Sevan Matossian (00:00):
One day a week to, to one every day. How quickly?
Brian Friend (00:03):
Mm. Six months, I would say. To get to every day.
Mattew Souza (00:05):
Yeah. To get to, to get consistently every day. I would probably say that’s about right. I remember you also saying it’ll be crazy when we do three a week. <laugh>,
Sevan Matossian (00:13):
Do sch nozzle.
Brian Friend (00:15):
Three a day.
Sevan Matossian (00:16):
Uh, in the center square today we have Mr. Jr. Howell, um, uh, with the, uh, I don’t know what that thing is on his back. Oh, Brian had a long That’s right. We talked about, oh, it is his new sponsor. That too. Uh, we talked about, uh, Brian had a tough night last night. A lot of vigorous exercise. Maybe pulled a muscle in his back or something. So he is trying to stay warm.
Brian Friend (00:43):
I did thrusts today, Jr. No way. Increasing thrust weight thrusts with just our pullups and double bons just for you. You’re, you’re, you’re so ready for the open. All you needed is that one session. I’ve done two, two thrust workouts in the last 12 months. <laugh> glad for Brian. I
Sevan Matossian (01:02):
Probably probably sent you see the other guy. The other guy’s really fucked up. Uh, so sorry. Uh, what’d you say? Jr? Sorry,
Brian Friend (01:07):
I’ve probably sent him 12,
Sevan Matossian (01:09):
12 workouts
Brian Friend (01:10):
With thrusts workout too.
Sevan Matossian (01:12):
Uh, buck Burpees
Brian Friend (01:15):
Strong. Yeah, that’s, I found this coin today. Masters Fitness Collective. Isn’t that nice?
Sevan Matossian (01:19):
Oh, what coin?
Brian Friend (01:21):
I need a new one. Yeah. What’s wrong with this one? It’s not the one I gave you, you gave me a coin. No, but I’m gonna give you one. Oh, okay. Oh,
Mattew Souza (01:31):
Drama.
Brian Friend (01:32):
Maybe I need a second coin. Little
Mattew Souza (01:33):
Lovers. Coral
Brian Friend (01:35):
Coins are important. Okay. <laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (01:38):
The, the 2023 CrossFit games are about to begin, and when they begin, they will open with an event that’s called the Open. Do we know how many people are enrolled so far?
Brian Friend (01:51):
Halpin would know.
Sevan Matossian (01:53):
He would.
Brian Friend (01:53):
Okay. And he would tell you everyone’s ID number.
Sevan Matossian (01:55):
Oh,
Brian Friend (01:56):
Good. Halpin <laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (01:59):
Hey, Halpin, if you, uh, uh, in an hour we’re gonna do a show, uh, review. When this is over, you guys hang tight. First, Jr Howell’s gonna tell you what all the open workouts are, and then at 7:00 PM Pacific Standard Time, we have some incredible video to show you. It is an interview that Brian Spin did today with, uh, Bob Eubanks, uh, from the CrossFit Games. And we have watched it, the debut banks, and we have watched it and analyzed it. And we have gotten down to the bottom of the, uh, strength of, uh, field numbers and worldwide rankings. And if, if you’re, if you’re from Africa, you sh you should definitely, uh, all six of you who watched this show from Africa, you should pay attention
Brian Friend (02:40):
<laugh>. Or if you’re, in fact, Sevan has spent so much time preparing for this, that he finally figured out that it’s called strength of field.
Sevan Matossian (02:47):
Strength of field. Yes. If you are of, uh, uh, fewer of melanated skin in from the African continent, I want to tell you, uh, bring your box of Kleenex, because, uh, we have some serious issues we’re going to expose tonight.
Brian Friend (03:02):
That’s in an hour. So we got some. Oh,
Sevan Matossian (03:04):
Oh. Until then, this show is gonna be fun and positive and upbeat. <laugh>. There we go. Finally, dude, we’re having JR. On Don’t be a douche nozzle. I was like, all right, good.
Brian Friend (03:11):
I I did say something similar to that.
