Setting The Stage For The Open

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Hey everybody, welcome to the HerdFit Podcast with Dr. Sam Reed and myself, Coach David Siversen. This podcast is aimed at helping anyone and everyone looking to enhance their healthy lifestyle through fitness, nutrition, and most importantly, mindset. All right, welcome back to the HerdFit Podcast. I am Coach David Siverson. I am here flying solo again. I am going to do a little 26.1 reflection, uh, but it not necessarily a breakdown of the workout that would not be very fun. Um, I've had a lot of thoughts running through my head. I always do this time of year, and I like to share them in the effort of what HerdFit podcasts. Uh, the reason why it was created uh about five years ago was just to help you guys with perspectives and maybe um helping you out with your own thoughts and some even physical advice to in regard to CrossFit, health, fitness, but especially this time of year, the CrossFit Open. Uh just got done with the first weekend of the open. We still have one more day left. A few people are going to try to get it in that weren't able to get in over the weekend. Uh, but this time of year, the conversations I have are awesome with athletes, coaches, owners, family, uh, people that are in this gym, people from outside this gym. I love just kind of taking in as much information as I can. And I want to share a few things with you. Um, this was not planned. Uh, Sam is away this weekend. I didn't want to bother him during family time. I also don't like asking coaches on a Sunday to take time away from their families as well. Uh, Ash and Brock are in bed, and I'm just sitting here by myself with my own thoughts. And I felt like this was uh I had some important things I wanted to share with you guys. Um, and it's a reflection of 26.1 and where to go from here. And I want you to first understand where I'm coming from. Um, I had a great talk with a couple of our longtime coaches today, and you know, I kind of uttered this sentiment to them

The 90–10 Rule Of Passion

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like it's uh it's like the 90-10 rule that a lot of us do understand. Like 90% of it is just awesome. You love it with everything you have, but there is the 10% of it that can challenge how much you love it or make you uh hold you accountable to fixing things and making sure everything is as good as possible. Let's talk about your relationships, right? It could be brothers, sisters, parents, spouses, kids. It could be best friends. Uh, 90% of the time you love them, 10% of 10% of the time, maybe I don't want to use the word hate, but maybe you don't like. Ash and I say that all the time. Like, oh, I love you, but there's times I don't like you. And I think that's uh something that you can relate to with some of your relationships as well. Uh, what about your job, right? A lot of you guys do have the opportunity to do something you truly love to do. And 90% of that, it's it's awesome. It gets you out of bed in the morning, you're excited to get to work, but I'm sure there are parts of it that suck. Uh, some of you, it's even more than 10%. Um, something like, hey, I have to travel a lot and I don't want to be at the airport all the time and I'm in, I'm on a plane, you know, two every every other week, or I have to wake up very early in the morning and I don't get home too late at night, and I don't get to see my kids the way I want to see them. Uh, there's a lot of things about a job that you potentially love that do beat you up a little

Community Highs And Hidden Stress

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bit. Um, I feel that way about the open. Um, I think there are very few people on planet Earth that like the open as much as I do. I truly love it from a personal side, but also a business and community side and what it can do for others, what it can do for a community of people that really dive all in. And I'm really thankful that our community at Bison does go all in on it. We have a worldwide reputation of it. Um, and it's something that we all kind of almost take responsibility for in a way because we all contribute to it from owners down to coaches down to members. You know, we have members showing up for hours over the weekend just to judge people or literally just cheer them on. This morning at Open Gym, I think I got asked 15 different times by 15 different people what they could do to help out the couple dozen people that we had do the open. So it's almost like we had too many judges. And it's uh, I'm really, we're really blessed and really thankful for that. Um, but with that, there is, I would say, 10% of running the open at the gym that it absolutely sucks. And I do get this line at some point. Uh, Dave, you look stressed, you look stressed, what's wrong? I'm like, nothing. You're just always trying to find, put out fires. Um, I think it's part of my responsibility, it always has been, to try and find what's wrong and try to make it better. That's what that's part of what the gig is, and I'll never complain about it. But yeah, there are absolutely moments where I probably look more stressed than I should look, but can't always control that. I do my best. Um, no regrets though. I if I could go back and uh start bison with Chris all over again in 2014, I would treat the open the way we do, uh, the same exact way. I wouldn't do everything we're doing uh the same way. We've made a lot of mistakes over the years, but the open wouldn't change a thing about it. Um, I'm really proud of what we've done there. Um, but I do

