#807 – Trolling The CrossFit Open Leaderboard w/ Brian Friend & JR Howell

Brian Friend (00:02):

Oh, for sure.

Sevan Matossian (00:03):

Bam. We’re live. Uh, he’s getting a pushup, couple pushups pre-show, uh, sev has to empty the tank. Uh, all the both of those.

JR Howell (00:12):

Oh man.

Sevan Matossian (00:14):

Hey, good job on the workout JR.

JR Howell (00:17):

Pardon?

Sevan Matossian (00:17):

Good job on the workout. 2 68.

JR Howell (00:22):

Oh, thanks.

Sevan Matossian (00:23):

Right, 2 68. That’s, um, nine reps, uh, less than the Champ. Got in, uh, 2014 than the fastest time, you know. Uh, hi everybody, uh, Brian, friend Jr. Howell and Caleb Beaver. Um, I was watching, uh, a little conversation that Rich and Angelo were having on one of their mayhem videos, and they were guessing how many people would beat Rich’s World record. And Rich guessed 63 and Angelo guessed 100.

Brian Friend (00:57):

It’s right in between those, wasn’t it?

Sevan Matossian (00:59):

Oh, was I, I didn’t even check. I just, I didn’t wanna steal the show from you or jr.

Brian Friend (01:03):

I don’t know. I have too many tabs open, but I think it Rich, rich beat it by a few reps and he was 51st, so I think that, uh, it was probably right in between those two. Cause there are a lot of pile up, you know, same scores at that rep count.

Sevan Matossian (01:18):

Uh, another thing, uh, rich said is that, uh, well, we’ll play that conversation in a second. We got some clips. So I went to, uh, morning Chalk up to where I normally do my research and talk in Elite Fitness.

Brian Friend (01:32):

Actually, rich was like, was really close.

Sevan Matossian (01:34):

What’d

Brian Friend (01:34):

You get? The number of people that beat it is exactly 63.

Sevan Matossian (01:39):

No shit.

Brian Friend (01:41):

That video is from before the workout happened. Yes, it was literally the 64th guy had 2 77, which tied it. Exactly. 63.

Sevan Matossian (01:51):

Crazy. Hold on, let’s get that bear shot. Uh, Patrick Clark. Is that true? Is Brian right on that? Uh, holy cow. That’s amazing. Everything Rich does is amazing.

Brian Friend (02:02):

Patrick, watch him do the workout. Actually, he said he was amazing.

Sevan Matossian (02:06):

He was, he was there. He was there. Or he watched it live.

Brian Friend (02:08):

He was in Cookeville.

Sevan Matossian (02:10):

Where’s Pat? Where’s Patrick? What was he doing on there?

Brian Friend (02:13):

Probably multiple things, but one of the athletes that he manages is on Angelo’s team this year. Kyra Milligan. And, you know, uh, she’s recently gone out there for some training to go through the open season, quarter finals that you have to do to satisfy the requirements this year for a team. Um, and, you know, we had a good time when we were out there. So Patrick decided to go back out for the weekend, but he watched them, a lot of ’em do the, this workout, including Rich. And he said he, he wasn’t even planning on doing the workout. He just kinda last minute decision decided to do it with Tyler. Maybe in part because Angelo had beaten his score by a few reps. Ended up tying Angelo’s score with very little to no warmup at all.

Sevan Matossian (02:51):

Wait, really? Him and Angelo tied.

Brian Friend (02:53):

They both got two 80. I think Angelo beat him on a tie break though.

Sevan Matossian (02:57):

Hey, um, um, I wonder Isky Kyra Milligan is different than Kyra Vanil.

Brian Friend (03:06):

Yeah. For Angela’s Four seconds faster on the Tyra Hit Catlin Vanil Cat.

Sevan Matossian (03:10):

Okay.

Brian Friend (03:10):

Caitlin. Caitlin

Sevan Matossian (03:11):

Vanille. I, I was gonna say one of those girls I just started following on Instagram. I wanna say it’s Kyra Milligan, but, but it, maybe it was Catlin Vanil. I can’t remember. Uh, Nick Schmidt, uh, $10. It’s not much the hell. It ain’t, it’s great.

Brian Friend (03:24):

Well, we don’t know what that a in front of the $10 means. It could actually be not that much

Sevan Matossian (03:27):

Australian. Uh, it’s not much, but just wanted to contribute to the show, to show my sport. Have a great show. Legends. Well, thank you. That’s really cool. You, I don’t know, none of us are really legends. Not yet. Emma Lawson looked good

Brian Friend (03:42):

When this workout first came out. The the three people that came to mind that had the probably the best chance to win this workout worldwide were Emma, Carrie, Mel O’Brien and Emma Lawson. Probably not in that order. Probably. I probably thought Mel Lawson, Carrie, just cause I wasn’t sure where Carrie was at, but I think they were all top five.

