Episode 5 - Gym Culture Is The Product

All right, before we start today, let's go over a little moral chaos. So, every gym's got rules and then every gym's got
00:04:08.000 people who just don't care and break those rules. So, today, uh, we're going to just do acceptable or unacceptable.
00:04:14.720 So, I'm just going to say something that goes on in gyms and you guys tell me if it's acceptable or unacceptable. All
00:04:20.238 right. First thing, uh, Wes, a box of donuts left out in the lobby. Acceptable. Unacceptable?
00:04:27.360 Acceptable. Acceptable. All right, Blair, you want a box of donuts in your gym? Unacceptable. Well, get that [ __ ] out of
00:04:33.759 here. Yeah. Okay, there we go. All right. Uh, what about someone brings their dog to the gym? Is that okay, Wes?
00:04:41.040 Yes, Blair. Acceptable. All right, we like dogs, not donuts. Okay. Okay. Someone wearing AirPods
00:04:47.440 during class. Wes, that's a freaking no rep. Absolutely no.
00:04:52.479 Hard no. Hard no, Blair. Yeah. Unacceptable. Unless Unless it's they're outside on a run or
00:04:58.080 something, right? Sure. Okay. Uh, what about Yeah. when you program the 5K run. That way
00:05:03.680 you have time to go take a deuce. All right. What about shoes off during the workouts, Wes? Shoes off.
00:05:09.759 Totally acceptable. Absolutely. Blair, shoes off. You mean like if it's like a like a one rep max deadlift or something?
00:05:16.160 Anytime. Someone just comes to class, something's going, they just they just pop the shoes off. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Uh shirts off, Wes.
00:05:23.840 Absolutely, Blair. Yep. Definitely. Yeah, us too. We have a pretty strict policy actually. Uh, no shoes, no shirt,
00:05:30.800 no problem. Like, I'm just glad you're here. You know, I have that sign actually hanging up
00:05:35.840 right over here. No shirt, no shoes, no problem. I swear to God. What about uh a weight belt but with no
00:05:43.520 shirt under? Oh, there it is. No shoes, no shirt, no problem. That's There's the sign. That's my motto, man.
00:05:51.360 In fact, I'll tell you what. If when it comes like mowing the lawn, if it's sunny outside and like, you know, my
00:05:57.120 neighbor's wearing a shirt, then I've got a problem. You got to pop the top if you're out there, you know, cutting the
00:06:02.160 Okay, back to our acceptable. Okay. Uh, a weight belt with no shirt under.
00:06:09.600 Wes, you okay? Fine, Blair. Yeah. You're saying like the guy took his shirt off and then put a white belt
00:06:15.759 on afterwards because Yeah. got heavy. Yeah, that's that's fine. Okay. Uh, what about playing explicit
00:06:21.360 music during class, bless? Yeah, it's fine. Playing All right, Blair.
00:06:27.280 That's a no-go for us. Uh, I figure as long as a Pandora station is on the edited channel, but
00:06:33.840 something slips through the cracks, that's not up to me. You know what I mean? That's how that's how we roll with it.
00:06:39.360 Accidents happen, but there's also there's also like deliberate hardcore
00:06:44.960 Oh, yeah. Sometimes. Yes. Oh my god. Sometimes. All right. Uh, what about playing Britney Spears as your workout music?
00:06:52.000 Wes, if it's part of the If it's part of the the real, then it's part of the real.
00:06:57.360 It's all good. As long as it's a vibe, then it's a vibe. Blair, Britney Spears Radio. Is that what you're listening to during your
00:07:03.280 heavy lifts? Yeah, I got no problem with Britney. Let's go. All right. There we go. So, every gym
00:07:09.120 has its quirks, but that's what makes it culture. Uh, with me today, two guys who
00:07:14.319 have seen every version of gym culture. We have Blair Morrison, threetime CrossFit Games athlete, Norcow Classic
00:07:20.880 event boss, and tell uh tell Ben I said that, and owner of multiple gyms because
00:07:26.319 one culture problem isn't enough. And Wes Wes Pyatt, CrossFit red shirt, games
00:07:31.919 athlete, affiliate owner, coach of coaches. I'm Danny Leer from Caffeine and Kilos, gym owner, coffee dealer, and
00:07:38.800 your friendly moderator who's going to ask your opinion and then tell you that you're wrong. Okay. Uh so we want these
00:07:44.479 people to get in your heads a little bit more. see how you think. And so just some quick uh no judgment questions here
00:07:50.400 just to see how you think so people can kind of know who they're going to believe on things. Um we'll we'll go
00:07:55.680 with Blair first. Blair, uh squats or deadlifts, which one's a better exercise?
00:08:01.280 Squats. Oh, Wes. Uh the answer is depends.
00:08:07.280 No, not depends. Better exercise. Squats or deadlifts? You got to do it. Squats. Squats. Okay. We don't care about
00:08:13.520 picking anything up off the ground. Interesting. Uh Blair, how often do you wear sunglasses inside?
00:08:21.199 Uh only if I'm get like have a migraine headache in like you wear sunglasses
00:08:26.479 inside. Uh I have I have pretty sensitive eyes, so I do pretty often actually. Oh man, I'm that I'm that guy.
00:08:33.200 Oh, dude. Uh Blair, when uh do you ever throw up during workouts? When's the last time
00:08:39.440 you threw up during a workout? Oh, man. And I think it was actually when I in college, we did a CL like it
00:08:47.360 was like a every minute on the minute for 30 minutes. The first 15 exercises were upper body. The f the second 15
00:08:54.160 exercises were lower body and like it was all like a minute as many reps as
00:08:59.680 you can do. And I threw up in the in the breezeway. Been a while. Yeah, it's been a while. Wes, when's the last time you threw up
00:09:05.519 in a workout? Oh man, it's been a long time. But it was a workout with bear crawls in it. That's all I remember. and then bear
00:09:11.839 crawling out the door and throwing up on the grass. Yeah, it's been a long It's probably been 10 years for me, but it's it's like
00:09:18.080 intervals. It's a workout where it's intervals, man. Those like Barbara, like those things just jack me up every time.
00:09:23.440 Um All right. Uh Blair, when's the last time you pooped your pants during a workout?
00:09:30.080 Uh that's never happened. Never happened. Wes, you ever pooped your pants during a workout? I I thought I did one time and I even
00:09:36.560 told my friend. I said, "I think I pooped my pants." And he was like, "It's cool. Let's Oh, and we kept going
00:09:42.240 and luckily afterwards I checked. It was all good. Didn't. It was It was just a wet fart. We were all right. Yeah. See, that's tricky cuz one time I
00:09:48.480 thought I did and I like went to check. I like put started to put my hand behind my back and I was like, "Wait a minute."
00:09:53.680 Because what if you're right? That's not how you want to find out, you know? And so I had to but I realized early just go
00:09:59.600 in the bathroom and and figure it out from there. Um, all right. There we go. Now that we know everybody's honesty
00:10:04.959 level and digestive risk tolerance, uh we could talk about something a little more a little more serious here or get
00:10:11.760 into the culture side of the gym. Uh first thing about culture and the gym is let's talk about rep shavers, right? So
00:10:19.120 every gym's got one the rep shaver that they hear some line about their score and you know they finish Fran before the
00:10:25.839 music hits the chorus and they claim a PR and so or they you know they somehow their their AM wrap ended sooner than
00:10:32.399 everybody else's. Um so my question is do you care like do you call it out? Do
00:10:37.519 you ignore it or just let karma handle the scoreboard? Uh Wes, what do you think about rep shavers?