Sevan Matossian (03:13):
A appear first, uh, lucky camera straps, $10 from Australia, stoke for the Big Crew today. More to come if JR. Predicts workouts that are in my wheelhouse. Hey, already fucking with
JR Howell (03:22):
Mr. Lucky. What are you good at
Sevan Matossian (03:24):
<laugh>? Send your list of movements
JR Howell (03:27):
In.
Sevan Matossian (03:28):
Uh, okay. Um, so let’s talk about some big, really big picture stuff first. Uh, so tell the, this is the, um, a community event that turns into a crowning the fittest person in the world. Do we have any questions on whether the CrossFit game, crowns the fittest person alive? Does anyone, is anyone pushing back on that at all?
Brian Friend (03:48):
I think if the singular question is a, at the end of the CrossFit games, are we a, are we finding the single fittest man and women and women that we’ve done a good job of doing that?
Sevan Matossian (03:58):
Yeah. And, and, and this person is fit as shit.
Brian Friend (04:02):
Yeah. I mean, I think in the history of the games, that there are less than a handful of situations between men and women, where you can even really draw into question whether the best person won.
Sevan Matossian (04:12):
Yeah. Agree with that. And, and, and, and this really is the fittest person on the planet. Whether you wanna argue, well, you guys define fitness, blah, blah, blah. Shut up. Just come participate. And, and by that it means these guys, Adrian Bosman and Crew test, uh, all the time domains, uh, the modal domains, the, it’s, it’s all, it’s all being tested
Brian Friend (04:32):
And the games Yeah. Not necessarily in the open.
Sevan Matossian (04:35):
Right? Yeah. Okay. And the first event, and there’s basically four events. And it goes, the open, the quarter finals, the semi-finals, and then the CrossFit games, and it narrows down. Uh, as you might imagine though, they cast the biggest net. That’s the open anyone in the world can enter. All you need is, uh, uh, you do need a computer access to a computer to register. Right. That’s the barrier of entry in $20. Credit card.
Brian Friend (04:59):
Yep.
JR Howell (05:00):
Yep.
Sevan Matossian (05:01):
Uh, Jonah seven by eight, eight, uh, two Euros, please. No Wall walks in, uh, first wad, uh, for three years in a row.
Brian Friend (05:09):
I think that’s a, I think that’s a very reasonable request.
Sevan Matossian (05:13):
Have there been wall walks? Uh, two years
Brian Friend (05:14):
In a row? The last two. The last two years. And I would, I would love to see a, actually an entire competitive season this year with no wall walks. I think that would be fine.
JR Howell (05:24):
Yeah. While I think that they’re a great movement to put in the open, fairly accessible. You could argue, maybe a movement that people can get their first of during the open that maybe have never been able to get all the way back to the 10 inch line last year. You could almost dub it the year of the shuttle run. Right. We had, well, there were supposed to be shuttle runs the first workout in the open. They got switched to box jump overs because of some people’s limitations with space quarterfinals had shuttle runs, semi-finals shuttle runs, and the games had a shuttle run workout. So I think after a year, like last year, it would be completely feasible for Boz to just put ’em away for a year and then bring him back out later.
Sevan Matossian (06:11):
And, and this is also the first year that Adrian Bosman is doing the programming for all of the events. Correct. Open quarter finals, semi-finals, and the games. And for those of you who don’t know, uh, that in the Center Squares, Jr. Howell, he’s the owner of, uh, CrossFit Crash, an affiliate on the east coast of North America, down below in the Red is the executive producer of the Sev Podcast and owner of CrossFit Livermore that is, uh, just outside of San Francisco, California. Uh, up in the right, Brian Friend is, uh, uh, the leading sports analyst and opinionated maker, uh, in the, uh, CrossFit space.
Brian Friend (06:48):
I’d like to also be acknowledged for working at a CrossFit gym in the central part of the us.
