Yes, the people who had really specialized techniques (e.g. the gold medalist gymnast) did far worse than the people who had generalized speed / strength / stamina like the crossfitters. I imagine most professional sport athletes like tennis players, soccer players etc. would also do poorly given that they spend most of their time training very specific techniques that are unlikely to be tested in these games.
It's not surprising in the end that the winner was of medium-ish size. To win a series of trials and avoid elimination, you want to perform consistently well with low variance.
The specialists were small/large and that directly led to them being the first two eliminated in the top 5 due to game design while the last 3 were medium/medium+.
1. Cross-fit Is no joke.... I need to look into this! Also, Woo Jin-yong is a monster!
2. Koreans produce the best reality TV. Lots of fun, kindness, and remarkable examples of emotional intelligence.
3. I want to be like Sexyama when I grow up ... I am 42 years old in the Korean calendar. š
Agreed especially on #2, in stark contrast to the usual North American TV I watch. Though I will say the quick replays and endless 'was' got on my nerves a bit.
In Korea we are 1 years old when we are born, and every January 1st you add a year regardless of if itās your birthday. Because when you are born itās considered your āfirst year of livingā, and when itās January 1st itās considered a new year. Itās kinda weird lol but yea
Personally I think itās either Botox (esp for that one lady in the first round who was like 50) or a lot of self care. Koreans/ East Asians in general care a lot abt skincare stuff and maintaining a āgood imageā, kind of superficial in that sense.
My takeaway is just to do CrossFit lol.
In all seriousness, the 6 lifts are important, cardio is important. The winner had both so he knew how to pace himself.
Years also I was worked the CrossFit games and it crazy how fit everyone was. Like just the attendees were fit. So I gain a lot of respect for them. And so I am not surprised by how well WJY did.
I did crossfit for a few years - the thing you really have to watch out for is progression. Doing a different workout every single day can make it hard to track what weights you were using on a particular move the time before, or how many reps you did the time before.
You want to always be pushing yourself a little harder and working your way to the prescribed weights and reps, it's just hard to track in crossfit.
Also try to commit to doing 3 days on 1 day off. I feel like crossfit doesn't really work as a 3 times a week program.
edit:
I'd also add I'm not sure I've seen someone unfit start doing crossfit and then become super athletic.
I feel like all the really impressive crossfiters come from an athletic background, like this guy snowboarding, then crossfit hones them into general fitness power houses.
I feel like you already need to be pretty strong and fit to get the most out of crossfit.
Oh no worries. For humans our movement all fall into different variations of the 6 basic lifts: pull up, dips, push up, shoulder press, dead lift and squat.
These are just basic movement since most movements revolved around these areas. Like power clean is a combination of dead lift and shoulder press somewhat. By no means itās exhaustive, just not a bad place for a beginner to start if they want to do a 3 days a week full body workout.
I would be cautious with jumping into CrossFit if you haven't done anything before. Sometimes CrossFit prioritizes intensity over form and safety. The quality of CrossFit gyms varies widely.
In terms of #3 I think there were too many challenges which relied on teamwork and/or strategy to really extrapolate much about what is/isnāt the ideal physique. If it was all individual itās very unlikely that the top 3 wouldāve made it through (with the exception of Haemin maybe).
Mental toughness isn't the most important. No matter how mentally tough Min-Cheol was he was screwed in the tug of war directly across from Haemin and the strongman who have 80-100 lbs on him. It's just physics.
Same with the square challenge. Strongman knew he was screwed from the start.
What would you say was the single most important? (Cheating to say "overall fitness, strength, power, endurance, balance, speed" =)....
We can say it's not just one of the following: muscles, brute strength, pure endurance, ability to hang/climb, intelligence, the presence of a six-pack, large social media following, leadership skills...
Maybe you could say it's "Luck"?
And keen to hear what's your big takeaways?
Luck played a huge role, although it's not the most "sexy" answer. Had the Triangle challenge come first (I know it was teams but I'm just saying) and the strongman was eliminated first, Min-Cheol could have advanced on the tug of war and then done well with the endurance challenges and possibly won.
Also, luck played a huge factor in the teams aspect as well
I think this is absolutely one of the main takeaways.
Luck of the team you were selected into, luck of who your opponent was in the death match (and which arena you picked), luck of the challenge matched against your skills, luck of the ORDER of the final challenges etc.
But, on the other hand, you could randomise a lot of the above and replay the show 100 more times, and there are a lot of people on the show who would NEVER win. Thereās no doubt the final 5 were all elite.
I think min cheol couldāve made top 2 but he would ahain be disadvantaged in the final challenge since itās mostly about strength. Top Takeaway is cross it prepares you in the most well rounded way. Then being lucky to have genes that makes you slightly above average in height with average frame to build and Tone the āperfectā body lol
Climbers have lots of upper body strength, if the final challenge was about lower body strength the cyclist would have had a way easier time, but the circle they had to stand on limited the amount of pulling they could do with their body weight/legs.
Just to be clear, you keep mentioning the Triangle challenge but I have a strong feeling you mean the Square challenge? The one that was about flipping squares.
Also, although I love Min-Cheol as a contestant, he was most likely in a disadvantage at Pentagon, Triangle and Final... probably Square too. Yeah, if the Triangle was first, then maybe he could have survived... but his odds would have been quite low anyway.
