Alright, sometimes we do round the horn, but because there's three of you, four of you, we will see where it goes. Alright, here we go. Alright, before we start, since CrossFit is supposed to be constantly varied, a lot of people seem to think that anything that makes you sweaty or miserable is CrossFit. So let's settle this real quick. So I'm going to give you something and we'll just real quick, just yes or no, yay or nay. Is it a CrossFit workout? Alright. And so I'll call you out twenty one fifteen nine of thrusters and pull-ups West pt. Is that a CrossFit workout

Wes Kitts:

Brand? Yes.

Danny:

There we go. West Kits. You agree?

Wes Kitts:

Yeah, I would recognize that one.

Danny:

All right. Anybody think that's not a CrossFit workout? We're all builder. That's CrossFit. Okay, next up, single 100 meter sprint. Is that CrossFit? Can he send Toci? What do you think?

Kenny:

I mean, yeah, I've seen it in CrossFit competitions before. There we go. CrossFit

Danny:

Games. There we go. Alan. A hundred meter sprint. Is that a CrossFit workout?

Alen:

I mean it could be a CrossFit workout, but I would say no that it's just a hundred meter sprint.

Danny:

Interesting. Wes, pt, you work for CrossFit, you teach people level ones. What do you think? Is that a CrossFit workout?

Wes Piatt:

The answer is it depends on the context in which it's being done in. And if it's in a CrossFit affiliate with other CrossFit programming before and after it, I would say yes.

Danny:

Okay, that's, there we go. Wes kits. I mean you just flipped weight. So we're going to see if you on the running. Okay, a marathon is running a marathon. Is that a CrossFit workout? I believe Kenny, you've ran a marathon? Yeah,

Kenny:

I've ran about 10 of them. Okay.

Danny:

Kenny's ran a few marathons. Kenny is running a marathon, a CrossFit workout.

Kenny:

It could be part of a CrossFit workout I guess, but I wouldn't consider it a CrossFit

Wes Piatt:

Workout.

Danny:

Okay, pay?

Wes Piatt:

No, I'd say that's a test.

Danny:

That's a test. Alright, now what about parking the furthest spot at the grocery store carrying all the bags in one trip? Would we say West Kits? Is that a CrossFit workout waitlist for West Kits?

Wes Kitts:

Are we timing it? We

Danny:

Can time it, yeah.

Wes Kitts:

Or is it like reps as few reps as possible?

Danny:

No, one trip is the whole, that's

Wes Kitts:

Premise. One trip. So it has to be, yeah, time it And we're good.

Danny:

Okay. Sounds good. Alan, you agree?

Wes Kitts:

I agree. I agree. Okay.

Danny:

What about drinking too much coffee on Sunday morning and you're jittery and sweaty sitting on the couch watching football? What about, that's something that happens to me sometimes. We

Wes Kitts:

I've done that one. Yeah, I've done that one.

Danny:

Did it feel like a workout?

Wes Kitts:

I was out of breath.

Danny:

Okay, what about this last one? What about a thousand meter run? Thousand meter skier, a thousand meter run, 50 meter sled push thousand meter run, 50 meter sled pull thousand meter run, 80 meter burpee, broad jump, thousand meter run, thousand meter row thousand meter run 200 meters. Farmers carry thousand meter run, a hundred meter sandbag lunges, thousand meter run and 75 wall balls. Is that a CrossFit workout? Kenny Santucci

Kenny:

High Routes right there.

Danny:

That's High Rock. So that's not a CrossFit workout.

Kenny:

I mean it is. I mean, I've debated people in HYROX and CrossFit about it when I was one of the lucky few who got to do the first ever HYROX in the United States in Miami years ago. And I go, this is cross a work out. And they're like, no, it's not. I go, yeah, yeah,

Danny:

Yeah. Well, so basically it's CrossFit with less skill movements and more shin splints, right?

Danny:

Yeah.

Danny:

Okay, so here's the deal and why we're all here. Why this group of people are here is, lately there's been a lot of clips of people and CrossFit talking about HYROX while openly admitting they've never done a race. I actually just listened to a podcast that came out earlier this week with that exact thing. Love these guys. They do a great show, but they discuss HYROX for 30 minutes and neither one of 'em have ever done one, right? So I also have not participated in a HYROX race, so that's why I brought in some seasoned experts and Wes and Wes are here just to make sure I'm not outnumbered. Alright, so with me today we have Wes Hitz, two time Olympian gym owner and probably the only guy on this call who clean and jerked over 400 pounds this week, but also the only one who'd puke halfway through the first kilometer of a HYROX race.

We also have Kenny Stan Tucci, longtime CrossFitter HYROX athlete, owner of Strong New York, host of Strong AF podcast, and the only man who successfully rebranded from MTV Reality TV star to Functional Fitness heart throb. We've got Alan Kika, owner of CrossFit the Den in Medford, Oregon, one of the few gyms running both CrossFit and HYROX under one roof without starting a turf war. He is the Switzerland Functional fit Litness. We also have Wes pt, CrossFit red shirt, affiliate owner and leader of men. If you're struggling and you want dudes to talk to, hit up, we join WebU and they'll help you out. I'm Danny Leer from Caffeine Kilos, gym owner, coffee dealer, and your friendly moderator who's going to ask your opinion and then tell you that you're wrong. So before we dig in, last thing real quick is we need to get to know you because if people are going to take your opinion on this topic, they need to know how you think. So who's a better athlete? An F1 driver or a baseball first baseman. West Kits your thought better athlete. F1 driver or baseball first baseman?

Wes Kitts:

I'll go with the race car driver.

Danny:

Race car driver. Kenny, what do you think?

Kenny:

Yeah, I'd go with the race car driver too. It's a lot more performance involved. I think when you're an athlete baseball anyway, there's a lot of skill involved. Obviously you could be an athlete, but I think when it comes to hierarchy of skilled or functional, whatever you want to call it, strength athletes. I think baseball players are the bottom.

