S01E05 - David Syvertsen - My CrossFit Start and What I Would Do Differently

November 20, 2020 - 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐭𝐨𝐱 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐨𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤! This week's episode is the first of several with David Syvertsen, owner and coach at my box, CrossFit Bison, in Midland Park New Jersey. We talk about Dave's start with CrossFit, and what he would have done differently knowing what he knows now. Thanks for listening! Like, subscribe and share!⁠

Click on your podcast site to listen and subscribe!

Full Transcript (also click here to download PDF version)

S01E05 - David Syvertsen - His start to CrossFit and what he would do differently now

Sam Rhee: [00:00:00] I've known Dave, I've known you for a long time now. You've been my CrossFit guy, like when I think CrossFit, the, the first person I think of is basically you like from the beginning, right at the start of my CrossFit experience, five years, five years ago, 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:00:18] almost six.

Yeah. Was that when you, did Karen and did 220 wall balls, 

Sam Rhee: [00:00:24] that's the one thing about you? You always have one or two great stories about every athlete at the gym and that's okay. That's my signature story right there. 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:00:32] I remember the day you walked in. I remember like you looking around the, just looking around the gym, like, where am I?

I'm like, what is this guy doing here? I didn't look at you now, dude. You're like the poster boy for this place. 

Sam Rhee: [00:00:42] I, I believe in CrossFit and, I am an, I tried to be more, are act unbiased, but at this point, I think my honest ex experience and opinion is that I'm all in. A thousand percent.

And that's why I think, when I talk about it, I was always reluctant to talk about it with, non CrossFit people. But I think that this is something that is just too important, not to, 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:01:03] yeah. Especially now with what's going on these past eight months, like how much you need to value health, fitness exercise and what it can do, not just for your body in your Instagram photos, but what it can do for you to fight off, sickness disease, and what can do for the rest of your life.

And I think part of it was that I. 

Sam Rhee: [00:01:18] We, I almost felt like I lost CrossFit when there was all that tamale and controversy around the leader. Absolutely. I felt I could lose this. Yeah. And I now looking at it, I appreciate it more than I think I ever have. And like you said, in this pandemic, I think the fact that we need to focus on health and what's important, we can't F around anymore.

We have to figure out what works and 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:01:42] you get one shot, dude, you get one shot at protecting your body and this works. 

Sam Rhee: [00:01:45] Yeah. And, when I think about, people who know CrossFit, you're the guy. So I wanted to start. and like we were just talking about not necessarily for the most experienced CrossFitter, but I think this also applies for everybody is what, we don't, we never sprung forth fully, experienced in it.

You started just the same as I did just the same as everyone else. So what was your experience and looking back now? what. Would you have done differently? 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:02:11] Yeah. my story is fairly traditional. like many people just, I was, I got really into working out in my young twenties, maybe like 19, 20 years old.

not the greatest personal time in my life. Just, I got diagnosed with epilepsy, so I got my license taken away, New Jersey. That was the thing they take away your license for a year. It's different now. But with that said, I was commuting to college. Didn't have many friends, didn't have a license. I couldn't drive anywhere.

So I joined the Ridgewood YMC. They had this whole wall basement gym with, everything. It was so rusty. He was me and a bunch of 80 year olds. And, but that was my outlet. I started to really dive into it head first, I walked 25 minutes, one way. Four to five days a week just to get there and work out.

And that's when I really started to get into working out and I saw what it did just for my mindset. It made me work harder outside of the gym. obviously you start changing your body. You become a more confident, you feel stronger, all that good stuff at some point wants to take it to the next level because I would go there and not know what I was doing.

Lift heavy weight and go home. And then, so I went to, I upgraded my membership to the New York sports club, Fancy place. And, I started getting to this point, a rut where I'm just going there and just lifting and looking at myself in the mirror for an hour. And I'm looking around, I'm like, everyone looks like they're going out.

Like they got their hair gel. They're like posing in the mirror. I'm like this isn't to me, exercise. What I started doing is I literally would go to a treadmill sprint as hard as I could for 30 seconds. And then go do a set of bench, press sprint for 30 seconds. Let's go do a set of curls. And I remember getting, you don't do that at global gems.

Like you get bad looks when you do that. But that was, that to me, was working out. Like I walked out of there and shambles. And like that, to me, it was like, all right, I'm really pushing myself, but you feel uncomfortable at your alone B everyone's looking at giving you dirty, looks doing this. And I remember that's when I S I worked at, started working at pre-bond, broker shop with Chris Tafaro.