00:10:44.240 Yeah, I care. Absolutely. There's a standard that needs to be upheld. not not just for ego purpose, but actually
00:10:50.000 to make sure they're getting better and getting results. So, yeah, I care. Do you what do what do you do like if
00:10:55.360 you you think someone, you know, maybe it's at the end of the workout, but you're looking at it and you're like, "Dude, there is no way that they go
00:11:03.200 whatever beat this person's score by 30 calories or whatever is going on, right? Do you do you address it then or do you
00:11:09.120 how do you address it if you think it's going down? If you don't have tolerance for it?" We've only had it happen a couple times
00:11:14.320 and I dealt with it different both times. The first time I just asked the person, you know, I'm like, "Hey, you know, make sure you're finishing your
00:11:20.000 reps." And it didn't feel good to me. It felt really like um confrontational and the person didn't really appreciate it.
00:11:26.000 They were like, "I don't do that." And I was like, "Okay, it's cool if you don't, you know, I just been hearing it other place." And it was bad. It just wasn't a
00:11:31.360 good conversation. So, what I did the next time was I just would watch the person and when they would go to move
00:11:36.399 on, I'd be like, "Oh, hey, two more. Almost there. I just watched. You know, you got two more." And they're like, "Oh, okay, cool." And they'd run back over and do two more. And I think
00:11:42.640 honestly most of the time they thought they were honestly done and they were just spacing out during the workout. You
00:11:48.079 know, for sure it's a thing where I've been like partnering with somebody on a workout and I'm counting their reps and
00:11:54.959 they're supposed to do 10 and they stop after like nine. Yeah. And I'm like, well, do I like they're not doing it on purpose for sure in that
00:12:01.680 situation. You know what I mean? But then there's other times where you know for sure someone's doing it, right? Uh Blair, what how do you feel about rep
00:12:07.760 shavers? you you make it a big stink or you just figure like, "Hey, man, they're here to work out. I'm just glad they're
00:12:12.959 here." I mean, so this is really an interesting question because it does go to the heart
00:12:18.720 of of your culture, right? So, usually what happens uh in our gym is that the
00:12:24.959 members notice or some of the other coaches notice and they get really pissed off about it.
00:12:31.200 Like irrationally pissed off about it because, you know, our class is not qualifying
00:12:38.320 for the CrossFit games or or it's not even the OP. if it's the open, it's something different obviously because everybody's getting a judge and
00:12:43.600 everything like that, but they're irrationally upset because, you know, there's this um sense of meritocracy in
00:12:50.639 the gym, right? Everybody's working hard. We're all doing this for the right reasons and we're not trying to like
00:12:55.839 cheat to have our score on the board better than somebody else cuz that's lame. Uh but it happens and I think it
00:13:01.360 happens both ways that you guys are talking about where some people are just bad counters and then other people are
00:13:07.040 they are just like too competitive for their own good that they really just want to have a good score. So this has
00:13:13.519 happened a lot of times um with I would say probably at least
00:13:20.639 I would say maybe 10 times with different people uh where maybe you're just a better counter than
00:13:25.760 Wes is probably. Um, so what my first my first
00:13:31.920 like uh reaction to this is to like try to quell the rebellion of the the members and the coaches that are upset
00:13:37.680 about it and try to like refocus them on what their priority should be, which is their work and their reps, not somebody
00:13:44.399 else's. Like that's a that's a kind of like an important distinction to make. Like the reason
00:13:49.600 you're here is not to worry about what somebody else is doing, right? Right. That being said, it is there is a
00:13:56.480 standard and they want to see something done about it to make sure that all the things that we preach are being, you
00:14:02.720 know, heard by all. And so I kind of what I'll do is I'll stand next to the person kind of like Wes is saying and
00:14:08.959 I'll just I'll count the reps out loud. Yeah. But in like in an encouraging way, right? And I find that if you do that in
00:14:15.279 the beginning of the workout, someone who's a bad counter gets better and you don't have to be there the whole time
00:14:20.399 because they just right there right away. They just know somebody's paying attention, right? Yep. Um if it comes to the whiteboard and
00:14:28.000 somebody's giving me like an incorrect score, I will never challenge it. I will always just write up what they
00:14:34.800 put because like Wes said, like if you challenge somebody's integrity in front of them, they're going to get so
00:14:40.399 defensive and it's not going to go good. So, I always I if they say RX and they I know that they never touch their chest
00:14:46.240 to the bar, I'm writing RX on the board because that's not a battle that's worth fighting for me as the owner.
00:14:52.320 Well, what you mentioned of people getting upset is I've had Yeah, that's the thing is people tend to get but then
00:14:57.440 I realize well they're just not they haven't been doing this as long as you have, right? And like I don't I don't get mad about it, right? But like some
00:15:04.639 people really do, but also I'm not saying I never did when I was, you know, younger. Not even maybe it has to do
00:15:09.920 with being younger as much as just not as experienced um you know coaching and doing CrossFit and that type of thing,
00:15:15.120 right? Like I think it bothered me more um than it does now. But so it's funny when you mentioned standing next to someone and counting, we had a coach uh
00:15:22.959 Nick and he he was he knew this guy was like not getting his reps done right and was going and so he did exactly that.
00:15:29.600 Went stood or like the guy goes to run and he's like supposed to be 20 push-ups or something and he's like, "Hey, that
00:15:34.800 was only 16." And like the guy's like, "Oh, oh, sorry, sorry." Sorry. Right. And came back and did the other four and
00:15:40.160 then like went on the run. And so he goes and stands right by where this guy's doing his push-ups, right, for the next round. He's sitting there and the
00:15:46.800 guy does 10 and starts to get up and Nick's like, "Hey, that's only 10." And
00:15:52.320 the guy's like indignant. He's like, "What?" And Nick like loses it. He yells
00:15:57.360 it. He's like, "You think I can't count to 10?" Oh god.
00:16:03.759 And oh no. And I'm like, "Oh my god. But it was like also hilarious because like totally
00:16:11.120 like one you only did half like he knew it was 20. It's not like he didn't know the workout but like when he was so like
00:16:17.279 mad about it it's like yeah you think that like you think this guy isn't able to count to 10 like you think he was off
00:16:22.880 by like half of what he was counting of your reps. Anyway, uh pretty funny. But I'm at the
00:16:30.639 point now where I think of I don't want people to do it and I think there is a conversation to be had with someone who
00:16:37.040 is doing it um from a standpoint of other people get really upset about it but it doesn't really make me mad. Um
00:16:43.279 ever since I read the book Mindset by Carol Dwek um there's something she talks about in there is there's a study
00:16:50.320 she references where you can just make kids lie about their scores or make them cheat on tests. And essentially what
00:16:56.639 they did was they would and I might get this slightly wrong but the gist is there is they you know two groups of
00:17:02.560 students they gave the test to a group anyway. One group they came in and said hey the group before you that took this
00:17:09.599 um they found it was really challenging but you know and they they most of them only got about half right you know and
00:17:16.160 then but it was a pretty easy test right and so the kids you know average whatever like 80% or something and then they they asked them for their scores
00:17:22.160 out loud before they graded them. like the kids didn't know they're going to turn them in necessarily. Next group, they said, "Hey, here's a test. This
00:17:28.960 thing, piece of cake." Last group that did it, everyone got 80%, no problem whatsoever. Um, so here you go. You
00:17:34.400 shouldn't have any issues with this. And in that group, like something crazy like 30% of the kids lied about their scores,
00:17:41.039 right? Whereas in the first group, none of them did. And so, and these are like same kids, you know? I mean, whatever.
00:17:46.640 It's same school, you know, as close to the same as you can get, right? And so it's like, man, just by how you preface
00:17:52.320 this test, they got some kids to lie about their scores, which made me real.
00:17:57.360 And the whole point of that was it was the mindset of these kids going into it, right? Um, did they understand that like
00:18:03.520 all you can do is what you do and just do the best and that's acceptable or do they think that they're lesser than, you
00:18:09.520 know, whatever there's some need to place higher, you know, because they feel like they're not sufficient or
00:18:15.280 whatever's going on, right? So that just kind of made me realize like we're all just old older kids. And so when people
00:18:23.520 are lying about their scores, like it's got nothing. I think people in the gym get mad because they think it's about them. Oh, they just want to beat me.