Danny:

Yeah, first baseman, not a whole lot of running there. Wes Pipet, you got an opinion on this? A strong one?

Wes Piatt:

No, I'm with

Danny:

You guys. All right, Alan?

Alen:

Yep, I'm with you guys. I think there's a lot less F1 drivers than there are first basement out there, so

Danny:

That's the truth. Alright, we'll go. Same order Wes. Hot dogs or hamburgers?

Kenny:

Hamburgers.

Danny:

There we go. Kenny.

Kenny:

Hot Hamburgers for sure. Hamburgers, cheeseburger,

Danny:

Cheeseburgers. West Hyatt.

Alen:

Yeah. Hamburgers.

Danny:

Hamburgers. Alan

Alen:

Hamburgers.

Danny:

You guys are all wrong. Hot dogs are better. Okay, and here we go. Knowing that plants are technically alive, maybe even sentient, and they communicate with one another. In your opinion, is it morally worse to eat a basket of carrots or a steak? Wes kits you go first.

Wes Kitts:

I think you might be killing more carrots than animals on the steak versus the carrots thing.

Danny:

That's why I feel Kenny.

Kenny:

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't want to kill all those carrots and eat them.

Danny:

That's it. West Hyatt.

Wes Piatt:

Yeah, definitely carrots. Okay,

Alen:

Alan? Carrots all the way.

Danny:

There we go. Yeah, I mean a single cow feeds how many people, right? But like a basket of carrots, there's like eight lives at least, and the little plastic packs, it's a whole thing. Okay, so now that we've covered meat ethics and the peak of athleticism, when CrossFit blew up, USA weightlifting was clutching their pearls. You're bastardizing the lifts, you're ruining the sport. All right, you guys remember that?

Danny:

Yeah.

Danny:

Then boom, 10 years later, USA weightlifting was thriving. CrossFit put barbells in the hands of thousands including kids, and many of your recent Olympians entered the sport through CrossFit. And subsequently the US started actually winning international medals in the sport of weightlifting. Again. Now the roles of flips CrossFits the old guard and everyone is side eyeing HYROX like its CrossFit that they bought on Alibaba Express. So here's the question. Should CrossFit embrace HYROX? Like USA weightlifting should have embraced CrossFit? Are we just watching the same movie over again, but this time with more running on cement floors? So let's kick this off. Big picture CrossFit, I hated on by USA weightlifting, but both grew now CrossFitters are hating on HYROX. Wes, as a weightlifter, you lived through the first wave. What parallels do you see? Or if not, could you at least speak to what CrossFit did for weightlifting and if you had any experience early on of some weightlifters talking shit on CrossFit?

Wes Kitts:

Yeah, so I found weightlifting in a CrossFit gym, so I walked into one. They had a weightlifting club and I feel like CrossFit actually used to be a lot more weightlifting friendly. Now they seem a little more weightlifting adverse. But yeah, I mean there's a lot of jokes being passed around on some bad movements. And of course you got the highlight clips from the Max snatch attempts and the open and things like that. But ultimately, USAW benefited in a really big way.

I guess I could see HYROX working that way for CrossFit, so long as I don't know if CrossFit works it the right way, if they can get HYROX in these gyms or if they can be collaborative in some way instead of pushing it away, I could see it better fit. We've got one on the panel that's already brought it into his gym. I'd certainly like to get a HYROX class going and just show 'em, Hey, you can do this other thing and it'll make you better at this thing that you think Super core right now. And eventually they're going to get tired of doing that same workout every day, so they might want to do some weightlifting at some point. So I'm here for it.

Danny:

Kenny, you've competed in both Is HYROX the next evolution, the next CrossFit knockoff or just a fun way to spend your weekend?

Kenny:

Well, I think HYROX opens the floodgates up just like CrossFit has. It opens up the floodgates to more people wanting to exercise. That's my whole initiative and my whole ethos to what I'm trying to do is how do we get more people exercising and moving? I feel like we're the same guys who went through weightlifting and went through CrossFit and went through power lifting and went through all the things. It's like we need more new people in there. We need more people coming to our gyms and doing what we do. So whether the gateway drug is HYROX, CrossFit, weightlifting, I don't care what it is, let's just get more people exercising. So I think it's a dummy down version of CrossFit, the more user-friendly version of CrossFit. And yeah, I think we're seeing the same shit again. It's like the adventure racing shift, the tough mothers and the Spartans where Sandy, these, it's the same thing. We're watching this story happen again, the lifespan of HYROX. I don't know what that is. It seems like it's a little bit more relevant than the last few of them, but do I think it's ever going to peak the impact that CrossFit had? I don't know,

Danny:

Maybe Alan as a gym owner doing both. Is it competition or collaboration?

Alen:

It's collaboration. It's always hard to get people in the gym if that's never done CrossFit before. They're always afraid of the CrossFit, the movements and they think it's way too hard. But since I opened up my doors to HYROX, I am getting a flood of, I call 'em boutique gyms, the Orange Theory, the F 45 ladies or guys that are actually walking through these doors and seeing actually what CrossFit's all about. So I see them when I run dual classes, they're peeking over looking at, oh, they're doing some weightlifting over, what's that over there? While we're doing our HYROX classes at the same time. So to me it's a great thing and sometimes I have some of my CrossFitters peeking over when I run dual classes and be like, you know what? I'll do that today. I don't really want to lift over ahead. And to me it's, it's a great collaboration.

Danny:

Wes being so involved with CrossFit for so long, what are your thoughts on it? Do you feel like it's a way to get more people in the gym or do you feel like it's actually and detracts from what you're trying to do?

Wes Piatt:

Not at all. I think I understand everybody needs to have an enemy in a sense, but this isn't our enemy. This should not be what we are against. We should be really excited about this collaboration and it gives people something to push for people, something to shoot for a goal. Hey, I'm going to do a HYROX competition in a couple months. Cool, let's train for that. That's awesome. That's a great thing I think that we should be collaborating against with these people and going back against big soda and that kind of stuff. That's our enemies we should be going after not HYROX.

