André Houdet Talks Team Quarterfinals Workouts 3 and 4

[Music] section of the team quarter finals team workout three and team workout four you also have three total days as well going until Monday we're going to take a a look at workout number three right now so at this point you've already done the first two tests that we just described uh again there is some flexibility but workout three as it's written is male uh same gender pairs male male female female four time pair one male male followed by pair two female female 500 meter row 50 handstand push-ups one station switches needed with the athletes working 50 Synchro wall ball shots at once both pairs are through then pair one followed by pair two again and you're essentially going in reverse order 50 Synchro wall ball shots 50 handstand push-ups 500 meter row now the wall balls are standard weight 14 pounds and 20 pounds 9 foot Target for the women 10 foot Target for the men uh Andre I think for most people looking at this uh outside of maybe the handstand push-ups this probably seems like the most I don't know maybe straightforward workout for them uh in terms of rowing wall ball stuff we see every day and then in the very least the handstand push-ups aren't secro there's something you get to kind of split up and if we're for going off you the total volume each section is about 25 handstand push-ups per Apple uh yes uh I mean yeah each section so yeah so fif it'll be 15 total after the whole workout uh assuming that they will break it or split it evenly um yeah I think a cool workout like it has another element which is you get to be tested in Synchro you get to be tested in um the average kind of like ability of the team like doesn't matter one guy is or girl is in at rowing and the other one is not good like you can't get off the rower until everybody's done which will give an advantage to testing teams in terms of hey we want to see Balan teams if like I remember Adrian saying on one podcast like my job is to figure out if that team has a weak link either exercise wise weak you know athlete and we're going to make sure they can't get through if they can we're gonna give benefits to the teams that have you know at four athletes that are at the same level and same capabilities um I think so I think it has cool element with a Synchro on the wall balls and then again an element that is is nice in terms of strategy and in terms of using the strengths of the team where you can choose who's going to do the hands and push-ups who's going to do how many how we're gonna break it volume perspective it's it's all right it's not excessive I think it's right there in the it's appropriate um it's the elite will still separate themselves at this volume and but the the the RX or mid of the pack athletes will still be able to complete the workout with you know having a good experience I think the 500 meter row Pace should be at about 2k Market uh so 2k row uh about that pace you cannot come out too slow even though you know only at 500 meters you cannot make a big jump in the first segment but at the top you still have to come out at a pace that is fast enough uh in order to um in order to not fall behind and as it's kind of we go you go you're are going to be guaranteed a lot of rest every time so once the first male male pair has completed the 500 meter Row the 50 wall balls a 50 yeah 50 wall 50 wall balls yeah Y and no yeah 50 Anon push-ups and then 50 wall balls then um then they're GNA have tons of rest so with this amount of volume you can put the hammer down from the beginning yeah so even if you row hard I mean 50 sync wall balls at Elite level is still nothing most people can do Caren unbroken however there's going to be an interference with the wall balls and the the handstand push-up for most people wall balls are mostly taxing in the shoulders more than in the legs and so that transition uh between these two will be will be pretty hard um sorry this handon push-ups into wall bows I recommend that you have you know your worst handsand push-up athlete kind of start uh after the row and then have your strongest hands and push-up athlete finish the repetitions because the fatigue going into the wall balls you want to have the athlete that has the biggest shoulder endurance capacity so that you can still keep the wall balls unbroken or at least without falling apart so it's kind of reverse of the Ring muscleup workout where you have your strongest ring muscleup athlete start and then the weaker go it's the opposite here we have the weaker start because we want to give them more rest time before we start the wall bows I think for top teams you know 2k row speed we're going to see the handstand push-ups broken maximum once simply just to divide it I think we could definitely see plenty of teams that could do 50 hon push-ups unbroken as well as doing 50 wall balls unbroken um and not letting that affect them in the next segment either so the next segment I like that it's kind of like a chipper format where it kind of starts like that and then you know goes back up um which challenges the the patterns even more because the wall ball will be again so the shoulder density is very heavy in the middle as if the row had been if it been just two rounds of that workout the row kind of gives that break um so so I I like the format and it also allows for the last 500 meter roow to really be you know let let's see who can hurt like I've written in the notes for the team athletes like this is where you suffer for your team because this workout can come down to seconds and you know rowing you can end yourself and be fine one hour later because there's no Ecentric loading there's no loading on your body totally and so you can really just empty the tank and here it's just Full Throttle to be honest like there's there's there's no strategy there you should come out hard and be hard in the middle and and finish hard as well is that something that I don't know so I feel like some athletes relish that opportunity more than others you see that 500 meter at the end and you're like all right this is this is a chance for me to just go Bonkers you're