00:18:29.760 They think they're better than me, whatever. Right? And I I realize that I think it's the exact exact opposite is what's going on.
00:18:36.559 Um I think that person who lies about their score doesn't give a [ __ ] about you. um that they themselves feel
00:18:43.600 inadequate and like they're missing something and they're just lying about they're not doing it for you that
00:18:49.280 they're doing it for them, right? Like they something happened in their life or something's going on in their life or
00:18:55.120 whatever, they have this learned behavior that if they per they can't fathom perceiving themselves as lesser
00:19:01.520 than these other people for whatever reason. And so in their mind subconsciously like they just lie about their scores or
00:19:08.240 whatever um or shave the reps and that type of stuff if someone's in front of them and beating them um because they're
00:19:14.480 going through something and they just, you know, they need a little help there. So yeah, they want to boost the ego a
00:19:19.520 little bit, feel better about themselves, they need a little ego boost for whatever reason that is, right? Or maybe they don't need the ego boost, they just
00:19:26.240 can't handle the ego hit that they would. Yeah. Yeah. Either or for sure. Which the next step would be actually like
00:19:32.080 well this should have your ego should have nothing to do with your workouts. It's just a workout. It's just a score. It's not you know what I mean? It's
00:19:37.679 actually it's not about you. It's just about exercise, right? Um it doesn't make you better or lesser
00:19:43.039 or anything depending on your score. Uh Blair, you mentioned the whiteboard. So you go old school whiteboard still
00:19:49.039 into class, stand up there, everyone says their score and you write it down. Yeah, 100%.
00:19:54.960 What about you, Wes? Hell yeah. Oh damn it. See, we use Sugar Wad, which
00:20:00.799 is great. Um, but I'll tell you what we don't do. We don't write the names on the board. No. Thumbs down.
00:20:06.240 You gotta You gotta. Come on, man. You got to have accountability that you were here that day and there's like the result. Boom.
00:20:13.919 But they log it on there. They log it on the app. Nobody opens apps. Everybody hates apps, man. They'll walk up and look at a
00:20:19.600 whiteboard, though, dude. Yeah. I don't know. Our people love it, man. Um, anyway, we take a picture of the whiteboard at
00:20:24.720 all all of our gym locations and we post it on a a Facebook group so people can compare between between gyms. Um, they
00:20:32.720 like the picture. They like zooming in. We we'll circle like the top score on the board for each location. I don't
00:20:39.280 know. I think there's something about writing it up there as a I mean, I just don't like an extra excuse to look at my
00:20:45.679 phone. So, yeah. Yeah, that's maybe there's something there. Um, interesting. I will say that
00:20:52.480 sometimes when we vacation up in the hills, I like drop into CrossFit Sonora. They're in a great gym up there. Good
00:20:58.159 job, CrossFit Sonora. And they use the whiteboard and I do like that. You know what I mean? I like seeing my name at
00:21:04.080 the top of that thing. Yeah. Um or wherever it lands, right? Big ego boost. There it is. Dude, it's
00:21:10.320 always at the top because if it's not going to be, I just CrossFit Sonora for like 10 years.
00:21:15.520 Dude, if it's not going to be at the top, I just lie about my score and so then it's like, you know, get there
00:21:20.720 anyway. Anyway, but I will say there is something to like the end of class like
00:21:25.840 last few minutes like calling out names, writing down the scores, like it is it is kind of nice, but then also it's
00:21:31.039 because I'm not a member of that gym. If and so like if they do log in an app, then I'm not able to do that. Whereas I
00:21:37.520 was a member there, I would I don't know. We do both. I mean, like we we write it on the board and we encourage
00:21:42.640 them to put it in the app because we'll benchmark a lot of stuff in the app so we can go back and look at it later, you know, and have data. But
00:21:48.559 yeah, we do both, man. All right. Well, earlier Blair also
00:21:54.159 mentioned the open, right? So, the open's always coming up, right? Like I
00:21:59.440 feel like every time I turn around, it's it's almost time for the open again, right? Uh like right now, I feel like it's coming up, but it's it's still like
00:22:05.840 five months away, right? everybody just feels like it's always like it's always upon us. Uh what what do you guys do and
00:22:11.520 does it relate to your gym culture? Do you push the open? Do you try and get as many people as possible signed up? Um do
00:22:17.280 you do or do you kind of not not care? Um well, first of all, when you just
00:22:24.799 said the open's always coming, do you guys remember that year when the open was in October when it was in the fall?
00:22:30.400 Oh, yeah. How weird that was. Yeah. Wasn't that the first year Rosa took
00:22:36.640 over? Yeah, it was I don't know what the year that was, but it was weird. Yeah.
00:22:41.760 Um Yeah. So, for our gym, this been different over depending on I don't
00:22:47.440 know, maybe where we're at as a business, how hard we push the open. We definitely participate in it every year.
00:22:52.559 And there's a a good chunk of people that are like every single year are qualifying for the
00:23:00.240 next stage. So that the gym kind of rallies around them whether or not you
00:23:05.520 know I push it. Um it kind of depends on
00:23:12.080 where CrossFit is as a That's interesting.
00:23:17.120 Yeah. So this past year we pushed it more um than the few years before that.
00:23:24.480 And I think some of that also is we we've done NorCal Classic now for the last seven years. And so we we go hard
00:23:32.080 on that online qualifier in January. And so ever since that's been happening, I
00:23:37.360 feel like the open we don't put as much energy into it. Sure. Because a lot of the athletes have just
00:23:44.320 done an online competition. But for some of them, it it actually serves to peak their appetite,
00:23:50.159 right? So, this year, we're going to push the open pretty hard. Um because I I feel good
00:23:56.720 about what's happening at CrossFit right now. And like I want more of our athletes to be trying to go to
00:24:02.320 quarterfinals and, you know, just to participate deeper into the into the season. Um especially
00:24:09.039 the scaled people. And I don't know, there was a time when we used to do we used to do a an inner gym competition
00:24:15.919 where we had Yeah. like a almost like a fantasy draft and coaches had teams and the open scores
00:24:22.559 were how they got you know points and
00:24:27.600 but now we haven't done that for for a while just because of the effort. It's a lot of effort to organize multiple
00:24:33.039 things in a year. So I would say we are always in the top 10% of gyms
00:24:38.480 participation wise. Um, but it doesn't, our whole year does not revolve around
00:24:44.240 it. Wes, how do you feel about the Open? Do you care about it at all? I I care about it a lot. Um, I see it as
00:24:50.640 my Litman's test or my test for myself. Like, am I keeping my members healthy because it's like such a big pool of
00:24:56.720 people we get to pull from and see where they stack around the world. So, I really love that part of it for myself.
00:25:02.080 But I feel the same way as with Blair. We have a thing we do every year called the Unity Games. It's in November. So,
00:25:08.640 it feels like that's pretty close to February. And to get them to like, all right, now it's time for another competition thing. It's like instead we
00:25:15.279 just go, "Hey, this is actually as my as the owner, this is my test to see if I've been doing my job keeping you guys
00:25:20.960 healthy around the world. So, if you could sign up so that I can see if I'm doing my job, that would be appreciated." And that seemed to over
00:25:28.159 the last couple years with that narrative been actually really beneficial to getting people to sign up. Instead of it being like another
00:25:34.240 competition, let's get after it. It's more like let's see if Wes is doing his job, you know, and we get people sign up
00:25:40.000 that way. Yeah. You know, the other thing Danny I forgot to mention is when they went from five
00:25:45.120 weeks to three. Yeah. That makes it a lot easier. Totally. I agree. I agree. Yeah. Wes, that's an
00:25:51.600 interesting standpoint on it too is like tell them like, hey, let's see like where'd you stack up last year on your worldwide ranking and where you at this
00:25:57.600 year? Right? Are you getting better or worse? And you know, how's maybe the programming have an effect on that or
00:26:02.720 whatever, right? um or just maybe leaving those donuts in the lobby is, you know, starting to cause an issue
00:26:08.240 with uh your chest bar pull-ups in the gym. Our balance goes like this. At our gym, we have a drinking team, you know, like
00:26:14.559 it's a race drinking team, you know, and they're like Captain Donovan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Tarps off, baby.