Danny:

Yeah, something when you mentioned Enemy, it reminded me, I remember Greg Glassman said one time something about people are worried about Gold's Gym, Gold's Gym. They're not the competition. That's the competition. That's who we're all fighting against. And maybe that's the end of the call. Maybe that sums up the entire HYROX picture as far as that goes. One thing, Kenny, you mentioned adventure racing, right? Or whatever obstacle course racing OCR or whatever you want to call it. So is HYROX basically, is it just a Spartan race? You don't have to drive three hours outside the city to do?

Kenny:

Yeah, I mean I feel like it's pretty similar. You get your whole office to do it or your whole gym to do it. It's an opportunity for people to participate and hang out together and the barrier of entry is very low. You don't need to be skilled, you don't need to know how to do hand sand pushups or snatches or anything complex. It's just easy and everybody could jump in on it. I would even have my mom who's 75 years old, do a HYROX because it's going to take a while, but it's not hard to do. It's like if you're trying to be competitive at it, it's hard, but all the elements are pretty easy. It's like carry this row ski. It's pretty user-friendly and that's what I liked about it when I first started working.

Danny:

Now someone could say that CrossFit's obsession with constantly varied programming and constantly varied competition maybe is what left a gap for High Rock's predictable model. You know what you're going for, you know what the event's going to be, and so maybe that's less intimidating to sign up for. What do you think about that West Hyatt as far as the programming for competitors in CrossFit or a HYROX? Do you think that that being one race every single time, is that good, bad? What are your thoughts on that situation?

Wes Piatt:

I think it's great. It gives them a benchmark to come back to every year and to try again or every quarter or whatever. We actually have the same thing every year at our gym. We do this thing called the Unity Games that literally is the same three events every year and we keep your scores and you get to see your progress. And I think it's just another data point. It's awesome.

Danny:

Yeah, that's great. Let's talk Athlete Flow, the athlete pipeline real quick. So back in the day, CrossFit made thousands of new weightlifters, so is HYROX doing the same for endurance athletes, getting them into CrossFit? Alan, as your gym, as you're an affiliate of both. Is that something you see? Do you see people coming in that are runners and are showing about the gym because you offer HYROX or is it more of CrossFitters that start doing it as well?

Alen:

Yeah, I don't see my runners or my boutique gyms coming into HYROX and then switching over the CrossFit. I just don't see that right now. I think they enjoy the light impact, the challenge of the race more than the CrossFit skill level right now. So yeah, I don't see that transitioning over just yet.

Danny:

Almost like we mentioned almost like a obstacle course race, but that you could do in town. So it's that type. Maybe some people started doing CrossFit because they did a Spartan race or something, but I'm not sure that I had to, I don't know if we've had any new members because of that type of thing. So you have an similar experience there. So Wes kits, if CrossFitters are starting to adding more running and mono structural work and focusing on these and maybe getting away from a barbell in the process, can they still be as fit as possible?

Wes Kitts:

I don't know. What a

Wes Piatt:

Great question.

Wes Kitts:

Yeah, I personally think Weightlifting's really important. I think it was a good addition to CrossFit when they were putting it all together. There's a lot of tenets of what you're trying to accomplish with CrossFit that weightlifting feeds into. I think it is kind of a mistake to get away from those skills and education around them because they're not impossible to master and to get people moving safely. And I mean one thing snatching does is it encourages everybody to work on their mobility. If you want to snatch better, you're going to work on your shoulder mobility, your hips, and people are going to start doing the couch stretch again. There's just a lot of aspects to it that I think are important that you kind of get away from when you avoid it.

Danny:

Sure. Kenny, what's the HYROX athlete vibe compared to CrossFit culture? Is it more approachable, more driven? Are people more friendly is the same or is it just better lighting since it's always indoors?

Kenny:

I think the general consensus amongst these guys, it's a lot of runners. If you're looking at the elite guys, the top 15, I think there's a lot more shit talking amongst the HYROX guys, at least at the top than there is amongst other CrossFit. I remember in the early days of CrossFit, everybody's like cheering each other on. I think this is a little bit more competitive when it comes to that and it's a lot of these guys who are runners, I don't really think you need to be skilled at any of the other stuff. Could you shave a couple seconds off? You're rowing time or you're ski time short, but it's mostly runners coming in or college level runners who are coming in and really dominating this. I mean, to be good at high rapture to be kind of that Elite 15 with, I did talk about you have to have a lot of running underneath your belt. You're not just going to walk into this and run a three 20 marathon or a three minute, three hour marathon or something. These guys are really good runners and then they kind of work on a lot of the other stuff. I just did the lifetime games two weeks ago and they're kind of doing sort of a similar thing between

Danny:

The CrossFit

Kenny:

And again, they're moving the minimal amount of weight as fast as possible and it no longer becomes a test of strength. It's just a test of endurance. So a lot of these guys have great cardiovascular strength. They're already their VO two max and their resting heart rates are incredible already. Now they're just applying it to this new game they're playing.

Danny:

Yeah. So one thing you mentioned is how you feel like you feel in your experience, it may not have the same community vibe. I think part of the reason CrossFit gets that is because you're working out doing CrossFit together in the gym every day, and so everyone's suffering. Whereas with these races, like you said, you get a lot of runners who have maybe just kind of fiddled around with the equipment a little bit and they show up on race day and it's much more of a individual viewpoint because they're not in the gym necessarily training with, am I getting that right?