Sevan Matossian (03:58):

Uh, how did Emma Austin do?

Brian Friend (03:59):

I think she was fifth. Uh oh, no, seventh. Sorry. Didn’t even meet Sam Briggs, so Not really.

Sevan Matossian (04:05):

Um, did you watch her video? Uh, her and the, her and Jake Farlow, uh, the video that came out of their camp?

Brian Friend (04:10):

I haven’t, I haven’t watched that one yet. There’s quite a few to watch, which is nice, but also takes time.

Sevan Matossian (04:16):

She’s uh, she’s, she’s turning, I mean, she’s her, she’s, because she’s so young, she looks like a different athlete.

Brian Friend (04:22):

Yeah,

Sevan Matossian (04:22):

Yeah. I mean, she looks one year, um, more stout, stronger. I mean, you know, I don’t want to be a, a dickhead to her because she performed so incredibly well. But at the games last year, there were kind of some head scratchy moments, like how can that body lift those things Now? I don’t now you would never say that. I mean, she just looks like, she looks like she’s put on three pounds of just armor on her, you know? I wonder if she’s heavier. Does anyone know?

Brian Friend (04:48):

Uh, no. Probably won’t really be able to know either. We could ask her, but outside of that, uh, like, I don’t think she’ll update her games profile. But yeah, I mean,

Sevan Matossian (04:57):

Uh, she’s going from kid to woman before her eyes

Brian Friend (05:01):

Had her fifth in my Power rankings, you know, a couple weeks ago. Obviously

Sevan Matossian (05:04):

In the world

Brian Friend (05:06):

Or maybe in

Sevan Matossian (05:06):

The world.

Brian Friend (05:07):

Nuts had her fifth. Yeah, I had her fifth.

Sevan Matossian (05:09):

Absolutely. Nuts.

Brian Friend (05:10):

Um, I think she’s a real deal.

Sevan Matossian (05:13):

Uh, lucky camera straps also from Australia. Man Jr.

Brian Friend (05:16):

He’s spoiling, he’s spoiling future parts of our episode. Oh, will Allow

Sevan Matossian (05:19):

Man JR. Is fit. Wow. He beat Scotty Panche. Nicholas Matthews, Willie Georges. Chandler Smith and Fk Kowski, uh, Willie Georges, uh, I dunno, I wanted to start the show Hop, but I’ve already fallen in. I wanted to play, uh, you guys, if you guys have not, if you guys do not follow Brian Spin, you’re outta your mind. Like the rest of us are a joke compared to Brian’s spin. Oh, speaking of jokes, uh, uh, talking Elite Fitness and Morning Chalkup had nothing for me. I’m very disappointed. That is normally where I steal all my shit to prepare for my shows and there’s nothing there. Ooh, guts. Ooh, guts. I think that’s Italian. Is that Italian Jr for Fucking Nu No sir. Allgas Gods. It’s Allgas. UATs. You’re not Italian Jr.

JR Howell (06:04):

No. Hold

Brian Friend (06:05):

On. Second. Gonna look,

Sevan Matossian (06:06):

I wanna say something about Willie J Okay, go ahead. Defend your buddies. Go ahead. And then I wanna say something about Willie Georges.

Brian Friend (06:11):

No, I was gonna just gonna say, I mean, it’s not, it’s not necessarily realistic to expect the same stuff from morning chalk up that we did at this time last year. You know, Tommy and I and Patrick and Lauren were all working there, and now we’re not. And they don’t have, there just aren’t people in the space that you can get to replace the sports, you know, uh, quality of that. But they still, I think they’re still putting out some really good community stuff. So I, you know, as far as the competition stuff, yeah. There’s other places that are probably better to go now.

Sevan Matossian (06:38):

Shit, I wouldn’t have been so mean if I knew Katie, if I would’ve known Noon, if I would’ve known Katie known. Thank you. If I would’ve known Katie was in the comments. Ah, I love Morning Chalk up. Uh, the one of your lit videos must have not uploaded. I was unable to steal your

Brian Friend (06:52):

No, what you meant to say was they did have some decent stuff on their social media.

Sevan Matossian (06:56):

Oh,

Brian Friend (06:56):

Okay. Charts and graphs that you could reference. You just didn’t, you forgot to look there.