The Hardest Part: Disappointment

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the negative that the what is that 10% that sucks? It's not like the petty stuff. It's uh my biggest negative is this it's watching people get disappointed in themselves. Um, and they're just truly not understanding what a result means, they're not understanding what the open is. And that that gets me down a lot. It can get me upset, but it also gets me angry sometimes because it can be repeat offenders, if you will, over the years. And but I do, I do try to not um invest my emotions, feelings in someone else's results. Uh, but it's hard not to because you do care about these people a lot. And um, in my perfect world, people would just try as hard as they could and they would be happy for the fact that they tried as hard as they could, and then they move on and go live the rest of their life. But if you know CrossFitters and you know people at bison, um, a lot of people struggle with that. And um, I I do invest myself in them all year for a long time, and I hate seeing people get upset. So, what I really I really want to do is I want to discuss how we react to things and what all of us can do, myself included, the coaches included, people that have been doing this for 15 years. There are people that have done the open 15 times already. Um, what all of us can do to be more at peace with ourselves and just simply just go achieve and try hard to try to achieve a goal. Um, so I want to make sure that I'm coming from a place that I'm talking with you and I'm not talking to you, I'm not talking down to you because I need to talk to myself this way a lot. And I have over the years. Um, I've also come from a place where I've owned a gym and coached at a gym and invested my personal goals into the open for a really long time. And I I do know a lot of different angles to this, and I want to help maybe just have you maybe reflect a little bit on what you're actually thinking, where it's coming from, and what we can do from here. Um, so try to put yourself in one of these three buckets. Okay, you finish your open workout, you have very sore quads, join the club, and you have one of three thoughts,

Three Post‑Workout Mindsets

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right? One of them is you're elated, you're happy, you're proud. I did it, you hit your goal, whatever that was. Not much needs to be said to you. It is, it's the best feeling to be around. I love seeing people celebrate uh their their open performance, whether they hit a score or they hit an RX for the first time, or they did something they've never done. Um, I think the number is, I have to run the numbers tomorrow, but I think we have 35 people doing the open for the first time. And most of them that I talked to are like they felt like they did something. And you guys all know what that feels like. They really like accomplished and put themselves into something. Um, it's the best feeling to be around. It's great contagious energy there. Um, with that said, I would say don't get comfortable. Comfortable and whenever from my experience, people that get way comfortable are the ones that really start to regress. So be proud, but at some point in the coming days, put it behind you because you still have two left to go. Uh, the number two person, this is probably the most common, the the highest number of people are in the in bucket number two. And it's like, hey, whatever. Like I did what I could, I don't really think about it. I just showed up, did the workout, and you know, I went on and live my life. And these are the lowest maintenance people in the gym. Um, some gym owners would say that these are their favorite athletes in the gym. We get that all the time. Who your favorite athletes are, you favor these people, blah, blah, blah. Um, if there is one, it's one that doesn't create any drama. They just show up, they do the work, they work as hard as they can, they come back on Monday and start working out for the rest of the week. Um, and I do think most people have this approach. And it it's not, it has nothing to do with not caring or caring less than other people. Um, they just they don't let the result get a hold of them. They just, they're in the process, they did their thing, they worked hard, they did it right, they did their judging, they wore the color, their team color, and uh they went home. Um, number three is really what I want to spend some time reflecting on. And it's uh bucket number three is you're upset, you're dejected, you're beating yourself up. And I think this is where like we have to have some real honest conversations. And I also didn't want to put someone else into this podcast because this could get a little uncomfortable uh talking about this. And I one of the most challenging questions I got ever uh since owning a gym was from Ryan Ratcliffe. What's up, Ryan? If you're listening to this, um, he asked me about the podcast, uh, just a couple years into it, I think. And he goes, like, hey, it's cool, like, you know, it's fun, it's fun to listen to, blah, blah, blah. He goes, Is it a net positive or net negative for the gym? And like, my initial reaction was like, net positive. Why would you ask? And I'm like, you know what? It's actually a good question. Because there are things that you talk about that it can trigger someone, or you get the proverbial, inevitable text, like, who are you talking about when you're talking about this? And it's unfortunate. We had to talk about real life situations, and most of the stories do involve real life people, and you don't want to put names into a podcast without their permission. So you just say people or someone and all that stuff. But um, I have I ref I've reflected on

Should You Repeat 24.1?