Kenny:

Yeah, I think CrossFit allows you to, I mean one of my favorite things about CrossFit was all the group workouts. You're partner up with 2, 3, 4 people, whatever it is and compete in a workout together. So you're suffering together. And I think at the root, if you ask Matt Frazier or the old lady who just started CrossFit a week ago, they'll say the best thing about the CrossFit is the community. I don't think there's much of a community being built around HYROX. It's more of a competition they're trying to build. They'll tell you, they'll be the first ones to be like, we're building a sport. They're trying to build a sport, they're not trying to build a community. I think CrossFit was trying to build a community and I think Greg Glassman's still trying to build a community.

Danny:

Wes Kitts, you've trained weightlifting on a team, you've trained by yourself, you've kind of done both worlds. What are your thoughts as far as training in a group of individuals compared to by yourself? You're a driven individual, obviously you don't go to compete in two Olympics by not caring, but so just speak to that a little bit as far as do you see a benefit in training with a group in an individual sport, right? Because if OX is essentially an individual sport, I know they have pairs or doubles or whatever, but weightlifting is in theory an individual sport, but teams train together, there are teams. So what's your experience as far as training individually compared to training with others and maybe the different attitudes that maybe weightlifters have if they're training by themselves or on teams?

Wes Kitts:

So for me, I was a team sport athlete first my whole life. I didn't start weightlifters until I 24. So I really enjoy the camaraderie of a group and suffering together was a big part of football off season. Most of those, I enjoyed the workouts, but a lot of guys don't, but we just all kind of bought in and did it. And for me, I'd much prefer training with a big group and weightlifting workout, it takes two plus hours to do. So you're sitting in there by yourself for two hours. You can only listen to music so loud when you're alone before it gets weird and you can only do that so much in a week before you're sort of over it. So there's just something to be said about grinding together, and that's even aside from having somebody that challenges you or pushes you. A lot of times I'd have training partners in different weight classes or that weren't necessarily training at my level, but just having that person to be with and bounce ideas off of and talk to while I'm going through that training was much preferred to sitting in the gym by myself. So even at Cal Strength, we kind of ebbed and flowed, but finding somebody to train with me was always a high priority for Dave and I.

Danny:

Yeah, Wes, me and you have shared a bar a handful of times and a lot of times your final snatch was equal or heavier to my final clean jerk. But we're still lifting together on the bar, the opportunity to talk some shit, encourage each other, and I think there's something to that is training with that team. You cheer for people that aren't yourself when you're doing all of your training by yourself. It's the only person you are cheering for is yourself. So maybe you have a different attitude going into some things. Alan, as far as in the gym, what happens on the floor when both coexist? So my questions, are you programming hybrid classes separately or are you just programming certain days within your CrossFit classes to be more endurance focused? What does that look like as far as programming for both things in one gym?

Alen:

Well, first off HYROX when you're an affiliate, they give you programming. So they're programming is honestly, it's CrossFit, they're still tabatas, there's still Imams, there's still rounds, there's just no barbell. So you're still doing box jumps, wall balls, sleds, rowing, skiing, even dumbbell snatches. It's really no difference. So there is a community when we're running this, it's the same exact thing as CrossFit. People are just not intimidated to go over and scale at the CrossFit side. They're just side by side classes. I mean we have a large space, so we just split the gym up half HYROX, half CrossFit, one has a barbell, the other one has dumbbells.

Danny:

Yeah, I mean it's almost like scaling the workouts for your older population or whatever's going on by the way,

Alen:

Also guys, it's exactly what that is.

Danny:

Yeah. Alan has a beautiful gym up in southern Oregon. Do you guys ever find yourself there? Make sure you stop in. So Kenny, on that kind of topic, when you're getting ready for a HYROX race, or I guess do you get ready for a HYROX race other than tie your shoes that morning? So leading up to a race, do you change anything in your training or do you just kind of steady as she goes? And if you're training CrossFit three to five days a week, you're probably good to go.

Kenny:

I tend to try to stay in the best shape always. I'm always running, I'm always training. And just like the boys said, it's very much like CrossFit. If High Rock sends you programming, it looks like a CrossFit workout team moms, it's AM wraps, they're doing box jumps, which you don't even do in HYROX and they have you doing kettlebell swings, which you don't do in HYROX. The only thing if you were really going to train for HYROX, I would just run them. I would do short intervals, long intervals, I would do some pace running. I would do just simple stuff to get really good at running if I wanted to be competitive at high res. I think it's a fun little activity to do on the weekends if you're not trying to be competitive with it and training for it should look like CrossFits training. And if you're training cross all the time, there's really nothing you need to ramp up to other than just running, doing more deadlifts and more bench press isn't going to make you a better high rock sound

Danny:

Could argue make you worse one, right?

Kenny:

Yeah, but I would continue to train those things. So you're just more of a well-rounded human being.

Danny:

So what about, compare that to marathons if you know have a marathon on the schedule. Is it essentially the same? Do you just add in some running, maybe some longer runs or is it exactly the same deal?

Kenny:

Yeah, I think it's going to be because you're running at such volume. If you follow very traditional marathon training, you're going to do a lot of volume where there needs to be a lot more recovery in that. There needs to be a lot more stretching. I would do a lot more mobility work. I wouldn't be hitting the weights as hard. My longer runs, I probably would lay off legs as much. I wouldn't be throwing hammer like a leg press or leg extensions a day before or day after I did a long run. So my training would change a little.

Danny:

Yeah. Oh, west P. Do traditional CrossFitters need more zone two training or is zone two just a fancy word for 70% effort days?

Wes Piatt:

No, I think if you come consistently to classes five days a week, six days a week, that you shouldn't need anything else to be a good average human being in this world that can play a pickup game of basketball on the weekend or go snowboarding when it's time to run up to Tahoe. Like no, you don't need extra zone two training. You need more consistency. Coming to classes is what you need.

Danny:

Yeah, it's funny people, all this, I'm doing my zone two training. I'm like, you're just taking an easy day. What do you like?