And I told him what I was doing for working out. And this is like a few years after starting that approach of working out. And he's dude, you're basically doing what we're doing. It's like a combination of strength and conditions. He had just started CrossFit in Hoboken. So when I moved into Hoboken, it was the first thing I purchased after I moved in was the membership at Hoboken.

And it was close to, I think it was 200 bucks. It's a month and I'm making like 35 K a year. And I lied to my landlord to tell her how much money I made so that I could sh she would give me the apartment. I was going down to the bottom of my bank account every month. And then I had to find a way to pay for my gym membership.

It ended up working out within that year, just starting to make a little more money. But, that was like, I knew at that time I'm going all in on this, So like when people say stuff is too expensive, trust me, I get it. What year was this? This was 2011 fall 2011. Yeah. So go ahead. In, I was head first, loved it, loved the approach of.

Having an instructor, having something programmed for you show up and just be ready to work. I love that mindset love the approach. And this is back pretty, relatively early days of CrossFit, where there wasn't that much knowledge behind the movements that we were doing. It was literally just go as hard as you could every single day and go home.

And which there's something. I miss about that a little bit. Yeah. It's just just go hard, see what you got. Yeah. And I loved it. and then I got into the competitive side two months after I started, I went and watched the competition by myself and sat there for eight hours and watched it and I loved it.

I grew up with all brothers. So I got into that competitive mindset. I started training like someone that wants to compete, even though back, I had no idea what I was doing. did my first open about four months, five months in the CrossFit. And, here's one thing I could tell you that I wish I had known, but to no one's fault, this was no one's fault.

Back then. This is what cross it was back in 2012. it was, I wish that there was more talk on why we're doing this today, so that next year you can be able to do that. And here's an example, the cross it open week one. The first workout was seven minutes of burpees to target. That was the workout. And I got the most in the gym.

I was so like pumped on my dude. there was a guy in our gym that was a regional athlete. I'm like, are two of them actually. And I was like, dude, I might be able to go to regionals. that's when the train started. and I people, those guys in that workout little did I know that was a joke workout in terms of what CrossFit real fitness is, right?

There's no skill. There's no strength. And here I am almost 10 years later. Like I'm still not that skilled or still not that strong, but the next week, the workout was 30 snatches at 75 for guys 30 at one 30, five 30 at one 65 max at 200 or two 10. All right. There was no concept of pacing. There was no concept of doing it right.

It was just go as hard as you could. So I do that 75 pound snatches, 30 reps in a row and probably a minute and 30 seconds. So like under that, get to the one 35 did all singles and every single one of these, I barely got above an inch above my head, press it out. Ugliest lift in the world, probably. All right.

Get to one 65 with about three to four minutes left. Didn't get one rep and back then there was no. Knowledge or teaching of the skillset. It was just trying to Chuck it above your head. You have a bunch of dudes yelling in your face, telling you to try harder. And if I saw that happen here, whether I was coaching the class, I would stop it like that, But there was none of that. It was just try harder. It was all raw intensity. Yeah. 

Sam Rhee: [00:07:25] But that's okay. That's what drew a lot of us to 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:07:27] CrossFit is how intense it is. It's cool. And again, I'm big like economics guy. Like I remember like taking my co it's just one of the few things I remember from college.

It's just like getting the most out of your resources, your time, your energy, your thoughts, your money. And I'm like, Hey, if I'm going to go spend an hour at the gym, I want to literally try as hard as I can every single day so that I can check that box. but if, to really make progress in this, there are a lot of times more than you think that you have to slow it down and take three steps back so that you can take that fourth step forward.

You have to do that, there's, I don't care what kind of athletic background you have, and sometimes you have to get smacked in the face for you to actually realize that, I really wish I tried to go from zero to 60 in that first year. Like I wish I really had a five-year plan. I was saying like, Hey, I'm just going to like Cameron high snatch poles, hang muscle snatch, all that stuff.

Like I don't, I didn't know what hit contact was until like my fourth year across it, it was just get your hands on the bar and try to Chuck it above. Yeah. 

Sam Rhee: [00:08:26] I think CrossFit as a sport or as a endeavor has also matured. 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:08:31] Yeah. 

Sam Rhee: [00:08:31] So that was back in 2012 now you're right. Know that is the fundamentals of how to do a sketch art.

Yeah. Strongly emphasized. 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:08:41] Yeah. And it's ironic that I can remember two coaches back then. The name one was a Stephan and one was Maris. And I actually messaged them not long ago, probably within the past two years, just like thanking them. They were the, like the quote, like annoying coaches that would make you take weight off the bar and focus on mechanics.