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that a lot, and I do obviously we're still putting out episodes, and I do think it is net positive, but I do think there are some negatives to it, and some of these things that this is gonna be an example of this episode, someone's gonna get triggered by it, and because people get triggered easily in the world we live in now. And uh instead of getting angry or upset or angry at me, um, just know that I'm coming from that place where I again I have talked my I have talked to myself this way in the past, and I'll give some examples if I need to, if I'm not being clear enough later on. But if you're someone that is like just overly upset, like you can't get this thought out of your head that you should have done better, you could have done better, um, and you're just not thinking highly of yourself or A, signing up, B, doing it, and C, trying really hard. I mean, those are things that I know it gets corny to hear, but that's very admirable. If you showed up and tried as hard as you could, um, that's admirable. Most people don't do that. Yes, in your gym, they do, but most people in the world they can't handle that. Um, they're not humble enough to go and put themselves out there, and you are. So let's talk about some reality checks here. Could you have done better in 26.1? And let's try to relate this to the next two weeks, okay? Could you have done better in 26.1? The answer is almost always yes, no doubt about it. You and everyone else could have done better in 26.1 than what the score that you're putting into the site, that that first workout, you could have done better. And this is not a I believe in you, like I factually would put money on the fact that after you could feel your quads, please let me know when that happens, by the way, because I can't feel mine still. But when you are recovered, if I program this workout next Tuesday, I promise I won't, and we had your score and we wrote out a strategy, you would get a better score. Does that mean you're fitter than then the first time you did it? No, you just had some experience, you know where the breaking points are, you can suck it up a little bit, you know where to push a little bit more, and your score would be

The Real Reasons People Repeat

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better. 100%. So, yeah, if you're listening to this and you did 26.1, I think you could have done better and you would do better if we did it again. Okay. If you really want to know what I feel about repeat workouts, I did a great episode, I think it was with Sam. I don't know if we had one on, but I remember him being in the room. This was season five, episode 143. If you want to search it by date, it's March 11, 2024. And I honestly, I didn't listen to it again. That's uh almost two years ago. And I can guarantee you the how I talk about it in there and how we talk about it with Sam, it's exactly how we feel now. Or I should say, I don't want to speak for him. That's how I feel about it. It's been the same way I've thought about uh repeating workouts since I started cross-it. So it's like been my same opinion for 12 years, and I have good thoughts and bad thoughts about repeating workouts. Here's the number one question I want to ask you about repeating. Okay, why do you want to repeat it? You don't have to tell anyone, but you do have to do this. You have to be fully honest. I'm gonna give you three options here. Be fully honest with yourself. If you can't be honest with yourself, you have bigger problems than sore quads. Okay. Here's the question: why do you want to repeat the workout? Option one you want to see what you are capable of. You want to prove it to yourself. That's what most people will say. It's like, oh, I just know. Like I'm fitter than that number, I'm fitter than that result. I can do better, and I just want to have that score next to my name because I know I can do it and I want to prove it to myself. That's usually the answer that you'll get back. Number two, I haven't heard this, but I have heard this a few times. I don't have not heard this uh often, but I have heard it a few times. It was a fun workout, and I just want to do it again. That's usually for people that are good at gymnastics and there's like a muscle up involved, or people that are good at lifting and there's a max lift. They just had fun with the workout, they felt safe doing it again, they just wanted to go for it. Um, you know, cross-it open workouts are notoriously painful. Like you go through a pain cave, you have to go dark, uh, whether it's or there's a really high-end skill or really high-end lift. Okay, I'll buy that. If you really want to do again, I don't buy it about 26.1. I don't think I had one person say that workout was fun. Um, but here's number three. All right, in terms of why do you want to repeat a workout? You have a ton of self, you put a ton of self-worth into your results, beating other people, where you rank, quote, status, and what others think about you. If I had to peel back layers and really get an honest answer, in my opinion,