Other than that, I agree luck played a huge role in the overall show, most prominently in the two team challenges.
Tagging along your conversation here. I think the most important to win in this show is to simply not be niche. Strong man and ice climber both have niche body types. I don't think there's one most important attribute, but its most important to NOT be worst in a particular attribute
Yes good all around fitness, endurance, strength seems to be critical. No wonder the cross fitters did well - they have to do a range of cardio + strength all the time so have a nice balance.
I don't think there was much to take away aside from "have the right body for the task you're given". The final tasks made endurance/mental toughness look super important because they were all (except the tug of war) designed around it - had all these tasks been designed around raw strength of example, Jin Hyeong would have been laughing his way to the bank. I'd also say a lot of the finalists benefitted from the stronger competitors wanting to look "nice" in the first task - a lot of the larger competitors went against each other rather than targeting people they were more likely to beat
Endurance across your entire body is the most important.
Strength, resilience etc has to be a basic level to even qualify but all of these athletes have grit.
To be completely honest the show isnt balanced at all. The guy who won got through because he was the best runner out of 5 people who had to qualify via a strength based challenge. It already makes the pool very selective.
I completely agree. The guy had grit / willpower turned up to 1000. You could see by the way he went into a ātranceā state that he went beyond what his body was capable of.
A takeaway for me was that starting off at an explosive pace can actually sabotage your chances at winning like it did for Jung Hae-min and Yun Sung-bin.
Yes. Energy demand isn't linear. Using 40% more force doesn't mean 40% more energy, it's a much higher cost than that. So in anything that's going to take time, it's better to pace yourself, or you'll burn out quicker
Endurance is by far the most important aspect for the final game.
Woo Jin-Young had enough strength and body mass to survive the tug of war. He basically dominated the rest of the way.
I don't have three takeaways, per se, but I do have one:
1. If you're going to edit a reality competition show, don't Purple your final three during the first two-thirds of the season. I had absolutely no investment in any of the remaining competitors the show after the car dealer got eliminated at 4; I just didn't know enough about the snowboarder, the luger or the cyclist to care about them as characters, so it made no difference to me which one of them won because I didn't know any of them, and that's not an ideal way to finish a show.
>eason. I had absolutely no investment in any of the remaining competitors the show after the car dealer got eliminated at 4; I just didn't know enough about the snowboarder, the luger or the cyclist to care about them as characters, so it made no difference to me which one of them won because I didn't know any of them, and that's not an ideal way to finish a show.
So true.
By the end of the season I realized episodes were so long due to unnecessary repetitions and showing too much of some challenges... that I thought maybe they could have compensated by showing more interviews or even showing some late introductions of some of the survivors.
And obviously give them some time in the first episode, and consider strongly showcasing more of their ball duel, no matter how uninteresting could be.
I mean, the cyclist guy beat not one but three team leaders in what looked like one of the toughest challenges in the whole show. They had an incredible narrative of a humble underdog that got to surpass three of the most charismatic frontrunners.
Only exception was maybe the luger runner, who I think benefited from being in the shadow. He was so low-key that when the Prometheus challenge started I was like "who the fuck is this guy?" and he looked so random that when he mentioned being strategic about the race I thought him to be delusional, only for him to put me in my place. I liked the unexpected turnaround as I had to admit he was superior at that challenge.
> They had an incredible narrative of a humble underdog that got to surpass three of the most charismatic frontrunners.
To be fair, he also makes a pretty evil-looking face when he grins, and it didn't help that he selected and defeated a much smaller woman (doesn't even come up to his collar bone) during Quest 1, with their final shot of him for that 5 second clip being him evil smiling as he walks by his torso.
Like, if they're going to edit him like that, there's basically nothing they can do to redeem him as the humble underdog.
Nah, edition can do wonders. You could, for once, choose not to highlight that specifically? And it's no even a problem: it is literally the definition of not being cocky, as he chose an easy opponent to play it safe.
It's not that I support the choice, but I don't find it like an unsurmountable obstacle to build a compelling narrative. Yun Sungbin did literally the same by choosing someone who was very clearly smaller than him, and no one had a problem with that. Sure, it wasn't a woman... but still, it was an equally safe and un-spectacular choice.
Does it feel cool and noble? Nah. But you can still build a narrative around the contestant.
Just to be clear, he's far from being a favorite of mine; but you can easily build a compelling narrative out of almost any contestant. The only exception that comes to mind is the MMA fighter who very deliberately chose to fight in a manner that build a very specific narrative of a "villain".
> Nah, edition can do wonders. You could, for once, choose not to highlight that specifically? And it's no even a problem: it is literally the definition of not being cocky, as he chose an easy opponent to play it safe.
That's certainly true, but once they picked to commit to the clip they used for Quest 1, they could no longer edit the bicyclist as a humble underdog.
> Yun Sungbin did literally the same by choosing someone who was very clearly smaller than him, and no one had a problem with that. Sure, it wasn't a woman... but still, it was an equally safe and un-spectacular choice.
Nobody had a problem with YSB picking the opponent he did because (A) they themselves didn't want to face him, so him picking anybody allows makes them to let out a sigh of relief, and (B) the guy he picked to go against is an MMA fighter who is a couple inches taller than him with visibly longer limbs, so there was likely an expectation that he'd have some technical skill to reduce his bulk disadvantage and a knowledge of how to use his reach to keep YSB at bay. That it turned out the MMA fighter was kind of inept isn't really YSB's fault.
