VNR #258: Is it better to be Short or Tall in CrossFit?

All right, we have decided on a good topic today and before we get into that, how goes

and man what's up?

It was pretty good, Pat.

I will say I texted you over the weekend.

It's Monday today.

I can't remember if I texted you Saturday or Sunday about this little Tabata workout

that I did.

Oh yeah, right.

Right.

Brother, I am unreasonably sore from that workout and it blew me up.

But it was really fun and yet again, I mean, 20 years deep, right?

Yet again, another lesson that heavier does not always mean harder and heavier does not

always mean better effect.

This workout was dirt simple.

It was alternating sets for people who want to throttle themselves, what was it?

Alternating sets of Tabata dumbbell thrusters and pull-ups.

So, 20 seconds thrusters, rest 10 seconds, 20 seconds pull-ups, rest 10 seconds, repeat

for eight rounds, so 16 total intervals, eight rounds of each.

And I used to pair 30s because that's what I have in my garage right now.

I've moved most of the stuff to the barn and I was looking around.

I was like, well, I got the pair of 30s, you know, that's fine, whatever, I'll just

use that.

Absolutely terrible because there was no reason to stop or slow down in any one of those

thruster intervals, even though I really wanted to.

Man, it sucked.

With the 50s or, you know, even probably with the 35s, let's be honest, at this point,

in this, I probably would have slowed down a little bit, but just knowing the 30s are

kind of lightweight, it really kind of had that little ego in the back of my mind saying,

hey, dude, come on.

Great one.

Come on.

What were you, do you remember ballpark, which you were getting on the pull-up bar?

I, for both movements, I started and I was holding 12s, but I was doing traditional

Kip pull-ups.

Real Kipping.

Yeah.

Real Kipping.

Exactly.

That's the number, and let's just say I did not hold that all the way through.

Yeah, that's impressive, man.

Good for you.

Yeah, that left a little mark in the following days, huh?

I'm so sore.

It's crazy.

I should not be this sore from that.

That's my fault, though.

Let me flex my geographical and weather ignorance at the moment.

As we record this, my family back in Massachusetts is like, snowed in.

Did you guys get anything down there?

No, we had just a turn cold again.

We had a couple of beautiful days where it's like a fall spring.

We were pushing up into the 60s in the early, like, low 70s, and then today it's back

in the 20s.

So, you tell me what's going on.

You know, before we get into the topic today, so we just popped into my head that happened

over the weekend, which I think is just, I guess it's funny.

It's also maybe a sad indictment of just the state of what's normal in the world these

days.

A couple of years ago, the family and I were on a vacation in Hawaii.

And I'm an early riser, a time zone mess me up anyway, so I was just, I'm up.

There was like a Starbucks as part of the hotel.

So I went down and just like brought my laptop down there, you know, and I was just waiting

to get something.

And I'm standing there in line with everybody else's up at that hour.

And there's one dude in line that I'm just eyeballing because he does not look like

he fits in.

And the reason that he doesn't look like he fits in is he clearly looks very fit.

And because of that, he stands out like an absolute sore thumb in just regular society,

which is sad to say, right?

Sure.

I'm sure people think that when they look at you and me all the time, look at those

yoke to do.

And so, and you know, and maybe I'm crazy with this, but this is just, you know, free

to have my opinion.

I feel like you, I can look at somebody and I can tell that they're not just like a

lifter.

They're not into like classic body, but like I almost tell like this person is into

cross.

Like they're into actual, like when I say fitness and I just feel like I get that vibe

and this guy gave me that vibes anyway.

And it all said, and then he turned around.

We locked eyes.

And there was a moment of like, all right, he came over to me.

We had this, this conversation.

And he was going to the games that year.

Oh, wow.

In the 40 to 44 division.

Oh, fantastic.

Yeah.

And it was his first day, the predator handshake with the, yeah.

And it was his first time going.

And so we sat and chatted for a bit, you know, and I wished him well and that.

And then those two years ago, no, you know, wasn't sure, I wasn't sure how we did

and didn't fall up in any of that.

Anyway, this weekend, well, that's we can care.

Remember it's irrelevant.

I'm walking through a mall here in belt, Bellevue, Washington and walking around with

my, my daughter and this guy comes out of this store with his son.

And same deal.

It kind of walks kind of like, you know, like that when the Sasquatch walks out of

the, you just get a glimpse of it.

You don't really see.

A blurry glimpse, but in like the massive human beings in the mall, this one person walked

out and from like the traps, like, like this dude's just built different.

It is what it is.

And he turned around.