Sevan Matossian (07:00):

No, I want to go on YouTube and I wanna watch those, them interview stuff and then steal it and, and pretend like it’s my own.

Brian Friend (07:06):

Lauren had what did do a few interviews and, and content from the proven camp, but it might just not be what you’re looking for. It’s, I’m talking only Fitnesses page.

Sevan Matossian (07:15):

Uh, I went over there. I didn’t see it. Can you find it? Oh, Caleb, by the way, whenever I mentioned Morning Chalk up, uh, you know, we were talking about sounds, can you play crickets? You know, do we have different sounds for different people? Like for ca uh, Heidi Crume, it’s like swallowing sounds. We should, I’m actually gonna start a list here. Morning Chalkup gets crickets. Sorry, Katie. Katie, use the bathroom. I’ll tell, uh, if I say anything bad about it. I like you. Uh, Anthony TPA Jr. Is in the top 10 for Masters. Watch Out. Rich, uh, rich isn’t competing his video submission. I saw his video submission. Uh,

Brian Friend (07:51):

You have not seen his video submission.

Sevan Matossian (07:53):

I, I did see Eye one on you. Nice. Okay. That was quick. Thank you,

Brian Friend (07:58):

<laugh>.

Sevan Matossian (07:59):

Hold on, let’s try that again. I couldn’t find anything on Morning Chalk ups page about the open.

JR Howell (08:05):

Hmm.

Sevan Matossian (08:06):

Uh, I think it was Andrew Hiller or someone. Oh, Andrew Hiller, uh, commented that you couldn’t see in Richard’s video. Uh, or Rich Is Ball,

Brian Friend (08:16):

That’s video submission.

Sevan Matossian (08:17):

Where did Andrew get that video from? Then?

Brian Friend (08:19):

A video on YouTube that, uh, their media team cut and edited together to show his performance from 10 years ago or nine years ago compared to this year. That’s different than what he would submit to CrossFit if they ask for a video. His workout, he had multiple cameras running during the, during the workout. Andrew doesn’t care to take the time to ask that. He just wants to make a video for people to like it.

JR Howell (08:38):

<laugh>.

Sevan Matossian (08:41):

Okay. Settle. Not even like JR do you wanna weigh in on, um, Hills

Brian Friend (08:44):

Doesn’t care if you like it or not. He just wants you to

Sevan Matossian (08:45):

Watch it. Uh, Jay. Well, I, I made the assumption while I was on the assault bike that, oh shit, uh, rich purposely cut out his wall ball target, and therefore he, um, can’t enter the, um,

Brian Friend (08:55):

And that’s on the viewer. Andrew’s not claiming that. He’s just, yeah, he’s just take, took a video. This would be like, um, me picking out one Bible verse and saying, you think Jesus is a great guy? Look at this example of a, of a mass murder from the Old Testament and say Christianity stocks.

Sevan Matossian (09:11):

Yeah. He he flipped over the table, didn’t he? Uh, uh, like a pawn shop or

Brian Friend (09:14):

Something? Yeah. Unbelievable. Why would you follow that guy and just not read any of the rest of it? That’s what Andrew’s doing there.

Sevan Matossian (09:19):

SevOnes losing his barn keys. Uh, no, I, well, I scheduled Rich to come on March 9th or Suza did. So now I can talk a little shit about him. We got him. Uh, Willie Georges, uh, um, the video was according to Hillary also, uh, wasn’t to standard, uh, some space. Yeah. Because of the space. What, what happens there?

Brian Friend (09:38):

I don’t know, but it was just gonna be super honest. I didn’t adhere to that floor plan for any of the people at our gym. Cause it didn’t make any sense with the layout we had. And I don’t care, you know, he’s right. Like they wrote the rule and so they should probably

Sevan Matossian (09:49):

Wait Hiller’s, right? Hiller’s, right? Yeah.

Brian Friend (09:51):

Oh, okay. He’s right. That they, that there are, you know, a lot of the videos that he pulled and showed in there certainly would not be to the standard for one reason or another based on what CrossFit expected from the floor plans. And I completely agree with him that that floor plan was unnecessary for this workout. And it made it very difficult for a lot of people to accommodate to the point where we just said, screw it, we’re not even gonna try. We have no one that’s going on to the next stage doing the workout here. It’s not that we’re trying to cheat, it just doesn’t make any sense for us to reconfigure our entire gym so that people can do this workout.

Sevan Matossian (10:20):

What was wrong with by Great, great Pool, Caleb. I know I didn’t even send you a link to that. What, what, what was wrong with that layout? That all the shit was too close to each other.