Sevan Matossian (06:54):
He’s a man that also wants to be acknowledged for working at a CrossFit gym in Chicago. Um, and, uh, the other guy is, uh, Caleb Beaver. And, um, he is on every show. And, uh, he brings up the visuals and, uh, pipes in, if someone says something that’s uh, wrong, don’t
Brian Friend (07:13):
Fuck it up.
Sevan Matossian (07:14):
Yeah. He’s the fact checker.
Brian Friend (07:17):
<laugh>.
Sevan Matossian (07:18):
Uh, and, and, and, and for two Euros, you can completely derail the show. So what’s that say about us? Okay. And so, so we, we’ve got some things established and we are about to start the first. It, it’s a, the, the open is a three week event. Uh, well, te tell us, I I won’t, I won’t screw this up. Go ahead, Brian. Tell us about the open when it starts and what exactly it is.
Brian Friend (07:38):
Yeah. It’s, it will start this Thursday. There’ll be a live announcement from Spain at the Kaha Majika featuring four of the fittest, two men and two women in the world. They’ll announce the workout. They may have some other, uh, people do the workout, uh, additionally to those four, but it’ll be the first athletes to do the workout. And a lot of people will watch it. And then, uh, hundreds of thousands of people around the world will do the workout over the next four days. You have four days exactly to do the workout and submit it, and then the process will repeat itself two more times over the next two weeks.
Sevan Matossian (08:11):
And, and this is the second year in a row? It’s been three weeks or how many years in, because it used to be four or five weeks. Right? It’s
JR Howell (08:16):
The third year.
Brian Friend (08:18):
Third year in a row. The first year there were, that, there were three weeks of the open. There were four scored events because the last week had two part, two part event. Last year there was a three week open, and there were only three scored events, which is the fewest that the open has ever hit. This year we have three weeks again, and we don’t know the number of scored events that we’ll have.
Sevan Matossian (08:38):
Okay. So the, uh, the announcements will be on February 16th, February 23rd, and March 2nd. And what time will that happen and where can people, uh, watch the announcement live?
Brian Friend (08:51):
I believe it’s at
JR Howell (08:52):
3:00 PM Eastern.
Brian Friend (08:54):
Yeah, noon Pacific is what crosser will advertise it as since they’re, uh, off, you know, headquarters are in the Pacific Time, 3:00 PM Pacific, and it will be streaming on crosser games, YouTube,
Sevan Matossian (09:07):
And, uh, there’s a deadline for when you have to turn in your score, which always, uh, uh, some drama with, uh, athletes thinking that they put in their scores and missing the deadlines, et cetera. And, and when are those deadlines?
Brian Friend (09:23):
They’re on the, the following Monday? Uh, is it, is it the same, is it noon or the, do they keep it at the later time? Chair? Is it fi It was
JR Howell (09:32):
Usually 5:00 PM Pacific
Sevan Matossian (09:33):
Time, right?
JR Howell (09:34):
Yeah, it used to be. And I think it even was all the way up until at least last year. I’m sure someone in the comments will correct us, but I wanna say it’s still 5:00 PM Pacific.
Sevan Matossian (09:43):
And just so you know, nothing that we say on this show is official. You just watch the watch this show, because I guess it’s just more fun to get your information from here than anywhere else. But if you really want the official information, you probably have to go over to a CrossFit HQ to their website and then if, and then we’ll, and then you can also then come back here and we’ll decipher it for you. Cause a lot of their stuff needs deciphering. Last year, um, uh, JR Howell did an amazing job of, uh, giving us some insight into what the workouts could possibly be. It was truly remarkable. Uh, all kidding aside, JR you killed it. He, um, it didn’t come easy. Uh, he, uh, studied the podcast that, um, Adrian Bosman does with, uh, pat Sherwood very thoroughly. He went back and looked at gazillions of old journals. And your podcast, I’m sorry,
JR Howell (10:34):
Your podcast with Adrian,
Sevan Matossian (10:36):
Uh, my podcast with Adrian, and, and he’s done some pretty, he’s been pretty obsessive, uh, about it. So, um, this year it’s gonna be three weeks, uh, like we said last year, um, mostly it was Dave Castro who programmed the open. And then after that, the programming was, uh, mostly, uh, Adrian Bosman for the Quarterfinal semi-finals. And then it was completely him for the CrossFit games. And, uh, we definitely saw, um, Adrian’s tron it. Would you guys say that’s fair,
Brian Friend (11:06):
More than fair?
