Legion Strength & Conditioning Podcast

Tight shoulders? Difficulty getting overhead for squat snatches and overhead squats? Struggling with handstand push-ups or handstand walking?

The market in fitness wants to sell you a simple solution.

You can’t get overhead because your muscles are “tight.”

What do you do with a tight muscle? You loosen it!

You can stretch it, since muscles are basically just pliable bands that can easily be lengthened.

Except when there’s adhesions — for those you need a $300 mobility tool and regular bodywork with a certified practitioner.

And, of course, don’t forget that Famous Athlete X and, of course, Famous Athlete Y use these solutions!

If you haven’t picked up on it, this is sarcasm. People always want simple solutions to complex problems, and there are plenty of companies willing to provide them.

But, you, dear listeners, come to the Legion Strength & Conditioning podcast for nuanced discussions on difficult topics with lots of grey areas and few, if any, feel good takeaways other than “It’s really hard, most of what people are telling you on social media is wrong, and the way to get better is to do unsexy stuff for a longer time than most people want to commit to.”

In the case of overhead mobility, the “simple solutions” often provide a “good enough” result, so few people are interested in digging in further.

However, for those who do want to learn more, understanding the interplay between ribcage positioning and scapular motor control opens up a whole new world in terms of thinking about overhead positioning.

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• [00:50] People incorporate a lot of movement practices in competitive fitness. What actually works for getting people into the positions necessary for overhead squats, kipping, and handstand walking?
• [03:18] The “simple solution” paradigm — a simple problem statement, an easy “cause and effect” solution, someone famous promoting the solution, and “good enough” results. What should people do who want to dig deeper?
• [14:52] Movement doesn’t just get “fixed” with a quick trick. How should athletes do things that actually translate to long-term improvement in their movement patterns?
• [27:52] The difficulty in bridging the gap from doing mobility drills to actually seeing improvements in your snatch positioning. Improved positioning rarely results in immediate PRs, but it can result in better training results over time.
• [34:32] The difficulty in training movement quality since it’s often not very fun, nor does it have an easily trackable score.

Testing protocols are huge in the sport of CrossFit.

Since we have so many things we can measure, we always want to know “how we are doing as athletes.”

Still, as we’ve discussed many times on the podcast, the relationship between testing results and performance in events that we care about is often looser than either athletes or coaches would like.

So, when is testing valuable? What kinds of athletes benefit from testing protocols? What kinds of athletes can be harmed by consistent testing protocols?

And — for coaches — how do we design testing protocols that get at the actual traits that we want to measure?

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• [00:13] When is it important to focus on developing and repeating testing protocols? And when is it counter productive?
• [06:18] Sometimes athletes do fantastic in testing and are not able to reproduce that same level of performance in competition. What can testing protocols actually tell us about an athlete’s performance?
• [15:25] How can we create tests that actually get at what we’re looking for.
• [19:45] What are the trade-offs between trying to improve multiple aspects of fitness at once?

Yearly training plans are often built around competition schedules.

Even casual athletes who just enjoy participating in local events will usually have a few events that they plan their years around. For some, that’s the Open and a few local competitions.

For others, that used to be Regionals and is now Sanctionals…and may be Regionals again?

Right now, though, we have no idea what the competitive landscape will look like for not just the next several months due to COVID-19, but for the entire next year due to the shake-ups at CrossFit HQ.

When will live events return? What will the structure of next season’s CrossFit Games look like?

With all of this uncertainty, many athletes are struggling to find the motivation to train, since they don’t have any qualifiers or throwdowns to look forward to.

So, how should folks be structuring their training? And how can they motivate themselves through the uncertainty — and potentially gain ground on those who have let their fitness slip?

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• [00:13] It’s unlikely that large-scale live events will happen any time soon — and the competition season for the CrossFit Games will almost certainly be significantly restructured for the next year. How can people motivate themselves to train without events on the calendar?
• [09:30] Yearly training plans are often structured around competitions like the Open and local events, even for casual competitors. How should athletes be structuring their years with so much uncertainty?
• [15:58] How can people learn to “enjoy the process” and be disciplined with training without an external event to train for?
• [23:19] How can athletes learn the skill of “competing” in a landscape without in-person competitions?

“What’s the point of this session?”