We looked at me and we locked eyes again.

And I, anyone who doesn't know me, I mean, I have a terrible memory.

I really do.

And I stared at him.

I was like, I know that I know this guy, but for the life of me, I cannot place him

at all.

And he points out me and he's like, two years ago in Hawaii.

And I was like, oh, man, yeah.

So we sat there and we caught up.

I was like, how'd you do?

I think if I recall right, he said he took 14 that year that he went out.

Yep.

And then I was like, did you go back the next year?

And he's like, yes.

I was like, you know, it would have been 25.

I was like, how'd you go?

How'd it go?

He jumped to fourth place.

Nice.

From like 14 to fourth.

And so I was like, are you making another shot at it?

Because as we're chatting, like the opens about to kick off.

I was like, you make another shot out of this year.

He's like, oh, yeah.

I think I got the podium in my sights.

I was like, it's like, it's my first name's Josh.

I was like, that's very cool, man, but it was, but it was just crazy from that one

time there.

And even this one time in the mall was just, you know, thousands of people around.

Somebody who's fit just stands out like a sore thumb.

So it's just kind of, I think that's truth, but it's also just kind of sad that's where

we're at these days.

I agree, man.

I had a Russian coach back in the day, Pat, when I was doing acrobatics.

And he used to talk about developing your neck in traps for no other reason than, excuse

me, big neck.

I'll try to do the Russian accent that a big neck is the only muscle visible when you

are wearing the suit.

It's like a, it is like a business card.

It represents you.

And like, it's kind of true, you know, a hundred percent.

Yeah.

And you say an acrobatics just got me, I'm just delaying the show so much.

I'm putting it as fast forward past this, Adrian, I just catch it up.

Yeah.

My, you know, like so many people probably don't do enough fun stuff.

So last week, my wife and I snuck away for like just a one day, like a little staycation

kind of a thing with the kids with the in-laws and all that.

And we went and saw a Cirque du Soleil show.

Oh, cool.

Yeah, right on.

And man, which is just so impressive.

But like anybody who works out, like you've tried to hold an L set for like 11 seconds

and crumbled or just whatever it was.

And you just watch, there's obviously not a single barbell in the whole show, but you

just watch the positions these people put their body in, um, the climbing that they do,

the violent hip opening on flips, like the astonishing level of coordination and accuracy

with like where they're landing and it's just, it is some of the most absolutely impressive

stuff out there.

I mean, some of the stuff I saw them do, I was like, I'll tell you what's, uh, what's

kind of the hidden impressiveness around a lot of that stuff, Pat, having a bit of a

glimpse behind the curtain in some of that world, uh, back in the day, I am not trying

to misrepresent myself.

I never performed on a level like that, but, you know, I was around people that were professional

acrobats and touring and, you know, gotten gigs like that.

And yes, it's impressive to have that kind of special specialized act and physicality

that you can channel into that.

But what people don't recognize often enough is just how brutal the performance schedule

is that many of them have.

We're talking, these three shows a night often, six, five, six nights a week, you know,

it's just non-stop.

And so, yeah, it's one thing to develop that kind of capacity, but then if you want to

get paid, you got to sustain it and it's night after night, wake up, train, perform,

rinse and repeat.

I mean, it's a rugged schedule for anybody.

So that, to me, is almost more impressive when you see somebody with a long standing

career in that world because it's just a discipline and time, not only to develop an act

and have it be world-class, but man, to sustain it is crazy.

So, yeah, it's cool you can see that.

So I mean, just so, so impressive, like, it was crazy, but okay, on with the show, this

is a question sent my way via the most positive, joyous, unbiased environment in the world

known as Reddit.

This is from 100% positivity all the time.

This is from somebody whose username is Danny Jerome Zero.

And the post is under the crossfit Reddit or subreddit.

Is there any hope for me at five foot seven inches?

What an opener.

What, I mean, what an opener.

Here's his paragraph or two that led into this and then you and I can, I don't know, rant

as in positivity or negativity.

I finally got my double-unders working after two years.

I can spring together sets of 60 to 100.

No problem.

I'm always crushing it on bike workouts.

I'm always at the top of the leaderboard with burpees.

I can hit 50 pull-ups unbroken, 50 push-ups unbroken, etc.

In other words, I've made such good strides since joining a crossfit gym.

I don't drink, I don't eat out, I just hit my macros every day, 150 grams of protein

at least.

And I just hit a double-body weight squat, 305 pounds at a body weight of 150.

I can dead the four plates.

My shoulder press is relatively strong at 150 pounds.