Brian Friend (10:30):

I mean, they, they were just, uh, expecting eight, eight feet distance between on one side. You had to have what was on one side Jr. That pullups the rings and the wall ball. And on the other side had to be the rower and the barbell.

Sevan Matossian (10:43):

So what, what, what, what’s wrong with that one? What? The rings and the bar bell?

Brian Friend (10:47):

Because the rings, the rings and the pull-up are, are often difficult to move or impossible to move.

Sevan Matossian (10:52):

Oh, but look in this picture, the rings and the, and the pull-up bar close to each other.

Brian Friend (10:56):

Right? And the point that he made was the picture that they showed on UNC across its website that has, uh, this is all the equipment you need for the open is a space that makes perfect sense for a diagram like this. But it’s not necessarily like, we don’t have any rings that are attached to our rig for ring muscles. They’re all separate and in the middle of the gym. Yeah. So if I want to have a person do a workout where it’s the barbell and the rower are both eight feet away from the rings and the pull-up bar, which are 12 feet away from each other, then I’m not gonna have very many people doing the workout at the

Sevan Matossian (11:26):

Same time. Oh, I just as, I just assumed that those were minimums that you could even be further away,

Brian Friend (11:31):

Right? Yeah. But some people don’t even have enough space to be eight feet

Sevan Matossian (11:34):

Away. Okay. Well go back to Willie George’s. His, his, his shit looks fine to me because his bar’s eight feet away from the Pullup bar in the rings. So I don’t know what Hillary’s talking about.

Brian Friend (11:46):

What? Well, I don’t know what those lines on the floor all mean there. Where’s his rower? The person sitting on it?

Sevan Matossian (11:51):

Oh, that’s a good

Brian Friend (11:52):

Question. And the rings and the polar bar and the wall balls are all supposed to be eight feet apart, so maybe he has eight feet to the back and eight feet to the front to get it done in an okay. Parameters. But I don’t think there’s eight feet between the rings and the Barb Bell. He, oh, this is the one where he put it a lifestyle image of Batman and did his measurements that way, I think.

Sevan Matossian (12:09):

Oh yeah, that, oh yes. Uh, uh, Andrew Hiller for the record, Brian, I made that part up. I was giving May Hamm’s cameraman Ben Credit for hiding Rich’s wall balls. I said it multiple times. I was dragging the buttery bros. Oh, I watched the Buttery Bros, uh, video too. I wanna give them kudos. Uh, it was, they, it was a video in the title was is Ma O’Brien, you know, the gonna win the CrossFit Games this year. And they put that section right in the beginning of the video. They could have put it at the end, you know what I mean? Just to make me watch all their bth biathlon stuff first. But they actually put it right in the beginning. So I’m gonna give it a, the buttery bros a thumbs up and say, go watch that video if you wanna see Ma O’Brien do it. Uh, by the way, she looks in, did you see that video?

Brian Friend (12:53):

I haven’t watched that one yet either. I wa I watched more of the men’s stuff than the women’s so far.

Sevan Matossian (12:57):

What did you think, uh, Jr are you ready to talk, get your vocal chords warmed up? Sure. Uh, what did you think about, um, that, what your takeaways from seeing Mall O’Brien and hearing her speak in the Buttery Bro’s most recent video just published 24 hours ago.

JR Howell (13:11):

She sounds about as focuses any person that’s primary goal is to win the CrossFit games.

Sevan Matossian (13:18):

Right. And, and I I thought I was buying it. I was never like, oh shit, I’m not buying it.

JR Howell (13:23):

No, I think she believes it too.

Sevan Matossian (13:25):

Yeah. And she, yeah, it, it was, uh, okay. Uh, sorry. Yes, Dylan. Val. Hi. Are you crazy? Thank you. I really appreciate it. Not as much as Brian, Brian really appreciates it. JR not so much. I’m in the middle somewhere. That’s awesome. Uh, Brian, are are you wearing rosary beads? It’s Fat Tuesday or is that a lanyard from the, uh, games Dork Convention? You just came from <laugh>?

Brian Friend (13:51):

No, uh, remember from the gym gave it to me tonight. He says, fat Tuesday, you gotta wear beads on the show tonight. I said, okay, I’ll do it for you.

Sevan Matossian (13:58):

I dunno what that is. Um, uh, Patrick Clark, we don’t know what Willie Georges hasn’t showed the measurements, and we may never see them. It’s only for a CrossFit to decide, uh, Savon, uh, mispronouncing a few athletes. Not true. Uh, fake news then mispronounce anything. Thank you. Then.

