but he has a fixed window of time that we can have the competition. There’s prior times he has to consider there’s limited equipment available. And all of those things factor into that. I still think that they did a fairly good job of choosing movements, uh, and, and movement patterns and that was really happy with the workout flows. There were some things that we had to change because of the size of the floor. We wanted to advance the barbell on the, from the, um, cleans to the front quest of the shoulder to overhead. But because of what had happened with Laar Gik and bumping into a barbell in a previous day, they decided to do the stagger start and let ’em do ’em all in one spot. But in general, the flow of the workouts I thought was really easy for spectators and on site and at home to follow. And I think all of those elements are yeah, a testament to the attention to detail that that team put in.
Chase Ingraham (29:09):
Brian, was there chip timing or
Brian Friend (29:12):
Was it all there? Only for the Bur Khalifa challenge,
Chase Ingraham (29:15):
They should have gone the width of the field then
Brian Friend (29:18):
The width of the field.
Sevan Matossian (29:19):
Yeah. Why does that matter chip versus timer? Well,
Chase Ingraham (29:23):
If they’re chip timing has a, usually has a line in the competition floor that you cross to trip the chip timer. But if there was all hand timing, the lanes are irrelevant when it comes to the end of the day. It’s just where do we start, where do we finish? And in the clean, uh, front or the power clean front squat overhead. Well if that’s the case, then line ’em up one through 10, the length of the floor going, the width, and then you could advance your barbell. I’m just making something up after the fact. Obviously this is like armchair quarterback stuff, but if you really did want to advance the bar, make the call, just go the width of the field, advance every two lane.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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