JR Howell (11:08):
Yeah, for sure. And remember, those were games predictions, not open predictions. So I’m not as big on claiming to know what workouts or movements are gonna show up in the open. I, I love to do it. It’s fun to, to make predictions, but in the last 13, well, in the last 12 years, we’ve had that many years of one person programming to where we could make pretty educated guesses of where it was going. Movements that would show up, movements that would show up together in the same workout movements that would show up on which week of the open. We kind of had a good rhythm and we’re kind of able to do that. And now we, we don’t have any. So this is like the first year that we get to see any trends start to develop.
Sevan Matossian (11:51):
Um, uh, lucky straps think, if I’m reading this correctly, uh, $5 from Australia is asking, um, do we think there will be more or less participation?
Brian Friend (12:01):
It does say, by the way, in section 1.2 of the current rule book that the scores must be submitted by 5:00 PM Pacific time on Monday.
Sevan Matossian (12:08):
Okay.
Brian Friend (12:10):
Official. It’s actually a li uh, a little more than four days that you have to do it. They’re announced at noon Pacific, but you have an extra five hours on the back end, so you have 50 or four days plus five hours to submit your scores.
Sevan Matossian (12:24):
Uh, and uh, another thing that we have already this year is, uh, we have the equipment list, right, for basically anything for all the online competitions.
Brian Friend (12:34):
Well, yes and no. I, there’s a website, games.cross.com/announcement 13 9 6 9 slash open. That’s lists the equipment list, but it has this caveat here, check out this page for a non-specific and non-exhaustive list of equipment you should have access to if you plan on competing in the open and any online events during the season.
Sevan Matossian (12:54):
Okay. So they’ve given us some equipment that could possibly, or that could possibly use with the acknowledging,
Brian Friend (13:03):
How do you interpret that non-specific and non-exhaustive?
Sevan Matossian (13:10):
Uh, I don’t know. That’s very interesting. Like, are the kettlebells road kettlebells or they kettlebells from kettlebell masters, or do they have to be, I I don’t know that non-specific thing is, is, is, is is confusing non-exhaustive means that, hey, like we can add anything to the list that we want to
JR Howell (13:25):
Yeah. Not, not unlike the, uh, bullet points that read a wall space for wall walks, handstand pushups, but not limited to et cetera. And a pull-up bar four, but not limited, two pullups toast to bar bar muscle ups. Right. Jump ropes plural. Why not just put jump rope? It’s always said jump rope on the equipment list, and now
Sevan Matossian (13:49):
They, but, but I’m okay with this. Right? They’re ju they, they’re trying to, they’re, they’re, um,
Brian Friend (13:54):
They’re checking, they’re doing two things. One is they’re providing a baseline list of equipment so people can get prepared. And secondly, they’re leaving room for, uh, change if they feel like they need to make it at the last minute.
JR Howell (14:07):
And just to give some credit, people have been screaming for years, like, can we at least know some things ahead of time about what equipment might be in the later stages? And they even have at the bottom for G H D in rope specifically, uh, for the climbing rope, that those two implements will not be used in the open, but could be used in the quarter finals in age group, semi-finals stage. And you know, the big talk has been about the kettlebells being added. And they even released the video recently saying there’s been a lot of worry about the heavy kettlebell movements coming up in the open. You can rest assured that those will not be used until the later online stages, but
Sevan Matossian (14:45):
Oh, they said that, they said that
JR Howell (14:47):
They they did, yeah.
Sevan Matossian (14:48):
Um, what, and when they say later online stages, are they talking about week three or they talking about quarter finals
JR Howell (14:52):
Quarters or age group? Semi-finals. Okay. Yeah. But you know, they’ve, they’ve gone ahead and let people know, Hey, if you don’t do work with Kettlebells and you plan on making it to those stages, you’ve got a lot of time to, to put your hands on ’em and do a lot of different things, which is cool.