I can do 10 unbroken striccan stem push-ups.

Then there's all the balls.

Wait, wait, wait.

It's not, that's not it.

Just not.

Here you at the end.

I'm super stoked on my progress with this list of a dozen things that I'm kicking butt

at.

That's not it.

Couldn't be happier.

Okay.

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

There's a final chapter here.

All right.

I am always nearly dead last in those two exercises because of my height.

It's such BS, feces out of the anus of a bull.

I have literally, I have to literally leave my feet to get the ball to hit the 10 foot

target.

And because of that, I am completely exhausted after doing 10 in a row.

WTF am I supposed to do about this question mark?

I love this question.

This is so good.

And I mean, just objectively, and I don't mean to poke fun.

What was the guy's username?

Oh, it's a Danny Jerome zero Danny.

If you're out there and you're listening, hey, man, just go back and read through that

post and look at the list of things that you are hyped on.

Pretty extensive.

That's a pretty strong list that I think anybody would be and should be happy with their

progress compared to two movements that you cited that were we're doing bad.

Hold your thought.

And not just two moves, but I think Danny Jerome zero is actually a special freak in a

good way in the five seven.

I don't know too many five seven.

Part of the thing he says is that he crushes air bike workouts.

Yeah.

That's tough to do.

Generally, generally not a shorter lighter thing to crush so that's remarkable.

Yeah.

100%.

I would suggest to Danny, were I his life coach, which I'm certainly not probably not qualified

to be either, but you know, just because we're playing fun here, Danny, I would sit you

down and say, let's do a little exercise given the thing here.

I would like you to put yourself in the body of a tall man and rewrite this from the perspective

of a guy that's six five and see how that's going to go because I bet you it's going to

be comparable, but just in the opposite direction.

I'm making amazing progress at wall balls.

I'm at the top of the leaderboard when it comes to rowing and low good row.

I can rope climb with the best of them.

Cannot wait for that rope climb workout to show up every couple of weeks.

However, I just feel like my progress has completely stagnated when it comes to Olympic

lifts and max rep burpees and on and on and on handstand pushups.

Correct.

Press is just the worst.

I hate bench press day.

And I say that not to try to make a case that the tall athlete has it harder or the short

athlete has it harder, but simply to illustrate that, hey man, every body type is going to

have something that it has a hard time managing when you're talking about a broad range of activity.

That's just the fact.

There will always be an advantage to having a body type, a certain body type, and there

will always be a disadvantage.

And the more extreme your body type happens to be, the more that becomes true.

The advantages when they are there are way more pronounced, but still are the disadvantages

on the other side.

So, further you get away from that average, that's just going to hold true.

That doesn't mean that you're not making progress by your own right up.

It doesn't mean you're not making progress.

It just means that, yeah, you might just have to put it aside a little bit when you're comparing

your wall ball to the 6-5 dude next to you, and instead go back and look at what your

wall ball scores were six months ago, nine months ago, a year ago, and that has to be

your comparison.

Not with some other person with a different physical advantage is doing it.

That's just, that's just kind of crazy at the end.

So, that's my opener right there.

And you know, hey, if some people are just absolute physical beast specimens and whatever

the workout is, it don't matter.

They crush it and they're near the top on everything.

Cool.

But for most of us, we're regular people, you know, and good days and bad days.

And so, yeah, if you are doing well-rounded programming and you're a regular person at

an affiliate, then there should be days that make you smile and days that make you frown

and days that you're at the top of the leaderboard and days that the movement selection and

the loading and the reparage pushes you to your personal limits.

And then that's a super challenge for you and you fall a little bit down like, that's

good.

I mean, I mean, that, you know, for most of us, it's highs and lows and strikes and gutter

balls.

It's not all just sunshine.

It's not all just great clouds.

And so, I think your experience is pretty typical quite frankly and would be atypical

if you were like crushing everything.

It does not matter what it is.

I demolish it like a terminator robot.

Again, we do see those people and we cheer for them at the games and their professional

athletes.

But for most of the rest of us, we don't live that life.

And I would say just to answer your question succinctly, is there hope for you at five foot

seven?

Yes.

I think you could look at any list of very, very accomplished, capable CrossFit athletes

who are in and around your very same height.

And maybe they don't like the movements that you said you struggle with, but they have

become ferociously capable at them.

Yep.

Yeah, I'll say too that if we're going to start brushing on kind of the competitive outlet

of CrossFit, if you look at any sport, the more competitive it becomes and the more specialized

athletes become in that particular endeavor, the more you're going to start to see the body

types converge for that sport.