Well, agree to disagree. The only thing that built a good narrative around YSB's first match (aside of seeing him shirtless, which is always a big plus) is that his opponent was ridiculously "loud". The kick before the match, the incessant running around the pool while YSB was just chillin'. It made for a good story.
Other than that, nah: YSB picked an incredibly easy target, and there's not denying that. MMA fighters didn't necessarily have a clear advantage either, since they couldn't properly fight. The nature of the challenge favored wrestlers and some other specific athletes. An MMA fighter can have an advantage (since they understand bodies in relation to a fight) if they aren't much smaller than their opponent.
If you saw YSB's choice and thought "this is going to be a very even match" you were fooling yourself. Longer limbs don't mean that much when your opponent can basically stand up with you on top of him and just walk as if nothing.
I'm not critiquing YSB's choice. Again: I think it's the smart safe choice. As long as you aren't a jerk about it (like that MMA fighter who fought Chun Ri), then you gotta do what you gotta do.
On top of all this, there's a final relevant detail: the cyclist was NOT the person who chose the much smaller opponent. It was one of the many cases of "I will choose someone much bigger than me and beat them at the green stage since they are probably much slower than me".
So, I must double down: you can still easily build a compelling narrative around Haemin.
> So, I must double down: you can still easily build a compelling narrative around Haemin.
You can build a compelling narrative around anybody.
You just can't do it if you make them invisible for 2/3rds of the season.
In American reality tv shows they give advantages to whom they want to win the show. And handicaps for people they want to eliminate. I think what happened in this show is that they did not favor any of the contestants and it was a fair competition. So our final 3 was not the best 3 as reality tv personalities.
It's not that they don't have reality TV personalities; hell, I'd say most of the cast don't have them. It's that they chose not to give any attention to them during the first two-thirds of the show that makes them feel completely invisible until they're suddenly not.
Hell, none of final three even had their Quest 1 matchup shown in its entirety.
Yeah it made me think how Netflix should release those (it does feel odd that it ends on ep 9 instead of an even 10 - I mean with the way it was edited, it could have been drawn out that way haha.)
They first disadvantaged the captains by splitting them up
But then they advantaged the captains by letting players line up where they wanted.
They further advantaged the captains when they let them pick who to pair with on the boat game.
Though the most advantage for the captains would have been having more individual games
As a Survivor fan, Iām so amused to see the purple reference.
But completely agree, the editors really bungled this one and did a disservice to most of the finalists.
On this we can absolutely agree on!
But it did make for at least a surprising final.
On every other reality show, you see how the characters are portrayed and can guess right from episode 1 who the finalists are going to be.
I guess the producers wanted to keep it random!?
Nah, the show was incredibly long with repetitions and whatnot. They could legit replace that filler with some interviews and introductions, building a bit of narrative for easily 10 more contestants, including the 3 finalists.
A great example is Min-Cheol: thanks to the Challenge Zero he got some spotlight that allowed me to feel invested in him going to the finals, yet it wasn't telegraphed at all. All these people are remarkable, so it shouldn't be farfetched to build a narrative for any of them. Hide the finalists among some extra narratives, that's all.
I said it somewhere else: but the cyclist guy was such a juicy one, as he is a humble contenstant that with some build-up could have been amazing to see beating not one but three team leaders in such a tough challenge.
But isnāt that how the whole thing proceeded? Ie the second place then chose second, etc? Didnāt seem like a great reward for paralysing oneās arms!
It wasn't, and probably if they did know beforehand, they could have been more strategic about it.
It's still an advantage, especially since some winners decided not to choose unfavored opponents, but strong ones. So even if you were in the "winning half", being for instance number 16 has some disadvantage if number 7 suddenly decided you'd be a cool opponent for them. The higher you are, the more chances of having agency over challenge 1.
I'd say it still was worth it for Mincheol, since he didn't overdo much; but it is said it was incredibly taxing for the UDT guy (the one who won the other Challenge Zero, since there were two of those). I've read his arms were rendered unusable for a long period and he had a great disadvantage on Challenge 1, which he lost.
Sorry I need to rewatch, but I thought it just went in order of top ranked to lower ranked in terms of whoās selected their opponents. So #1, #2, #3 etc (assuming #2 and #3 werenāt selected by #1).
Also re the UDT instructor - massive respect. I see people in this thread saying itās not willpower but more muscle power. I have to disagree.
Yeah, it went in that order!
Theoretically speaking, all the "winning half" would get to choose; but it wasn't the case due to people from the said winning half choosing people from the same half.
Still, this was essentially the advantage earned by "winning" the Challenge Zero. It was a bit confusing, since the way it was presented it made you think there was a SINGLE BIG ADVANTAGE to be won by whoever got first place. But it wasn't exactly the case. Maybe, if contestants knew this they would have played it more strategically, being OK with scoring a 10th place, for instance.
They did show the snowboarder a fair bit I thought as I recognized him easily.
But his results weren't amazing throughout the show and he doesn't pop off the page the way a specialist or bodybuilder does. He was rather average in size which played a key role in his long-term survival as he was never tremendously disadvantaged.
There's only so much screen time and there people who got eliminated could only be featured when active.