Image, Ego, And Empty Wins

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after doing this for a long time, I would think over half the people that repeat, over half, majority, it's over half, by the way. Over half of you would want it to be because of that reason right there. You saw someone that beat you, and you want that little kind of fake victory. Because in my opinion, I never call it a victory if you repeat a workout and beat someone else. Like that's really there's no part of that that that screams win to me. You know, it's like losing a game or a competition somewhere and getting a redo uh without the person getting to prepare for it or do themselves, like it's just not a win, but on the leaderboard it is. When you submit that score, it is. And I have problems with that. I do. I'm all about competing. Um, I don't think there's many people on earth that like to compete more than I do. Not so that you're better or worse. I just think it brings out the best in people. But this is where I have this is where you have to draw the line. And I think all of us need to think about where are we drawing the line with being competitive. Um, it's very dangerous. It's very hard to hide. Some of you think you're really good at hiding your intention there, and you're not. It's written all over your face and all over the fact that you're repeating, that you want to beat someone else that already beat you. And I actually will say to you that you are your own worst enemy. It's not the person that fair and square beat you the first time through. You are the opponent. You are your worst enemy when this is your reason for why you want to repeat open workouts. Um, this is less about improving now. Like you really don't want to get better. You want the label of being better than someone else. You want a superficial label of wanting to be better than other people. And if anything, if that is your fuel, that is that the fuel to your fire, I don't think you're fully aware of the perception you are actually creating by constantly doing this. It actually makes you look worse. You're trying to create this better image of yourself, it's actually making you look worse. And you're almost kind of lying to yourself, and it's sad to see. And I've seen this dozens of times over the years. It's just not a real genuine uh reason to try and convince yourself that you're better than someone, and it's crazy that we have to have these conversations with grown adults, and I think there's probably people that will listen to this and be like, wait, wait, what? There's people this is actually a problem, and it is. I think if you asked any coach and you put them on a lie detector, because some of them don't want to talk about this stuff, they don't want to create any sort of drama, neither do I, but I do one of my goals this year was more hard conversations. And I think most coaches can under they see this

What If Repeats Were Banned

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more often than they want to say it out loud. It's like you can tell there's people that their entire self-esteem is based on where they rank in a workout, and it's sad. It sounds silly, but it's sad, it's true. And I think that we need to get away from beating ourselves up so bad and thinking that beating X amount of people or people that you used to be, it doesn't matter. And I know it matters to you, but to quote Rafi, you're the most important person in your movie, but you're not even in the subcast of most other people, especially in this regard. So this this thought that you're gonna have this major victory of ranking someone above someone in a in an open workout, it's just simply not true. And I think you're putting yourself through a pain cave and all this stress for a reason for something like dopamine rush that lasts 12 hours and now you can't train the rest of the week because you did 390 wall balls in three days. And you have to ask yourself, is that making you better? So I want us to think about why are we thinking this way about ourselves? Is it again? I'll go circle back. Is it you just did not hit what you thought you were capable of? Or hey, I want to do this workout because it's fun, or because worst case scenario, you have a hard time believing that someone fair and square beat you in a certain workout. And the more time we spend thinking about what other people are doing, the worse you become. Um, there are some surprising names from your perspective on the leaderboard right now, some of their scores. But what you don't do, what you have not done for the last eight to nine months is pay attention to what they're doing day in, day out, like a coach does, or someone that really looks at results and watch people how they move and what they're doing. And coming from a perspective where that's what I do for a living, look at results, look at movement, study patterns, all that stuff. Um, you just don't have enough information to have a credible opinion on that. So I want to challenge you to remove yourself from constantly thinking about, hey, I'm better than that person,