It's not, it's not common to see an NBA player who's five foot seven.

They have existed.

There are a couple of them out there in the history of the league.

It's super rare and it's a complete outlier because it's not an advantage in that sport.

So you kind of, well, you're pre-selected at that point to just be coming up against something

that's really difficult.

That's true for almost any sport that you look at.

And even team sports, when you start looking position by position, there are certain body

types that will favor different positions and you tend to see more people from that body

type excel given the nature of the demands.

CrossFit is no different at the highest level.

When you start to look at who is on top of the podium, it's really similar to what Greg

wrote about way back in the day as like the ideal kind of CrossFit person.

They're going to be kind of a average stature like five, seven to five, ten I believe is

what he said, which is interesting because I think Danny's in that range.

I think, I think Greg's original formula for like the prototypical male athlete who is

going to be well-rounded or at least have the aptitude to be the most well-rounded was

like five, ten, a buck, eighty-five, a buck, ninety, not too heavy, not too light, not

too tall, not too short.

That's what's going to lend itself well to the broadest range of activities.

Now does that matter?

No, because most of us can't change these immutable characteristics.

So what are you going to do about it?

The answer is you got to show up and take your licks when you have stuff that's confronting

you and you're not very good at it.

And like I said, you've got to compare yourself to your past performance, not the person

who's tutored for that particular activity, maybe than more than you.

Now if you want to be really competitive and that becomes your driving force, well you

still can't do anything about certain characteristics that you might carry.

And so you might have to adjust where you're putting your time.

You might have to put in extra time at some of these specific movements so that you can

be a little bit more competitive or at least do some damage control if those movements

come up in a combination that really just thank you, given your aptitude.

That's okay.

That's the nature of the game because guess what?

The wheel's going to come around and there's going to be some places where you are just

hitting a home run based on your strengths.

You got to take that with it as well.

So in my mind, this is one of those areas where the competitive nature of CrossFit can

cloud people's thinking about what is good and what marks progress.

Now if the competitive outlet is what you want to do, hey, you've got to face facts and

you've got to deal with that aspect of it.

But if you're just there, like you said, you're a normal person trying to get fitter, trying

to stay in the game, trying to stay healthy for your life, it's you versus you.

What people are doing at the highest level, the leaderboard, even the class leaderboard.

It's great when it's a motivating factor, but largely irrelevant, except for what does

it compare you to you day-over-day week-over-week month-over-month year-of-year?

Yep.

So if you're getting better at wall balls and better at rowing, even if you're still compared

to these just 17-foot tall athletes in your class, you're not as good as them like

great, then you make a progress because we could go around and round on this.

You mentioned is the height of different athletes that maybe would or wouldn't like

certain movements, but then there's also the weight, too, like you and I chat about before

we click there to camera, you know, you're going to go out 5K row versus 5K run, you know,

5K run, it sounds like, Dan would be like, cool, let's do this with the first standing

next to you, regardless of their height is 250 pounds.

I bet they're not stoked about the 5K run day, and if Mara was a 5K row, they're like,

yes, 5K row, and you know, somebody who's 5, 7, a buck 50s par like, oh, so it's just,

yeah, it's just one of those things, and you know, if it was stick with these two examples,

okay, so the wall ball height is 10 feet.

Where did that come from?

I don't know.

It'd be really quite honest with you.

Why wasn't it 9-5 or 10-5 or lie, beats me like it's, but it's 10 feet, generally accepted.

And that's challenging for you.

Challenging, I got no problem with, you know, does something about that, you know, strain

your neck.

I like it with some bizarre thing.

If that's something to do, but it's just challenging for you because of your height,

then I think it's great to have things that are challenging for you because of that.

And relating it to, what I always liked about Cross, it was, at least, you know, back

in the day when I first started, like, this was the GPP for real life, whether you

please first responder or whatever it was.

And I know it might sound like a cliche example, but it does occur for some professions,

the foot chase, the climb, the running upstairs with gear to, you know, to help somebody,

the fire, the drag somebody out of the car, they get the get-over-all wall under the

rest, like whatever it is, if you're doing any of those things, there's not, the gear's

not lighter for somebody who weighs less.

The gear's the gear.

You've got to get it up one, two, three, four, plus, and nobody cares what your height

or build is.

Like, there's just task accomplishment for Chase, and after somebody in the scale of six

or seven foot wall, and you're short, there's not a short person's go-around.

That's the wall that they went over.

You've got to get over that wall.

Nobody cares.

And that's not supposed to be chaos, it's just, it is what it is.