Wes Piatt:

Well, what you were talking about with Kenny just now, it would be appropriate if we had somebody that was going into HYROX are going to do a marathon. It's like, yeah, it's add some more zone tune training that makes sense for the goal you're going after. But if your goal is just to be like a fit dad, like no, you don't need that. You just need to come to class more often and high five people after you're done laying on the floor.

Danny:

Yeah, maybe do some more running to kind of be in the flow, get the pounding on the body, that type of stuff. Just get your body used to it. We've had some people, members who used to run ultras, right? Used to run ultra-marathons, came in, started doing crossfitted CrossFit for two years, didn't do any running outside of what they did in CrossFit for two years and then went and ran a 50 miler just to see if they still had it. And they said they felt better the entire race and better the days afterwards except their feet were just fucked up beyond anything they'd experienced because they didn't have the volume of running. And so if nothing else upping the running just to get your feet used to the running use, the impact, just the kind of specialized

Wes Piatt:

Things. I would even be interested to see what their just normal steps are every day. If they're getting under 10,000 steps a day, they have a seated job. Honestly, they might not need more running. They might need to get 15 to 20,000 more steps a day and less impact on the body actually.

Danny:

Yeah, that's interesting, Alan, so do you have people walk into the gym because you're a HIX affiliate or just when you have people generally walk into the gym, how do you explain to a new person the difference without confusing them or do you just ignore it and start training and see where they end up?

Alen:

No, lately in the last six months to eight months, I've had an influx of people just want to do HYROX. They want to train for the next race. They're like, oh, I'm signed up for the Vegas race. They've never even did a HYROX before in their entire life. They're signing up for these races and just want to train for it. And I just explain to 'em, it's pretty much CrossFit without a barbell. I mean that's what I tell 'em. And it's a lot of running where CrossFit's like, usually the run is the rest in HYROX. The stations are the rest while the run is everything. So that's pretty much how I explain things. It's just we've got to build your endurance and then let's train for your next race.

Danny:

So you have had recently an influx, people showing up looking for a place to train HYROX.

Alen:

Yeah. Yep. It's just constantly, every day at least one or two people a day.

Danny:

There you go. Yeah. Super interesting. So more so than CrossFit recently, you think?

Alen:

Yeah, way more than CrossFit

Danny:

Man. See that's interesting to me too because the races, they only have one a month and they're different cities all around. Where's the nearest HYROX to you even there might be one in Portland I suppose or something at some

Alen:

Point. Yeah, like I said, the next one is in Vegas and that's in I think January. So people are getting ready three, four months of training and they're ready to go. So it's like vacation for them too. So that's what they do. Let's go hit up a race and take a couple of days off.

Danny:

Kenny, you are media savvy. What's HYROX doing that could learn from?

Kenny:

I think what they've done right at a lot of the races is getting these pictures out to people because they're their races. They own the content, they own the pictures. They've done a really nice job of Hey, we're going to get pictures of everybody and then we're going to share them with everybody. And now this is what helped them go virally is that they're doing all the content you go to across the competition and the gym or the plate will have the pictures and they'll put them up on their page. They don't do a good job of getting it out to the people they actually have pictures of. So the people who actually now have the pictures who ran the race are posting about it now their friends see it now they want to go do it. So I think they've done a really good job of executing on a lot of that from

Danny:

The media side of things.

Kenny:

Yeah, because what the OCR races did wrong was they charged you for the picture. You went and ran a Disneyland and they charged you for the picture. They would've been better off giving you the picture so that you could share it so that more people would've done it.

Danny:

Yeah, that's great. I think you're right. Yeah, it's almost like a shortsighted thing. We'll charge for the picture, maximize revenue and maximize profits. But then if you're ultimately stunting growth, and if you look at what happened within those obstacle course racing, they all ended up eating each other. Right? I believe that Spartan Race bought Tough Mudder and that Tough Mudder might've bought, oh man, there was another one. I don't remember. Battle Frog. What's that?

Wes Piatt:

Battle Frog, I think

Danny:

Battle Frog. There was one. Do you

Wes Piatt:

Remember Battle Frog

Danny:

Was that

Wes Piatt:

It was just like any other obstacle course race. It was the same thing

Danny:

Really?

Wes Piatt:

Yeah,

Danny:

I did one, I can't remember the name of it now, but we give us Viking helmets at the end, so that was dope.

Kenny:

That's dope.

Danny:

Yeah, I liked that. Yeah, so always kind of bought each other up and then as the, I think it is one of those things, and I guess this is the next question, one of those things where I've done the Tough Mudders, I've done some Spartan rates, all that. They're fun, it's a good time, but how many of those are you doing the next time they're around? Do you feel like you have to do it? Some people are Spartan people, they love it, they're trying to get the trifecta, all this different stuff. But also the courses are different in different places, different times. Moving around with ROCs, having that one singular race, do you think it has a staying power, Kenny? Or do you think that people might burn out? You do one race, then you kind of feel like, okay, I did that. Maybe you do one more to try and beat your time. What are your thoughts on that?

Kenny:

Yeah, I mean, listen, I've been saying this since the beginning. I was fortunate enough to work with these guys very early on, 20 19, 20 20. And I had said to them, I was like, I think eventually you might want to change it up. People are going to get tired of it. I know there's people that I've done high rods with early on who've done it once or twice and they're like, I'm over it. And then you have a lot of these people who are like, I'm going to do my 12th one and my 15th one, I got a guy in my gym who's probably done 10 of them, 12.

For me, it's like I'm burnt out of him. And I think another thing, I'd probably do another one or two more. I mean, I was just with one of the founders last night and he's like, oh, do you want to come out to Chicago? I was like, I don't want to go through all the bullshit because now in the beginning it was like, oh, there was 500 people there. You show up, you do the race and it's kind of whatever. Now it's like, it's a whole system. It's like you might not get a slot to go till seven, eight o'clock at night. So it's like depending on where you get slotted or what time your heat is, you could go at seven in the morning or you could go at eight, nine o'clock at night. So it's just you don't know until they come out with the charts and stuff.