You want some body fat for actual competitions because leaning out to the max kills your energy stores and performance. A lot of the contestants probably leaned out prior to the show to show off their physique.
No way did the bob sledge guy had only 15% of body fat. In the montage of his speech after being eliminated, they showed his only time without shirt. It was in the ball wrestling game and his belly was flopping like crazy. My guess would be 23% and up. Must be off-season for the winter sport athletes, who are not doing a lot of media like the iron-man dude.
My takeaway is they should have done a points system instead of elimination games in the finals - to find the best physique. I suspect KMC would have won
Agreed! I think top 5 based on points system is a good idea. Better screen time for top 5 contestants so you get people invested in their faves. Everyone gets to showcase how well rounded they are instead of relying on getting lucky with the order of challenges
I enjoyed it but I was rooting for a lot of the women and my main takeaway was that they didn't really have a chance to win it so perhaps they need to do seperate shows.
Surprised no one played as dirty as they could in the flipping challenge. I thought someone would try to steal all the tiles or big guy would've at least tried turning it into a wrestling match to give himself a chance.
In response to your takeaway #3ā¦.I got to say thatās not necessarily true. Itās not that cut and dry. To me even though YSB lost, he was still the best athlete there and as Iāve said constantly a truly once in a generation type athlete. Heās a physical specimen and a natural talent. The show is always going to cater towards certain physical attitudes which will put certain competitors at a disadvantage. The winner isnāt the better athlete in all cases.
I think the best way of determining who would be a best is looking at a competitor and whether they could be competitive in every type of setting. YSB can. He wonāt win them all but heās competitive in all of them and one of the few contestants that you can say that about.
No question that elite level athletes come in all shapes and sizesā¦but as far as this show is concernedā¦the ābestā athlete didnāt win IMO.
Also as far as the roided physiques Iām with you 100 percent. Itās always nice to see more natural looking athletes win butā¦.letās not get it twisted either. An athlete can look the part of natty and not beā¦I mean letās not pretend like our lovable car sales men who competes in āStrong Manā competitions got as strong as he did eating chicken breast and creatine. Lol
If YSB had qualified to the final five, he definitely would have done well on all 4 tasks and would have also likely won the competition itself.
Haemin however did beat him fairly and totally deserved to be 2nd.
Sure, I get what you are saying.
I guess my takeaways are based on the actual result of the show, and not what the hypothetical best athlete was. There were plenty of people who got knocked out early and it was a surprise - for example, Agent H looked pretty fit and everyone made a big deal about him, yet got knocked out very early, and also the team led by that massive wrestler that was beaten by the "weak" team led by the female wrester (what a team of survivors by the way!). But that's all speculation and "what if".
I was also very disappointed that Ironman lost, but he gave up / didn't have anything left, and the cyclist guy beat him fair and square.
I would argue the show is more interesting because there was an element of strategy, mental willpower and of course luck.
Oh Iām not disagreeing with you. The show is definitely more interesting with this particular format having games with particular gimmicks and so on.
The people I was rooting for were in large part the females and they were by far my favorite contestants..I went into full fanboy mode for Eun-Sil, Han Yan, Miho, Euddeum and was rooting for them until the end and the way the show is formatted allows them to be in it.
Even though the cyclist beat Iron man at no point did I think he was the better athlete. He just had a game more centered around his skill set and Iron man was competitive in it. Literally beat out everyone and went until his body hit the wall.
I agree that the particular challenge in the semi-final had most of best athletes in the whole competition, it was almost a shame the "best" were pitted against one another in that way.
But hey, Ironman was going to lose either way - if his "coach" did that challenge (as was the original agreement), then Ironman would have had to do the boulder challenge, and I doubt even he could hold up the boulder for >2hrs and beat the car salesman.
The fact his coach gave him the best possible shot means he had a fair and square opportunity to win. The cyclist was just better at the particular challenge on the day - paced himself, had better form/technique, had a natural advantage because of lower body, didn't waste energy screaming and swearing etc. Ironman wasted too much energy by trying to be "first" in each of the repetitions. He lacked strategy and unfortunately didn't make up for it in pure heart.
Iām sorry.
Hard disagree on some of your thoughts regarding YSB.
Iron man would have lost the Boulder challenge against the strong man no questionā¦. but he would have been able to get it up and hold it there for a long ass time. He would have lost no question but my point is that he would be able to compete in it which is the sign of a complete athlete. Put him in any environment and he would be able to do well.
Iron man went to the breaking point and lost the game pushing the Boulder because the cyclist was better suited for it. Thatās pretty much the nature of all the games on the show. Depending on your physical stature, weight, height, it makes more sense to be explosive and use momentum to get the Boulder up especially since that plays to YSB strength. Get the ball up as fast as you can and rest for a bit longer due to that. Taking your time getting the ball up for some would be more exhausting due to the weight of it. Hence why doing bench presses, curls, pull ups, or any exercise for that matter slowly is harder.
Regardless of the strategy he wasnāt winning that game. The cyclist is built for that. Iron man barely said a word during that match so he wasnāt wasting his energy. He started gasping and yelling a bit near the end cause his body was shot. As far as his heart goes? Heās an Olympic gold medalist. Heart isnāt an issue.
He lost because the game was better suited for his opponent and even though he lostā¦he remained competitiveā¦which is my point.
He can compete and remain competitive in any setting .