00:26:22.720 You know, and so we're Yeah. We we and I I preach at the level ones and level twos about this, you know, to like, hey,
00:26:28.720 your environment matters. But to us, that is the environment we want to have. You want people to be able to enjoy themselves and to know what it means to
00:26:35.120 get back on track and how to do that. And also to be able to look at things and say no, right? Like it's in my environment and I
00:26:41.760 I can say no. I don't need to absolutely abstain from things like I'm able to have uh mental toughness to overcome
00:26:48.320 these things too. I think is really important. Uh something Blair mentioned that I wanted to talk about was actually next
00:26:54.559 on my list here is the internal teams, right? So there's different ways some gyms set up like in an internal
00:27:00.320 competition. Um I went actually one gym nearby here. Uh they actually set up
00:27:05.919 like you know like different oh team blue and team red and they like anyway in the last week they like bring out
00:27:12.559 they make uh like banners you know like it's a high school pep rally and they're up there with their banners up and that
00:27:18.880 was pretty rad to see. Uh, so yeah, is that something you guys do? Or maybe Blair, you kind of mentioned you you
00:27:24.080 used to. I don't know if Wes you do anything like that. And if so, you know, how do you feel about as far as, you
00:27:29.279 know, gym culture and the whole thing is, you know, the idea of because I have this idea really, I just want your guys' input on it. Is uh if I do teams this
00:27:37.360 year, is it a better idea or more interesting to do like an AM versus PM? Right? Like you split it and say, okay,
00:27:43.279 the morning crew versus the afternoon crew, right? Um, is that a fun community builder or am I just setting up a a
00:27:49.760 social civil war? Right. Do you think like mixing those teams would be better? Um, Blair, you have experience doing it.
00:27:54.960 Maybe you can give some insights on what you did and what you liked or didn't like. Um, I'd also like to hear uh maybe Wes, you go first. Um, do you break them
00:28:02.640 up and kind of do internal competition of teams or is it just kind of like sign up and let it rip? And
00:28:08.159 we actually just did this in in June. Uh, we had every class go against each other on a a weeksl long series of tests
00:28:15.520 that we did and then we gave a big old trophy with their name on it and everything saying who won and the 7 a.m.
00:28:21.120 class won it and and it was great. Honestly, it was a lot of camaraderie within the gym and people were uh like
00:28:26.640 even 5:30 a.m. decided that they were going to do uh theme weeks and every week they showed up dressed as a new
00:28:31.840 theme and none of us said to do that at all. It was just because they were like no we are going to win as a class. So I
00:28:37.279 think it was great. Blair, what you mentioned kind of doing some teams before. Do you do you split
00:28:42.799 it by, you know, time of day or do you I've also heard of people doing it by ability, you know, kind of trying to
00:28:47.919 break them up, picking pick, you know, setting teams up to be, you know, more cross-section of the gym more. Uh what
00:28:54.080 have you done? What worked? What what didn't work? So on. Uh we've never done it by ability, but
00:28:59.840 we have we've done it uh fantasy draft style where you have anybody is available from any any time of day. Uh,
00:29:08.000 I don't think that worked as well as breaking it up by like schoolyard dodgeball. Yeah. And not even for that reason
00:29:14.720 because we would we would score if you're in the scale your score could be
00:29:20.720 better than the RX score. So a lot of times it was like strategic to draft somebody who was in a certain age group,
00:29:26.880 you know, who knew you knew it was going to place well. But that it worked better when the AM people were on the same team
00:29:33.520 because they came to class with this additional layer of bonding, you know. And I think the the civil war within the
00:29:40.720 gym is actually good for culture because with most of these adults, nobody's saying anything like personally mean.
00:29:47.360 They're just like talking [ __ ] in a good way and like that that helps the energy. Um
00:29:54.559 we we do something for NCC. Well, we used to do it for NCC, but then it became too much. Now we do this thing we
00:30:00.880 call we call it spirit week where the gyms are competing against each other um not for scores in the workout but for
00:30:08.640 like spirit within like these different themed categories and they have to make they make videos or they do like a you
00:30:15.919 know a picture and the themes can be I mean they're so crazy. Some of them is like it's like a Walt Disney theme one
00:30:21.279 week or one day and then another time it's been like decades and they just get
00:30:26.320 so creative and then we have this voting process that everybody I mean just it's
00:30:32.159 just a different thing for them to remember, you know, throughout the year and then they go do their workout, right? So yeah,
00:30:37.520 I definitely think it's worth it. I think it's it's great to get adults to quote unquote play a little bit fun
00:30:45.120 because they don't do that in their normal their normal jobs typically. So the gym can be this this um not only this like
00:30:52.159 fitness refuge but it's also this fun refuge you know like getting them to do those kind of things I think is really
00:30:58.159 good. Yeah, I think that's a great point. You know, kind of like the teamwork idea, right? You know, and kind of like Wes talking about their thing in
00:31:03.360 June and also it's like getting people on the same board being teams, you know, working together. And what you're saying
00:31:08.640 about adults is really interesting because, you know, it's like when you do play games in the warm-up, like you do a little pizza game with the admats or you
00:31:15.200 do some quick stick, whatever. Like, dude, people are locked in. They're smiling, they're laughing. We actually
00:31:20.240 did dodgeball last week for the first time. It's probably like a year. It's funny. Someone asked. It was just a heavy squat day and that was it. It was
00:31:26.559 like we had did a few anyway it was this one rep max type thing and so we had we're going to have a little bit of time
00:31:32.000 we knew it and Bud was going to do you know some stretching and stuff and someone said early like before class like hey we haven't played dodgeball in
00:31:38.159 a long time he just goes oh it's funny you say something we are today
00:31:43.760 and so I was like dude one rep max squats and then the last 10 minutes of class was dodgeball it was great like
00:31:49.279 people loved it and everyone laughed sweating and smiling. Yeah. You know, and so that that idea of of
00:31:55.279 playing as an adult, well, something else that that you mentioned as an adult, it's the idea of being on a team,
00:32:00.799 you know, like some people at work might have some semblance of that, but not it's not the same like, you know,
00:32:06.159 playing sports and stuff. Like the the best part of of playing organized athletics is being on a team. You're in
00:32:12.320 this together. You're you're going for this thing together. You're supporting one another because you have a common
00:32:17.360 goal and a common purpose. and you know that you see I coached my daughter's soccer uh team this last year and it's
00:32:24.080 like watching and that that's what I used to do right when I taught PE I coached high school sports but like
00:32:29.279 watching these girls like the way that their relationships changed over the course of you know a 10e season you know
00:32:35.360 these kids have never met each other by the time the 10 weeks is up they're like you know whatever like arms around each
00:32:40.640 other walk into practice you know they turn into close friends just a short time like why would you not want that with your gym right why would you not
00:32:46.880 want your your 630 :30 a.m. class to all be closer together, right? Um my thought
00:32:53.679 of splitting them is like then what you get is the opposite. You get, you know, if we got red team, blue team, they're both working out at 6:30, you might get
00:33:00.399 some of that, you know, fun [ __ ] talk going on. But I think you're right. I think having them all rowing in the same
00:33:05.840 direction, you might you probably get more out of that from uh from bring, you know, a perspective of bringing the gym together and community.
00:33:13.039 You know, another thing um that's good about um not only the game warm-ups, you know,
00:33:20.880 where there's like if you have like two teams against each other, you're forcing people to like interact with each other
00:33:27.600 in a different way that they may they may try to avoid during the workout. So, I I've noticed it where um we'll do like
00:33:35.039 a like handball or something, right? There's two teams and you're constantly passing a ball to another person.
