The Untold Price of Becoming a CrossFit Games Elite | David Shorunke | S3EP.04

39:02David Shorunke:not working on the side and going all in as an athlete. I think if I'd made the other changes that I should have made, which were to focus a little bit more on the process and find enjoyment in the process and acknowledge the positives, then that would have taken some of the pressure off i would have enjoyed the process more and then you combine that with going all in and believing in yourself and again not putting a limitation on what you can achieve then that would have been the best way for me to for me to go about things and you can see that um you can see that now as the sport has moved on and more companies have got involved with it and it's grown beyond what like just the the the CrossFit Games itself to other huge events that are also growing like WFP, like other, and like What A Palooza, Dubai, Rogue Fitness, like the Rogue Invitational.

39:49David Shorunke:There's so many other big competitions where athletes can make a living. That then also means that there are other companies and other sponsorship opportunities that mean that athletes can take this more seriously and go full-time earlier. There's good and bad sides to that, but it definitely means that it's more opportunity now to do this full-time than there was then. And the level of the sport has gradually risen since then as well. And I think a factor of that is the fact that people have the means now to go in full-time and train full-time and get all the benefits of that and then improve such.

40:19I also think that looking at the demographic of the elite CrossFitter,

40:27David Shorunke:I am far taller and naturally heavier than 99 % of CrossFit athletes. I think I'm the tallest, like in combination, the tallest and heaviest person to ever have gone to the CrossFit Games, which says something about like, what is the ideal body type for the sport? That's a gangster stat boy. And I don't think, like you've got very tall athletes, like most obviously Brent Fikowski is a tiny bit shorter than me, Yele Hoste, Chad McKay was a big one when I was competing as well. And then you've got slightly heavier athletes who aren't as tall, but like in combination, that I was probably a body type that was not ideal for that for that for the sport so while I do feel like if I've made some changes there would have been things that I could have been better I also think I was quite good at potentially uh like finding ways around like the many areas in which I lacked because it was because I've got like a greater range of motion to cover or my body weight would naturally hit sit higher and thus therefore it's just more work for the body to have to perform all of the tasks uh yeah so it's a comb it's a it's a bit of different things for like what would have worked for me then versus what would have worked for the ideal me had I made the the

41:37Marchon Coach:the changes you reached the games in 2023 you just you just mentioned we're now in 2025 or yeah uh and you no longer crossfit or compete in crossfit nope that seems quite strange can you unpack that

41:54David Shorunke:I think so as I said earlier as I was moving through the sport I enjoyed it less and less both because of the pressure I was putting on myself but also a lot of just the nonsense and the crap that comes with a company that doesn't often have the athlete's best interests or even the development of the sports as their primary concern. But finances, that has a lot of trickle-down effects. And so I was gradually losing love for the sport because of my own enjoyment in these other things. And then in 2024, four uh a friend and competitor lazar dukage drowned at the crossfit games during the swim event and anyone who has looked at crossfit within the last year and like you've no doubt heard about this but it was um it's referred to as an accident but it's more a case of the result of negligence the correct safety protocols were nowhere in place and when uh he when he was drowning there was about 50 meters from the shoreline in full view of spectators and on the live stream there was no one there to help no lifeguards nothing um and after this happened it felt like at the time that once you get beyond the actual like once you comprehend what has happened and you get beyond like the grief and the loss of a fellow competitor and a friend and a human being your mind then moves to surely something must come of this surely that the changes that we have been wanting as athletes for years where crossfit prioritize athlete safety over finances over um spectatorship uh like how good it looks how good it is to watch on a live stream surely those requests are going to now be listened to and changes are going to be made and changes have been made minimally if or if at all.

44:17David Shorunke:And I think after that happened and then how the CrossFit Games then reacted to it and essentially just tried to brush it under the mat, ignore it, distract you with other things, look at our new competition schedule. Here we're going to give you the results of the investigation. We don't have any results, but don't worry about that. we've got a new structure for the season of competition. This kind of like their modus operandus of denial and then distraction is a pretty thing to look at so you don't think about this terrible thing that's happened. And then lots of other things that happened along that process with the PFAA who advocate on behalf of the athletes wanted to see the investigation.

45:04David Shorunke:They demanded specific things, changes that the athletes wanted that were in the interest of the athletes and thus in the interest of the longevity of the sport were completely ignored. It again added to that feeling of like, what I am getting out of this sport and versus what it costs me is not worth it anymore. And so I decided that I just didn't want to compete in the sport anymore. And I still like, like I go with, obviously with Emma at the competitions and I still like being in the environment because I like the athletes and I like the energy and I miss maybe the competitive aspect of the sport but I don't feel the drive anymore to do the day-to-day grind training that's necessary to be at that level because I don't feel like the reward that it gives me anymore is worth it.

45:58David Shorunke:That's very fair.