Danny:

West Pi, you've had a CrossFit affiliate for a long time. What should CrossFit affiliates watch out for before they just slap a high rock sticker on their wall and on their website?

Wes Piatt:

I would say to make sure it's not going to affect the community that they've already built and what they've already probably worked their entire career to build and to have that feel on that vibe. And then all of a sudden you have this other thing come in and it kind of takes over and then the vibe is gone and you lose all of your members that have been with you for forever, right? Because they're taking over space or they're taking up class time, so they're doing whatever. So I would just make sure, Alan, it sounds like he's got a great space where he is able to have two things happening at once and he is not taking away from the experience of the CrossFitters. He's almost adding to the experience of the CrossFitters with this new community. I would just make sure it doesn't mess with your, I guess, unquote vibe that you have at your gym.

Danny:

Alan, have you experienced any of that as far as people getting split, almost like two communities within the gym? Is there infighting? Are you actually not the Switzerland Fitness after all?

Alen:

Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest, there is a little, I have some of my competitive CrossFitters I have, you need turf for these sleds. So I have turf half my gym and some of these people like Turf doesn't belong in a CrossFit gym. What is this doing in here? Or they want to do handstands and they're like, I don't want to do handstands or wall walks on this turf, whatever. But I'm just going through the motions right now. We'll see what happens. I'm glad I know my community very well, but I don't see them going anywhere, but that's why there's still a divide.

Danny:

Do you think that maybe trying to encourage people to try the other thing would make a difference or is it just kind of it just is what it is, right? The HYROX people just want to do those classes and the CrossFitters think that that's silly and it's just personality type thing.

Alen:

Yeah, I just think it's a personality type thing. I'm hoping so. We'll see. I've been doing it for about two years now, so I haven't had anybody leave or do anything because of the change. But there's always mumbles around saying, are we more of a HYROX gym now? Are we a CrossFit gym? And I'm like we, I'm like, we'll always be CrossFit Gym. We were a top a hundred affiliate, so we'll always be that. That's our bread and butter. We're just giving an option out there.

Danny:

Wes, you have the weightlifting team and the weightlifting side and then the CrossFit affiliate as well. I know. Do you have very much carryover? Do you have many of your regular CrossFit members that train weightlifting or any of your weightlifters that dabble on the CrossFit side ever? Or is it pretty much to the weightlifting team and then the affiliate?

Wes Kitts:

Yeah, it's pretty well separate and our weightlifting side is, it's a completely different area in the gym, so I don't know, it's not connected enough that it interrupts each other. I have a few members that'll come over there if they don't want to do the workout that day or they're getting into their weight lifting, they'll come over there. But I do a small group thing at the gym, so we'll run one-on four classes during the day. And a lot of people that want to work on something specific, if they want to work on their strength, usually we put 'em in one of those. It's just like they get the coaching that they need to improve and they can pick if it's just snatch or if it's just clean and jerk or whatever movement they want to focus on. So that's usually where they get caught if they want to go work on their weightlifting. I don't know. I think because our weightlifting group does it at such a high level, I don't know, people might not feel like they can just jump into it. There's a few brave souls that they don't mind to walk in there and grab a bar and hang out. But I don't know, everybody doesn't, everybody's not into it.

Danny:

Well, there might be. There's enough difference. Your weightlifting side is a competitive weightlifting team and the CrossFit is a CrossFit affiliate also. I think there's mutual respect on both sides. I think weightlifters have done some CrossFit and understand how challenging it is and that it's good for people. I think everyone kind of agrees that it's good for people if their goal isn't to compete in weightlifting. And I think CrossFitters definitely have respect for weightlifters as far as what they could do and the way they can lift. And I feel like maybe there's not that respect as far as the CrossFitters looking at people that are just doing HYROX, they might see it as a less challenging form of the thing they're doing, whereas weightlifting is a more challenging form of the thing they're doing. I don't know, potentially that could be part of the rub there.

So I mean, where's this going? So when I searched HYROX for affiliates near me, basically what I found was F 45 gyms. I didn't even know there's that many F 45 gyms, to tell you the truth. So maybe West Pi seen a lot of F 45 gyms embrace HYROX and not that many. There's definitely more CrossFit gyms than F 40 fives around here. And a lot of the F 40 fives were rocks affiliates and almost none of the CrossFits were. Is that because they're both just CrossFit light or is it because F 40 fives figured something else out?

Wes Piatt:

I mean, if you hear what Alan said about the programming that he gets, it sounds like it's pretty much just F 45 as a new thing called HYROX. And so it would make a lot more sense, I think for those to go together. And it probably a lot easier for people from F 45 to do HYROX, HYROX to do F 45. Maybe even that community is a little bit better in there too, because of the things you just said Dam about more similar. Yeah, yeah, totally. I could see that for sure.

Danny:

I believe, I could be wrong, maybe. I don't know if you guys know, but F 45, they don't really use barbells either, right?

Alen:

They use 15 pounders.

Danny:

They do,

Alen:

Yeah, like 15 pound little guys.

Danny:

Kenny, you have any experience with F 45 or you done any of that?

Kenny:

No, I've never done it, but I have a couple people who come to my gym who drain at an F 45 and they do use, some of them are allowed tabs. I don't know what the deal is, but some of them have bigger barbells, like actual real set, like 45 and 35 pound barbells

Wes Kitts:

Barbells for men, we call 'em.

Kenny:

And then they have the little ones, the ones that you would see in one of those HIIT classes in a big box gym

Danny:

With the weights attached to the side

Kenny:

And they're like the square square plate.

Danny:

Dude, those things are dope for curls. If I'm trying to do a set of 20 ones or a burnout set, I want to go to that little attached barbell rack.

Kenny:

Yeah, what's the thing? It's out of Australia, they do the hit class with that thing. It's huge. It's massive. Yeah,

Wes Piatt:

They did an event in Laguna Beach one time and Kenny Ridge and Noah Olson did it and beat all of 'em. God, what was that called? I know what you're talking about though.