Sevan Matossian (15:06):
Hey, that, um, that uh, rogue website that, um, Caleb just had up, is that a page on Rogue that has all the equipment already just set up for you?
JR Howell (15:15):
I think that was a post from the game site.
Caleb Beaver (15:17):
So the games had posted the link and then it just basically said everything that the games requested be available to you from the open till quarter finals.
Sevan Matossian (15:29):
Okay. That’s cool. So if you need any convenient, you can go to Rogue and just, uh, snatch it up. Uh, lucky camera straps with the big street parking campaign, I can’t see them using the rower in the open. What’s he talking about? What’s he talking about?
JR Howell (15:47):
Yeah, so the, the video that was produced, that was at, I mean, I thought Boz was awesome and it, you even talked about the production of it, how good it was. And at the end, I think he says something along the lines of, we’re specifically calling out all street parking members to sign up for the open this year and participate. So I think a lot of people are using that to infer things like, oh, there’s gonna be tons of dumbbells, or there’s gonna be Devil Press, there’s gonna be movement synonymous with street parking programming. Which, which could be, well,
Sevan Matossian (16:16):
Because street parking people don’t have access to a gym
Mattew Souza (16:19):
To drive the garage. Yeah,
JR Howell (16:20):
Right. But, uh, does their, um, does their weekly programming, do they not program rower and then like substitutes for that? Or do they just assume that people don’t have a machine?
Mattew Souza (16:31):
I think they program all of it, but always have substitutions for people without, because I’ve, I, I, but I’m not super familiar with their programming, but the stuff that I have seen before has had implements of like an assault bike and stuff like that.
Sevan Matossian (16:41):
Who knows someone in the comments has gotta know. That’s a great point. I’m gonna guess that they don’t use a lot of assault Pike. They don’t use Rower. They don’t use GHD a lot, I’m guessing. I don’t know. They
Mattew Souza (16:49):
Use a lot of sandbag and dumbbell from the media I’ve seen and like sleds and stuff.
Sevan Matossian (16:54):
Hey, is Sandbag on that list, Jr?
JR Howell (16:56):
No.
Sevan Matossian (16:57):
No. Um, okay. Uh, and so we’re gonna start the, we’re gonna start week one, week two, week three. Um, what can you tell us, um, uh, about what you think about week one? I know that some years they like to have started week one, so it’s accessible to everyone. So that’s not the week. You wanna scare people, I guess scare people with double unders or muscle ups or, you know, anything that would, would scare people away, because I think that they’re trying to make it so that people who aren’t signing up until the last minute won’t be scared when they see that first workout. And do you agree with that? And, and does it help you kind of, uh, think about what they might program first?
JR Howell (17:32):
Yeah, I think Chase, he said it best on a open show that he and Bill did recently. It’s a, it’s a workout that most everyone can do, but no one wants to do. So usually they’ll try to scare you with pain discomfort and not, uh, a heavy barbell or a complex body weight movement. Um, and, and even in the past, I mean, you know, we have so many years with Dave and he kind of followed along with this. I mean, some people could argue that the workout that started with One Wall Walk and ended with a set of 21 wall walks was, was, was pretty aggressive. Um, but for the most part, you know, usually the first week anyone could do, and he kind of understood that. And I think Boz does too, that, you know, we wanna, especially since it’s only three weeks and we’re not sending people directly to the games, which they did like in 2019, that the movements that come out week one are gonna be things that most people can do and most people have access to.
Brian Friend (18:29):
Oh, in 2019 they, they did do, they did have some direct qualifiers and they also programmed the most biased workout, one of the two most biased workouts in the history of the open Yeah. For week one, that row wall ball. Yep. Row wall ball and, uh, 12 minutes of burpees were the two are the two polar extremes of most favorable for tall and short athletes respectively.
Sevan Matossian (18:49):
Mm.