00:33:40.159 Yeah. And then two people that didn't know each other, then they decide later that week to be partners on a partner
00:33:46.159 workout, right? Like it just took that, you know, that permission to like, oh yeah, we've done
00:33:51.840 together before, you know, I don't have to like break this ice with you. And I mean, it's just really healthy.
00:33:57.919 Yeah, I agree. Uh, now the exact opposite. Uh, every coach has one, the
00:34:03.840 member who seems great on person or is great in person for a while and then turns out to be an issue, right? Maybe
00:34:10.320 they're, you know, they're having whatever whatever's going on in their life, they're bringing to the gym with them and maybe they decide they're
00:34:15.918 unhappy with something and are telling other people about how terrible something is that you're doing or
00:34:21.599 perhaps they are kind of mean sometimes when they start working out or whatever, right? Uh so have you ever had to let
00:34:29.359 someone go? Have you fired a client uh for the sake of culture? Uh Wes, what
00:34:34.960 what you have any experience with this? Yeah, a couple. Yep. very awkward and
00:34:40.320 has to be done. U but most of the time the person's like actually ready to go
00:34:45.440 anyways. You know, you're like, "Hey, I don't think this is working out. You know, obviously my coaching style isn't
00:34:51.280 working with your style and I think it'd be better if uh you found a new gym." And they're like, "Yeah, I think so, too." Most of the time. So, it's like,
00:34:57.839 "All right, cool. Great. Why were you hanging around then?" And they're like, "I don't know. You have my CDs, so I got to get those back." And I'm like, "Okay,
00:35:03.839 here you go." You or whatever. Yeah. Well, that I mean that's true too like with employees, right? Like the whole thing if when you have to fire
00:35:10.079 someone uh if anyone is surprised then that's your failure as a leader to begin
00:35:15.359 with, right? Like there shouldn't be any No one should be surprised when you're letting them Yeah. They know they're not meeting
00:35:20.400 expectations, right? Yeah. Uh Blair, you have any experience firing firing people, kicking them out of the
00:35:25.680 gym? I was trying to think. I I've definitely had conversations uh with me. We have
00:35:32.000 like an [ __ ] clause in our contract, a member contract, um,
00:35:38.400 which just basically says, you know, if you're disrespectful, if you're if you're being a jerk, like you can be
00:35:44.480 asked to leave. And I I feel like I've had two or three conversations with
00:35:51.040 members about just general conduct. I don't think I've ever had to fire a member. I've had to
00:35:57.119 fire two coaches.
00:36:04.000 Um, and that I mean that's awkward too. I mean that's those are just not fun conversations, but I think um
00:36:12.320 yeah, I don't think I've actually had to fire remember. Usually you kind of like bring it to their attention what's
00:36:17.440 happening. And like Wes said, they they're probably going to leave on their own if it's something they don't agree with. But I know for for a fact in one
00:36:24.400 instance, you know, I had somebody who was basically put putting people off because
00:36:30.480 of their sense of humor. Like he was being right too familiar with um like his sarcasm
00:36:36.560 and people are like this guy's just a dick. And like I'm like, you know, I I kind of know
00:36:42.640 what he's trying to do and it's just not landing. And like okay, listen, new people, don't just give them the
00:36:49.599 full U yet. like, you know, like just be a little like
00:36:55.200 softer about it, you know, like and and like that. He responded and he was he was is, you know, he made the adjustment
00:37:01.680 and that was that was fine. But just pretend like new people are like seven-year-olds and then like after you've known them
00:37:08.480 for three to six months, then they can be an adult. You can treat them like one. But like
00:37:13.520 pretend like that new person is actually um someone brought in their grandma and their grandma's like treat them like a
00:37:19.599 treat them like they're somebody's mother for the first uh six months. Yeah. Uh yeah. Uh kind of awkward is one time
00:37:27.599 somebody quit and caused kind of a stink uh on the way out. meaning like they
00:37:33.520 quit and one or two other people did at the same time and you know that they sewed that descent and it was kind of
00:37:39.680 like this thing and then um like eight months later uh wanted to come back and
00:37:45.280 that was an interesting decision then as well is like okay well this person I don't mind they quit people you know
00:37:50.400 people got things going on people quit sometimes right but like the way it happened wasn't great and then now they
00:37:56.000 now they want to come back do we what do you do right so yeah that's tricky
00:38:01.760 uh I I I let him back. I let the person back. It was one of those because it was also very clear that they realized
00:38:09.599 that they you know what I mean? They kind of like got the full picture a little bit more and understood and um
00:38:14.640 since actually they've been a model client. Oh, they're with us for like eight years. It was it was kind of weird the way things went down. Um they've
00:38:20.560 been great since we've been back. So it wasn't like some and however if it was someone who was an ongoing problem and
00:38:26.640 maybe there's a conversation or whatever type thing. This just like a really weird three months then they quit and then a year later it's like hey I made a
00:38:33.440 mistake I understand whatever is cool. Um so anyway uh all right what actually um what
00:38:42.480 actually builds culture right? Is it the coaching style? Is it having events? Is
00:38:47.520 it playing games? Um, but what what can you can you teach culture or is it just
00:38:53.760 something you model until it sticks? Uh, Wes, what do you think?
00:38:58.960 Man, what a great question, man. Um, I believe I've taught culture in our gym
00:39:06.720 and you know cuz we've gone through a couple shifts for sure where it felt like maybe there was getting kind of
00:39:13.280 clicky and I had to like send out some some blog posts about what we are and
00:39:18.800 and that we're not a click and that we want to be inclusive and we want to include everybody and talk about it at the whiteboard and and you know whatever
00:39:25.920 else and and make jokes about it here and there and so like yeah, I think you can teach it and kind of move it where
00:39:31.119 you need it to go, but you got to have your finger on the pulse all the time for sure. You know, because it can get away from you pretty quick, especially
00:39:36.800 if you have a a few strong personalities in the gym that are coaches or or other members, you know. I think it's it's up
00:39:43.359 to you as the head of honcho or whatever it is to make sure that that that culture is always there every day. For
00:39:50.160 sure. Blair, one other thing on that for you is, you know, you've got the I call it
00:39:55.760 advantage or challenge of with multiple gyms, right? So, do you try to make them all the same or do you let each location
00:40:02.560 grow its own personality? Oh, definitely let each location grow its own personality. Um I think that
00:40:11.119 while there's some advantage to um having
00:40:17.839 multiple locations as far as like systems go and you can share share some some of the
00:40:24.720 workload but between um programming and coaching and and stuff like that and events it makes it a lot better because
00:40:30.880 you have more more people and more energy for events. Um I think you're trying to force uh force like
00:40:37.440 replication of one heartbeat into another into another community is just not going to work.
00:40:43.599 So I I really agree with Wes from the sense that the
00:40:48.640 the leader sets the tone of the culture almost like builds the atmosphere and then you have to let the
00:40:54.480 the gym itself grow into that into that atmosphere. Like whatever the the parameters are that you're going to set
00:41:00.560 for it, those have to be firm and solid and consistent. Um, but you have to give it room to grow within that, right? So,
00:41:08.240 I think a good example is, and for CrossFit gyms,
00:41:13.440 people decide whether they're going to be competitive or not competitive. Yeah. And that becomes an identity of the gym.
00:41:20.160 And it can be a very dangerous identity because like Wes is saying, if you if
00:41:25.359 you do this the wrong way, you're going to have basically a divided membership. you're gonna have people that are doing
00:41:32.000 separate programming, uh, kind of working out on their own, and then you're gonna have like your typical GPP
00:41:37.920 class, and those those two populations may not coingle,
00:41:43.119 um, often enough for them to feel like one one unified body. And that's just
00:41:49.119 that's just even though it's not intended, it sews resentment between groups, right? You have like Yeah.