45:59Marchon Coach:Do you think if the sort of challenger competitions, WFP you mentioned, I mean the bombing just come on the scene, do you think if they're a little bit more mature in there life cycle it would give someone like yourself who obviously feels right so very strongly about the events that have happened in your own experiences with athlete safety and i guess athlete welfare and actually just a distribution of the of the money that crossfit's been able to make over the years if wfp and these other outlets were a little bit further down the track you'd stay in it stay because you know because i know you're 35 so you're probably in your twilight years uh that's fair to say but for someone who's such a diligent hard-working competitor and has been for 10 years you I know you will talk about the powerlifting pivot but that's a that's a big body of work and a big period of your life to be able to just walk away from if there was other

46:45David Shorunke:outlets and ways to compete would you have stayed in I think if they had been there at that time or maybe even earlier on probably yeah I probably would have I probably would have wanted to do it just to just to explore like what could this new what could this new way of competing this new competition schedule be like if it really does listen to the athletes and from what I've seen so far especially their first tour and their first tour stage in Indianapolis like they do they've made some brilliant changes to how competitions are run to everything from how the athletes are welcomed when they first get to the competition they are treated like the professionals that they are like it's the first time I've seen not the first time one of the few competitions so far like Rogue Invitation also does quite a good job of this where the professionalism with which athletes conduct their own like training and day-to-day and how they see themselves is matched by the competition itself like athlete safety is prioritized the athletes are listened to feedback is received they talk about it within themselves and then they report back to the athletes on what they think about the feedback like it feels like a proper communication and so I think if that had been around at that time I probably would have at the very least given it a try but I and because that would have potentially quenched the thirst for something that was better or different to how we're being treated or how the things were being run by CrossFit Games but then there still would have been that aspect that was just down to me which was about learning to enjoy the process and acknowledging the positives and having that balance of enjoyment and discipline and if I hadn't solved that it probably would have still led to where I am now

48:29Marchon Coach:but maybe a bit a bit later on yeah that's fair the reason I ask mainly is because we I'm involved heavily in athletics as a competition we often talk about you how we attract the best athletes in the world and it's like well who are the best athletes in the world and it always brings us back to competitive CrossFit athletes the people that have competed at the games I think in terms of a broad skill set and ability to compete across a number of different domains you guys still have that above everyone else and to a large degree and so thinking about you as the athlete in 2023 having you watched a lot of your journey um watched a lot of your training as well I think in terms of like a pin-up poster boy that I would love to have looked and emulated it would have been you um for you to uh for you to kind of walk away from that like I say for all the right reasons it kind of feels like a shame I know you've found your calling now in powerlifting but to be uh such an animal across like say all those different domains is um it's a really tough place to get to at that level and to be able to harness that and still and then redirecting something else would

49:30David Shorunke:have been really cool to see thank you very much that's uh very nice of you to say um i don't i know what you mean it's like it's so many hours so much time is spent like crafting or like building something that you then essentially like shelf you don't really need like most of it you

49:48Marchon Coach:just take a little bit seeing seeing a six foot two weapon like i remember you and i loved the bit where it's like i see you at work like everything just spoke to me like seeing you be able to do all that stuff whether it was going from heavy barbell cleans into rope climbs into runs into whatever it may be seeing just a finely tuned athlete to that level who's yeah who's competed at the games like that's the pinnacle um to shut it off for the right reasons again I can completely get on board with. But as someone who enjoys seeing other people's athletic potential and seeing them express that in competition, and also being involved in fitness for the best part of two decades, knowing what it takes to get to the level you were at.

50:33Marchon Coach:And also my experiences with walking away from rugby, so I can kind of see it on both sides, because I got to the stage where I was like, I'm done with this now, I'm out for other reasons, but completely went cold turkey. um i loved yeah i'd just love to have seen you still fucking go go at it um i would love

50:50David Shorunke:to love to do that but it just yeah it just didn't i think there was the grind of training was it it was as tough for me as it is for for anyone but the pressure that i put on top of my on myself to perform made it tougher than it needed to be which then creates more fatigue it just wears you down over time and then the fact that I'm just not as I started to get later on in my career like I every now and now like make excuses like oh like I'm I'm just like I'm too tall or too heavy like every now and and it would be like a momentary thought before I'd snap out of it and basically like stop being a bitch like it is what it is you are the how you are like you chose to do this sport, like suck it up and do what needs to be done or lease.

51:41David Shorunke:But then as I started to get to the end of my career, I started to actually pay attention to these things more in terms of like, less in terms of like, it's an excuse, but more in terms of like, okay, I am bigger than everyone else. What does that mean? What do I need to work more on? What do I need to work less on? And that was actually helpful because then I was able to put more specific work into the areas that I was potentially going to be worse at, even if I was good for for me, I was still going to be worse at just because I have a longer range of motion to cover or it's just more work for me to do a certain amount of work for like, I'm not going to spend as much time say on like heavy barbell cycling or yoke carries or like legless rope climbs or stuff like that or handstand walk or lunges because I know that's where I can actually cover ground.

52:24David Shorunke:But maybe I need to spend like an exponential amount of time on like burpee variations and box jump variations. And like, maybe I don't need to do so many warbles, but I need to do single arm dumbbell overhead squats and squat snatch and stuff like that and so I started to register a little bit more like what do I actually need to do to individualize like my my journey took to me as opposed to the ideal CrossFit athlete because I need to put more work into these areas than even someone who's weak at them because even if I get really good for me it's going to take me a longer time to do it and that's when I actually started to realize that and I'll joke with this as well because it would I could say thoracic mobility and overhead mobility was something that I really struggled with and I worked on it for years and it did really improve but it would literally take me like 20 minutes to get into a position where I could do a single arm dumbbell overhead squat and Emma could wake up first thing in the morning and pick up a dumbbell and do an overhead squat and I'm like I'm thinking like I had it takes me 20 minutes to get into this position.