“What time should I be shooting for on this?”

“What muscle group is this working?”

While these questions are often relevant, coaches need to be able to help athletes zoom out and see the bigger picture, rather than getting caught up in the weeds of their day-to-day training results.

This isn’t just about preventing temper tantrums and insecurity from a bad day in the gym. This is also about understanding that the sport of CrossFit is extremely messy and chaotic, and simple performance metrics rarely capture enough information to be very helpful.

So, if athletes can reframe their focus from trying to hit specific metrics in every training session and instead optimize for bigger picture learning and development, they will get better faster – and have less emotional pain while doing so.

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• [00:13] Athletes often want to know what time they should be shooting for on a specific training session. Or what the goal of the session is. Or what muscle group they’re targeting. These are all good questions – and are best answered by understanding how to know when to focus on the “trees” and when to focus on the “forest.”
• [06:15] Training sessions are often better thought of as “an opportunity to learn and gain experience” rather than super specific session with a very particular goal.
• [11:23] Any time people have a metric to shoot for, they will inevitably end up gaming their results to hit that metric. This is especially dangerous in a sport like CrossFit where the most commonly used performance metrics like 1RM strength, cyclical time trials, and max sets of gymnastics don’t have a lot to do with actual performance in the sport.
• [20:29] The role of a coach is often to interpret athletes’ questions and figure out what they’re really asking – rather than just giving an answer to the question on the table.

With all of the upheaval in the CrossFit world, it’s no surprise that we will likely see huge shake-ups in the qualification process for the Games starting in 2021.

How can CrossFit take the best of the Regionals era of qualification and potentially integrate some of the aspects of the Sanctionals era?

Will CrossFit develop a better relationship with athletes, event organizers, sponsors, and coaches under Eric Rosa’s leadership?

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• [00:13] What were the positives of the Regionals-era of the CrossFit Games season? What were the positives of the Sanctionals-era of the CrossFit Games season? How can the sport be legitimately professionalized for the athletes involved?
• [11:47] What’s the possibility of multiple different “seasons” or competitions for functional fitness – including the CrossFit Games, the IF3, and Loud and Live events? How should qualification for the CrossFit Games work in the new era?
• [22:20] How do we differentiate CrossFit as a participatory sport vs the CrossFit Games season? Are there things to learn from other sports that have an ecosystem with multiple tiers of sanctioned, live events (like weightlifting)?
• [31:40] How should CrossFit HQ support the grassroots development of local competitions?

It’s one of the most important things that an athlete can improve in the sport of CrossFit. However, it’s not very exciting. It’s not something that people can post about on Instagram and get a bunch of engagement. We’re talking about reducing variance in training results. This means that - as you improve - you will often find that the range of possible outcomes or a given session gets narrower and narrower. This means that you’re more likely to hit a similar weight on your squat clean - no matter what you’ve done before in the session or in the training week. You’re more likely to be able to maintain the same pace on rowing intervals. Even when you’re having an off day on strict handstand push-ups, they never totally fall apart. Once you’ve acquired all of the necessary skills to compete, the most important thing for most athletes isn’t necessarily improving their best possible performance - it’s improving their worst possible performance.

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• [00:13] Why is reducing variance in performance one of the most important things that an athlete can train for? Is “variance” the same thing as “consistency?”
• [07:52] What does it mean to “bring up the floor” – and how does the scoring structure of most events impact the way that athletes should train?
• [16:14] How should athletes think about combining different movements or doing different kinds of workouts in training? How should athletes balance “progressions” with doing more chaotic, sport-specific sessions?
• [24:15] Quick summary of practical recommendations for reducing variance in training results

This week, we’re getting super tactical and specific and discussing improving chest-to-bar pull-ups. Many athletes are capable of hitting gymnastics movements when they’re not too tired, but things unravel quickly when they have to do big sets in workouts. How should athletes think about improving chest-to-bar pull-ups? What are the requirements from a mobility perspective? From a strength perspective?