JR Howell (18:50):
Yeah.
Brian Friend (18:51):
There is hard data to support that.
JR Howell (18:54):
And we, and I mean, I know a lot of people don’t care about the numbers and the trends, but some people do. And when we talk about these things and how much information we had in the last 12 years, think about things like this. Snatching toes to bar and double unders have been in every single open up to this point. Those were all purpose.
Brian Friend (19:14):
Me again and Thrusters,
Sevan Matossian (19:15):
Say those four again,
JR Howell (19:17):
Snatch toes to bar double under thruster.
Brian Friend (19:24):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>
JR Howell (19:26):
Snatch has been in week one of the open in 20 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, and 22 snatching in burpees. That combination showed up five times in 12 years. So those two movements together. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> wall balls and ring muscle ups 2012 and 13, that was a repeat 14, 15, and 20 thrusters as the last week. I’m almost positive, all but 2020. And that was the year they were in a 20 minute amra with dumbbell thrusters. So, I mean, there’ve been things over the years that we kind of know is coming. And I think that makes it fun. Like everyone would say around week three, uh, this is usually the muscle up week, you know, this is usually when rings come out and everyone starts to drop off. You know, weeks one and two are pretty accessible. And then weeks three and four, usually there’s a chipper in week four, or, you know, we know the last week is usually gonna have thrusters. I mean, it kind of made it fun and it kind of made it at the same time unknowable.
Brian Friend (20:21):
So,
Sevan Matossian (20:22):
Uh, this workout that you mentioned, like, uh, the Seven Minutes of Buress that can’t be seen anymore. Right. And that, that’s, uh, things like that are gone when you limit it to only three or three workouts.
Brian Friend (20:34):
I think if you wanted to bring that workout back as a, as a repeat workout in this format with a three week open that you’d wa you would need to couple it with something else. So you might do am rep seven minutes of burpees at the 10 minute mark barbell complex in a five minute window. So you have a heavy with a mono, you know, a body weight ninja like softball.
JR Howell (20:54):
Yeah. I think making it, making it three weeks from five weeks really does affect the programming in the way of single modality workouts where you just have a body weight movement for seven minutes straight. You just have a weightlifting movement seven minutes straight. They could do it. I don’t think they will do it. And you know, to Brian’s point, um, some might say, what about seven minutes of burpee box jump overs? Sure. But the, the people that you saw excel at seven minutes of burpees are probably still gonna excel at that same thing. The box being 24, 20 inches doesn’t automatically give an advantage to anyone that’s taller.
Sevan Matossian (21:30):
Yeah. It doesn’t turn it into a couplet.
Brian Friend (21:32):
And I actually, I wrote an article about this that has not been published and probably won’t be published on Barb Bend, but I will eventually publish it somewhere and it, and it shows a, um, hierarchy of, of movements relative to height performance. And it was actually a really cool study. And my kind of, the reason that I wanted to highlight this is because there’s some specific movements and movement combinations that are very favorable to a specific demographic of height, and it’s really the only one we can measure because weight is, there’s no way of tracking weight accurately in the CrossFit games current system. Um, and, and, and the same goes for people that are sh uh, shorter. Like there’s some more cuts and some movements that are very favorable for that. So if you’re the programmer for the open and you want to have a relatively balanced test, and you’re gonna choose either one of those movements specifically, and especially in a combination like rowing a wall balls, then you need to have something that offsets it. So that’s why I say that if you’re gonna have a, a burpee test, then you need to also have a rowing tester or, or a weightlifting test.
Sevan Matossian (22:29):
Where did the data come from that, that article,
Brian Friend (22:32):
Awesome guy named Mark Baum that would, will get the credit for all of the work, um, that he has done. Um, and would have, but, and will, he, will.
