Mike Lee is the Director of Coaching at OPEX – and he’s worked with some pretty big names in the competitive CrossFit community like Tennil Reed, Marcus Filly and Amanda Goodman.

I met Mike at one of the OPEX CCP Level 2 courses a few years back, and – since then – he’s gone on to take over the coaching of most of the competitive athletes in OPEX’s system.

This year, OPEX has also brought several sponsored athletes onsite to train at their HQ in Scottsdale, Arizona (which we discussed in this previous podcast with Megan Benzik and Austin O’Neal).

Mike and I get into the nitty gritty of:

  • How to manage egos, emotions and social dominance in groups of highly competitive athletes (Hint: it’s not all the hugs and high fives that you see on Instagram)
  • The difference between real coaching (allowing athletes to take responsibility for their own results) and play-acting as a coach (lots of emotion and screaming and overly detailed instructions)
  • The process and best practices for training the elite of the elite

Listen Here

Check out more from Mike and OPEX

Show Notes

  • [01:55] The emergence of dominance heirarchies in groups of competitive athletes
  • [07:55] How do you prevent competitive athletes from going too hard in training when they’re training together?
  • [14:22] Qualification in CrossFit is a zero-sum game – how do you communicate with your athletes surrounding that?
  • [21:57] People who are good in the sport of CrossFit are probably going to be good no matter what they do.
  • [24:49] How do you balance minimum effective dose with maximum tolerable dose in training for CrossFit Games competitors?
  • [21:57] How do you prevent being beaten regularly in training from becoming psychologically damaging for individuals?
  • [36:33] How coaches are actually supportive – and weird fake coaching” behavior”
  • [43:33] Being forcefully reprimanded by Charles Poliquin
  • [48:50] How do you continue to learn and evolve your prescriptions in a sport like CrossFit that is relatively young?
  • [54:33] How much sport specific training is necessary for success in the sport of CrossFit?
  • [01:02:47] What is the role of innate genetic potential in the development of a CrossFit athlete?
  • [01:12:55] How to find out more about OPEX.

Links and Resources Mentioned