S02E11 - Dallas Ouano and David Syvertsen - CrossFit Open 21.2 Breakdown

March 18, 2021 - This is the SECOND special episode of Botox and Burpees which dropped TONIGHT Thursday March 18 - after the CrossFit Open @crossfitgames live announcement of the first event, 21.2 - Coach David Syvertsen with special guest Coach Dallas Ouano recorded their tips and impressions after a revisit of a familiar WOD at CrossFit Bison (#1 in the USA!), in Midland Park, New Jersey.⁠ https://www.botoxandburpees.com/

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S02E11- Dallas Ouano and David Syvertsen - CrossFit Open 21.2 Breakdown

Full transcript (click here for PDF)

Sam Rhee: [00:00:00]   Welcome to another episode of Botox and burpees. I'm Dr. Sam Rhee plastic surgeon and CrossFit coach host of this podcast where we talk about plastic surgery, CrossFit, and everything in between. You can find more information at our website, botoxandburpees.com. And make sure to like, and subscribe wherever you listen to our podcast. 
All right. Welcome everyone. This is 21.2, break down with coaches and owners, Dallas. Dave, how are you guys doing? Dallas? Did it. And we just finished Dave was my judge coach and no, my first year and no river. So let's just go through it really quickly. So this was a Rhee, Pete 17.1 was 21.2. It was a.
Time cap, 20 minutes tense dumbbell snatches, 15 burpee box jump overs, 20 snatches, 15 Barbie box jump over his 30 snatches, 1540 snatches, 1550 snatches 15. So it was basically five rounds of dumbbell snatches going up 10, 20, 30, 40 50, and then five rounds of burpee box jump over his straight 50 pound dumbbell for men 24 inch box women, a 35 pound dumbbell, 20 inch box time cap, 20 minutes.
We all actually have good memory or just, we remember very vividly last time. So what was it, what did it feel like now versus the last 
Dallas Ouano: [00:01:23] time? The mask I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna act, I'm not going to blame anything on that. It's no excuse these days. I seven, been sitting a lot more than I used to.
So I feel like I like my hip hinges. We're struggling, but it's a good rhythmic workout. It felt good to be back in the rhythm. I loved it. I would say it felt the same to be perfectly honest with you. I was moving slower. I found out when I looked at the clock, but it felt the same. It felt really good.
David Syvertsen: [00:01:46] Dallas. I think also last time we did this in 2017. You were in a much different mental state with this stuff like that. This is back when thousand, I talked about the CrossFit workouts back in 2017. It's all we talked about and we were like breaking down every second of workout and back then, he would go dark on a workout like that.
We're right now it's more like fitness have fun. Don't be stupid. So sometimes like measuring yourself from 2017 to now. And only using time as the metric of am I in better shape or my worst shape? It's not the smartest thing to do because it's more about what you're trying to do out of the workout.
Like back then, we're like, here we go, regionals like that. And, he had a much more realistic shot than I did and never made it. I know, but we both, that was always like, whether we admit it or not back then, that was always like something we would think about during an open workout. Especially the first one. So that means a lot in a workout like this workout comes down to desire. Do you really want to go dark in this workout? Do you? It's never I can't do a dumbbell snatch. It's never, I can't do a burpee. Maybe you can't jump up, but you're never really going to get to a point where you can't do something.
It's not like you're matched with a high skill movement or a heavy barbell. So it really does come down to like desire. Like the mental state means a lot in this workout. 
Dallas Ouano: [00:02:59] Yeah, totally agree. I'm a Rhee. I'm a ReSTOR. And Dave knows this. I'll go through some movements. And if I got like a heavy squat clean or like a complicated movement, I'll stand there and look at it.
And this is one that your net, you said you're never gonna fail burpee. You can always get back up. It's a mental toughness. Yeah. I will say halfway through the workout, like Dave said, like I'm in a different spot, but with me with repeats and everybody else, so repeats are a test of your fitness and what it used to be and what it is now.