a little bit larger athlete in terms of your height um is that something where you're like licking your chops at the end of the workout I I picture the butcher lab team from 2020 with you and uh Julian uh back and I picture you guys just absolutely hammering this last piece piece for it is or is this something that that is sitting in the back of your mind it makes you a little bit nervous knowing that you're going to have to punish yourself no I think it should make you exited to be honest like it's it's it's 500 meters you know you can really suffer that distance but I still think like if you compare if it was a 2k row in the end or one cave there you can really dig to a different level um so you know I think I think it's a it's a dist scare you a little bit but it's still short enough for you to like it will be over before you know it and there's not that much fatigue going into it like I said you have that big break and then you're back on 50 wall balls 50 hon push-ups I mean even during hon push-ups you have a break before or one of them at least will have before they start the rowing and even for the athletes that doesn't it's not a lot of interference between those two so it will really allow you to just go you know pedal to the metal from uh from start to finish and I think just one more note on on like the exercises here like I said with low tension and high tension wall balls is also an exercise if you have good Mobility your torso should be able to stay pretty upright which doesn't really um you know if you don't have good mobility and you have to lean forward a lot then wall balls get quite challenging because it's the the line of where it's at from the body will be in front and the further it is from the center of the body the more load it will feel like and so I think it's is key that that's a low tension exercise so just make sure you're relaxing make sure your legs are doing as much as they can so you should GNA knead your shoulders quite a bit for the handsand push-ups and so really try to maximize the the the output from the lower body throughout those reps but again you don't need to be tight it's a 20 or 14 pound ball there you don't need to create any sort of tension through your midline uh which kind of restricts the breathing so just make sure that's nice and relaxed for the handstand push-ups it's kind of the same it doesn't require a lot of tension this one is just all about timing and I think especially for the bigger athletes which is the Kipping handon push-ups quite challenging because the line is very close to the wall and so they can't really because of their size create a nice tripod it's just too tight for them to come down so that's just one thing to really be aware of and also the standards they have made you know with with the Fe staying within the hands and especially on the last repetition as well that people tend to have a tendency of like either arching at the lower back or shooting the head too much for the arms or or sorry the other way towards the wall so just make sure your last repetition just take that extra second to make make sure that's a clean rep and the rowing there's not much to say like just send it yeah exactly um and and I do have that standard up here on for anyone that's watching um and just a reminder the handstand uh push-up standard is the 30in tape line 10 in from the wall to the outside edge of the line um yeah and I believe it's you basically have to make sure that you're touching that that tapeline uh in some capacity so it's a similar standard that we saw show up in the open last year with that singular tapeline um but just just because I know a lot of people are always curious what standard they're going to roll out for handstand push-up so it looks like this is going to be at least the standard kind of moving forward um yeah so that outside of you know the the individual components it does seem to me like the elite athletes and I I always go back to this because that seems to be one of the complaints online is like where is there something for the elite athletes to syn their teeth into and to me this one just seems simple as like you mentioned drop the hammer they're going to be faster bigger chunks and they're not going to be able to let up um and and correct me if I'm wrong on that but it just seems like the top teams like if your no no shortcuts team from last year was going at it you guys would hammer this there would be no question on on keeping the good Rhythm and keep keeping the hammer down the entire way whereas the other mid to lower level teams might you know might start to slow down in their Transitions and turnning around yeah I think like the henston push-ups that's where the separator just will be done like this because the top teams will break it once one will do 25 another will do 25 or maybe 20 and 30 or something like that and the lower level will do maybe 15 15 10 10 that's already two transitions more and already there that's six seconds maybe in transitions you have that times each M like the male pair in round one the female pair does 12 seconds then 24 seconds with the second part and you can't win 24 seconds on 500 meter row so already there that that's where the separated will be um and yeah so nice to see shoulder endurance so like I feel in in when we kind of like project as a programmer like when you want us prepare your athletes for quarterfinal semi-finals there's certain classic type of workouts that we see we always see uh like maybe CrossFit endurance as you can categorize it in which is like plus 15 minute piece we have some of that here then you see classic CrossFit format which is like a s to 15 minute threshold then you have like a power window power CrossFit power which is like three to seven minute and then you might have an interval so those are like the four type of formats that we can see or or or time thresholds and then we can differ the test in we always have a grip in grip test more grippy test we always have a you know a shoulder endurance test and this is the shoulder endurance test the test prior where a grip rip test the and and yeah so I think it's