Mattew Souza (22:41):
How significant is the difference
Brian Friend (22:44):
Between,
Mattew Souza (22:45):
Like say you have two athletes that have the oh, the same capacity, but they’re the difference in height. Like how, like does the, the taller
Brian Friend (22:51):
It’s hard to, it’s hard to say with capacity. What this does is basically a, it, it uses something called rank correlation. And so zero is neutral that it had no favorability relative to height. Okay. That workout in, in 2019 was a, a negative 0.4 48 value. And the next closest one was negative 0.247, which is 18.1. So it’s twice as favorable for tall athletes as any other open workout ever programmed. The burpees, 12 points of burpees was a positive 0.376, and the next closest one was 19.4 at positive 0.304. Then there’s a big drop to 0.2308 for 13.5. So there’s one work. So
Sevan Matossian (23:33):
He took, he got the data from the open and he ba and he, and he just, he looked at, he just picked, uh, a hundred people that he could find their height
Brian Friend (23:39):
On. Oh, the top 2,500 every year that did
Sevan Matossian (23:42):
That work. How’d he get their height? How did he get their height?
Brian Friend (23:45):
It’s on the game site. It’s on the profile. Now there are a few that might not have it listed, but it’s gonna be a Wow, fairly good representation of the top 2,500 performers on every workout that’s ever been done in the open. He did the same for the games. Obviously there’s less people
Sevan Matossian (23:57):
Are you launch Interesting website. Brian, are you launching a website? Launching a
Brian Friend (24:01):
Website? I think so.
Sevan Matossian (24:02):
Okay. Oh, go ahead, jr. Sorry. That’s interesting what
JR Howell (24:05):
That 18.1, you spent half the workout on the rower because that was toast to bar dumbbell hang clean and jerk and calorie row.
Brian Friend (24:13):
And so when you take the top five that favor the tall and the top five that favor the short, there’s a, a very distinct pattern that comes in, uh, that comes into play. Interesting. And you can see that, you know that the movements are relatively the same. So three of the five favor rowing, all of them had weightlifting component. Um, those were the two things that were, uh, favorable for the taller athletes in the field. And we can presume the taller are also the heavier. And then for the lighter one, three of the five included burpees and there was never anything, uh, heavy that showed up. The heaviest thing we ever had, and one that favored the shorter athletes was a hundred pound thruster.
JR Howell (24:48):
When you look up 20.5, I’m curious to see that workout that was a choose your own adventure wall, ball ring, muscle up calorie row. If that one was almost a zero or if that one still favored the taller person because of the wall balls, I would say, I would say because of 40 ring muscle ups, it probably evened it out, but I,
Sevan Matossian (25:05):
I
Brian Friend (25:05):
Can’t believe 20.5,
JR Howell (25:07):
Correct. Mm-hmm.
Brian Friend (25:08):
<affirmative>, I can’t believe it’s the eighth most favorable workout in the history of the open for taller athletes.
JR Howell (25:12):
So you could argue though that there are only about five movements that are more favorable for taller athletes in CrossFit wall balls, anything with a box. So a box jumper is step up, rope climbs, rowing, what else?
Brian Friend (25:27):
Well, any machine I would say.
JR Howell (25:29):
Right.
Brian Friend (25:31):
Um, when
Sevan Matossian (25:32):
You think
Brian Friend (25:33):
Actually like weight, like weighted running,
Sevan Matossian (25:35):
You mean just like every inch taller you are, you’ll see the curve go up. They just do better on average, like from five five to six two, you just see that line like on the rower just better.
Brian Friend (25:48):
Yeah. If you’re, I mean, you still have to like assuming that the same, the same capacity is there.
Sevan Matossian (25:54):
Right? Right. Uh, I I, going back to these, uh, four movements that have been in all the opens, the snatch the toes to bar the double under the thruster, I’m really surprised the burpees not in there.
JR Howell (26:04):
It was not in 2015. And then in 2016 it was in the open twice in 16.1 and 16.50.
Sevan Matossian (26:12):
Interesting. Wow. Um, a any, do you think there’ll be something, uh, Jr there’ll be something new this year in the Open that we’ve never seen before, this Turkish get up or these, you know, this whatever, this is gonna be Turkish.