00:41:55.520 your tribe and you have the other. Yeah. Um, and I I saw this a lot early
00:42:00.720 on before I think a lot of before we all kind of knew better like what's the real
00:42:06.560 way to like kind of sustain a culture that's healthy. Um, and so I think that
00:42:12.000 the parameters have to be set by the by the leader of the gym. Like, hey, how are we going to handle
00:42:18.160 this issue of competitiveness? you know, are we going to let people have like sep
00:42:23.359 like CrossFit Mayhem for example, they have an entirely separate gym space for competitors and then the rest of the gym
00:42:29.280 space is for like dropins and and people taking class and there's like gazillion
00:42:34.720 things going on at that place and it's massive, but that's how they handle it. Like they keep them almost like segregated. Um at our at our our gym,
00:42:43.520 our policy is that um unless you take class that day, you can't do open gym
00:42:49.680 during class during a class time. So if like you say you want to come in and do
00:42:54.720 some extra squats or Olympic lifting, like that's cool, but you have to take class also. And that keeps you as part
00:43:01.599 of the collective, part of the group. And then people are looking they they they work out alongside you and then they're like, "Oh, what's you know,
00:43:07.760 what's like Jason doing over there that's that's extra like maybe I can do that because we do the same thing still."
00:43:12.960 Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um but trying to force
00:43:18.800 the way uh members interact with each other. um trying to you know like
00:43:27.760 like establish the the same exact like
00:43:32.800 coaching methods like down to like the the style of speech like that those things are are are things you can't
00:43:38.960 control that's like micromanaging it doesn't work I don't think you have to give each each place it's the ability to be somewhat independent
00:43:45.440 yeah I think you know me mentioning the coaching aspect there you know how you got to kind of let it let it happen or
00:43:51.280 to a degree like micromanaging I think you kind of set guidelines and expectations for results, but people
00:43:56.480 have to be themselves, right? If the coach ultimately isn't having a good time or feeling like they can't be themselves, then they're not going to be
00:44:02.400 nearly as good. Like the best coach might be someone who is a completely different personality than you, um, but
00:44:08.240 if they are okay with being themselves in front of groups of people, then the people in class will always have a good
00:44:14.800 time, you know. Um, and and as far as that goes, and kind of two things on this real quick. One one
00:44:21.119 is, you know, Wes talking about the leader of the gym and all that and it's um maybe the best compliment I've ever
00:44:26.960 gotten myself from buddy is uh I just thought of this is a couple weeks ago someone said it. They said, "Hey, um you
00:44:34.319 know, I just love it here because everybody, you know, they work hard, but everybody's so nice and like happy to
00:44:40.319 see you." And it's like, and I realized that just everybody here is kind of like you and Bud. And I was like, "Oh man,
00:44:47.280 like that's that's great." You know, but that's how it is. I've also dropped into gyms where everybody is maybe a little
00:44:52.960 bit whatever harder you'd want to say, you know, and and a lot of times the owner of that gym, that's their personal. If the owner of your gym is,
00:44:59.680 you know, perhaps whatever was in the Marines for 20 years, um he might have a little bit different personality uh than
00:45:06.079 the guy who whatever is only taught CrossFit or or used to, you know, whatever, like different life
00:45:11.119 experiences, different personalities, and you're probably going to attract those people. Which is why if another CrossFit gym opened up next door to me,
00:45:17.680 I wouldn't be upset about it because they're not going to have the same culture. And that's not a mean they're going to be worse. They're going to be
00:45:23.280 different. Like some people would rather go there because they relate to that, you know, those people more. And some
00:45:28.400 people would rather come to us. Man, before the pandemic, we had three gyms in in Gilroy. And it was awesome
00:45:34.800 because we were all completely different. You had the mom's club over here, you had the the functional bodybuilder club over here, and then you
00:45:41.359 had us and we were like CrossFit, right? And it was great. We had people come in. We actually all three of us would tell
00:45:46.480 us tell everybody about each other. A new member came in, we'd be like, "Hey, make sure you go check out CrossFit Go
00:45:51.520 and you go check out CrossFit Mora, too, before you decide which one we want to join." Because really, we want you to
00:45:56.720 find the place that you want to go to, right? And get the actual results. Yeah, totally. Uh, and
00:46:03.040 Danny, what you were talking about with um stylistic differences with ownership, I
00:46:10.240 it made me think of so we've uh we've taken over a couple of CrossFit gyms in the last
00:46:16.880 and you know, like talk about like a a culture shift and like one's not
00:46:22.560 necessarily better than the other like you're saying. It's just like the personality follows the personality of
00:46:28.000 the owner. Uh, one of them, CrossFit Centurion, uh, Ian Carver was the owner and he's a a sheriff, an absolute like
00:46:35.520 badass, like legend on the SWAT team. And like all the, you know, we I walked
00:46:42.160 into that gym and like all of this stuff is like, check your ego at the door. Like, I'm going to die in a in a pile of
00:46:49.440 brass, you know? It's like just like No one's wearing tie-dye. No one's wearing tie-dye. No tie-dye. Like the opposite of
00:46:55.520 tie-dye. It was like very hardcore, like very structured programming. Like they
00:47:01.280 always would would like bench on Monday, deadlift on Wednesday, squat on Friday, Tuesday, Thursday was Olympic lifting,
00:47:07.200 no gymnastics. Like everything was like very like strict, organized, and
00:47:12.240 hardcore, right? As far as like wasn't a lot of games being played, right?
00:47:17.440 And so then our, you know, we came in and my personality is a little bit different than that. And like so it it took a
00:47:24.400 while for things to like turn turn over there. And it just it I thought it was a
00:47:30.400 good example of how Oh, totally. How much momentum culture has and like how how hard it is to build and how long
00:47:36.960 it takes because it probably took two years before that I mean before that things kind of
00:47:42.960 felt um the way they feel now. Now that gym uh is that particular gym location
00:47:48.960 is like the the bubbliest. There's like little kids running around all over the place. It's like completely It's like an
00:47:55.520 Easter egg hunt in there all the time. Like you never would know that it was the same the same space.
00:48:00.720 It's one of those things also where you that's this is why like oftent times um homegrown coaches, you know, tend to be
00:48:08.160 better um in my experience than ones from the outside. That's not always true. We do have a couple coaches,
00:48:13.839 actually we have like three or four now, but that but they came in with a ton of experience, right? And so they came in
00:48:19.760 with a ton of experience and but all of them joined the gym first. None of them showed up and say I want to coach they
00:48:26.079 moved and it was funny this one individual thinking of she moved out and
00:48:31.440 she was I was in the first class she was in whatever she's like oh I was like dropping in to see about whatever and I was like oh this girl moves really well
00:48:37.760 like this you know she she's not just like oh I've done CrossFit like this girl knows what the [ __ ] she's doing. I
00:48:43.119 videoed myself and then yeah like this person and then uh she's joined her husband joined and
00:48:49.839 then um I found out she had her level one used to coach a little whatever or that she used to coach a little and then
00:48:56.160 we're looking to hire a coach and she's like oh so I actually have my kids ser um and my level two and I was the
00:49:02.800 manager at my other and I'm like okay here we go this is right I said okay coach my four o'clock today and she's
00:49:08.480 like okay and like she didn't know anybody she don't you know in that time because she never went to that time a day. So, she like showed up, didn't know
00:49:14.400 a single person, it was a busy class, there was like 18 people and she absolutely crushed it. And I'm like,
00:49:19.920 "Okay, boom." Right? But I've also had the experience where someone's like, "Oh, I want to I'm looking to coach."