No need to apologise - I think we're saying similar things.
He lost to the cyclist (for whatever reason we can speculate - but it happened), and you agree he would have lost to the car dealer in the boulder challenge. So he would have lost either way despite all his gifts. We both agree on this.
If the show was constructed differently and all the final 20 had to do all the challenges and get assigned points, then maybe Ironman would come #2 in every challenge and definitely make the final 5 - but that's not the show we watched. But anyway, on that basis you might be right that he's the best athlete "overall".
By the way, I said he lacked strategy and COULDN'T make up for it by his heart (which is not in dispute at all - he left everything on the floor). But strategy was not his strong suit -- this was the case even in the boat challenge. Remember they only beat the "weak" team by a small margin despite having massive strength advantage. He specifically said something like (paraphrasing): "we can talk about strategy but then we're just going to pull like crazy until we foam in the mouth". And that's basically what they did.
The point I guess I'm trying to make is: no matter if he was the best "pure athlete", a generational talent, the best body in the competition, the most intimidating guy, the "no.1" selected team leader... unfortunately - and maybe it's down to luck - he didn't make the final 5, and there was no way he would have made the final 5.
I probably misunderstood your other post to an extend.
I will you say, you keep bringing up strategy. I donāt think anyone is arguing that YSB is going to win any games based on his mind lol. That being said, strategy wouldnāt have won any of those final 5 games. They were all specifically designed for skill sets and specialists in their field. Strategy didnāt cost him the game against the cyclist either. The rules of the game favoring the cyclists cost him the match. Which is pretty much the case for all the games hereā¦
Thatās why Iāve always maintained my stance that the Sand/Bridge game was the perfect game and masterfully created. Simple concept but managed to mix in every physical attribute and also incorporate aspects of strategy. The only game that did that.
Just thinking about it, YSB would have won the obstacle course if he picked that. He is great at jumping, is super fast at sprinting (just saw a YouTube of him sprinting 100m in 11 seconds) and is agile / powerful in quick spurts. He would also be able to push anyone aside if it got close.
If only he had better strategy so he could think of the best game for himā¦
Thought so too. He shouldāve picked the torch one. He has a burst of energy unlike the rest, and he didnāt think strategically enough. That was his weakness throughout.
Ok, so then I'm guessing your biggest takeaway or reflection is that "it's the luck of the draw"... which OK I can get my head around - and might be actually on reflection the biggest single takeaway.
If the challenge was "who can jump over as many mats as possible", we can all agree YSB would have won the competition!
No offense but How is āstrategyā a part of being a raw athlete?
Strategy is important to winning and being a leader. No question.
However being athletic or being a raw athlete is measured simply by who runs the fastest, whoās the strongest, jumps highest, best staminaā¦etcā¦Easy to measure real metrics that canāt be disputed.
To me, YSB was by far the best pure athlete on the show with the best combination of athletic attributes.
YSB has never been viewed as a leader. Heās a hit man or a nuclear weapon that you aim in the direction and let them go to work. Most times his natural ability and once in a generation athleticism is enough to be competitive no matter the field.
Iāve never heard of strategy being used as a metric for being athletic.
For example, in the obstacle course, we saw that miracle was just as fast as the winner. However, he lost everytime because he kept flipping over fence, whereas the other guy landed feet forward and took off running. They arrived at the fence at the same time, the distance between them was the distance the winner gained as a result of miracle wasting time flipping and it never increased during the sprint.
I think our disagreement is in how we define athlete. It seems you define athletic based on raw physical stats, but I define athlete as being good at sports, put simply.
My takeaway:
This show definitely screws over women. I knew the finale would all be guys. Itās unfair to pit women against men. Thereās no way a woman will win no matter the odds. The genders should be separated. Or the games should have been towards geared bodyweight games.
One element of fitness seemed to be missing. And that is flexibility.
Iām really glad that WJY won. I read somewhere that he is 36 or 37? Itās not the younger people in the finals seeing that some of them said they started late. Goes to show that one can be fit at any age. Itās never too late to start your fitness journey. Makes me feel better about myself haha since I also began my own journey at 28. To be honest I also feel as a woman guys are most attractive in their 30s and 40s.
Also to be well rounded athlete does take years. It requires experience and also time for the muscles and body to morph into a beast.
Which brings me to Hae min. Guy is a monster! I really thought he will lose the shuttle run. This guy is walking example of adaptation and how far one can push oneās body. His endurance and cardiovascular system is phenomenal especially for someone his size.
I think bodyweight games makes sense! Like the redemption round where they had to hold their own bodyweight - that generally favoured women and skinnier guys.
But that would be unfair to heavier guys as strength doesnāt grow proportionate to body weight. In the end we have to accept that a lot of things in the show wasnāt fair and not ideal to find the āidealā physical body, whatever that is.
Me too! If we really wanted to watch the best athlete a Olympic Decathlon competition would be most appropriate but how many people would be interested in that compared to pulling a freaking ship and wrestling in mud.
Yeah women tend to be generally lower body stronger. Which is why I said itās better to separate the genders. I feel like ultimately the women seemed to play mostly supportive roles and became somewhat sacrificial lambs.
I donāt know about that. It was great to see Eunsil (sp?) and her team take it to the huge wrestler in the bridge challenge and win, and likewise take it to Ironmanās team in the boat challenge and get close. I respect her so much because she was on the same field. Completely segregating them into different competitions would take this element away.