So midway through the workout. All the things going through my head are like, man, am I eating right? My city too much. What am I doing wrong? And then I got, I finally got back into the rhythm in the thirties. I'm like, it feels so good to be here. Like I was working out right next to you, Sam, it was really fun to just be with people and and be a part of a Thursday night.
Throw it out. Yeah. 
Sam Rhee: [00:03:44] I do love the atmosphere. It felt, it feels like old times with everyone around. The problem is, and I. I will blame the mask. The mask plays a factor in this workout and I changed my mask twice because it just kept getting wet. And you're trying to get your, you're trying to control your heart rate because when you, when your heart rate goes up, it's not so bad on the dumbbell snatches.
Like you said, you could, you sh it. It's real. This was a mental you're right. It's a mental state. It helps if you have someone like you did Dave encouraging me, like you're telling me, you can do this. You can just keep going. You have this. And that gave me some mental fortitude to say, yeah, you know what?
I've been freaking training. Like I should be able to go. And it helped me a lot. Of course. And then I broke at the very end where I was taking a lot of rest, but. But your mental state really helps. 
David Syvertsen: [00:04:35] The environment tonight helps too. That helps a lot. That was Jim was packed, and it really does help to do.
That kind of workout, especially that kind of workout with other people because you guys are all going through the same thing. Yeah, everybody. Yeah. 
Sam Rhee: [00:04:48] If you gave me a choice of working out with everyone, with a mask or going at home and no mask, I'm going to do so much better here with 
Dallas Ouano: [00:04:55] no Dr. Rhee, it sounds like being too smart hurts.
You hear you're thinking too much during the workout. I'm trying to say there is a price for thinking 
David Syvertsen: [00:05:02] too much. I am trying to clear 
Sam Rhee: [00:05:04] my head. Oh yeah. But the dark you're just like, and then I'm thinking, okay. Wait a second. Am I going to have to redo this one? Because this is horrible. 
David Syvertsen: [00:05:10] So let's talk about redos real quick, because I don't want to get, we have to stay on track here, but this is a workout that if you come in and thinking that you're going to redo it, I'm telling you're not going to get a good time in relation to what you can do.
Yep. Because, and when you have a safety net coming up two days from now, you're not going to try that hard. Absolutely. Yeah. She'll be out of breath and like someone looking at you and be like, Oh, you're working hard, but you will not be trying your hardest. If you know that you're going to redo. So I'll tell you everyone, that's good is going to do this workout.
Even if you already know, you're going to redo, try to put yourself in a state where maybe there are no redos this week, I'll be Bisons going to be closed Sunday. 
Sam Rhee: [00:05:48] I strongly recommend not redoing it for that reason. When I hit the thirties, I made a bargain with myself. I said, just keep pushing. And I will, and you don't have to redo it on Sunday.
And I, and that was the deal 
David Syvertsen: [00:05:59] I made. And most people do not recover fully in 48 hours work. I like this. I think you do, but you don't. And you need to be really on top of like your nutrition in between, which again, people eat healthy here, but there's a lot that needs to be done in between two attempts and most people aren't going to do it.
So I think if you try hard 80% effort on a Friday and thinking that you're going to go a hundred percent on Sunday, you will not be a hundred 
Sam Rhee: [00:06:20] percent. We're much better at dumbbell snatches now than we were in 2017. But what do you think about form and how important it is when you're doing.
How many Dumbo? It's 150 almost. Yeah. So what are the things you have to keep in mind when you're doing 150 dumbbell snatches? Cause you could really, if you're not doing them well, you could wreck yourself. 
Dallas Ouano: [00:06:39] Yeah. Listen, there's a lot of different types of athletes out there. Obsessive about protecting my body.
And Dave and I are so opposite. We're completely opposite athletes. When you think about it, Dave has got a strong back and maybe that developed from dead lifting, like an idiot back in the day or from being a Viking. But we're very different athletes. So me personally, I'm a jumper. I'm explosive.
I'm a big, I like to load it up. So I got a lot of knee bend. My back is always flat. My butt's doing a lot of work and that's just me and it's a little bit more smooth. Guys like Dave, bigger guys who in the car, close to Carlos similar way. They may, let that dumbbell, pull them down a little bit.