00:49:26.000 But they didn't join for us. There's like, "Hey, I'm looking to coach." "Oh, you know, we might actually have something. We could put you on as a sub
00:49:31.040 for a little bit. Like, come coach this class." And it's like, "Oh, nope." Like, this person needs a lot of work, you
00:49:36.640 know? But um anyway, but from within the gym, they always seem to do, in my opinion, a good job. It's like, well,
00:49:42.319 yeah, because they coach like we do. They coach like all like all of our coaches kind of have the same, you know, it's a good time, but we do hold
00:49:48.640 standards, you know, like not good enough is not good enough, right? Um it really comes back to this idea of uh
00:49:57.200 anyway, my mind anyway comes back to the idea of being harsh versus being real. Um you know like there's like the the
00:50:03.920 Stoics right had this idea that no virtue was a virtue by itself right and
00:50:09.280 so um you know like honesty without kindness is actually cruelty and then
00:50:17.119 kindness without honesty is manipulation right so like you that's your job as a coach is ride that line man like don't
00:50:23.599 you don't be mean to them but like hold them to the standard like if you don't hold them to the standard then you're just manipulating them like that's not
00:50:29.839 helpful um but being mean also is not helpful, right? Yeah, you got to be relentless but also
00:50:35.280 acknowledge improvement. Yeah, exactly. And so I think that's definitely a big part of the culture.
00:50:40.720 Maybe some gyms have a different different outlook on that. So, uh, last
00:50:46.079 thing I gota actually I got to go pick up my daughter from school here in a little Oh. Ah, never mind. Buddy's gonna
00:50:51.680 get her. Okay, we got a ton more like I wrap up right now or like we got like five minutes.
00:50:57.520 Okay, so uh Buddy's my next door neighbor. Did you guys know that? No. Yeah. My my partner in the gym, for
00:51:04.240 people who don't know, buddy, yeah, he lives right next door to me and so his kid goes to the same school. So, I text him earlier. I'm like, "Dude, can you
00:51:09.599 pick up Norah for school today?" You guys are intertwined everywhere, dude. We Oh, there's a gate between our
00:51:15.440 backyards. The kids just like, "What? Go between the houses." It's I remember you showing that a long time ago. You were like in his hot tub or
00:51:22.000 something like sending me a photo. Yeah.
00:51:27.359 So, you know, one thing Blair and I started talking about a little bit beforehopped on, Wes, it's kind of in
00:51:34.880 the same coaches and culture idea is coaches shirts. And so, you came in the middle of the conversation. Um, now you
00:51:41.680 guys mentioned you you do not your coaches do not have to wear coaches shirts. And, uh, Blair, um, I'll let you
00:51:47.839 talk a little bit about, but you just you just mentioned that, you know, you don't necessarily want to enforce it.
00:51:52.960 Yeah, I we've done this like a a few times where we'll do like a special run
00:51:58.000 of gym shirts with coach on the back or like a sweatshirt like special edition with like it written across the hood and
00:52:04.559 coaches always love that stuff. Um and I it's really cool to see him wearing it.
00:52:10.079 Um but I remember as a personal trainer at a you know at a you know big box gym
00:52:16.480 Yeah. uh on the east coast and I would have to wear like you know my my polo every day and it's a uniform and that's
00:52:22.640 all well and good. Uh, the problem I always ran into is if I if I do more
00:52:29.440 than just give it to them as a gift and I I require them to wear it, now I'm responsible for enforcing it. And I
00:52:36.559 couldn't come up with a good way to enforce that um that I could enforce it because
00:52:44.000 eventually someone's not going to wear it because either it's dirty or they don't want to do it. Yeah. What's the punishment, right?
00:52:49.200 Yeah. I'm not going to fire them. Like I would have bought my job as a personal as a personal trainer because you know
00:52:55.920 they don't they don't need me. They don't they didn't give a [ __ ] about me. Like right I don't wear the uniform. You're gone.
00:53:01.040 Like that's fine. That's like the ultimate um the rock in the hard place point where like something's got to give. And
00:53:07.119 like I'm not going to do that. Like and they know I'm not going to do that. So what's the point of me requiring it? There's there's no way I could enforce
00:53:12.880 it. So, the best I could do is continually provide them things that they like that say coach and hope that
00:53:19.280 they wear it. Um, and that's kind of like where I landed.
00:53:25.359 Uh, Wes, how come why why do you not do it? Are you like Dutch Bros? Are you just too hippie to make people wear a
00:53:30.800 uniform? Uh, or is there a greater message in there? Um, no. I think it's the exact same
00:53:36.800 thing that Blair talked about. Like we have some stuff that says coach on it and we like doing that every once in a while and you know if they wear it it's
00:53:42.319 great and uh but I kind of like the idea of like walking in and not knowing who's the coach and not knowing who's a member
00:53:47.839 and instead just having it be like oh this is the coach because of the way that they make me better not because of
00:53:52.960 the uniform that they wear. Right. So that's interesting. So we we had this
00:53:59.359 convers we do we wear coaches shirts. Um and this is something that Bud and I talked about around the fireplace that's
00:54:04.960 right between our two backyards. Um the baby monitors can reach both houses, you know, so you sit around the fire, have
00:54:10.559 some wine, hang out. So, you know, we were talking about it one time. I'm like, "Yeah, because we had coaches
00:54:17.119 bring it up and we've experienced it where yeah, you're coaching class, someone walks in and they're like looking around and like trying to figure
00:54:23.839 out who to talk to and eventually, but everyone's super helpful. Eventually, one of the members sees them and is
00:54:29.200 like, "Oh, hey, how's it going? Like, you need to talk to that guy." Or they'll be like, "Hey, Danny, there's this dude over there confused." you
00:54:35.440 know, whatever. But I've had that experience a few times like, "Ah, would it just be more professional? Would it be better?" Um, again, not necessarily
00:54:42.000 from making the coach seem like they're more important, but just from someone walks into the gym, um, who's in charge,
00:54:49.280 who do they talk to? And also from a client perspective, I think subconsciously it just feels like a more
00:54:54.880 professional facility, a more professional service, right? like they're paying a bunch of money and if the coaches, you know, again, I think
00:55:01.680 this is subconscious, but if the, you know, they're dressed the part and looking like they're in charge, then they're more in charge, right? Or that
00:55:08.319 that type of a thing. So, we thought, oh, maybe it's a good idea. Yeah, we should, let's let's let's maybe do it.
00:55:13.359 And then the girls, our wives, who are both named Jessica, very confusing, uh, come out and sit at the fireplace, we're
00:55:19.760 like, hey, check it out. We're just thinking like, I think we're going to like maybe do some coaches shirts. And they both act like it was the worst
00:55:26.480 [ __ ] idea we've ever had. They were like, "Ah, that's dumb. Yeah, you guys are stupid." Like nobody
00:55:33.440 like it's completely like crushed our entire idea. And so we just like tabled it. We're like, "Ah, we'll talk about
00:55:38.640 this later. Like maybe we'll like let's revisit this in a few months or whatever." Yeah, you girls are right. Like whatever.
00:55:44.400 Fast forward six months later, three months later, whatever. We're in a coaches meeting. You guys hold coaches
00:55:50.000 meetings? Yeah. Okay, good. All right. So, we're in a coach's meeting and then a coach brought
00:55:56.160 it up. He's like, "Hey, um, you know, sometimes I feel like I'm coaching and someone's walking in looking around,
00:56:02.160 they don't know who to talk to, uh, you know, or whatever. There's a new person, whatever. This whole thing. Um, do you
00:56:08.079 think maybe we could like get some coaches shirts? Like I" And Buddy and I started laughing and we're like, "Oh,
00:56:14.000 dude, like we actually had talked about this. Like, what do you guys think? Let's vote on it right now. who wants to do you want to do you guys want to wear
00:56:19.680 coaches shirts when you're coaching or do you not want to be told what to wear just wear whatever and like unanimous
00:56:25.119 everyone's like yeah we want to do it we want to wear coaches shirts when we're coaching cool and so then we're like oh all right
00:56:31.599 sounds good uh Jen collect everybody's sizes cool like we'll get you and we just provide
00:56:37.760 them with however many days of the week they coach we give them that many shirts so if someone's on a schedule once a
00:56:44.000 week they get one shirt that's I mean they can buy more if they want but we give it to them if they're on the schedule every single day. We'll give them five shirts, you know, so that way
00:56:50.640 they're not doing laundry every day. And that that's how we do it. And then every three to four to five months, whatever,
00:56:56.400 we buy a like get them get a new one or two, right? Get them a couple more. Um, anyway, just curious. Interesting. I
00:57:02.720 didn't know. As I've been going around dropping in gyms, I find out I think it's like 5050. Like about half the gyms
00:57:08.240 that I drop into, coaches are wearing shirts and half aren't. So interesting.