just nice to see okay we have those two and I think for most programmers from the different program companies or coaches that's like two type of tests that you definitely have prepared your athletes for because they always come and they are always they're always the bottleneck of uh who is going to make it it's always like a really grippy test or a really shoulder endurance test and then of course there's like the absolute strength test and and uh but it it has these categories and even though we don't know the test and the te the CrossFit presents what seems like a lot of chaos if you analyze all the test you you know what the themes are going to be you know what the the the limiters they're testing and um and I think right now it's just nice to see that they've tested grip they have tested shoulder endurance and the next test they're testing strength capacity yep and uh that segs us nicely into that fourth and final test the uh the strength capacity and I think for most of us mere mortals Andre for us this is the the heavy test this is the one where um absent of a maximum lift or a high power this is where I think some people who are not the elite level maybe they made it they made it to quarterfinals but they're just trying to have a good time they might end up staring at the barbell a little bit longer than they anticipate with this and uh I I'll read off the workout as written um it is in same gender pairs again as many reps as possible in 15 minutes of 30 deadlifts the female pair 30 deadlifts for the male pair 30 shoulder to overheads for the female pair 30 shoulder to overheads for the male pair now the deadlifts are 205 for the women and 315 for the men the shoulder to overhead are 125 pounds uh for the women and 185 pounds for the men and again this is an am rep so it's as many reps as possible in 15 and you're just going to repeat this cycle there's no escaping the barbell exactly so I think that the way I I would start by looking at the work I was like okay 15 minutes it's 900 seconds uh a deadlift and a shoulder overhead will be most likely or for most people on our speed chart is like 1.5 seconds per rip so that gives if there was no transition and it was just one athlete holding on to the bar the whole time would give a potential of 600 reps now we know that it's not going to be possible to do 600 reps because there's going to be need to be some Transitions and maybe the rep speed will drop so I kind of projected that the rep speed will be about like 2.5 seconds and that includes the transition times if you have 2.5 seconds per rep including transition times it gives a potential to do three full rounds of the workout so it's 360 reps which is 90 reps per athlete which is 45 deadlifts at the working weight and 45 shoulder to overhead so it's like FR volume on the Barb and I think like so that's the that's like about where the top teams I estimate they will be and it's like just nice to know okay you know it's 45 it's gonna be about 45 deadlifts and 45 shoulder to overhead and so already knowing that you know based on your training how you feel about that volume is that a volume like could you do 2159 on broken with 315 that lives in box jums like that test we've seen in the past regionals yeah like okay well then you know this type of volume is is is fine for you like you you can come out probably harder than you think you can even though it looks like a lot of Reps for a long time but only one is working at a time so whenever you're working you're guaranteed three times the amount of rest if you divide the reps equally that's also something key to keep in mind like I will always have three times the amount of rest for my work time in this workout which is going to be whatever 15 divided by four will be um four and a half minute or something 4.2 minutes maybe um so I think that gives like nice ballpark number of repetitions 45 each is like maybe the the ceiling and then for M teams maybe you're looking at 30 to 35 reps lower lower pack is maybe 20 25 reps so not crazy amount of volume even for athletes that are not very strong in either of these lips for the top teams because the you can stand pretty close to the bar like the men I'm I'm not sure if they can stand like next to each other or facing each other but just say transition time can be like 1.5 second literally you drop the bar and then next person picks it up and so because of that would for the elite team suggest like bigger sets which would be like 8877 on both exercises so if you and me were the male pair I would do eight you would do eight I would do seven you would do seven done deal finished tap the chicks the girls in they do their work and Etc and then for the middle of the pack teams it's like I think the guideline would be small and fast sets so it could be I do five you do five I do four you do four I do three you do three I do three you do three it's kind of nice flow five 4 33 3 three done um and uh and for the even lower tier teams maybe you should just do threes from the beginning I think like doing less than three then then I would not be too hopeful for the chance of making it to the next stage because you know getting the barell from the floor to the shoulders on the shoulder to overhead it just takes time and it's just that that would be that would be really inefficient so um so I think overall this test we'll we'll see huge separator again I think we' have seen like a crazy big separator if that had been 10 kilos heavier or 25 pounds heavier yeah like then I I really think that would have been when like 185 pound L overhead I think a lot of guys can cycle that even if they only have you know 315 jerk but if that had been like 205 or 225 then it would have been or like you know the deadlifts would not have been 315 but 365 that because the elite teams could keep their 8877 most likely yeah whereas you know the middle of the pack teams they're maybe Downs to singles um just like like I said with the last year's quarterfinals with like the 275 pound cleaner EGS if that had been 225 it would not have been the same separator but 275 just created like you saw 40 reps difference