53:28David Shorunke:I haven't even done any training yet. I'm just trying to literally squat this bloody dumbbell. And Emma's by this point could have done the piece. She's finished. She's moving on to something else. And when I look at all the like some other aspects of training as well, I just found really difficult versus some areas that I found really easy. So for instance, say, uh, CP battery stuff, we're having to cycle like a very heavy barbell for multiple reps i would always come top five in the world on those workouts whether it be like in a semi-final quarterfinal like at the competition from never work like i never did cp battery stuff i basically just try and work my maximal strength and i would do uh like conditioning things but actually cycling like a heavy barbell for high reps something i very rarely ever did but i always come to competition and that would be no problem i'd win it same things like legless rope climbs pegboard that kind of stuff I would really ever work on it but it would always be there and I would win so and then you've got other things that I worked on a lot that I would just really struggle with I think that I started to realize that maybe I am just I'm in the beginning when the sport was younger and it was less competitive and I could I could uh I could um like sure up these areas that I wasn't so good at or be really good in other areas and make up for it I could get along and that could still be like in the top but now as the sport has moved on and you're getting more of these athletes come in that have been training for longer they're better built for it and they have just been in like a more they've grown up with the sport so they know like all of those little tips and tricks from day one I just couldn't keep up anymore and like being uh and then being a body type that wasn't suited for the sport began to like take too much of a toll on the training and on the performance to it was added to the lack of enjoyment as well yeah one of the questions was

55:13Marchon Coach:like as a taller athlete, how you sort of prepare and how you influence programming. But I think you've touched on all of it there.

55:21Marchon Coach:How talking about programming then and piecing these things together, and let's just talk generally, CrossFit obviously being the thing that I think popularized

55:31Marchon Coach:sort of mixed modality training and the ability to get really strong and get really fit at the same time. Obviously now high rocks has become a big thing. Hybrid training has become a big thing. what are the sort of principles that you that really work for you in terms of programming putting this together having an off-season things to work on that maybe for the sort of general listeners looking to maybe build a bit of strength build put in a bit of size build their fitness any kind of general principles that that stood true that stood true in CrossFit um that we've been able to now adapt and um adopt in broader fitness so I'm going to say a few things that people are going to hear and they'll be like oh boring no i think that's where we need to i think we keep banging that drum yeah it's uh that the boring stuff is the um is the the stuff

56:18David Shorunke:that the works unfortunately and by boring i think that like the the so one of the principles is a saying that i like which sounds a little bit like counterintuitive when you're trying to actually like you're working hard to get better but the slowest way is the fastest way to go the training that is going to get you the results uh tomorrow or next week or next month is likely going to be of an intensity or require a level of work that is not going to be sustainable the best athletes are not the ones that train to be the best that they can be tomorrow next week or next month the best athletes are the ones that are focused on long-term development so instead of choosing like a method of training or an intensity of training or a program that just runs you into the ground and if you can survive it then you're going to be great but in a year's time you'd have so many riddled within injuries and so over trained that you don't want to even do the sport anymore that's not going to work like choose the form of training choose the coach choose the program choose the intensity of your next workout and like your weeks of training that is going to be a sustainable way of doing things so that you can get better like week after week and month after month which may mean this that you are not necessarily as good as you could be in like you're not going to be your best in a month's time but when you compound those like months and years of training like that is how you get to your full potential by doing something sustainable um i think you said about we said about the sustainability and like basically that

57:48Marchon Coach:the long-term aspect of it we should together that i mean that's perfect and i think that's probably where particular let's use hierarchs as the example because that's maybe a little bit more easy for people to get their head around as to what high rocks feels like i don't think people will actually understand what it feels like to compete at the games across a weekend uh many people come into it without the prerequisite um body of work around running or the prerequisite movement efficiency uh even in ball balls in isolation let alone ball balls once there's fatigue in the legs um you know you mentioned there about understanding that a six foot two in your weight it wasn't legless road climbs need to work on it's the burpee variations and i'm sure you literally had sessions upon sessions of burpees in isolation with different hand placements ways of getting down getting up getting onto a box off the box and people come into hierarchy just mash it all together and just you know go after it so yes playing the long game is is is the the key part of of this but then how would you mix i guess the concurrent training or the or the the uncomplimentary ways to train for both sss use strength and conditioning and training some of those things in isolations versus piecing it together and doing workouts that seem fun.

59:00David Shorunke:So first and foremost is specificity, making sure that the training you are doing is actually directed to what you want to get better at. And as a general principle, when you are closer to the event that you are doing, you want to be training more specifically to that event. But the specific, the training that is the most specific for the event is the best for you to do if you have a very limited amount of time, or if you are very close to the event and you're essentially like sharpening up to get ready for what you're going to compete in but it's not necessarily the best way to develop the all of the aspects that go into that performance over a long period of time and in simple terms the best way to get good at high rocks is not to just do a high rocks event every other day the best way to do that is to take those individual aspects that you need to get better at the running the rowing the skiing every single element like the sandbag lunge, the wall, the burpee ball jump, the sled push and pull, like these are all things the farmers carry, like these are all things that you need to look at individually and say, what training can I do to get better at this individual thing?