Brian Friend (14:15):

Actually you did.

Sevan Matossian (14:16):

Oh, um, mal, uh, I thought Mal O’Brien looked amazing and she sounds really focused and calm and it’s, it’s a great video. As much as I don’t wanna like it,

Brian Friend (14:28):

That’s what you think, but then you bring her home to be your daughter, your fake daughter’s best friend. That’s life sized toy and three comp three events later. She just kills you on the floor.

Sevan Matossian (14:40):

What do you mean? Is there a Ma obrien doll

Brian Friend (14:42):

<laugh>? Oh, that, that analogy I made the other day. Oh, about that movie.

Sevan Matossian (14:49):

Um, uh, Julian Ifer, 99. I appreciate the content. Guys, any thoughts on Haley not competing this year?

Brian Friend (14:56):

Sure. Uh, I, I commend her for making that choice. I imagine it’s a very difficult decision. I’m sure that she’s got, you know, I, I know that when I was in Mayhem that she was back home. I’m sure she’s, you know, spent some time talking to people that she needs to, and it’s hard because there’s, you know, she’s been, like, she said, she’s been doing this for a long time. She’s had a lot of success. Um, and there’s, you know, expectations that people have of her and for her and, uh, to, to be able to step aside and say, you know what? I need to, I need some time for myself. However long that ends up being. It’s not, not an easy thing to do, especially when you’re, when you’re young. So I give her a lot of credit for it.

JR Howell (15:35):

Yeah. I mean, I think this may be getting a little too deep, but having daughters of my own thinking about them possibly coming to me one day saying that they’re struggling with whatever body image issues, um, relationship with food, uh, and while also trying to perform at a world class level in something, I think I would sit them down and say, Hey, you know, is this what you wanna be doing right now? I think you have some other things you need to figure out first.

Sevan Matossian (16:00):

H how old is she?

Brian Friend (16:02):

21 or two.

Sevan Matossian (16:04):

Yeah. I mean, that’s the year you’re supposed to get everything. Get rid of everything you fucking own and get a stick and put a fucking red handkerchief on it and hit hitchhike across the country and find God. And if you didn’t do that sometimes between when you’re 20 and and and 27, then you fucked up. You missed up. That’s what everyone’s supposed to do. And she’s doing it just completely absolutely fucking normal what she’s doing in my mind. I just hope she does it right. I hope she like really goes on some crazy soul searching. And then I hope she takes a second year off and pulls herself out of the drug pool and gets juiced to the gills and wins the games like Connor McGregor’s doing. Maybe God will talk to her while she’s on that search and be like, get juiced up. Uh, Aaron Frazier. Love it. When Brian and Jr are on 1999, who doesn’t say something? Tell me something. I don’t know. Uh, looking sharp in all black fellas. Oh, thank you for the sweatshirt and the hats. The crash stuff jar.

JR Howell (17:00):

You’re welcome.

Sevan Matossian (17:01):

It’s cool. I won’t let my wife fold a sweater, a sweatshirt and put it away cuz then I’m afraid it’ll just like fall into the abyss. So it’s just laying out on our bed.

JR Howell (17:09):

Just tell her she can wear it then.

Sevan Matossian (17:10):

No. Uh, don’t get crazy,

JR Howell (17:12):

Crazy

Sevan Matossian (17:13):

<laugh>. Uh, Caleb, can you go ahead and, um, uh, there’s a clip right at the top of my notes that says, let’s show the sh uh, let’s start the show hot and, uh, we’ll let the boys have at this. We’ll just like, get right at it guys. We what’s so cool about this show? This is, uh, Brian Spin from the barbell spin. Uh, thank God he’s around. He’s, um, he’s sev on on steroids from when I was a young man. What a gift he is. Anyway, this is fun stuff. Uh, I’m so glad that we have this kind of stuff in the sport and I’m very curious how JR and Brian are going to handle this. Have you guys seen this?

Brian Friend (17:46):

Yes. So I sent this to him.

Sevan Matossian (17:48):

Oh, okay. Here we go.

Speaker 6 (17:50):

All right. If you saw my last post, I posed the question of whether Roman Koff 306 reps should stand. The reason being is that the official workout description states that unless otherwise stated, athletes may not receive assistance with their equipment during the test. As you can see in behind me, Roman’s judge did touch the monitor on his second trip back to the rower. Pat Vener, on the other hand, followed the workout description and did pay a little bit of a price for it because his monitor did not turn on costing him valuable seconds. And therefore, reps Vener only scored two reps short of what Roman did. The problem gets really interesting though, when you look at Adrian Bosman at the live announcement where he did change and, and reset the monitors for all of the athletes doing the workout in Madrid. Take a look.

