DENSE UPDATES | MAYHEM CLASSIC GIVEAWAY WINNER | QUARTERFINALS | NEW PODCAST |

0:00Hey, y'all. We are back with another dense update. This update is sponsored by Biomax peptides. Here we go. Quarter final workouts have been announced. And although the competition hasn't yet started, doesn't officially start until 3 p.m. Eastern time today. There is already some mixed emotions about some of the changes this year. You don't have to enter a password before you can do the workout. But if you want to qualify for the semi-finals, you still have to prove you didn't do the workout prior to 3 p.m. today, which is a little bit confusing. The only way you're going to be able to do that is through video, but you don't have to upload a video with your score to the website. So I guess there's an unofficial thing that kind of quarter final starts today. Like, I don't really understand what you've been 1,000% do the workout today and post your score. And no one will ever know.

1:01You only have to provide a video if you're going to earn any prize money. Although Ben Smith posted this to his Instagram, reminding everybody that if you do want to qualify for semi-finals, you should be videoing your workouts just in case they ask for a video. Shut up and scribble as well as get with the programming, broke down the quarter final workouts. What do you think about that? What do you think about that loading? Like for the population and for the best? I think 115. I think for the best, it's basically 95 pounds. And I think for the population is probably a good weight. 40 overhead squats at speed. Right. The second set of 20 after the fast burpees will hurt. Yeah, to look at what the open was and then look at the quarter finals and thinking that it's stacking that now out of seven events, did we really test? And I think, like, I don't know how to look at the quarters right now. Do I look at it as seven events? Or do I look at it as four events that are

2:02being tested? Because it's really difficult, especially when some of the events are very similar to what we did in the open. Like, it makes it really hard to me for me. Scott Switzer and Corey Leonard were on the lunch show on Clyde's Dome Media and they were talking about the workouts as well. Some mixed emotions there. Corey Leonard pretty opinionated about it. And Scott, given him a little bit of pushback, Corey saying, you know, this is the open part two. Yo, dog, we heard you like the open. So we gave you another open after your open is basically what my thoughts are. These four tests would have made fantastic open tests. There's no skill aside from the bar muscle up. I don't give a shit with anybody says a handstand push up is not a skill. And Corey's argument is there's no high skill and there's no real heavy load in the quarter finals workout. I do not think these are good tests to get people to semi finals with the fact that nobody has to submit a video. But to Scott Switzer's point, these are still going to get the fittest

3:02people to the semi finals. We are so hyper critical of everything that is put out instead of saying, this is the challenge in front of me. And this is what I have to do to move on. There's always going to be people in the space that say, oh, the quarters is just a money grab and entirely pointless all together, which I get that argument. It can be made because from 2011 to 2018, open five weeks, regionals, games, nobody ever really contested that we weren't getting the fittest people to the CrossFit games. That format worked for many, many, many years. And the open continued to grow for many, many, many years. I personally like that format better. I liked that the regions were locked. I liked that everybody had to do the same workouts across all of the regions, regardless if some of the regions got to see other people do it first. The only thing I maybe would have done differently back in the day is after regionals was complete, that they used the worldwide layer board to advance people to the CrossFit games. Now, some games athletes are choosing

4:05to live stream their quarterfinal workouts. I know the boys interrupted mentioned that they are going to be live streaming. For those of you guys that are wondering, we are going to be live streaming all the events on boys interrupted on this channel. So if you guys don't want to miss those, subscribe, hit that little notification button. And then on the CrossFit Games podcast, Colton Mertens, Lucy Campbell, we're on with Dave Castro and Chase Ingram. And Colton Mertens mentioned that he is working on a live stream. He is going to be at proven. Hey, well, you're pulling him up. I got a question for Colton. Is it true you're doing them? Are you going to do them stream them all? Do them live too? We're working on it. And Lucy, would you like to do that on our CrossFit channel? Would you like to stream them live and we'll host it? Or where are you? Are you doing it out of camp? I'm doing it with my coach and Manchester. I have to ask permission not entirely sure on the details with that. But Alex Kazan, Alexis Raptis and Fisagoffee announced their first podcast episode will air tonight live