Kenny:

Yeah, it's like some hit work and they'll get thousands of people to show up there.

Danny:

Man. Wasn't planning on going this direction, but kind of brought it up. So with F 45 and then there's Orange Theory and I think there's some more tech involved with it and that type of thing. Is CrossFit somewhere missing the boat as far as not getting more involved with whatever, putting heart rate monitors on people or doing different things like that? Is that something that maybe CrossFit should look into evolving more knowing that people tend to like that type of thing? Or is it, Hey, let the people do that, that want to do that and we're just over here working hard and trying to improve our skills? Wes, pt, what do you think? And you seem to have some reactions there.

Wes Piatt:

Yeah. Have you seen the work queue device that just came out?

Danny:

I think it's on ad for it on Facebook.

Wes Piatt:

That's something I could get behind. It

Danny:

Counts your reps, right?

Wes Piatt:

It tracks your range of motion. It tracks your overall time you're resting versus time you're working that data. I can get heart rate. I can't get behind just because of the muscle contraction around the arteries and veins that we do so often in the movements we do that. I don't think heart rate is a good correlate for what we do, but I think that something like that war queue device that came out, that could be really just honestly fun I think to look at that.

Danny:

Yeah. Wes, do you use any Wes kits? Do you use any sort of technology when you're training other than your cell phone to film some lifts?

Wes Kitts:

No. I'm pretty low tech guy. I've got a heart rate monitor and I threw it on some when I had to cut from 1 0 9 to 1 0 2 the first time. But I don't know why I was wearing it to do some stuff. I played racketball in it. I did one squat workout. I got my heart rate pretty high. I thought that was interesting. But as far as, I don't know, I couldn't really find a good reason to have it on.

Danny:

And maybe I'm doing it wrong or don't know enough about it, but I don't really mess with that stuff. Although recently when I started doing some cycling to prepare for that Tahoe ride I did, it was a 73 mile ride up at Elevation. Lots of climbing, that type of stuff. You start getting

Wes Piatt:

Into it tutu. He did it in a tutu.

Danny:

In a tutu right before we're going said, oh, you're on our team, we're wearing tutu. All right, man, it's popping on. And so leading up to that though, it's like the cycling. There's all this gear. It's like, oh, there's power monitors you can hook on. Then you got to know your RPMs on the pedals and you put a heart rate monitor on and all this. And some of it was really useful. Knowing your RPMs and your pedaling is helpful because you want to keep it at a certain rate in order to make sure it is more of an aerobic event and not so much just grinding it out and wearing your legs out and stuff. But as far as the heart rate side of things go, I wear it because there's a spot for it on my screen, and it's kind of fun afterwards. I'm like, oh, look at that. I averaged 160 beats a minute for an hour straight. But the truth is, I think it's from the CrossFit background, I just never found that it mattered. I figured sometimes I'm pretty winded and I might need to slow down a little bit or change gears. And other times I feel pretty good, so I should try harder.

But it's fun. But it's fun to look at the number. And so sometimes I wonder how much of that is because people like it and to see the number, all that or how much it matters. Okay. So I think in the end when we talk about, we started off talking about CrossFit and weightlifting, and then is that turning into with weightlifting, talking trash on CrossFit, and is that the same story happening now in reverse? And this is where I think CrossFit's missing the mark on this particular topic. Back in 2010, USA weightlifting actually partnered with CrossFit for a USA weightlifting competition For one competition. You did a sanctioned weightlifting meet and then one CrossFit workout, and they combined your scores to find the winner. I actually flew out to Colorado Springs to compete in it. And it's the reason I started competing in weightlifting, knowing I was going to do that, I thought I should do some cross or some weightlifting meets beforehand, so I don't show up out there and try to figure out the warmups and everything on the fly.

So without that event, I would've never started competing in weightlifting. There'd be no caffeine kilos without that event. There would be none of the tens of thousands of dollars that we donated to USA weightlifting over the last dozen years. And I probably wouldn't know any of you guys. Maybe Wes Hyatt and I, we might have been somewhere, we're pretty close. But my thought is that CrossFit should attempt to do the same with HYROX. Maybe they can work something out. Maybe HYROX is part of the open or the games or just a co-branded event where what a collaboration would actually benefit both a joint event, shared judging standards, or even a High Rock style open just to get some of these, expose more of these HYROX athletes to CrossFit the way that CrossFit expose so many athletes to weightlifting. Kenny, you got something to say on that?

Kenny:

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. As much as I'd love to see the unity of it and have them work together, I think it might be just too much going on. I think they're already meshing together in their own way. HYROX is already kind of taking some of the top athletes CrossFit and have them competing and have them sharing. And I think a lot of these guys

Danny:

And Hunter just beats 'em all.

Kenny:

Yeah. And these guys are kind of proving that, but they're all still competitive, right? They're not too far behind they, but I think staying separate entities might be good for both ends of it. I dunno.

Danny:

Yeah. Maybe there's, I mean, CrossFit and Weight USA weightlifting did that one collaborative meet and then that was it, right? And so maybe there's a reason, so I, I'm thinking more of a one time thing, do something together, collaboration. Right?

Kenny:

I feel like because IROC has so many elements within its own thing, if you were to do some sort of weightlifting component, like a clean and jerk or a snatch or something, and then add that to across their competition. It meshes a little bit easier visually and more holistically. I think it just makes more sense than doing a whole HYROX and then doing some CrossFit element.

Danny:

I think 2026 CrossFit open week one workout is thousand meter run. Thousand meter ski, a thousand meter run. Just send everyone out the door for 90 minutes and then we'll see you next

Danny:

Week. That be good?

Danny:

Yeah. Alright. Last thing, lightning round. Wrap this up. Quick hits. Here we go. If you could steal one element from HYROX and use it for CrossFit. What is that, Alan?