Speaker 7 (18:44):

14 did get back to the rower. He was able to complete 256 calories

Brian Friend (18:50):

Last. You can see him swatting down in front when I was walking into the Dolores room.

Speaker 6 (18:55):

Alright, if you saw,

Sevan Matossian (18:57):

Okay, let, let me repackage this for everyone. I can’t even believe this.

Brian Friend (19:01):

Uh, by the way, there are a couple comments in, uh, on that video that I would also like to look at after you, you do your thing.

Sevan Matossian (19:07):

Okay, go, go ahead and play this one more time. This is, uh, oh, or you can just see down here in the bottom is Adrian Bosman. Uh, so, uh, touching the rose. So let me get this straight at 3, 2, 1, go. You have 15 minutes to accomplish this am wrap is 14 minutes. Sorry. Yeah. 14.

Brian Friend (19:23):

Almost every one other thing. Cross

Sevan Matossian (19:25):

<laugh>. You have 14 minutes to do. Uh, nice. Caleb Slowmo, you have 14 minutes to do this am wrap and no, once you start, no one’s allowed to touch your shit like your bar, your rings or your rower. That’s like a rule.

Brian Friend (19:39):

What it says at the, at the, it’s the last sentence on the first page of the workout description for 23.1. It says, unless otherwise stated, athletes may not receive assistance with their equipment during the test. So that would mean can’t reset the barbell wall ball, can’t stop the rings from swinging, can’t turn on the, the rower unless otherwise stated. If you go to the rowing specific exa, uh, page, which is page number three, there’s no, uh, uh, additional information about that.

Sevan Matossian (20:06):

So the default is don’t fucking touch.

Brian Friend (20:08):

Correct. And vener and the video that he shared of his workout as he’s commentating through it specifically says here, when I take, he did muscles in two sets, 12 and eight, and after 12 muscle ups, he goes, here, I go over to my rower to turn it on because the, I’m not allowed to have my judge turn the rower on. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn on. And you’ll see when I go back to it that it costs me about 10 seconds and I’m just pulling on the thing and it’s not turning up.

Sevan Matossian (20:33):

How many calories is 10 seconds? Is it more than two?

Brian Friend (20:37):

It’s not calories that he’s losing. It’s a to, to bar reps. He add 44 toes to bar to Romans 46, and it only takes about two seconds to do one rep of a to debar at the cadence that they’re doing at the end of the workout.

Sevan Matossian (20:48):

Oh, that, that’s what they were on. That was the 3 0 3 0 4 3 0 5 3 0 6 were toes to bar.

Brian Friend (20:53):

Yeah. And so in 10 seconds he could have done three toes to bar. Um, is the, that’s the implication. Now the comments on Brian Spin’s video are saying it didn’t affect Roman’s workout that Jake touched the screen. That’s Jake Lockard, who is his judge. And they’re absolutely right. It made no effect on Roman’s workout. We’re not talking about Roman’s workout. Roman’s workout was incredibly impressive and despite the fact that he has his hand on the screen there didn’t impact his score at all. 3 0 6 is with the reps that he would’ve got either way, in my opinion. But

Sevan Matossian (21:23):

Let me ask one more question here real quick. Does everyone’s rower turn off by the time they get to it regardless of how fast you are?

Brian Friend (21:32):

Yeah. If you didn’t touch it, it definitely would. I

Sevan Matossian (21:34):

Mean, well then how can someone say that then? Of course, Jake’s uh, touching the rower affected it

Brian Friend (21:39):

Because if you watch the whole video, Roman turns the, the screen on and then Jake goes just to make sure it’s, it’s

Sevan Matossian (21:45):

Ah, okay, okay. Okay. My bad. Uh, strike my comment from the record, please, Jr from your notes,

JR Howell (21:50):

Thank you. If you’ve got, if you’ve got like a PM five monitor with the l with the, um, LCD screen or l e d screen, whatever you call it, um, as soon as you pull on the handle, it should wake up. So it should come on the just row screen will pop up, or if you just start rowing, that will go away and it’ll start tabulating work earned. But with like a PM three or a PM four, you press menu back or display and there’s like a, there’s a delay of about three or four seconds, and then the c2 like all black pixel comes up and then it finally goes to that screen. So like in Pat’s case, if that was a older monitor and he said it didn’t come on for like 10 seconds, that’s actually pretty believable.