1:00:01David Shorunke:The best way to get better at running is not necessarily to do intervals of just the 1k distance. There's not necessarily the best way to get better at, for instance, the sandbag lunge. If you get to the sandbag lunge and your legs are blowing up, great you can do run onto sandbag lunge onto run and that will be like that could that's probably going to improve your performance but if your issue is that your legs are blowing up is that because you haven't necessarily your the local muscle like local musculature quads glutes hamstrings don't have the structures in place where you can actually take in as much oxygen as you need and then you are building up a lot more waste products or you can't clear lactate fast enough like these are all things that you can work on individually away from the competition so that when you come back to it you realize that oh my issue on sandbag lunges wasn't actually the sandbag lunge it was that I was running at an intensity that was too high for me to actually clear any lactate so then I got to the sandbag lunge and I was already destroyed so now I improve this aspect of my running I come to the sandbag lunge and I'm better prepared for I'm in a better position so I'm going to perform better so the specificity is both like it's a bit of a double-edged sword because if you go too specific you miss out on developing the individual aspects that you could do better in isolation but then if you go too far away from the specificity you then lose sight of what you're actually training for i think this is something that's easier to manage with high rocks where you have the same race every time so you know exactly what you're competing in so that you can take that way and train all year round and plan like what am i going to do for my skiing to make sure that i can hold this skiing pace that i know i need to hold on the day what am i going to do for local like leg endurance to know that I'm going to be able to handle that combination of the run the and that the run the sandbag and the wobbles um but when you have like say CrossFit where all the events are very different and they're both different between competitions within competitions and throughout the season everything could be argued for being specific or non-specific so even like your warm-ups could eventually be that style could be in a workout everything that you train essentially becomes sport specific.

1:02:08David Shorunke:So I think with High Rocks, you've got a much easier time with being able to really like target your training towards what you need to be doing because you know what the test is going to be. It begs the question, how do you program for CrossFit?

1:02:24Marchon Coach:Yeah, I don't know, really. Do you think you're, because again, going back to how I started the episode with the introduction, your reputation comes as someone who's extremely diligent, extremely disciplined, is in the detail and really cares. Do you think, because you brought that to your coaching practice and you program for the same amount of time that you have competed, Do you think you are as good as a competitor because of how you view the training and the program in the detail? Or do you think you're as good as a coach and programmer because of the way you showed up and practice what you preach in competition?

1:03:03David Shorunke:Yeah, this is a conversation Emma and I have had many times because I think it's different for... So I am someone who I really like being invested in the coaching process, the programming process as an athlete. I like to look into the program and understand the reasoning behind everything that's in there so that then I can direct my efforts exactly how they should be. And I can feel far more willing to do all of the training because I know that everything in there is what I need to do. and I take enjoyment I take pleasure in understanding that and I think maybe that is partly because I'm also alongside that a coach and I program as well but I do know that for some athletes they do like to just like very they don't want to know about the details like for them it's just like like you just point them in direct the direction and they go I think for me if I did that if someone tried to do that with me as a coach or writing me a program I would find it difficult to really fully invest in that and get everything out of myself and believe in the training but then conversely if there are other athletes that they just want to be told point in the direction and tell them to go if you do try to involve them too much in the details like it just pulls them out of that athlete head they get confused they get distracted and it starts actually like reduce their effort so I do think it's different for different people but I know which one worked best for me and I do think that um being an athlete that was involved in the programming and the coaching what has definitely made me a far better coach and programmer today because there's a level there are a lot of great coaches out there within CrossFit, High Rocks and all sports that have never played or competed to the highest level but there's some they have enough experience and spent enough time in the sport around athletes to really do deeply understand what it is that they are asking athletes to do.

1:05:04David Shorunke:But then on the other hand, are athletes who have competed in the sport. And there's something that you get from competing and like not just competing as in like going to a competition, going through and going through a weekend competition, but actually competing as in like the day to day grind of being an athlete and having to and understanding what it is like to wake up sore and tired and have to push yourself through a day of training that you now don't want to do you want to have a day off even though you love the sport and you want to get to where you go and you don't want to do this anymore because you're just so sore and so tired that you would rather just stay in bed or just take a dab like day off and not think about the sport there's something that you get from that but you can't get from it any other way apart from if you've actually been through it yourself for like day after day, after month, after year in the sport grinding away.