Listen, there's perfect. And then there's a mess and everyone kind of falls somewhere in the middle. So every athlete is different. Me personally. Let's do it by the book. Let's do it. And. Yeah, that's just my thing. Yeah. I think 
David Syvertsen: [00:07:25] the handoff of the dumbbell is, doing a dumbbell snatch correctly, like yes, like flat back load your legs, keep the weight in between your feet, not in front of your feet.
Like you're doing a good job with that. Like the yours was almost in line with your heels, like your hand, and that's where you want to be. And a lot of people don't do that because they think they're gonna hit their, their nuts on the way up. But they're not like that the trajectory of the dumbbell comes out as you come off the ground.
But the, again, the closer, this thing is your body, the lighter it's going to be the faster it gets to the finishing point straight lines. So that's I think everyone does a pretty good job with it. The handoff, like I've gotten to a point I've done so many of these over the years. Like I'm not even looking or thinking about handing off it.
I just drop it. And it's in my other hand. And when you do that, you get to load yourself because you're holding a load. So you're typing as you're holding it, you load yourself up on the way down. And again, this is where a skill comes into a movement like this. Timing wise exactly. When that thing's going to touch the ground there.
The first time we did this in 2017, we didn't know how to do this. And we put it on the ground, which to down there. Yup. That's why all of our bash were ruined because we spent so much time pulling a dumbbell without tension off the ground. So now you have tension because you handed it off, right?
And if you get this timing down of exactly how much you're going to have to hinge and bend before it hits the ground and you get a recoil off the ground, and then that thing's got like a headstart on the way up. So I think there's a lot of skill in this. And again, like we've talked about this in classes over the years handing it off.
It's not it's gotta be the way that you do this, if you're going for the fastest possible time. So if there's someone that wants to practice things before the workout and in relation to the technique of the dumbbell, I would say put less attention on moving something that's equivalent to that empty barbell.
That's how heavy this is. Give or take a couple of towns pounds, but more about the skill of handing it off and being 
Sam Rhee: [00:09:11] accurate on the way down. I think that makes sense to me that the less time you're spent crouching in that position, the better off your back is 
David Syvertsen: [00:09:19] going to be gauged too. I can't stress that enough.
I say this with deadlifts a lot. If we did heavy delis sets of five, I always say like most of the time. The first deadlift is the worst looking one, because you don't have a lot of people don't get tense before they lift. They just lifted up. And, but now that you're holding that weight you're tense.
So now you're going down with that tension and Hey, rubber on rubber. They say you're not allowed to bounce the shit bounces. Like the rubber will bounce off of rubber. So the rubber floor and the rubber plates, there is a recoil that comes off when you tap and go. So that's why there's a rule, but with Barbara delis, you're not allowed to try to bar, bouncing things.
So it's going to help you if you switch and go down with tension. 
Dallas Ouano: [00:09:59] Yeah. I would definitely, I'm a big proponent for resting at the top of movements. So rest of the top of your snatch, stand up there, take your breath. Dave mentioned before the workout stayed up there. And breathe, catch up on the burpees, bang, switch, hands, bounce.
And when I say bounce, don't railed off the floor, but use your body to bounce recoil, come back up. Same thing on the Berbee do your burpee quick. Get up to the box. Stand up there. If you guys go back, watch the live stream. You'll see me standing up there for eight, 10 seconds at a time.
Take your break at the very top. Get to the ground, bounce off. You're more likely to sit in the ground and wait. And then you get stuck there. I always fall into that trap. I just sit there. I look around, I catch my breath and then once you've lost your rev engine, it's tough to get that back.
It's something to motivate yourself. Yeah, 60% of the workout. 
Sam Rhee: [00:10:48] I think that transfers or is so key. Anyone who doesn't know how to transfer well, that's the only thing they need to practice more than anything else. Cause that's going to help you with this movement, not, the other thing is the hip hinge you met, you were like telling me.