00:57:13.680 That's cool that they they kind of opted in. That's a good way. So maybe that's like what I was trying
00:57:19.440 to get across like how that went down like um if you think it'd be good for them to wear it. But and there's never
00:57:24.640 been an enforcement problem ever. Like there's been a time where they're just wearing a regular Excel shirt, not a
00:57:29.920 coach's one. And I'm like, okay, that's fine. It's probably just dirty. But like it's not an on it's like that one class
00:57:35.119 and I'm not even worried about it because if now if that same person every time I saw them that was going on then
00:57:40.559 I'll just give them another one or whatever you know or have a but it's never been an issue at all and I think it's never been an issue because they
00:57:47.280 all said they wanted it and then since then new coaches like they as they join
00:57:52.559 the staff it's like all right here you go you give them a coach's shirt and they know because they've been a member of the gym they know the coaches wear the shirts. Um, and I think that it
00:58:00.079 might in a way help coaches to I don't know if I want to say like do a better job, but like they all do a pretty good
00:58:06.960 job all the time. But, you know, I think it is a a little I'll tell you this, man. Like I'm I'm working out in one class and I know I'm going be coaching
00:58:12.960 afterwards and I go in the office and change my shirt or whatever. You do a little bit feel like you're going to the phone booth. You know what I mean?
00:58:20.079 Yeah. Like you're like, "Okay, I'm ready." Like now I'm this what I'm this what I'm doing now. It's almost like, you know, it's like if you always uh
00:58:26.799 work at one spot in your house, then you can work from home and not feel like you're always working. It's like, that's my work chair. That's, you know, it's like compartmentalizing. It's like you
00:58:33.119 put on the shirt and you're like, "All right, let's go." You know what I mean? Like it's it's [ __ ] on. Hope you guys are ready.
00:58:39.040 So, yeah. Cool. I like it. Uh, ending here on a quick little lightning round. So, don't think too
00:58:46.880 much, just the truth. What are you thinking? Uh, here we go. What is the best gym event you have ever seen, Wes?
00:58:55.680 It's our white that we've ever done that I've ever seen. Yeah. I've ever seen done. Whatever. Best gym event.
00:59:01.040 It's our white elephant gift exchange we do every year. And it's a cookie competition at the same time and the drinking team ranks the cookies and then
00:59:07.359 we give away the white elephant. It's awesome. It's the best. Blair, what's your favorite event? Uh that made me think of uh just this
00:59:14.799 year we did a uh St. Patrick's Day beer mile downtown Sacramento and it was uh in partner with the Fox
00:59:22.319 and Goose which is like the Yeah. Awesome. Surprised that's not the last time you threw up.
00:59:27.599 Yeah, that's right. I held it down. Uh we do a uh Valentine's Day uh wad and
00:59:33.359 mimosa thing. Valentine's Day brunch. And so they bring down their spouse, a lot of them that doesn't go to the gym
00:59:38.480 yet. Uh anyway, they do a little partner workout together where they have to like hold a kettle bell at the same time.
00:59:43.920 Like you know, corny [ __ ] And then afterwards we provide brunch and mimosas.
00:59:49.040 So, all right. I wasn't going to go, but then your guys's I got inspired. I'm like, "Oh, this is fun to talk about.
00:59:54.640 I'm going to go." Uh, biggest culture killer, Wes.
01:00:00.720 Oh, man. I feel like uh somebody who gossips in the in the gym about other
01:00:08.160 people can be pretty bad. Yeah. Blair, biggest culture killer?
01:00:13.280 Uh, a rude coach. Demeaning coach. Demeaning coach. Yeah, those both. I I'm
01:00:19.920 on board with both those. Uh, most underrated thing a coach does for their members. Wes.
01:00:27.359 Oh, know their names.
01:00:32.880 Yeah, man. That should be like number one, right? Number one. Yeah. Yeah. I guess underrated.
01:00:38.079 Most underrated thing a coach does. Um,
01:00:44.880 I I would say that it's giving people permission to succeed in things. A lot
01:00:50.880 of times coaches focus on correcting what's wrong, but a lot of times what people need to hear is that it's
01:00:56.559 possible for them to try something that maybe they can't do. Oh, yeah. Uh, I'm just going to say presence.
01:01:04.000 Like you're working out in the class. If I I'm I'm working out this morning 8:30
01:01:09.200 when Buddy was within 10 feet of me, my plank was a little bit tighter. You know what I mean? Like I'm pinching
01:01:14.400 the cheeks. I'm doing the whole thing, right? I'm pressing. All right. Uh, most unacceptable thing you've seen in a gym,
01:01:21.040 Wes. Oh, man. I had somebody go off on a coach one time in the middle of a class.
01:01:27.040 Oh, man. Uh, Blair, most unacceptable thing you've seen in a gym? Uh, I've seen it a couple times.
01:01:33.040 Throwing up inside the gym. Oh, like they don't know that they could
01:01:39.520 just like make it he couldn't make it 10 feet to the door. This is this is my guy. You guys know him and he he's been he's gotten a lot
01:01:46.400 better at it. So, uh Matt Ret has this like involuntary thing that happens from
01:01:52.640 like his days as a wrestler and like he would just he would feel it coming and he just would like not stop. I'm like,
01:01:58.960 "Bro, you got it's not cool. It happening. You have to stop." Yes.
01:02:04.559 You got to document. You gota document that. And like if he's gone the longest he's ever gone before, have him ring the PR bell.
01:02:10.240 Yeah. Like three months without vomiting indoors. I mean, he's like a phenomenal athlete.
01:02:15.599 Like one of the best coaches I've like ever been around when it comes to like barbell stuff. The way he controls the
01:02:21.359 class. Yeah. But he had this thing as an athlete where you just he like he just wouldn't
01:02:26.640 stop. He's like, "Okay, well, I guess I'm just going to puke over here." Like, "Okay." It's like, "No, can't do that."
01:02:33.599 Minus people wearing sunglasses indoors. All right. And the last thing, uh, here we go. The song that instantly changes
01:02:41.200 class energy. Wes, what comes on the radio that just changes class energy.
01:02:46.960 Oh man. Killing in the name of by Rage Against Machine gets people going. 100%. Blair, you got something?
01:02:53.920 Oh, man. California love Tupac. California. Yeah. a whole different
01:02:59.440 energy. But that's absolutely true. Nothing better than just being nuts deep in a workout and all of a sudden the
01:03:05.520 song comes on. You can just totally disassociate and just like all of a sudden the workout's easier. You're just, you know what I mean? Like you're
01:03:11.760 you're grooving. All right. Uh that's an ep that's a wrap for this episode of Not in My Box. A big
01:03:19.039 thanks to Blair Morrison and Wes Payatt for proving the gym culture is be is
01:03:24.079 both the best part of CrossFit and the reason sometimes people think about
01:03:29.359 training alone. Uh if you overestimated your ability to tolerate people today, congratulations. You're one of us. Go
01:03:36.720 buy some coffee from Caffeine and Kilos. Sign up for the online qualifier for the NorCal Classic. How long is that still
01:03:43.760 open for? Um, well, the workouts, yeah, it'll be through probably through the end of
01:03:50.079 January. Oh, yeah. Go sign up early for the online qualifier for the NorCal Classic.
01:03:55.200 Um, and hit up Wes if you want your gym culture to last longer than your jump ropes outside. Uh, share this with the
01:04:02.160 coach who still writes scores in the whiteboard like these two schmos like it's a sacred scripture. If your gym
01:04:08.079 feels a little weird, that just means it's working. All right. Thanks, HS.