JR Howell (26:24):
I, I Boz I think he said on an interview maybe that he did with Miranda recently, um, where she kind of was, you know, trying to get a little bit of information for the community and digging a little bit and he said as far as there being something brand new off the wall, no, but he did make a comment that new to the Open, yes. But if you’ve kind of been around for a while and you’ve been paying attention, it’s not a new movement. And like he, I think even made that claim on the crossover double under he is like, just because it’s, it’s a, it’s a new movement to you. Doesn’t mean it’s new. Like you can watch Matt Murky doing it on every second counts. Like it, it’s, uh, who
Brian Friend (27:00):
Made that movie?
JR Howell (27:00):
<laugh> Jumping Rope, you know, is not, is not a new thing. And people have been doing single unders for, you know, you learned how to jump rope, you were probably doing single unders and they count the games. Oh,
Mattew Souza (27:11):
This, this is a good guess. You think it’s something like this that might be hard to judge though.
JR Howell (27:14):
So Yeah, and that’s a great point.
Sevan Matossian (27:16):
And is that, what’s sdl, HP
JR Howell (27:18):
Sumo Deadlift High Pole? It’s actually one. And
Brian Friend (27:19):
Usually, usually you see without the l sst h p.
JR Howell (27:23):
Yeah. And I, I, I kind of was wondering that too and was talking to Chase about it if he
Sevan Matossian (27:29):
Thought and, and we, sorry I didn’t rub real quick just to help people out. Uh, you’re talking about with the, with the Kettlebell JR right? So we have the Pippo with the kettlebell and I mean, cuz normally we see with the, uh, barbell, right, but now you’re talking about with the kettlebell
JR Howell (27:39):
Maybe. So I think a kettlebell would be more likely, but I was actually thinking that it would show up in the open with a barbell. It is in the judge’s course and has been every single year. Mm-hmm. And yet they never use it. Also they’ve never done back squats. Whoa,
Sevan Matossian (27:53):
Whoa, whoa. Go back to that. You tell me about this judge’s course thing. What’s that?
JR Howell (27:56):
So when you take the judge’s course, they have all kinds of movements that you have to look at the points of performance on and look at. Um,
Sevan Matossian (28:05):
You know, this is, but tell me about the judges course. That’s the thing where you have to pay $10, you take the online course so that you can judge people in the open and sign off on their
Brian Friend (28:12):
And for the rest of the season.
JR Howell (28:13):
Yeah. And it used to be a way that, you know, you, you have to take it if you’re gonna validate scores for sure, you know, depending, depending on what gym you go to, some people will, you’ll, you, you can judge, but you know, if the person who’s taken the courses they’re watching and validates scores, whatever, you know, the rules have
Brian Friend (28:29):
Changed during the years. That comment by coen covin,
Sevan Matossian (28:31):
God, this is really compelling what you’re saying.
Brian Friend (28:34):
This is an interesting comment. Um, sum hypo certainly could come up in the open. It’s very rare that the, that a main site workout has any movement that’s also repeated the same week of the open. Correct. This could be like a, maybe a, a little nod to a a 22.2 or 23.2 or three, but basically eliminates it from being a possibility this week.
JR Howell (28:56):
And you know, when you have a, you know, when you have a movement like, um, light Sumo del High Poles or um, really light hang power cleans where there’s just so much opportunity for, is the hip all the way open? Is the need fully extended before the elbow drops below the bar? It’s really hard to tell because you can go so fast. What if you did sim left high poles for a set of 50 like they did at regionals one year at 1 35? A lot of those guys, even at that level were doing singles at that point. Just like singles on power cleans. I would argue that’s not very difficult to judge. And like we talked about in the judges’ course, that movement is there every single year and it’s never been used. And it’s a foundational movement. Look how long it took for G h D sit-ups to make their way to a stage lower than semifinals, right? They, they were in quarterfinals the first year they were in quarterfinals last year, maybe could be eventually in the open, I don’t know. But if you’re looking at old school movements that have been around for forever that they’ve put a lot of value on, you know, as long as the love.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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