Like good hip hinge. And then that made me focus on like really getting that hip to come up and give me that pole. So I could end it. You're really pulling that dumbbell, not straight up, but almost like behind you really. Cause you want to lock out 
Dallas Ouano: [00:11:13] Yeah. So a snatch, we practice this stuff a lot with it, full barbell snatch.
That's so 
Sam Rhee: [00:11:18] much more efficient than just finishing, a little bit in front of you with it. It's funny. Cause my pace was a little different. Like I don't, I like. Keeping I don't stand on top of the box. I just crouch and I jumped down because maybe because I don't have the hops or I'm 
David Syvertsen: [00:11:31] just short.
No, you don't have the hops. He does. Dallas can jump onto a 24 inch box with his knees locked out. No, you and I are like, we jumped, we hope our feet are on. I'm like a little bug. And then 
Sam Rhee: [00:11:39] I just turned around and stepped down. Yeah. And that's where I, but, 
David Syvertsen: [00:11:43] Yeah. What do you guys suggest jumping off the box or stepping off?
That's a big deal in this workout. 
Sam Rhee: [00:11:52] Faster to jump, but it sucks. The wind out of me, I'm a turnaround stepped down person. 
David Syvertsen: [00:11:58] You do you jump off. Yeah. I 
throw 
Dallas Ouano: [00:12:00] myself off the edge. I, it depends on your background. You know what I mean? I have the only thing I've done, the only consistent thing I've done, we, and my whole life is jumping land.
Play different sports came out of college, started doing CrossFit. The only thing that I've done since I was a little kid is throwing myself off of stuff. Yeah. This fits now everyone's a little different. This is a skill game, a mental game and engine game. There's a lot of different, a lot of different combinations to get you to a state, to the same number.
Sam Rhee: [00:12:26] Now, the other thing that I think people will have the advantage of is setting a timeline or I, if I am not going to redo this, but if I were, I would write down times like, okay, I need to get to. The 30 snatches by this time, this is my goal to finish. And even if I fall off that pace, it would help 
David Syvertsen: [00:12:43] me.
Sure. Here's a way you can do it too. Like how long has the Berbee box on overtake you in a workout? Pace? Not your speed. Four to five seconds is a pretty conservative pace. Like burpee step up, jump, turn around, take a breath, get back down. That's about four. If you think you can hold that, like there are 75 Berbee Buxton boulders in the workout.
You do some math. If every rep took me four to five seconds, you're looking at about five minutes of that action in the workout. All right. Now, how long does the dumbbell snatch take? They're Rhee? They're pretty quick. One to two seconds, but let's say that, to left the transition two reps, you're looking at.
Three. Let's just call it four seconds. I think it could be done quicker, but let's say four seconds. Okay. So you do that one. That was 150 snatches in this workout. Multiply that by four. Now you could start to be like, all so I'm going to actually be working for about 10 minutes in this workout. 10 to 11 minutes right now, my time plus that will be the amount of time I spend standing around.
And that's when you start to figure out like, all right, your time was 18 minutes, you spent about, let's say let's call it seven to eight minutes. Not doing something that workout and wow, what are you talking about Dave? Because you were hurting the whole workout, but it goes to show that what's the halfway point of the workout.
It's probably some, I would say it's after the 30 15. Yeah, you're done. That's more than half the birdie box unbelievers, but it's less than half the dumbbell snatches. Okay. So let's say that's called that the halfway point of the workout. Yeah. And we can look at your tiebreaker.
I want to say you were like. Eight minutes late your second half and slower. And why was that? You and I? Both not, what was it? I took a shitload of rest 
Sam Rhee: [00:14:11] and I broke 
David Syvertsen: [00:14:11] my dumbbell. Snatches. You were on broken on the tens. I'm broken on the twenties. I think I'm broken on a third or 2010 or it was closed.
I don't remember. Like on the forties and fifties, you did sense a 10 with lengthy breaks in between. Yeah, I did. I changed your mask a couple of times. Yeah. So these are things and again, we're not machines. And we don't train like that usually. And if you don't train, like with paces, you're not going to know how to do this.