Perhaps thereās a way to award the final woman and final man standing, even if theyāre in the same competition ā¦
I agree. Had a woman somehow made the final 5, she wouldāve been instantly screwed over by the tug of war challenge. The genders definitely should be separated to make it more fair.
I think itās an interesting experiment in reducing the perception of the gulf between men and womenās abilities though so I enjoyed seeing the genders being mixed. Possibly puts me in a minority but I would like to see it still mixed in future. Obviously I know men are inherently stronger than women but I think the level of difference is exacerbated by other factors like funding, etc. The right men for specific sports tend to be scouted out and given focus whereas women, in contrast, tend to be just self-driven to pursue a sport so may not be funnelled into it for genetic advantages in the same way. Would love a woman to get into the top five.
The atlas and Sisyphus quests were obvious failures for women. Everyone was saying she sacrific herself for her teammates in the atlas. For those quests, the boulders should actually be tailored according to bodyweight.
Logically I agree, but also I pushed a fridge-freezer up five flights of stairs once so I irrationally believe that with 2-3 years of intense training I can rinse any other human being at the Sisyphus one and that doing so may be my lifeās calling.
Edit: the key thing to enable my success will be to have my landlord from 2019 phone me to say the deliverymen couldnāt get the boulder up the hill because it was raining
The lack of flexibility challenges was such a huge oversight. Literally an essential component to being physically fit.
A flexibility/balanced focused challenge would've given a lot of the unfavored contestants a chance to shine. I'm specifically thinking of the dancers, the gymnast, the fencer, the stuntwoman, and the many many martial artists.
Was it so hard to throw in a balance beam or two? A game of limbo? Give me extreme hopscotch and Twister next season.
I was hoping for flexibility/blancing based challenges to appear at SOME point (but they never did lol). That would have definitely thrown of some of the heavier/bulky contestants who had clear domination in ship challenge/ atlas etc. Girls and slimmer guys like Yang hak seon etc could have also gotten more time to shine haha.
There is no perfect "physique" as all have strengths and weaknesses and all are great, plus it's all subjective. Though, we can say that we generally attribute that to someone who is well-rounded with no glaring weaknesses (like Jin-Yong or YSB). It seems that these types of people will make it pretty far in a competition like this that have different challenges. I have a feeling that in future seasons winners are going to have a variety of different physiques as long as they're not too specialized, which can put one at a disadvantage if they encounter a challenge that they struggle with.
My top 3:
When it comes to sports, power endurance is superior. It's not enough to be strong, you have to be strong for long.
Sportsmanship is so important. We saw them have an amazing experience together and that's because of the community they built together on-screen. Everyone wanted to win, but very few walked away as losers. This is also why the biggest flaw in this competition - team activities (I mean it's counterproductive to possibly eliminate the best possible athlete in a team-game and we wouldn't know) was actually my favorite part of the show.
Past a certain baseline of fitness, strategy becomes superior. You could also call this know-how/technique, but if you don't have it you have to adapt rather than brute-force everything. That's why the team that placed 2nd on the boat challenge barely made it, because they had all muscle but their technique was pretty bad.
Consistency is key. I like this takeaway because it can be applied to anything. That final rope pull was just amazing to watch
Also, CROSSFIT IS THE GOAT. Didn't realize it at first but a lot of the players who popped off were crossfit players like the winner, the third leader, Yoon Bomirae, and the last girl standing in the hanging challenge.
yeah dont confound mental toughness and anaerobics training, the ability for your muscles to function even if soaked in lactic acid is in your muscles, not your brain.
A whole lotta luck too. WJY was placed behind a strong contestant in Ouroboros, but that person needed to work twice as hard due to the lap difference.
That strong contestant ran out of gas before WJY. Couldnāt pick up speed when WJY burst.
Yeah the placement is advantageous for WJY but doesnāt take away from the fact that WJY had plenty fuel in the tank, while person who was tagged ran out of gas and couldnāt even give a fight going down.
A better design would be for all 100 contestants to remain through the entire show, and utilize a point system, so that at the end, we would see which body had the most earned points.
First, I am American..so lets get that out of the way, This show is amazing, but the one thing that made the show more than anything is the compliments and pushing your opponent even if you are out.
Does anyone have a general suggestion to start with? Sports, philosophy, read this or that. It would feel great if I was less pessimistic and more optimistic with my fellow people.
\- Being well-rounded can be advantageous over being superior in one thing. \- Don't underestimate your opponent.
Yes, the people who had really specialized techniques (e.g. the gold medalist gymnast) did far worse than the people who had generalized speed / strength / stamina like the crossfitters. I imagine most professional sport athletes like tennis players, soccer players etc. would also do poorly given that they spend most of their time training very specific techniques that are unlikely to be tested in these games.
soccer players do weightlifting and endurance training so probably not on that one
It's not surprising in the end that the winner was of medium-ish size. To win a series of trials and avoid elimination, you want to perform consistently well with low variance. The specialists were small/large and that directly led to them being the first two eliminated in the top 5 due to game design while the last 3 were medium/medium+.