That was like, almost back then the loser thing to do now. It's Hey, if you don't work on mechanics, you're stupid. if you're into this for five years and you still don't understand the concept of hip contact and why and vertical extension and keeping your knuckles down and shrugging and high elbows, then you're never going to get better.

You're just, you're going to plateau. And, back then, it wasn't. It wasn't like the sexy thing to do, it was just like, Hey man, try harder. 

Sam Rhee: [00:09:25] I know from an injury standpoint, also that focus on technique that CrossFit has now has made a huge difference. 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:09:31] Yep. it usually, unfortunately it usually takes someone getting hurt for you to realize okay, it's not worth it to go hard all the time without any background knowledge of what this is actually supposed to be.

So like when I'm coaching in class now, and I'll be the first to tell you, I know it gets old, hearing it over and over. But I like to explain why we're teaching certain movements a certain way, why we're telling you not to re bend your knees on a push press. why we tell you to hold a barbell a certain way on a front squat, because if you really do pay attention and put that into practice, your.

Progress over the course of years, it will be elevated as opposed to you just blocking it out and trying harder. 

Sam Rhee: [00:10:10] And I think we'll talk at some point about, why people should be doing CrossFit, but there's no doubt from your experience. It sounds like if you are an intense person that you really are looking for, The maximum experience that you can get, right.

That you will automatically gravitate towards CrossFit. And I feel like a lot of the people that you were around were similarly very like-minded. 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:10:33] Yeah. you're a product of your environment. Like you can be the strongest, most independent person ever. I feel very strongly about the people you spend your time around, that you're going to become much closer to that kind of person.

then you think then you really want to admit, everyone loves to say Oh, like on my own person, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you are who you spend your time with. And I think in this CrossFit world, whether it's you visit the gym once a few days a week, or you work at one, those personalities are drawn to each other.

And that's where a lot of the tight knit CrossFit community comes together. It's just there's a lot of people that just have very similar stories. And how many people here have said Hey, this is my outlet. This is my one hour escape from the busy-ness of life where I don't have to plan anything.

I can just do it. And I think that's really what draws a lot of people here. So 

Sam Rhee: [00:11:20] when you started, was that social aspect, a big part of what drew you to CrossFit was just that community? 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:11:28] Honestly, no, I like working out with people because it got the most out of myself. Like I'm competitive and. I back then.

I can remember Hoboken used to post scores. You could get it on the website, like you would push the scores on, be on the whiteboard and it would show up on theCross@hoboken.com website. When you click on the wide, you see the top scores and I used to work out at night and I would be like, all right, it's funny, Matt, a.

Was a guy that I was like, who is that guy, man? His times are so sick. Now he's a member here at this gym almost 10 years later. But yeah, I w I never really put my self worth into, Oh my gosh. Like I beat this dude on the best. It was like, all right, if he did this now, it's my, I had to go and try to match that because I can't do that by myself.

And I think that social aspect brought me to it. That being a part of something that's competitive and intense, and we get after it with each other, not against each other. I was attracted to that, but I wasn't, I didn't get into it to find friends or anything. it could became that for sure.

but that wasn't like my main draw to it. It was, I wanted to be around people when I worked out that had the same mindset and I really felt like that was the case. 

Sam Rhee: [00:12:37] Now that you've, come. And you're so deep into it. It's your occupation? Yep. It's your, competitive, aspiration. Yep. It's what you coach.

Yep. if someone were to S is starting right now, do you have to have a particular personality in order to really go 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:12:55] into cross? that's a good question. I don't know. I don't think you need a specific personality. I do think there's one kind of person, how do you that you can have? And it's you can't have, your ego may be the sole decision maker for what you're doing.

Day-to-day like, I've always found that we do have a lot of different kinds of people here. like a lot, from the outside, it's probably Oh, a bunch of fire breathers that are too into themselves and like exercise too much and want to destroy themselves in the gym. I think there's a lot of differences in our personalities here.

because I'll be honest with you. If you put these people in this gym, out into the real world and they'll cross it, they ain't going to be friends with each other. Not everyone that comes here as friends. I would even say there's people that come here that don't like each other, but so they have different personalities.

They had different backgrounds, different morals. But, I think the one thing that doesn't work is the inflated ego personality where they just can't handle someone next to them behind them in front of them. Being better at something, they just can't handle it. And we've had people come to this gym, dude, that guy's going to be a monster.