And so, if you're doing, in my opinion, good old classic CrossFit, there are workouts

and time domains and loadings that will serve up a good dose of nobody cares to you.

100%.

100%.

You just get in there, and you grind those days out in all honesty.

I think those are the days that are not only beneficial to you physically, but they're

beneficial between the ears, and I do think I know that I'm biased, I think they make

CrossFitters different in a good way, like in a resiliency, like I'm actually really upset

about today's workout, and I'm going to need some private time after this, but I'm going

to go do it.

Like, great.

Like, that's become the sort of person that just doesn't do what they want, and you just

go in there and you do it.

I think that's one of the cool aspects of our CrossFit, that's my soapbox for the day.

I will.

I add to that 100%.

Yeah, I love that real world translation.

My add to that is when you're confronted with those workouts that are more challenging

for you, sometimes it can be helpful to remember that the impact on your fitness is what you're

chasing.

Not the result of that specific days, time, or load, or reps.

And often, like you said, man, when you're most challenged, those are the days that have

some of the biggest impact on your fitness.

Even if you look at the leaderboard, and you're like, God, that sucks.

It sucks to see yourself down there.

When you know that on other days, you're at the other end of it.

But hey, if you're really chasing the real goods, which is the advancement of your fitness,

the shoring up of your weaknesses, then that's what it takes.

So you're not going to get there by just crushing the things that you're already good

at.

That's not how it works, and so you got to get comfortable with that as well.

And it's funny.

I was kind of thinking, actually, this happened just today.

I went to my lunch time at Jiu-Jitsu.

I got a couple of good rounds in today with some of the younger guys there.

I got a guy who's a young dude.

He's like 26.

And just like real hard-knows.

They believe he wrestled and I have the Iowa.

Oh, gee.

Okay.

Uh-huh.

And just a young guy loves to talk smack, loves to take it to you.

You know, he's a fun round.

But hey, man, I got a bit of a skill gap on him.

It's fun to try to see how far I can go.

But at the end of the day, man, his athleticism, his youth, he's, you know, almost 20 years

in my junior.

And it's like, yeah, dude, I cannot compare myself at age 42 right now to this dude who lives

in Breeze training and has this, you know, amazing background, you know, a similar sport

that he's bringing all that experience with him.

If I were to try to use that round with him as a litmus of my skill or dedication or

whatever, overall, yeah, it could be pretty demoralizing.

But if I take it for what it is about like, who this guy is a beast, it's fun to put

myself to the test against him.

The outcome doesn't really matter.

It's going to make me sharper.

I walk away having a great round with him no matter what the outcome is.

It's fun and I look forward to the next one, you know, so there's plenty of examples

that you step out across, but where the same mentality holds through, and you got to think

about what is this doing for me in the long run, not what is this immediate result when

I get to write it down on paper today.

And I will say, Danny, all the things that I say that I've said so far, please understand

this is coming from somebody who's 5'8", and hates wallballs and hates rowing, and

is not good at either one of those either, and has been doing them for about 20 consistent

years.

Like, it's just, it is what it is, my friend, right there with you.

And like, you said, boss, you were built different.

If you weighed something different, if you had long arms, short legs, like whatever

it happened to be, you know, you have six fingers on your right hand.

You know, there'd be something that just, you know, would make you frown when it came

out.

And so, hanging there, based upon the other things you said in that Reddit post, you have

some astonishing achievements that people would just kill to have.

And so, celebrate those and understand your human like the rest of us and just don't

shy away from those workouts that you think are going to challenge you a lot, just attack

them, and you will be good to go, my friend.

Yep.

And, you know, I want to end by taking it all the way back to the beginning, Pat, your

toned stories about, you know, just scan in the public, Danny, my friend, use Pat's example,

go out into the grocery store, go to the flea market, go to the public park, and just

take a look around and just give yourself a little grace, man.

What is it?

One in a hundred people that you see that you're like, well, this person actually looks like

they have some physicality and take care of themselves, you know?

So, broaden your eyes and look at who you're comparing yourself to because, man, the

Gen Pop unfortunately doesn't hold a candle to you and you should hang your head high,

you know what I mean?

Danny, best of luck, my friend.

Everybody out there, this is your show, not my show, it's not Adrian's show.

So we want to hear from you.

If you have a topic, a question, an idea, I guess any good stuff like that, find this

episode on the BTWV YouTube channel, post it as a comment, we check those out to help

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Or if you want to be more discreet or anonymous, you can send a direct message on the very

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So for Adrian Bosman, I'm Pat Sherwood and we will see you next time.