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• [00:13] A lot of people can do chest-to-bar pull-ups when fresh, but lose them quickly when fatigued in a workout. What should these people be thinking about when trying to improve the movement?
• [06:43] What should athletes think about for an assessment process in improving chest-to-bar pull-ups? What are the movement and mobility requirements? What are the strength requirements? How can athletes figure out what is the limiting factor for them?
• [23:57] What are the strength requirements to be able to do chest-to-bar pull-ups? How often should athletes train pulling strength if that is something that they need to improve?
• [31:00] How should athletes balance training to improve a skill like chest-to-bar pull-ups with incorporating that skill into sport specific training scenarios?
• [39:00] Summary of practical takeaways

As athletes start to get back into the gym, a lot of people are going to be touching barbells and pull-up bars for the first time in months.

Even if you’ve been doing a lot of push-ups, running and DB snatches, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to be prepared to jump right back into thrusters and pull-ups.

What should athletes be thinking about to avoid injury? How much should athletes expect to have lost in their strength? What’s the first really high intensity workout back going to feel like? And, how should you react when your performances are much worse than you’d like?

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• [00:13] If people are getting back into the gym after only doing lunges and push-ups for the last few months, what should they be thinking about in terms of jumping back into more “CrossFit” movements?
• [06:18] What are some ways to create intensity that don’t rely on high volume of movements that we may not be used to – like kipping pull-ups? What should people be expecting in terms of their ability on strength work if they’ve been away from barbells?
• [15:10] What will it feel like getting back into conditioning at high intensity? How often should athletes be doing “hard” workouts?
• [21:12] Most athletes will be worse at things they haven’t been doing while out of the gym. Even though it will probably come back, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t painful to do worse. How should athletes handle the emotional hit of performances that aren’t up to their expectations?
• [31:12] Summary of recommendations: pay attention to eccentric volume, especially of movements you haven’t been doing. Understand the timing for regaining “lost” fitness. Be prepared for the negative emotions you’ll probably experience when getting back into training.

In a break from our usual efforts to provide evergreen content based upon solid training principles, we instead theorize recklessly and rampantly about what the 2021 CrossFit Games season may look like. With the precarious financial state of many Sanctional events exacerbated by late event cancellations as well as likely extension of travel restrictions and potential second waves of COVID-19, we are likely to see continued disruption of the competition schedule. Will local competitions step in to fill that gap? Will athletes be willing to do events that involve multiple people in close quarters? And, what will the training implications be for athletes who likely won’t have any significant in person competitions on their calendars for awhile?

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• [01:03] With significant alterations to the 2021 competition season – both at the Sanctional level and the local competition level – how will athletes stay motivated to train?
• [09:39] While there are plans to run the CrossFit Games in Aromas, how likely is that to actually happen? And, how many Sanctionals will be able to run in 2021 – and how many will be put out of business due to 2020 event cancellations?
• [17:26] Will local competitions be running again anytime soon?
• [22:34] Will people be motivated to train without an event circled on their calendar to compete in?
• [27:53] What will the impacts of taking significant time off from competition be on people’s performance? Will this further the separation between elite athletes and everyone else? Will some athletes benefit from a forced deload rather than a packed competition schedule?

This is the second part of our interview with MaryKay Dreisilker after our first interview got cut short due to some internet connection issues. MK qualified for the 2020 CrossFit Games with a 35th place finish in the Open, and she recently did a well-received workshop for members at South Loop Strength & Conditioning on how to handle the stress of COVID-19, as well as the inertia and difficulty getting things done that many of us feel while stuck at home. We figured that these concepts were worth sharing with a larger audience, so we had MK back on to discuss how she thinks about mental resilience during challenging times.

• Instagram: @marykaydrei

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• [00:58] How to manage stress in uncertain times – and how MK is dealing with the difficulties of “self-starting” with unstructured days and lack of motivation.
• [13:20] How does MK manage the rigidity of having structure to her days with the necessity to have freedom and adaptability?
• [24:20] How to handle plans going awry – and how to react when you’re unable to finish what you think you’re going to be able to do in a given day.
• [29:12] The dangers of negative feedback loops – and how to prevent yourself from starting a downward spiral of negative emotion when things aren’t going well.
• [39:52] “Action brings clarity” – How should people start to take action when they’re feeling overwhelmed?
• [47:15] How is MK dealing with emotions related to the uncertainty of the current CrossFit Games season? And, what positive habits is MK focusing on to stay centered?
• [01:03:53] How to learn more from MK