That chick is going to be a beast, like once, give her a few years of training, but the ego can handle it. And, w when you really put your self worth into how you compare to other people, I think that's the kind of personality that just doesn't work. And like this social media era that we're in right now, that it's hard to avoid that a lot of people and I'm, There's a lot of people that are coming up like that, where it's just Hey, how do I compare to everybody else?

that's what makes me feel confident or not confident. And I think that's where that's the kind of personality just doesn't mesh here because you're always going to find someone you're always going to get humbled here at the end of the day. Everybody, me, the best athletes, the quote, worst athletes.

And if you can't handle that's where I don't think it's going to work out for you. 

Sam Rhee: [00:14:40] One of the things I worry, not worry, but that, 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:14:44] the 

Sam Rhee: [00:14:44] CrossFit model itself is so great, but it also has some pitfalls to it as well. So the fact that, anyone can open up an affiliate that anyone can start calling themselves a CrossFit coach.

Yep. And there's Much variability in terms of the level of instruction in terms of what is going on. Yep. so what kind of advice do you give someone if they're not coming to bison obviously, 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:15:09] and they're looking for, and 

Sam Rhee: [00:15:10] yeah, because they're brand new and they have to put a lot of trust into the people that are giving them instruction.

Dave Syvertsen: [00:15:15] Yeah. that's a big thing and that's tough to give advice on. I've had people leave here. They're moving to this state, that state going to college here. Hey Nate, can you look at this gym? And let me know if this would be a good fit for me. I can't tell by looking at a picture online or their Instagram, like you really have to put yourself into it for a few months and then hopefully word of mouth can help out at some point.

But like Olivia who, great girl just went to college, in Virginia. And she asked me to look at a couple of crossroads down there and I don't know anyone down there. So it's really hard to pick up any sort of word of mouth. Like what Jim is good with him. Isn't what, how do they coach, how do they coach?

but I would say the number one thing you should look for, if you're at an F, if you're looking to start an affiliate, that's not bison, Is I think you should be, I would encourage you to go and ask whether it's the owner, the head coach, coaches, a lot of questions. And, you're going to have some like BS radar on, but I love it when someone new comes here and tries to grill me about how we run our program, how do we run our classes?

Why this, why that, you hear that music and just realized the music was fine. Sorry. so that, I think that's a big, important is try to really put yourself into the coaches slash owners' minds of how are they, do they approach programming? Coaching the classes, importance of warmups. How often do they teach?

like I've heard of these like big names gems. I'm not going to throw anyone under the bus, but I've heard of a big name gym up in Boston. Like they literally brought the class up to the whiteboard, told them what the workout is and said, go warm up. And like workout starts in 10 minutes and I'm like, Hey, you could probably get away with that.

If the class is full of people that are like been doing this for a long time and they take the initiative, but If you're new and that was this guys, we had someone I go up there to drop in and he was like, that was my first one that they had no idea who I was like, what if I didn't know what a snatch was?

So that's the kind of thing. if you're at a cross it, and they're not teaching you every single day that you go in there, that's a red flag. If you see a lot of similar movement patterns, day after day, that's a red flag. if you see people like walking around, Moving like crap every single day, that's a red flag, And Hey, there's people here that don't move well. And, but if the majority of the class is moving like crap and no one's saying anything about it. I think that's a red flag, So 

Sam Rhee: [00:17:31] the takeaways here, anyone can do CrossFit 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:17:35] as launch, 

Sam Rhee: [00:17:35] as long as you don't have 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:17:37] an ego to cope with it.

it, 

Sam Rhee: [00:17:39] you should take some time to 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:17:41] find the right affiliate for yourself. Yep. 

Sam Rhee: [00:17:43] And a lot of that is more common sense. Just, just like you would any other business, you're just looking at the people and figuring it out. 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:17:49] Yeah. And you don't 

Sam Rhee: [00:17:50] have to have a particular reason other than the fact 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:17:53] that you really want to better yourself.

Yep. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. I think those are pretty much the bullet points of all that. And, I think that, I know several people have done this. they'll try a few at the same time or they'll go two months here, two months there. And, it, it really, all these crosses are different and I agree with you.

It's probably a little too easy to open up an affiliate, but at the same time we opened because it was, we had a pretty easy ride. we went through hell getting open with like town stuff, but. It's not hard to get a level one. And if you have enough money, you can open. And fortunately, we were able to do that.

Unfortunately, some do that with bad intentions and can really screw a lot of people up. 

Sam Rhee: [00:18:35] I have to say, when you're talking about specific personality types, I ha I was thinking about all the different athletes we have and. People may think we're a bunch of fire breathers, but we have so many non-fire breathing, people who just really, I would say the one thing people have other than lack of ego is some strength of character.