Fear Of Failure Versus Full Send

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they shouldn't beat me in the open workout. You don't know enough. And I think that the more you think like that, the worse you become. This the worse you're actually trying to get better for yourself. So, what can we learn from 26.1 and take with us for 26.2 and the rest of the open? You know, so now that we you're you're one of those three people of why you repeat workouts, or one of those three people in terms of um what you're thinking after your open workout, let's put that in the rearview mirror now. What can we learn from what how we acted, what we thought about in 26.1 and take with us for the rest of the open? Okay, what if the rule was from now on, and I'll be honest with you guys, I'll be transparent here at Bison. We have thought about making this a hard rule. What if the rule was no repeats? What if we went like, oh my gosh, you guys are control freaks? What if we did that? What if we said no more repeats? You get one shot. What changes about you and your attempt on Friday or Thursday? Or I know some of you do it wait till Sunday. Does anything change in your head if we said you get one shot at this? Did you want to know what competing is? You want to know what real sport is? You want to know what real athletes do? One shot. That's competing. If you pay attention to sports, guess what? Sometimes things happen that are not fair. Get over it. That's life. Get over it. So what if that what would happen in your head if we made a rule tomorrow that you're not allowed to repeat the open workout? Would you could would you do better? What if we told you guys before 26.1 you couldn't have done, you could not, you're not allowed to repeat it? I wonder if some of you don't try as hard as you can in the first time through because you know in the back. Your head, you're just going to do it again and wait till see what everyone else gets. I wonder if that's the case. Are you not trying as hard as you can in a workout that is meant to push you to go as hard as you can? It's not trying to push you to beat someone, it's trying to push you to see how hard you can try. Take a risk here and there. Try to go unbroken here. Try to do a big set here. Try to rest less in between here. Try to accept the pain cave of the workout and push through it. Like I wonder, I do. Like sometimes I feel like there's a lot of people, athletes, that will leave probably 10% of their score on the table because they know they can repeat it. But when you do show up to the repeat, yes, you have a score to beat. You have some experience with the workout, which always helps, absolutely. But a lot of us are beat up, you know, like you're you're sore, you know, or some things come into play that prevent you, physically prevent you from getting to that number where you

Raising Your Hard‑Work Threshold

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could have gotten there that first time through. Do you fear failure? Is that what is that is what I think that is what is happening to a lot of people in a workout like that is such a grinder, like 26.1. You were fear, you had this fear of not being able to do any wall balls. So you kind of tap the brakes a little too early. You had this fear of failing a step over, so you rested a little bit longer. I wonder if that fear and um inability or unwillingness to really push and see what you can do. That is what the open is for. What can you do? And you know that deep down, you know that. What can you do? That is what I want you to take into the rest of the open. Do not fear failure. Don't leave some in the tank, just go for it. It's okay to not get what you want. It's not okay to say, like, heh, I kind of went like 90% effort because I was too afraid that it 100% wasn't going to work out for me. Um, have we moved the threshold of what real hard work is? You know, we're we've been around 12 years now. I ask myself this all the time. That, you know, these workouts, whether it's an open workout or just a normal training session, you know, there's a breaking point to most workouts within CrossFit. We get to the point like you hit that struggle point, you either push through it or you don't. You let it overtake you or you get beat up, you know, you get knocked down, you get stand back up, all that good stuff. But to me, I think that there's a threshold a lot of us just don't want to touch anymore. And that's okay. Not a bad person, right? But your scores will follow. And if you train like that throughout the year, your scores are definitely going to follow. And that's quiet. It's like death by a thousand million paper cuts, right? Just like slowly, slowly, slowly, you just lose a little bit on that fastball. And then a big test where a workout comes out, you can't just turn it on at that moment. So I wonder if this can really help change your threshold for what working really hard in workout actually means. It's pushing through that feeling. It's not