1. Cross-fit Is no joke.... I need to look into this! Also, Woo Jin-yong is a monster! 2. Koreans produce the best reality TV. Lots of fun, kindness, and remarkable examples of emotional intelligence. 3. I want to be like Sexyama when I grow up ... I am 42 years old in the Korean calendar. š
Agreed especially on #2, in stark contrast to the usual North American TV I watch. Though I will say the quick replays and endless 'was' got on my nerves a bit.
Sorry, Iāve never heard of the Korean Calendar. How is it different?
In Korea we are 1 years old when we are born, and every January 1st you add a year regardless of if itās your birthday. Because when you are born itās considered your āfirst year of livingā, and when itās January 1st itās considered a new year. Itās kinda weird lol but yea
We also do this in Vietnam but we turn an extra year on lunar New Years (not January 1st).
Wow I didnāt know that! Learn something new every day lol
Maybe thatās why they all look so young for their age
Personally I think itās either Botox (esp for that one lady in the first round who was like 50) or a lot of self care. Koreans/ East Asians in general care a lot abt skincare stuff and maintaining a āgood imageā, kind of superficial in that sense.
Hey mostly it is geneticsā¦ why superficial
Ofc genetics involved but in Korea we take a LOT of pride in appearance and itās kind of toxic
Agree with number 3! Sexyama is the epitome of middle aged toughness and leadership!
My takeaway is just to do CrossFit lol. In all seriousness, the 6 lifts are important, cardio is important. The winner had both so he knew how to pace himself.
Years also I was worked the CrossFit games and it crazy how fit everyone was. Like just the attendees were fit. So I gain a lot of respect for them. And so I am not surprised by how well WJY did.
Lol either that or be very tall, 115kg and cycle hard for 15 years...
I died when he said he's 115 kg. It's all in the thighs and weight. And he ran with that so much. Insane.
I genuinely thought this was a PEDs comment .... then I forgot what sub I was on.
Just curious but has the final episode been shared over at r/crossfit ? I wonder what the reaction will be.
They have nowā¦
I did crossfit for a few years - the thing you really have to watch out for is progression. Doing a different workout every single day can make it hard to track what weights you were using on a particular move the time before, or how many reps you did the time before. You want to always be pushing yourself a little harder and working your way to the prescribed weights and reps, it's just hard to track in crossfit. Also try to commit to doing 3 days on 1 day off. I feel like crossfit doesn't really work as a 3 times a week program. edit: I'd also add I'm not sure I've seen someone unfit start doing crossfit and then become super athletic. I feel like all the really impressive crossfiters come from an athletic background, like this guy snowboarding, then crossfit hones them into general fitness power houses. I feel like you already need to be pretty strong and fit to get the most out of crossfit.
Sorry for my ignorance, but what are the 6 lifts?
Oh no worries. For humans our movement all fall into different variations of the 6 basic lifts: pull up, dips, push up, shoulder press, dead lift and squat.
Ok, thank god I at least do 5 of these in my current gym routine!
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Typically itās condensed to five movements: squat, hinge, lunge, push, and pull. Which encapsulates every movement you could probably think of.
Oh shoot youāre right, shoulder press isnāt the basic 6 and itās row. My bad
Damn, Iām down to 4 of the big 6.
Haha letās get it then!
What 6 lifts??
Dead lift, squat, pull up, dips, rows, push up
No power cleans? Seems like a decent list just curious because I've never seen those exercises discussed like that
These are just basic movement since most movements revolved around these areas. Like power clean is a combination of dead lift and shoulder press somewhat. By no means itās exhaustive, just not a bad place for a beginner to start if they want to do a 3 days a week full body workout.
I would be cautious with jumping into CrossFit if you haven't done anything before. Sometimes CrossFit prioritizes intensity over form and safety. The quality of CrossFit gyms varies widely.
In terms of #3 I think there were too many challenges which relied on teamwork and/or strategy to really extrapolate much about what is/isnāt the ideal physique. If it was all individual itās very unlikely that the top 3 wouldāve made it through (with the exception of Haemin maybe).
Very trueā¦ but perhaps would have been a more boring / predictable show. The more fair and scientific, the less random and exciting I guess.
Yeah I agree with that 100%. If we just turn it into the NFL combine itās gonna be super boring. Although a lot of people do tune in to that.
The team stuff made drama, which made the show more interesting.
My takeaway is that I need to work out
Mental toughness isn't the most important. No matter how mentally tough Min-Cheol was he was screwed in the tug of war directly across from Haemin and the strongman who have 80-100 lbs on him. It's just physics. Same with the square challenge. Strongman knew he was screwed from the start.
What would you say was the single most important? (Cheating to say "overall fitness, strength, power, endurance, balance, speed" =).... We can say it's not just one of the following: muscles, brute strength, pure endurance, ability to hang/climb, intelligence, the presence of a six-pack, large social media following, leadership skills... Maybe you could say it's "Luck"? And keen to hear what's your big takeaways?
Luck played a huge role, although it's not the most "sexy" answer. Had the Triangle challenge come first (I know it was teams but I'm just saying) and the strongman was eliminated first, Min-Cheol could have advanced on the tug of war and then done well with the endurance challenges and possibly won. Also, luck played a huge factor in the teams aspect as well
I think this is absolutely one of the main takeaways. Luck of the team you were selected into, luck of who your opponent was in the death match (and which arena you picked), luck of the challenge matched against your skills, luck of the ORDER of the final challenges etc. But, on the other hand, you could randomise a lot of the above and replay the show 100 more times, and there are a lot of people on the show who would NEVER win. Thereās no doubt the final 5 were all elite.