Dave Syvertsen: [00:18:56] Yeah. 

Sam Rhee: [00:18:57] If you don't have strength of character, 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:19:00] you're not going 

Sam Rhee: [00:19:01] to do Great. I think, but that's something that I think, you don't have to be. Showy, you don't have to be, aggressive. Yep. Most of 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:19:12] the majority of our gym, isn't 

Sam Rhee: [00:19:14] very quiet people, but they are internally very strong, which allows them to flourish in an environment where let's face it.

This, CrossFit by definition is high intensity. Yes. And by definition you have to push yourself. Yep. And I think that if. If you're not willing to do that, which is what you have to do in any exercise to get more fit then. 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:19:37] Yeah. you have to be out here. You have to be okay with being uncomfortable.

And I can tell when people start here and I don't look down on this at all. we all went through this. If you're uncomfortable and it's really impeding your ability to move efficiently and really put yourself into the workout, not just say that you did it. you have to be, you got to be okay with being uncomfortable and you have to know that no one's judging you.

like I feel like for the most part, that's a goal. We had it really early on one was keep the drama out. number two is let's make sure people don't feel like they're being judged here for the most. Like you have bad eggs every time. I know I don't want someone out there thinking like, Oh, I got judged this one time, blah, blah, blah.

For the most part, you can come in here with any background, with any ability or lack of ability and get your workout in. And no one's going to be like, Oh, you suck. if you did, and if I got wind of that, I would probably either kick the person out or give them a piece of my mind, like that.

Because we nip that stuff in the bud. And there have been people that have left our gym that I can tell they want it to be like the Eagle guy. They want to be the hot shot. And again, not throw names under the bus there, but they don't last here because that's, and we have a great support system at this place at bison and a lot of crossroads do.

I don't want to just be like pro bison. a lot of successful CrossFit affiliates have a good support system that like, Hey, if you have a weak day of, you're saying strength of character, I feel like you have strong character. I have strong character, but I've had bad moments and I've relied on the support system here to build me back up.

Absolutely. And you just have to be humble enough to accept it when you need it. Absolutely. 

Sam Rhee: [00:21:11] And I have to say, I'm thinking of some of the athletes that I initially. I don't wanna say looked down on, but I don't really think of much because they're not particularly capable in the way that I think they're capable, but the fact that they've been doing it as long as they have pushed themselves as hard as they have.

My respect for many of these guys is. About 5,000, like it's through the roof. Yep. I love these. Yeah, but I don't care. And now that I've matured in terms of my perspective as a CrossFit 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:21:42] athlete, more experienced. Yes. 

Sam Rhee: [00:21:43] I, but, from being immature and saying, you're only good if you do X now I look at it.

What is the effort? What is the consistency? What's the approach. And what's your approach then? To me, I don't care if you're lifting 50 pounds or 500 pounds. Yep. I that's what I respect more now than anything else. And I want to encourage people to try it because regardless of who is looking at you yep.

If you have the right approach you're going to do well, it doesn't matter if people are looking at you 

Dave Syvertsen: [00:22:13] one way or the other. Yeah. your personality and your character can build through this stuff. I'll go to my grave saying that I will, if you disagree with that, I will get into an argument with you because that.

But you have to be able to, you have to do, you have to be the one that put yourself out there. A lot of people will come here. It's like, all right. I signed up for CrossFit. I'm showing up for my classes. Even bought nanos. yeah. I'm going to get in the best shape ever. You have to do most of the work.

The people here, the programming here, it can push you in the right direction. Yeah. But you have to do it. Yeah. But rely on, you could definitely lean on people when you need someone to lean on, but no, one's getting you out of bed in the morning. Nope. No. One's putting the spoon in your mouth at night when you're watching Netflix.

Like you have, there's a lot that goes into this beyond the 45 minutes to 60 minutes that you're at the gym. Yeah. But if you start to re and it's hard, this stuff is hard. It's always going to be hard. Yeah. Like I'm 10 years in. I'm probably, I've probably worked out in, cross it more than anybody here.

Every time I work out. It's hard. Yeah. And you got to be okay with that. Yeah. And, but it has made me better outside of the gym in so many different ways. Like I've had people, there are people here at the gym, the Carlos said this who's known me since I was in fifth grade. Benedetto has said this, I've changed so much from when I was in high school.

And still don't really completely know what that means, but the, but I can tell you that it changed my perspective on how hard to work and just thinking about the long game. And that's where I think I wish I could tell people that when they started, but you don't want to throw too much at them too fast,