between teams and I think we would have seen even bigger separator here with just a little bit heavier yeah and I have a question on that is is there value in creating that larger separation with a heavier load at this stage if you can still create separation with just a slightly lower load and keep some of the mid to lower tier teams more maybe actively involved in the test yeah I don't think it's necessary yeah I think like you know most of the time they're right when they say you know the best always makes it through it doesn't matter if it's I mean you see it in the open of course there's outliers who can Crush dumbbell snatch and bures over the dumbbell but I think we still see inside of you know top 200 100 probably 50 games athletes yeah and when you compare to you know 200 300,000 people doing the open it's pretty significant that it's still a lot of the same people that sit in the St even in such a basic test so I think even here it will still be the same Fallout in the end and um and then hopefully in the next test in the next stage of the Season we're going to see more test uh hopefully you know six seven maybe eight scored events if possible to have a full well-rounded test where we both get to see some like absolute strength whether it's a a ladder or Max lift or Max lift under fatigue or complex or uh you know something like that I definitely think that would be unfortunate if we didn't then see that at the next stage no doubt and I think I think a lot a lot of people come to expect that at least from live competition too when we're all doing it in person um one one other thing I I I wanted to check in with you and I think this will vary from Team to team depending on capacities but the windows this year two score tests in each three-day window is there a particular schedule that you have that you would advise for your teams here because I think there's more than enough time to get those tests in for some teams they might be able to maybe sneak a retest in there on one or two depending on it how things go um is there something where you look at these four in each of their separate windows and you're like all right I want to do this here do this here and maybe save one for the end yeah I think the first thing before I say that will be none of the workouts uh lend itself to high risk which means the likelihood of retest would be very low unless you have camera failure or really bomb the strategy because you know it's it there there no you know if you missed your last lift and it added 30 seconds to your score that's really unfortunate or uh you you trip and fall or I don't know the barble rolls out of the picture but because all the tests are very basic there's they're all very low risk and very just who has work capacity and um and so I don't think there should be time or necessarily A retest I have two suggestions for completion flow suggestion one is day one Thursday today you do test one day two you do test two Saturday you rest or you have an opportunity to do a retest if something went wrong I think it's key that when you finish event one you analyze that event what could we do better like are we messing up any transitions along the way could a better breakup strategy or reversing who goes first and a muscleup be beneficial yes or no if that's a no and you're pretty content no retest at that event event two and day two and the reason why I don't want to put them on the same day is because there is some interference between those two test like both of them have a lot of grip in them and like the dumble snatch and ring muscleups I just think there's there is some interference and if you're really going to send it in the first workout it might affect just a little bit the second workout and as you have plenty of days and as there's no risk in the events it's pointless to take that chance of doing event two under fatigue at least in my mind yeah so you do event one and one day event two on Friday event three rest or potential retest and then Sunday you start with um you start with the event three and then you do event four the next day in the morning and then in the evening of of Monday you have the potential to potentially do a retest I mean at least in Europe because the window goes on like 2 a so if you hit the the strength capacity test event four at 9:00 am. I mean you could be good to either retest that event if necessary or the the the event from the day prior and I wouldn't change the order of any of the events in terms of completion because like event one has ring muscleups that's an exercise where it's key to be fresh like you can probably still maintain dumble snatch capacity and toaster bar even with some interference but you don't want to risk like your your apps being uh taxed and your pulling being taxed for the ring muscleup and the same with the last workout is the most T is very taxing in terms of the deadlifts and shoulder to overhead but if you did that before event three event three is not very taxing so it's not going to influence event four but if you did event four and then event three because they have some similarities with the shoulder to overhead the wall balls enhanc and push-ups that could affect that score poorly uh but they're not going to affect each other in the other way around yeah so so my that would be my suggestion of flow and the other suggestion would be that you did Thursday event one and two day two you rest day three you retest uh the events day four uh or Sunday you do event three and fourth in day five you have an opportunity to retest but I would stick to suggestion one yep totally uh well I mean Andre this is this is fantastic I know I I know you're a student of the game I've always loved your analytical approach anytime we've ever chatted about uh programming or working out or whatever it is when we bump into each other at an event so it's great to hear your Insight on these quarterfinals especially as you know we just got them yesterday and there are people that are going to be pouring into it so if you're listening watching take your notes this is some good stuff from a high level athlete who knows this stuff