Like how long do you actually rest? But it just helps to know if your goal is to finish this workout. It's probably going to be about 10 to 11 minutes of work. So if you wanted to, you could make this knee mom get as far as you can in 30 seconds every minute, and then take a 32nd rest, like you could 
Dallas Ouano: [00:14:49] do that.
And this is how we made it to Miami every year. Why? Because Dave had a Goodwill hunting chalkboard up, and it was like beautiful mind. 
David Syvertsen: [00:14:58] And it was like, 
Dallas Ouano: [00:14:59] There would be, there'd be asterisks and Greek letters up there and then he'd stand next to me. Number the number, the S seven five three work.
It was like, hang snatch. Was it? It was the perfect box. No, I did it. And you didn't do it. You stood there and told me when to start when I did it with a different team. Yeah. And I did it this workout and maybe call it nine minutes and I'm like, dude, I need to get two minutes off this workout.
I don't know how to do it. Dave's like, all right, I'll work on it. So I go to the gym, I come to the gym. I drive out here in traffic. I show up after a 12 hour Workday and no sleep. And I'm like, I don't know how to do this. He goes, I figured it out. He has a whiteboard. He's like, all when I tell you to go, you go like, all right.
So it's three, two, one go, boom. He's okay. Drop my bar. He's five, four, three, two, three reps, and all of a sudden work over and I'm like, wow, cut 90, 90 seconds 
David Syvertsen: [00:15:50] all the time. And us about that. The reason I do that is because I'm not a good athlete. So I have to maximize everything like that.
That's what they say about like coaches. Like I like coaching and training and competing at the same time, because I'm not one of those guys. That's gonna be like, yeah, you should just gotta do it this way. Because that's how I do it. Like I can teach people must, I'm confident in teaching people muscles, if they're not natural for me and 210 pounds, without no gymnast background.
So that's the concept, but when it comes to pacing, like I'm not fast, I'm not explosive. I'm not that talented, but this w that example right there, it probably, he probably started that workout slower than he wanted to. Oh yeah. It's no. Think it's like saying, Oh wait 10 seconds.
I don't know. I should go now. I should bank time. But that recovery time. You need it later on in the workout. If you burn through all those reserves early in the workout, you're not going to have any, when you get to the hard part in this workouts, in my opinion is when the 40 dumbbell snatches come into play, that's that's when the workouts, like you're going to get your time or not.
You need to take an extra break or two between 
Dallas Ouano: [00:16:48] before that. He wasn't good non gym training. You can do at home. As you can go watch a video of your open workouts and count, have a stopwatch. And every time you rest, start the watch and then stop it. When you start pick up your object again, you will find a lot of rest.
And in the moment we all know how that feels, but things you can do mental things you can do it just. Cut a few things out here and there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 
Sam Rhee: [00:17:14] Not always complicated. Yeah. This was one where I didn't want to look at you cause I knew how much rest that was big. I didn't want to look at the clock.
I didn't want to look it down. I was just looking down because I was like, I know I'm taking a ton of rest in 
David Syvertsen: [00:17:24] between these sets. I thought you did awesome workout. Really? Didn't I think if there was, if there's anyone listening that you can relate to Sam as an athlete, I would say one thing that he could have done to shave a minute off would be when he got to the forties and fifties.
And we all do this. He just went in saying, Hey, I'm going to do 10 at a time. You just made that mind. You made your mind up before you got there. And for why is it 10? It just because tens of common number, right? Yeah. But if it could have been 18 and then 12, and then you had 10 left like that and it would have cut out.
Set and would have kinda cut out arrests. Yeah. And if you did that two or three times, that's probably a minute right there. If I 
Sam Rhee: [00:18:03] had held on your right for even just five or six more reps per set. Yeah. It would've helped me. 
Dallas Ouano: [00:18:08] I always get to one past half. That's my, no matter what the rep scheme, it could have been a hundred.
I'm going to do 51 getting more than halfway. And then if I can, I know I can break the next, the rest of it into two sets and they're never going to be as bad as the first set. Yeah. Agreed. 
Sam Rhee: [00:18:23] How fast did you have a pace where you're looking at the clock when you were doing no, I didn't 
Dallas Ouano: [00:18:27] look at it once actually.