Learnings For 26.2 And 26.3

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stopping and thinking negative thoughts as it gets hard. It's pushing through it. You know, to quote Rafi again, what if? What if you push through it? Do you know what's going to happen if you push through it? Do you try? You won't know until you do it. I think a lot of you guys would be really uh excited and proud of yourself if in this next workout that comes up, you push through those thoughts and say, What if I go try again? What if I try harder? Let's see. I bet you'd be very proud. The best success stories come from getting smacked in the face, taking a wake-up call, and getting back up. Whether it's in Cross It or anywhere in life, the best success stories come from failure. They don't come from things being good all the time. And I hope that if you do have any negative thoughts, I hope you know there is light at the end of the tunnel and you can prove it a few days from now when 26.2 comes out, 26.3, maybe there's a lift in there as well. So maybe, maybe we have three workouts left. But it's okay to feel crappy about a result. It absolutely is. But at some point, and I would hopefully think sooner than later, get over it and move on to the next. That was not your first bad workout, you know that. And it's not going to be your last bad workout either. You know that as well. Let's try to build habits of responding to these things. If you got smashed by the workout and you know you could have done better, get over it, move on to the next. Let's go. You can do that. You've done it before, you know you have, whether it's at CrossFit or somewhere else in your life. You know you've overcome adversity like that. So here's a lot, I'll wrap it up with just a couple do's and a couple don'ts, where we go from here to the rest of the open. Is do break down what happened mentally and physically in 26.1. Whether you did great or not, break it down. Think about it. You you'll you'll take some lessons from there and you'll apply it to future

Do’s: Reflect, Recover, Control

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workouts, including 26.2 and 26.3. They'll probably be very different, but you will take lessons from those workouts and you apply it to them. All right. Um, also, just as important, reflect on your food intake, your hydro, your hydration, your stress level, your sleep, all these controllables, right? You control what goes into your body between now and the next open workout. For people that really can't recover three, four, five days later, it's not the workout that beats you up. 100% lifestyle. 100%. If it takes you five days to recover from a workout, that's lifestyle. That doesn't mean you worked hard. Hydration, nutrition, sleep. And some of you, alcohol. I mean, it's a killer, especially if it's right before bedtime. Okay, that is why a lot of us are getting beat up, whether recovery within a workout or days later. Here are the don'ts. Don't do this as we lead up to the rest of the open. And then we're done. Okay. Um, don't make this about outside opinions. They don't matter. Okay. Whether you're getting praised or whether you're getting sometimes you kind of make this up in your head, or whether people

Don’ts: Opinions, Shortcuts, Self‑Blame

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are like, oh, you lost it. Oh, did you see what she did? It's not happening. And if it is, they suck. Those people suck. Let them go. Okay. Don't make this about outside opinions. I struggle with that a lot. Used to struggle with that a lot more as a gym owner, not necessarily as an athlete. I've lost a little bit off my fastball as an athlete. I'll be the first to say it. It's okay. Don't care what anyone thinks about it. I know what goes into that. I know why. It doesn't matter. No one else needs to know that. But as a business owner, there's certain things like outside opinions every now and then. It's again that 90-10 rule: 90% of the things are great, 10% keeps you up at night sometimes. That's life. Um, try not to let that impact you. Outside opinions about what you're doing workouts mean nothing. Nothing. Okay. Um, don't look for short shortcuts or cheat codes. You know, don't try to find an easier judge next time. Uh, don't try to short reps next time. Don't try to find different ways. Just be real about it. Those are the results that are going to bring you the most fulfillment, the ones that are real. You know, even if it's not the result you want, that's something that you earned. The ones that you don't earn, the ones that you cheat on, you found shortcuts to. It's not going to do for you what you think it's going to do for you. Short-term gratification, long-term misery. And most importantly, don't beat yourself up after a bad workout. We all have them. Um, we have a woman in front of our gym, Amy. She's got like a top 40 score in the world. I don't think some of you guys realize, perspective, how like unbelievably rare that is. Um, I think last time I checked, who's the number one master score among females in the world. I've seen Amy have a lot of bad workouts over the years. A lot. And she gets upset too. You might not you might not always see it, but you know what she always does? Next day she's back in there grinding. You know, it's not

Perspective, Resilience, And Next Steps

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three days later. I would even say for her, it's not even 24 hours later. And I think that's part of why she has a lot of success with this, success with that stuff. So I really hope you guys don't beat yourself up if you're walking away from 26.1 or in some cases crawling away from 26.1 over a bad result. You know, you're better than that. I already know you are. Said it earlier. You could do better than what you did in 26.1. I know you can. It's okay. How you respond to it means a lot more than what that score is that you submit to that game's website. I hope you can take that with you through the rest of the open. See you this week, guys. Thank you, everybody, for taking the time out of your day to listen to the Herd Fit podcast. Be on the lookout for next week's episode.