Brian Friend (22:32):

Yeah.

Sevan Matossian (22:32):

And it’s shit. And so 10 seconds, theoretically he could have done as many as 20 toes to bar.

Brian Friend (22:37):

No, not as many as five. No,

JR Howell (22:38):

But

Sevan Matossian (22:38):

Oh fine. One, okay. One every two seconds. Okay.

Brian Friend (22:40):

But honestly, it’s more likely that he would’ve done

JR Howell (22:42):

Three more. He probably would’ve gotten, he probably would’ve gotten three calories in those 10 seconds. That’s what I’m saying. So I mean, in a calorie takes a lot longer to do than a SoPo.

Brian Friend (22:51):

Um, so anyway, it’s w w uh, no one’s, I don’t think anyone’s implying that Romans score is a bad score or a misrepresentation of his work. The question that Brian’s asking is, will, will I, uh, will CrossFit impose a penalty for someone touching his monitor for his judge touching the monitor?

Sevan Matossian (23:08):

Which would mean Romans score is a bad score. And, and, and so all the score he

Brian Friend (23:12):

Might scores might, he could potentially get a minor penalty sometimes, you know, they would give five second penalties for a false starter. They’ll give a, you know, a small rep penalty. They have these things built in. Uh, Hillary has talked about it on his show that they have different classifications for penalties upon video review.

Sevan Matossian (23:28):

So he references to Hiller two positive, one negative so far on the show, uh, 23 minutes in

Brian Friend (23:34):

<laugh>. Um, okay, we’ll see if we can make it a full count.

Sevan Matossian (23:38):

Uh, tr Trevor Gentry, uh, Roman did what the rule creator and director of his sport demonstrated. Okay? Right. Uh, pat did what the paper said. Okay, A CrossFit HQ should not be putting athletes in this position. This is a CrossFit issue, not Romans

Brian Friend (23:53):

A hundred percent. I completely agree. And this is where I was gonna go with the Willie George thing with, if you wanna talk about Noah Olson’s wall, Olson’s wall balls, or if you want to talk about the rower, is that, uh, they’re just putting themselves in bad positions. Like you didn’t need to rewrite the, the standard for a wall ball after 10 years. You didn’t need to rechange the configuration of the four layout for a repeat workout. And in my opinion, there is a competitive advantage, for example, during last year’s quarters finals, or two years ago, semi-finals when they did Gretel and Al Alga, um, penalty for her judge stopping the barbell. That is to her advantage. I don’t see any competitive advantage of having someone turn on your rower here. The only argument that someone can make is, well, it gives a disadvantage to the person who does it on, on their own with literally no one else in the gym. But even so, you know,

Sevan Matossian (24:40):

Don’t you have to have someone in the gym? Don’t you have to have a judge?

Brian Friend (24:43):

No, you could just do a video, but oh, to get back to the rower, you have to go through the muscle ups. I don’t think there’s very many people in the world that are doing this workout, uh, without any other person there and getting to the rower period. And even if they are, they’re not doing muscle ups in two sets, like Pat Vener. And they could go over and, and turn their monitor on a couple times if they needed to, just to make sure it’s on while they’re resting to the muscle muscles, which they’re inevitably gonna do. Even Roman did four sets of five. But, um, and there’s, and, and what if you’re doing it in a cold garage? What if you do have an older rower like that can actually, uh, be slow to, to register Like JR talked about. And in this case, I think it was the difference between Roman and Pat winning this workout worldwide.

Sevan Matossian (25:23):

Uh, uh, Trevor Gentry, uh, thank you for the money by the way. So, so, okay, so this is a CrossFit issue. What do you do? Uh, we’ll start with JR. If you’re a CrossFit Inc. How do you handle this? What do you do with Roman score knowing that the his monitor was touched regardless if it helped or not. It’s their Brian’s saying it’s CrossFit’s issue. Let’s say they, they want, they come to you, they consult you.

JR Howell (25:46):

Well, if you go back to what the paper

Sevan Matossian (25:47):

Actually says, JR here’s $500, we need 30 minutes of your time. Uh, what should we do with Roman score?

JR Howell (25:53):

Well, if you go back to what the movement standards actually says, it, it does not specifically say the screen cannot be turned on by the judge. It just says assistance with any equipment. And I think Pat’s right on when he says, you know, if

Sevan Matossian (26:08):

That’s isn’t turning the screen on assistance, it is, sure.

JR Howell (26:10):

Okay. It is. But um, the people who wrote those rules are when the workout was decided upon to be released. That may have never even come, come into play. Like, well, what if the judge wants to turn it on? Well, yeah, that’s fine. They can turn it on for him. We don’t need to put that in there. You know what I mean?