5:07on the girls unfiltered YouTube channel. It actually went live the other night. And it was Alexis Raptis, Fisagoffee and Grant keeping it real. This person says, I think I will go too bad. See you on Thursday. And this is getting deleted too. Nobody is going to know about this except for the people who end up here for the two minutes that we're going to stay here. They're basically just testing the mic, testing features. That has since been deleted. You can't go back and watch it on their YouTube. But I did also see they have another stream up and they are going to be live streaming the quarterfinal workouts. If fee and Alexis will be doing the workouts and Alex Kazan will be on commentary. I also noticed in the description of that live stream that they are going to have some special guest commentators. So that should be exciting. If you have not already subscribed to their YouTube channel, you should go ahead and do that. On this week's most recent, we can review with Dave Castro. He talked about games tickets which have officially gone on sale. He also mentioned that the athletes are going to be

6:08getting codes as well. So if you have a favorite athlete go look at their Instagram, they're going to be promoting those. And for every ticket sold, they will get a portion of the proceeds. I'm pretty sure they did this last year. He also mentioned they have their first graduate of the new remote online L4 program. We've had our first person finish all the components of it. Submit his video and get his result back. And that was a long time CrossFit trainer and coach Dusty Highland. Dave got into some viewer comments and there was one in there about AI and using AI for judging review. I think if there was the ability for AI to look at videos and no rep and give reps and 100% be accurate, yeah, that'd be a great way. That'd be a great expression of it for the future. Basically, everyone would have to submit a video. If you have not checked that out, that is about 19 minutes long that is on Dave Castro's

7:08YouTube channel. And speaking of AI, if you haven't been living under a rock and you've been on Instagram lately, the most professional news source in the space, the Barbell Spin, used the news platform to throw a bit of a temper tantrum. I guess he didn't like that Sevan Matosian called another news source, the most fastest reliable news source. He even called it AI Slop. And then he came after me saying, it's no wonder dense updates, acts like she isn't behind CF Network News. I wouldn't want to be either, which is interesting because he hasn't reached out to me to ask me who's behind CF Network News.com. He hasn't sent anyone that works on his team to ask me if I'm behind CF Network News.com. I mean, come on, Spin, if you're going to take shots, you better aim for my head because you better believe I'm always wearing a bulletproof vest. It's interesting though, you're calling AI Slop, but if you look at the Barbell Spin's website over the years, it's pretty much not evolved

8:15since what the 1980s when he first made it. Come on, bro, get with the times. Not to mention the grammatical errors and word redundancy and things like that. I mean, even in one of his most recent articles and finished a sentence, the second stage of the 2026 CrossFit Games season is upon. Do you have any grapefruit on? It is upon what? Upon who? I mean, if you're going to go after AI Slop, you better make sure you are not human Slop. CrossFit Games athlete Toby Bucklin posted this to his story on Instagram. The phrase, everyone seems to be coming back to is cheating and they should be held in the same regard with the same punishment. Here's my thing with this. If you're going to put out here, what if I was to say, I actually know, just say who it is. He goes on to say, some athletes had training cycles for such workouts more than three weeks prior

9:17to the Games, whereas other athletes, myself included, were notified of the workout the night before they took place. Should these athletes and training camps be held in the same regard as doping video editing score manipulation or more? And hence, should they, too, receive a four-year ban? He tags Taylor, self-the-bar most spend and hiller fit. You're going to have people are going to read it to this and say, okay, well, it's not that surprising because CrossFit workouts do get leaked. Some people are just going to say, well, Toby's Maddie took 27th at the CrossFit Games. But if you actually know of a camp and people who have the workouts and you can prove it, just say it. If you know who leaked it to them, say it. Show us. I'm sure Dave Castro would love to know all the people on his team that he can and can't not trust because then he can fire him and send him to go work over at the WFP. Okay. Now, let's get into our Mayhem Classic weekend pass giveaway. One lucky winner has been selected from the last dance updates. And the winner is Wade

10:22Harris. Congratulations, Wade. Please reach out to me on Instagram. If for some reason Wade is not able to use the full weekend pass, I will choose another winner from that comment section. So make sure you like and subscribe to the YouTube channel. That way, you can always be notified for the next dance update.