1:05:55David Shorunke:And I think that that has given me a level of understanding that I can then apply to the programming so that when, so I can understand what is going to be sustainable or as close to sustainable as possible for an athlete. And then when they do struggle, I can understand like what actually can be changed here to help this athlete get through this process. What is important? How would I feel in this position? what can I get them to understand to perhaps get the most out of this training despite the fact that they are not feeling 100 % and like get them to encourage and to like look through the long term process and get that like what's happening here doesn't matter hugely if you can just like stay on the path and get around the obstacles so things like that I think you can't really get unless you've been unless you've been an athlete it's pretty segue into that what you said there

1:06:42Marchon Coach:about waking up fatigued and sore, how much of that is kind of positive and will lead to good adaptation versus going down a path of overtraining, injury, burnout? How do you distinguish between the two? Because that's always something, we spoke about this at breakfast, like, you know, I'm probably training for 10 hours a week at max at the moment. It's fucking, I find it really tough to recover. I'm pretty diligent in my sleep and my nutrition, et cetera. When I think about the volume of, particularly athletes on Instagram now like 20 hour training weeks I'm like geez I mean that of kids and other things maybe but well at least that's my excuse um I think about CrossFit as the volume they had to try and do and it's the style of training we spoke about this you know the lifting the jumping the bounding um surely every day you're waking up feeling pretty beat up yeah I think you

1:07:34David Shorunke:asked earlier about the um how do you program for CrossFit and we spoke about the specificity but I think another part of it is also learning to uh kill two birds with one stone as it were like touching the things that have the most carryover to everything else so like we said that like everything potentially could be specific to the crossfit event because anything could be programmed good good crossfit programming is going to give you exposure to loads of different skills throughout the week so that you can touch on those skills frequently enough to keep them sharp because the degradation of skill acquisition is much faster than like the physiological adaptations like like muscle endurance or strength or whatever and so it's important that you touch on those skills frequently and you also want to choose things that then have the most carry over to other things as well so you touch on the really specific things but you always keep like your snatches and your back squats and your chest to bar in right because those are the things that are going to have lots of carryover to other movements.

1:08:36David Shorunke:Now the downside of that is that you are constantly pushing your body in many directions all the time. So take for instance powerlifting. I have three movements I have to think about. Squat, bench and deadlift. Accessory movements that I do generally make me feel better. So my body really only has to adapt to doing like three movement pathways heavy and intensely that's not a lot of directions to have to push your body which means that the kind of like the niggles and the injuries that you get are like far less especially if you can program sensibly and complement it with your accessory work now add in the olympic lift snatch and clean and jerk then add in all of like the monostructural things rowing skiing cycling running swimming then add in all gymnastic movements so you've got so many movements now that you are doing either heavy, high volume or high intensity, it's a lot of tissues and a lot of directions that your body is being pushed to then potentially pick up more injuries, more niggles and more pains.

1:09:38David Shorunke:It's not like you're hunting for problems, but when you push yourself so hard doing so many different things, the little niggles and injuries that a gym masten-up might get and a weightlifter might get and a powerlifter and a runner and a cyclist and a swimmer, like you get them all. You don't get them as intensely because you're not visiting the same movement pathway as in such a volume as they are, but you do just get just a little bit because not only while your body does adapt to what you are doing, the more you do it, it also, it's almost like a, I suppose, like a U-curve, right? The more you do it, the greater you adapt and the easier it is to visit those positions and then you get to a point where you do so much that you then start to create niggles and injuries.

1:10:18David Shorunke:And I think that it's very easy to basically end up on the tail end of that curve where you're starting to get to the niggles and injuries on like 100 movements. And so inevitably you wake up every morning and like somewhere is sore, somewhere is niggly like pain. And part of your job as an athlete, as a coach, as a programmer, and working all those working between is to learn to manage those niggles and injuries because you have to train so many things so frequently. And we are not perfectly built to be able to squat, clean and jerk, handstand walk, rope climb, run. somewhere is going to be something that our body doesn't really want to do and isn't so like well built to do so it's about part of it is learning to manage those injuries and manage those pain which really comes down to understanding yourself as an athlete which comes down to which you need to have experience in the sport doing to then be able to know what works best for

1:11:12Marchon Coach:you yeah again I think the take home there is is the um immersing yourself in the process and actually being connected to the process and the feeling of your body, because I think that is, that's something I think a lot of people lose any level of kind of training and competing is they're just kind of on that hamster wheel, just doing it because that's what they think they should be doing and not really mindful of, of how they're feeling, how they're adapting, what their performance looks like. Are there any ways in which they could measure perceived output on any given day to start to auto regulate how they should maybe look to, okay, on this day I need to just push because I can versus you know I've had consecutive days now feeling this way weights on the bar coming down movement qualities diminishing okay maybe I need

1:11:54David Shorunke:to delude and just uh yeah to to that point that you've just made there obviously during this time everyone I spent probably cumulatively like literal years within CrossFit Boxes training and so we were also privy to what everybody else does in their training sessions right because we're there for so long we see people come in in the morning and train lunch classes open gym and something that we often notice are people who want to be good at the sport who see how much training we do and then automatically think that they need to be doing a lot of training as well in order to get better and I think that misunderstanding comes from a misunderstanding of stimulus and adaptation.