Sevan Matossian (26:27):

It says no, but, uh, uh, I’m not sure if I’m understanding you. What it says in there is just don’t touch, you’re not, no one’s allowed to help any of the athletes unless specified. So if it said it should say in there yes, you can check the callers for the athlete, yes, you can chalk the bar. Yes, you can turn on the rower. And since it doesn’t, it’s just a pretty explicit, don’t fucking touch anything. That’s the way I read it.

JR Howell (26:48):

So your judge isn’t allowed to hold a piece of chalk and when you come over for the rings, they can’t hand the chalk? No. They can hand it back to you and then No,

Sevan Matossian (26:56):

Nothing. I mean, that’s how I, you don’t agree with that?

JR Howell (26:59):

Uh, I think it’s a lot different in like Gretel or Ingrid when someone’s settling your bar for you versus pressing a button on a monitor. But unless I Yeah,

Sevan Matossian (27:10):

I agree. I totally

JR Howell (27:10):

Did not receive. Yeah, I mean, I

Sevan Matossian (27:12):

Agree. I’m, I’m just going by the letter of the law. Yeah.

Brian Friend (27:15):

I don’t wanna stand this too long. I

Sevan Matossian (27:17):

Want my $500 back. I don’t feel like JR. Uh, I, uh, uh, Jr uh, this is Justin Berg. I want my money back. Uh, you didn’t answer.

JR Howell (27:24):

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a little bit much to do about nothing because I’m sure that there, there

Sevan Matossian (27:27):

Are thousands. We spent 27 minutes on it.

JR Howell (27:29):

Thousands of people who had their monitor turned on.

Sevan Matossian (27:33):

Oh really? That’s common. That was common.

Brian Friend (27:36):

But there’s only one position on the leaderboard that gets paid out money for, for the workout and it’s the top spot.

Sevan Matossian (27:44):

Uh, okay. Um, Brian, do you wanna weigh in? I mean, I guess if Vener would’ve had his coach to turn on the, uh,

Brian Friend (27:49):

The, well, I mean, honestly, what usually happens in these situations is an inconsistent application of the rules because there’s only one spot that pays out the money. They’re usually, they always review the top video and a lot of times the top video gets a penalty. When we know that there are thousands of others that did the same thing, they will not get a penalty. Um, I think that per, you know, per the letter of the law, they could give, they could give him a minor penalty. They would take him from first to fourth in this workout or something like that. It would bump Cole, grease Haber to be the winner of the workout then, though, not Pat Vener, because they’re not gonna credit Pat Vener any reps for his row are not turning

Sevan Matossian (28:22):

On why, uh, uh, GRE shaver grease in between them.

Brian Friend (28:25):

Yeah, he had the same reps as Pat, but a better Tiebreak time by a few seconds.

Sevan Matossian (28:29):

Holy cow. Uh, and and tell me what, I love that the Tiebreak love, what

Brian Friend (28:33):

Is the, it’s the time when you finish your power cleans in the first round. And I would love if they, if that actually did happen, because I wanna see Cole’s video and they always show the top score.

Sevan Matossian (28:42):

Oh,

Brian Friend (28:43):

Okay. And Cole’s a very private guy and probably won’t release it otherwise.

Sevan Matossian (28:46):

Uh, mind blender. Mind Blender I 9 99 7 1. Will you give us a candid, firsthand, firsthand account of what happened to CrossFit HQ in 2018 sometime specifically in regards to the HQ firings and how that impacted open participation decline. And then I’ve done some pretty wild shows on that. You have to dig back. I mean, I’m sure I’ll do it again someday, but I’ve done some pretty, uh, gnarly talks on that and thanks for bringing up a happy moment in my life for me. I mean, thank you for the money. Okay. Um, so let me go.

JR Howell (29:18):

Hey, I’ve got one more thing though, please on this. Please.

Sevan Matossian (29:21):

I think it’s also okay, you might get your money back if it’s,

JR Howell (29:22):

I think it’s also important to make this clear. There are no perennial semi-finalists or games athletes that are told to do anything but never touch the monitor.

Sevan Matossian (29:40):

Do that again. I

JR Howell (29:40):

Didn’t that, repeat that again. At every in-person competition mm-hmm. <affirmative> that uses any kind of concept two machine, especially, they’re told never to, never to touch the monitor, that the judge will always do it for you. Mm mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So to turn that off or to even think about that, you know, is tough. And I mean.

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