Oh, that's not true. I probably was. I looked at it when I realized I wasn't going to be my old score, but I didn't look at it. Yeah, no, I didn't. 
David Syvertsen: [00:18:37] All right. So last week you were way off on this. I know how many people in this gym are going to finish this workout. We already had. We already have. A handful.
Yeah. Let's see who finished the RX side because we had a lot of people finish on the skilled side 
Sam Rhee: [00:18:49] last week. So on the RX side today, we at least had what, three or four Brit, 
David Syvertsen: [00:18:53] YouTube, Brett to Carlo Carlos. I think it was four, four out of four out of 12 people. I think everyone RX that Sasha didn't so four out of 11.
Sam Rhee: [00:19:01] I would say, sorry for it. 15 to 20, 15 to 
David Syvertsen: [00:19:07] 20. Yeah. 
Dallas Ouano: [00:19:09] Total you think that's how many total athletes will finish this workout? 
David Syvertsen: [00:19:13] So if I said the over under is 20, you're going to take the on there. If I said the over under is at 16, are you taking the over the under? I'll take the 
Sam Rhee: [00:19:20] over. Okay. Yeah. 
Dallas Ouano: [00:19:22] I think that is too low.
Yeah. Bar's way too. I think this was a good representation of our gym actually. 
David Syvertsen: [00:19:27] Yeah. So it's a small 
Dallas Ouano: [00:19:29] sample size five. I'm going to say that the number is closer to 45, 45. I'm taking the high of faith 
David Syvertsen: [00:19:35] in this place. Wow. Now I felt the doubt. Like he's trying to be the good guy, because if I say no way, he's gonna be like, Oh, you don't believe in your bad program.
I will say this. If there were no masks in this workout, it would make a difference for young people. And I hate saying that. Yeah. I really do, but it'll make a difference. And that's the world we're in right now. 
Sam Rhee: [00:19:57] So I would say getting a, yeah, getting a good mask or getting something that you honestly, 
David Syvertsen: [00:20:03] dude making the change like you did it doesn't it really doesn't hurt.
Yeah. It like, like I've changed my mask in probably 30 different workouts since we've been back inside and. I'd rather lose those five seconds, but have something dry on my face, then suck my own sweat, for five minutes, so I would suggest a lot of people bring to mass and just make a change when you really get to that point where you really need a break.
I really do suggest that 
Sam Rhee: [00:20:29] it is really mental and If you can get any kind of whatever you feel like you can use to get your push in the middle of it. Like you said, the thirties, when you hit the forties, someone encouraging you trying to keep your mantra in your head, or if you're just going as dark as 
David Syvertsen: [00:20:46] hell.
Yeah. Whatever it is whatever your, why is, what's your, why is it just thinking about it when you get you gotta do that shit all the time. It's there's certain things that are people that. You do this for you, motivate you. And I that's who I'm thinking about at that point, I talked about it at one of your podcasts.
Like I taught Ash and Brock especially Brock now, like when you think about something like that, you really stop thinking about the pain. Yeah. And it, and so think about something like, what is your, why I don't care what it is. It can be corny. You can be embarrassed by it and not the Tony buddy.
When you get to the forties, that's when you start thinking about it 
Sam Rhee: [00:21:17] and you got to clear your head, you can't think about. Am I going to feel okay tomorrow or whatever, like you have to just sorta just for that next couple of minutes, 
David Syvertsen: [00:21:28] just a small part of your 
Sam Rhee: [00:21:29] day, just clear it out and focus.
And that's, I think why it's so refreshing to do that. Because most of the time in our day, we don't have that time where we're really just. Totally focused on just doing 
Dallas Ouano: [00:21:42] something mine wait all day together. I thought about this all day. I was hunched over my desk where I can not wait to stand up straight and walk in the gym.
Sam Rhee: [00:21:52] Yeah. That's that's the best feeling. It really is.
You can get every episode of Botox and burpees, wherever you listen to podcasts, or go to botoxandburpees.com. thanks for listening