1:12:37We are, we're trying to accomplish,

1:12:41David Shorunke:we're trying to be good at so many different movements so that takes a certain amount of time to train, to get good at all of those movements. But we're also trying to compete at a very high level, which means what we need to do to be good at those movements requires a lot of training. If you are at a lower level, if you're just getting into the sport, if you're not very competitive, you don't need to be great every single movement and training every single movement all the time in order to get better as an athlete both because the level isn't as high but also because most competitions like lower level competitions are going to have some of like the very niche high skill movements that you then have to like visit often and secondly the more training that you do the more resistant to training volume and potentially intent or training volume at least you become so what it took to make it really simple like the number of rowing intervals that we used to maybe need to do in order to get an adaptation is less than what we have to do now so in basically that means that if you're an amateur you're just getting into the sport or you're in the lower levels of competition it's not only okay that you are only training once a or you're not training like in huge volumes, it's good.

1:13:58David Shorunke:Like you want to stay at that point where you're doing just enough training to get an adaptation and get better and then keep it there. And then when that stops working, you start to plateau. Then that's when you introduce a little bit more training or a little bit more intense training stimulus. And then you get the adaptation, you stay there and you keep going. And that's how that, that like gradual, slow increase of volume over time is what is sustainable. And that's what actually gets you to your main training goals. going in there twice a day battering yourself for four hours because you see the people on youtube like the top crossfit athletes doing that is not going to be sustainable and that's not what's going to get you to their best and if you told some of these athletes that like because you that love the sport and love to do the sport if you told them hey you could train two hours less and get better they would all do it nobody's going to the gym and doing an extra two hours of training for fun at that point because you're fucking knackered so while you have that very low like stimulus threshold enjoy it and take advantage of it because if you do want to stay in the sport for a long time you do want to get better there will be a time when you can't do that much training anymore you have to do more so take advantage of that now that's really cool to hear

1:15:09Marchon Coach:as well because i think like people appreciate maybe that notion in like say typical bodybuilding program with i guess kind of fairly um easy to understand progressions where you're like okay if we've got back squats in the program and what we're just going to eke out as much we're not going to worry about whether it's four weeks eight weeks 12 we're just going to keep going until progress uh is no longer seen with the back squat i think most people that are looking to you know improve muscle mass for example can maybe get their head around that and maybe not get bored about it because i just want to get stronger and build muscle when you apply to like crossfit people probably it's good for them to hear that you know consistent movements particularly because the selection, the movement kind of library is going to be smaller by default, as you've mentioned, because what they're looking to achieve doesn't require all of those movements yet.

1:15:55Marchon Coach:Or the way in which they measure their progress shouldn't be how many muscle-ups they can do yet if they can't yet do whatever it may be, strict pull-ups, for example. That might not be the right example here, but you get the idea. That's really cool to hear because I do think people think that CrossFit just needs to be chaos and variety and all these different movements straight out the gate, whereas good sound strength and conditioning principles are kind of interchangeable across every um athletic endeavor whether it's high rocks crossfit

1:16:21David Shorunke:or field-based sports um i think it's one of those sports that because of the variety you do get unfortunately people that people that like you you know you throw enough shit at a wall and some of it is going to stick and like you can go about that and you probably have maybe you have a good time doing it like it's fun for you to just train random stuff all the time but if you do want to be the best that you can be and you want to use your time efficiently strength and conditioning principles still apply and if you look at the best like the best athletes the best training programs like they are still instilling the strength and conditioning principles once you like break it down and and find your way through like the chaos of the of the cross-field programming and and what you say about like the uh you you spoke about there with hypertrophy is that is also within bodybuilding especially within more recent years where you've got more um science-based uh body building education in advance and advice.

1:17:13David Shorunke:It's again, that focus on what is going to be sustainable for the long term. I think a lot of the bodybuilding advice from 10, 20 years ago primarily came from the biggest bodybuilders, which were enhanced and still are enhanced athletes. When you are enhanced, you can sustain a much higher volume and a much higher intensity of training than you can do when you're not enhanced and that means that then when they start taking that people start taking that advice and applying it to themselves not only are they training harder than is necessarily in in order to get um gains but they're training so hard they then put themselves at a higher injury risk as well and if you just understand that like you you this is about training that you need to do in order to stimulate an adaptation and then gradually increase that over time you'll see more gains less niggles you'll probably enjoy yourself more and have a longer and more fulfilling career and journey through the sport.

1:18:11Marchon Coach:Coming away from CrossFit and talking about powerlifting then, which is what you've thrown yourself into, probably to scratch that competitive itch and just to, I think you alluded to at breakfast, really focus on top-end strength, which is something you never really had the opportunity to because of having to train for so many different things. Squat bench and deadlift, they're kind of the basics in strength training. What's your goals? So kind of a couple of parts of this question. your goals within powerlifting or why do you choose powerlifting when you're coming away from crossfit uh and then also um how beneficial are those powerlifting movements and then the complementary accessories around it to just like general fitness whether it is crossfit or anything

1:18:50David Shorunke:else okay so uh reason why i were uh gravitated toward powerlifting um first of all i just really like the movements i think of all the strength movements that i've done in crossfit uh i think it's mainly like the Olympic lifts and then the power lifts. And I feel the Olympic lifts I enjoyed. I enjoyed like the speed and the athleticism that is required to, to execute a snatch or a clean and jerk. But something about just like the, the raw grinding strength that is necessary to, to squat bench and deadlift as much as possible was like, that's what attracts me to those movements more. And I appreciate speed and I appreciate skill, but when you remove those two, and again, And it's just down to like grindy work.