Alen:

The endurance, the running just instead of a six minute wad, maybe longer wads. 30, 40 minute wads.

Danny:

More longer duration. Wads. I mean, Glassman always talks about how your capabilities are at the edges of your training, and so pushing out the training duration, some might increase people's fitness a little bit. Kenny Santu, to your thoughts, one element from HYROX using CrossFit, what would that be?

Kenny:

I think the burpee broad jumps. I think people have a good time with those. I love watching. I've always used them as a warmup for any of them, like the gyms I was at. It's kind of just a good easy, I think there's a skill component. How far could I jump? And then there's that athletic component and just pick yourself up off the ground. So using that as more and more of a CrossFit workout. Obviously you need a lot more room, but I like the burpee garage.

Danny:

You ever do the burpee mile?

Kenny:

No, I have not.

Danny:

No. Sounds like sounds miserable. I've done four

Alen:

Meter, done 400 meters that I didn't want to do anymore.

Danny:

Yeah, I did 400 meters of burpee bra jumps and that felt like enough. I will say I do enjoy a burpee bra jump because I got a pretty good broad jump and I like to just sand it out there. See how many of those little horse stall mats I can clear. Let 'em know what time it is. You know what I mean?

Danny:

Yeah.

Danny:

Alright. If you could delete one CrossFit movement forever West P, what would it be?

Wes Piatt:

The handstand pushup.

Danny:

Handstand. Pushup. You don't like gymnastics?

Wes Piatt:

Yeah, I got long arms. That's a personal thing more than it is.

Danny:

Alright, San.

Wes Piatt:

But I do think that the compression on the neck a little bit sometimes I'm like, ah, do we need to be doing that? But I don't

Danny:

Know. Yeah. Since you love burpee broad jump so much, you want to bring those into CrossFit, what do you want out? CrossFit?

Kenny:

Yeah. I'd probably say another overhead movement, a thruster. I've just always sucked at 'em. I've never been good at it. And I see somebody like Wes, who's just, when we did that total,

Danny:

Yeah. At the game

Kenny:

Guy just throwing up fucking, I'm like, yeah, he made that look way too fucking easy. And here I am. I'm like, I'm hoping I get 2 0 5.

Danny:

Yeah. I will say biggest benefit of in CrossFit of training, weightlifting. I mean, there's the obvious snatch, clean jerks that you're better at, but thrusters man, if we're doing a one rep or a two rep cluster or something like a clean it off the ground into two thrusters. Oh man, that feels good. After some weightlifting training, you can send that bar. It's pretty nice. Wes Kits, would you rather your mom does CrossFit or HYROX?

Wes Piatt:

Please say CrossFit.

Wes Kitts:

Yeah. I mean, so I got mom to come to CrossFit class one time, but the jumping around and something with having to pee or something, it wasn't my favorite. So if she was going to pick, she'd probably do HYROX. But yeah, I think I'd go CrossFit if I was going to push her one way or the other.

Danny:

Santu too. What about you? Has your mom been working out?

Kenny:

Yeah, my mom's been,

Wes Kitts:

I've

Danny:

Met your mom. I love your mom. I've met your mom a

Kenny:

Few

Danny:

Times.

Kenny:

My mom's been to every rendition of a gym. I had both CrossFit gyms and then now I have my private training kind of group finished up and she does it every day. She's not good at it, but does it?

Danny:

Yeah. My mom goes to, we have a class at my gym called CrossFit Silvers. It's four ages, 60 plus. And anyway, my parents are in there every day. Every day for the classes. Today was our one year anniversary. We had a little potluck. It was great, man. Yeah, our coach cried during her speech. It was the whole deal. Okay, so moving on. Here we go. Scenario, if you have a daughter, which that's true for two of us. I know for sure. Anyway, you have a daughter and she brings home a boyfriend and you find out that he's a high rock bean whose max deadlift is body weight. Do you have any respect for him, Alan?

Alen:

Oh my God. Oh, that's a tough one, man. I'm going to get hurt for this one. No, I mean, I'm sorry. Not at all. You can't, it's tough. It's a tough thing.

Danny:

Wes Pie. Do you respect a young man who only deadlifts his body weight?

Wes Piatt:

Oh my God. I don't want to say no, but No, please.

Danny:

Yeah, there we go. Tuchi your thoughts on this.

Kenny:

Yeah, I mean, if I ever have kids, they're all going to be doing jujitsu and CrossFit and every type of other, so if they're dating some guy who's not doing it, it's going to be fucking embarrassing for everybody involved.

Danny:

Yeah. Wes, what's the minimum amount of weight your daughter's boyfriend has to be able to deadlift for you to allow him into the house?

Wes Kitts:

That's a lot. My three and 4-year-old, I think deadlift body weight already, so they might be better equipped than whoever. That guy that's coming home with the daughter is there.

Danny:

Yeah, my 8-year-old daughter, it's been about a year. But anyway, a year ago they did some heavy deadlifts and she had no problem with the 70 pound kettlebell. And when she was 70 years old and my 12-year-old, she deadlifted 155 pounds for a set of five, and she is like four 10, weighs like 95 pounds. And so I kind of feel like it's pretty low barrier here, and so I think we're all on the same page. All right. That's a wrap for today's Not In My Box. Big thanks to Wes, Wes, Kenny, and Allen for providing the best opinions by people who actually have experience with the things they're talking about. If you overestimated your aerobic capacity listening to this, congratulations, you're one of us. Make sure to buy some coffee from caffeine kilos.com. Go follow West Kits on his upcoming weightlifting journey. Check out the Strong AF podcast with Kenny, and if you live in beautiful southern Oregon, go say what's up to Alan. Make sure to share this with the coach who still think running ruins gains. And remember, if your workout was HYROX race, you just paid $150 for a single CrossFit wad on.

All right, there we go. Thanks guys.