1:19:33David Shorunke:That's the part that I enjoy, you know? And I think maybe that also goes back to like rowing, for instance. Like there's an ample amount of technique, but it's really like it's about who can like grind and work the most. So that's why I really like those movements. I think that for my body in terms of like where I am naturally like stiff or mobile or strong or weak, those movements just feel good for me. um i think that during crossfit because of maybe just i don't know if it's like sporting history or my genetics i found it i find it quite difficult to adapt to different things at the same time so if i use again emma for an example she's great at like she can get stronger more conditioned at the same time it steadily has over time and that's probably down to her genetics and that's probably the genetics of most elite level crossfitters like they have the ability to be able to push their body in different directions and respond to it and make gains over time whereas I found I really had to isolate one thing and then really bring down the level of something else in order to get that that same adaptation and more so with the strength and the conditioning which would just naturally rise the strength was something that I really had to to work hard on to improve so then to step away from CrossFit that's the thing that I feel like I have put the most work into and got like the least reward out of and so now I part of it was I enjoy the movements but I also um I am really interested and excited to explore how strong can I get when I don't have the interference of so much conditioning and gymnastics um stopping like interfering and stopping with some of those those adaptations and again hindsight is useful and now when I when I'm in this mindset where I'm in more of a mindset of exploration and interest and discovering to what I'm capable of I realized that had I had this mindset when I was competing that again would have led to a longer and more fulfilling career maybe not necessarily even longer but just more fulfilling I probably would have um potentially reached a higher level because I would have enjoyed it more because I've been approaching it from the sense of like instead of like I should be better and I need to get better it would have been more a case of like I wonder how good I can get like can I get better what can I achieve in this like conditioning area gymnastics of strength um so yeah it's another mindset I've gained now from powerlifting and exploring that it's really nice to be an amateur again it's very nice to be like the the lowest level of of competition which I most definitely am in Sweden when I'm getting beaten by like 59 kilo uh men uh and uh but it's also nice to take it's also nice to take the like I've still had an extensive sporting career and I've still reached like the highest level of a sport so I and there's a lot I can take from that and apply to powerlifting and I do like I naturally apply it anyway with that with very little effort like the attention that I paid to detail you're like the few meets that I've gone to and it feels it's so easy to do because I've had to have so many factors to consider in CrossFit competition whereas now I literally go up there I know what movements I'm doing how many reps I'm going to do exactly what weight I want to hit and what the movement standard is and there are people like not meeting depth on squats and like jumping the press command or bench and I'm like man like this this literally couldn't be any easier like imagine trying to do the same movement but 50 more reps when you can barely like and your judges is shouting the reps and giving you no reps sometimes you've got nine other guys in other lanes you've got the fans screaming you've got music on and then after this you've got like another 10 movements uh like it's it feels uh like uh like lazy almost the sport now um but but that's um i really enjoy it and um as far as like the the value of those movements for for everyone i think that they cover three major movement pathways that are at the basis of how we as humans move but also how like other movements that we are required to perform in life and that also relate to other movements in sport as well the ability to push yourself off of your chest or even if you're lying down to push yourself up off of the floor the ability to push someone away from you or an object away from you so again and if you yourself, you do jiu-jitsu, you appreciate like the value of like the strength to be able to push, but then also the value of the strength to be able to pull and grip, which if you're training the bench, you're also training pulling as well to complement that, the push.

1:24:08David Shorunke:So then that's going to be very beneficial for any combat sports or anything that involves grappling. Then deadlift is probably like the most obvious one, right? Like you hinge, you need to pick something up off the floor and that's probably one of the movements that are, is, is like that bending over to pick something up off of the floor is probably one of the movements that's most common for people to complain of like injuring themselves. Right. And it's not necessarily to say that like everyone needs to deadlift heavy, but say that you have, you've got one person that's got, they can deadlift 150 kilos.

1:24:41David Shorunke:You've got another dead person who could deadlift 70 kilos. One of them's going to injure their back, picking up a heavy shopping bag off the floor which one is it most likely to be right if you just give yourself that that buffer of strength it makes all of your tasks in daily life a lot less risky a lot less chance to hurt yourself but it also means that as you get older and naturally muscle breakdown becomes greater you give yourself this buffer of strength that means you can stay healthy and strong for for many years after, even if you don't retain that 150 kilo deadlift, like the fact that you just had it and you're working to keep it and you're working to train that movement pathway is going to make that movement pathway and life so much more manageable.

1:25:25David Shorunke:And then squat. Um, I think one of the, the number one predictor is in what I can't remember the term mortality or longevity, but basically at risk of death or when you're going to die was VO two max. And I think second was leg strength and if it wasn't second it's definitely very high up there and i think that that makes sense because they're very complementary right like how essentially fit you are in the rawest form and then your ability to stand up to climb upstairs to carry things potentially to run is also going to be a big contributor to like how well you're going to be able to live life and so i think the squat is another another big one another foundational movement for life and for sport as well.

1:26:09David Shorunke:And also because in our daily life, because as we are sitting down now, we've got that like 90 degree angle at the hip, 90 degree angle, we're there abouts at the knee. And we spend so much time of our adult life in that position. It's very easy to lose those ranges of motion. And it's not nice to be able to lose any range of motion in your body. Like you want to be able to, you want the ability to be able to like squat down and pick something off of the floor. You want to be able to potentially like squat down and like play with your kids and if you never visit that range of motion you leave yourself at risk of losing it and if you do visit that range of motion but you never visit it under load you put yourself in a position higher injury risk position when you do visit it so to kind of like tickle boxes hedge your bets would be to just load up the movement go through a full range of motion and then you retain that range of motion you're strong in it and again that's going to contribute to like longevity and quality of life later on.

1:27:02Marchon Coach:I love hearing people talk about fitness and what it means to them and just like their articulation of bringing it to life. I think this is why it's so exciting to bring you into the marching coaching team. I kind of intro'd you at the top and that was off the few conversations we've had over Zoom and what I've got to know of you through secondhand information. The time I've spent me today at breakfast and during this podcast, it really gives me confidence that it's going to be an incredible journey together with having you on the coaching team, being able to tap into your mind and the way you think about fitness and you be able to impart your knowledge on both as an athlete, a competitor, but also the discipline that you've built over all these years.

1:27:41Marchon Coach:What attracts, I know I came to you kind of in a headhunting type manner. David, do you want this job? But what attracts you about Martian and what do you hope to bring to, not necessarily the methodology, but I guess just like the programming? I mean, I'm not talking detail here, but what do you bring to the company and what do you want to try and tap into and maybe explore more for yourself as well in terms of this stage of your career as both an athlete, but probably more relevant as a coach. And I think we'll use that as kind of our closing bit. So I think what's attracted me,

1:28:15David Shorunke:apart from you headhunting me, is quite obvious to me early on and it's become more apparent as I've learned more about yourself and Charlie, the rest of the March on team and also like the company itself and how you put yourselves out on media and like how you communicate with members that you are clearly, it's more than just a training app or a team or a group of people working together in a company. Like it's very clear that you're trying to build something here, something like all encapsulated in the way you can provide a service that spans everything from powerlifting, from strength, all the way like through the hybrid sports to more endurance specific that you're trying to provide you're trying to create a service that can help people meet meet any strength conditioning goal no matter where on the spectrum that it is and also create a team of people who are it almost feels like a team of like of leaders right and it it does feel quite it feels special compared to other potential like coaching brands or teams that I've worked with before because it's clear that the goal here is that the bar is set quite high in terms of like what you're trying to create.

1:29:33David Shorunke:I think that's something that's attracted me as well. I think that in terms of what I would like out of March on is to learn more about something that I'm very bad with is as we spoke about at breakfast is that I feel I have the knowledge and the experience to help people achieve their health and their fitness goals and those who are already on that journey to help make that journey smoother and faster, more efficient. I'm not so good at communicating that. And I think that's something that Marchand does very well through the app, through your coaching in gyms and through the app on social media, media in general.

1:30:11David Shorunke:Very good at capturing the audience attention and giving them valuable, meaningful information and inviting them to be part of a community of people who are on this fitness journey together, as opposed to just like a quick fix that's not really going to solve your problem. And so that's something that I want to get better at and learn how to communicate better with people. And what I feel I can bring is probably like everything that we've discussed in this podcast, which is like my experience as an athlete, being in the trenches, going through what has worked, to what has not worked and then being able to take that and bring it to other members of the team to help within their own coaching of their own aspects of March On to our members that are on the compete program, on the perform program or any program on March On because I think that there are athletes who are, they go through their athlete journey and they, because they're not that way inclined in terms of like invested in the process, they come away from it, not maybe picking up as many of the coaching skills as they could or there's athletes that are particularly gifted and they just sail through movements and they learn things really quickly and like they it's just not it's not tough for them to do that like where they put their effort in is the work and whereas I and the the good side of that is that you go through athletic career and like maybe you don't encounter as many hurdles you've got different types of hurdles whereas for myself like I did find like the skill acquisition of things very difficult I did find it quite difficult to adapt to doing certain things And when you find things difficult, you then learn the process of solving those problems, which you can then take as a skill to apply to other people.

1:31:51David Shorunke:So for all of the things that I've really struggled with, I'm thankful because I now have the skill to solve that problem that I can then apply to other people and help make that problem less of a hurdle and the solution come much, much faster.

1:32:08Marchon Coach:so powerful i mean it's so rare to find someone in fitness who's competed at your level but also think so critically and diligently about programming and helping others so i consider myself very lucky um with having you join us i know i've talked very highly of you but i mean everything i've said so far uh i think the team are very excited about having you on board we've built a team of leaders as you've alluded to and people that have specific skill sets in different topics around fitness. And the ability to everyone sit around the table, challenge each other's thoughts, beliefs, and just level up and be so open to it.

1:32:41Marchon Coach:It's something that's been very special for us, but also enables us to keep moving at the pace in which we want to, and also reach the potential that I believe we have. So I'm sure we'll do a V2 of the podcast, but it's been very good getting to know you. Hopefully the listeners have enjoyed it. They'll be seeing lots more of you. And thank you very much. Thank you very much for having me.