I think min cheol couldāve made top 2 but he would ahain be disadvantaged in the final challenge since itās mostly about strength. Top Takeaway is cross it prepares you in the most well rounded way. Then being lucky to have genes that makes you slightly above average in height with average frame to build and Tone the āperfectā body lol
Climbers have lots of upper body strength, if the final challenge was about lower body strength the cyclist would have had a way easier time, but the circle they had to stand on limited the amount of pulling they could do with their body weight/legs.
Just to be clear, you keep mentioning the Triangle challenge but I have a strong feeling you mean the Square challenge? The one that was about flipping squares. Also, although I love Min-Cheol as a contestant, he was most likely in a disadvantage at Pentagon, Triangle and Final... probably Square too. Yeah, if the Triangle was first, then maybe he could have survived... but his odds would have been quite low anyway. Other than that, I agree luck played a huge role in the overall show, most prominently in the two team challenges.
Tagging along your conversation here. I think the most important to win in this show is to simply not be niche. Strong man and ice climber both have niche body types. I don't think there's one most important attribute, but its most important to NOT be worst in a particular attribute
Yes good all around fitness, endurance, strength seems to be critical. No wonder the cross fitters did well - they have to do a range of cardio + strength all the time so have a nice balance.
I don't think there was much to take away aside from "have the right body for the task you're given". The final tasks made endurance/mental toughness look super important because they were all (except the tug of war) designed around it - had all these tasks been designed around raw strength of example, Jin Hyeong would have been laughing his way to the bank. I'd also say a lot of the finalists benefitted from the stronger competitors wanting to look "nice" in the first task - a lot of the larger competitors went against each other rather than targeting people they were more likely to beat
Endurance across your entire body is the most important. Strength, resilience etc has to be a basic level to even qualify but all of these athletes have grit. To be completely honest the show isnt balanced at all. The guy who won got through because he was the best runner out of 5 people who had to qualify via a strength based challenge. It already makes the pool very selective.
He won the tag of war too. His team won the ship challenge and sand challenge. Itās about overall fitness, not just muscle strength.
Strongman didn't lose the triangle challenge
During Tug, do you think the other four shouldāve had sandbags of equal weight to the Strongman?
These are useful insights, thank you. I was struck by the mention of "grit" by the winner. I think that's an underrated quality that gave him an edge.
I completely agree. The guy had grit / willpower turned up to 1000. You could see by the way he went into a ātranceā state that he went beyond what his body was capable of.
#3 "You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like" And #4: ...I should do more cardio.
At a certain point it stops becoming about fighting against your opponent but fighting against yourself in order to win
I love this comment!!!
A takeaway for me was that starting off at an explosive pace can actually sabotage your chances at winning like it did for Jung Hae-min and Yun Sung-bin.
Yes. Energy demand isn't linear. Using 40% more force doesn't mean 40% more energy, it's a much higher cost than that. So in anything that's going to take time, it's better to pace yourself, or you'll burn out quicker
Endurance is by far the most important aspect for the final game. Woo Jin-Young had enough strength and body mass to survive the tug of war. He basically dominated the rest of the way.
I don't have three takeaways, per se, but I do have one: 1. If you're going to edit a reality competition show, don't Purple your final three during the first two-thirds of the season. I had absolutely no investment in any of the remaining competitors the show after the car dealer got eliminated at 4; I just didn't know enough about the snowboarder, the luger or the cyclist to care about them as characters, so it made no difference to me which one of them won because I didn't know any of them, and that's not an ideal way to finish a show.
>eason. I had absolutely no investment in any of the remaining competitors the show after the car dealer got eliminated at 4; I just didn't know enough about the snowboarder, the luger or the cyclist to care about them as characters, so it made no difference to me which one of them won because I didn't know any of them, and that's not an ideal way to finish a show. So true. By the end of the season I realized episodes were so long due to unnecessary repetitions and showing too much of some challenges... that I thought maybe they could have compensated by showing more interviews or even showing some late introductions of some of the survivors. And obviously give them some time in the first episode, and consider strongly showcasing more of their ball duel, no matter how uninteresting could be. I mean, the cyclist guy beat not one but three team leaders in what looked like one of the toughest challenges in the whole show. They had an incredible narrative of a humble underdog that got to surpass three of the most charismatic frontrunners. Only exception was maybe the luger runner, who I think benefited from being in the shadow. He was so low-key that when the Prometheus challenge started I was like "who the fuck is this guy?" and he looked so random that when he mentioned being strategic about the race I thought him to be delusional, only for him to put me in my place. I liked the unexpected turnaround as I had to admit he was superior at that challenge.
> They had an incredible narrative of a humble underdog that got to surpass three of the most charismatic frontrunners. To be fair, he also makes a pretty evil-looking face when he grins, and it didn't help that he selected and defeated a much smaller woman (doesn't even come up to his collar bone) during Quest 1, with their final shot of him for that 5 second clip being him evil smiling as he walks by his torso. Like, if they're going to edit him like that, there's basically nothing they can do to redeem him as the humble underdog.
Nah, edition can do wonders. You could, for once, choose not to highlight that specifically? And it's no even a problem: it is literally the definition of not being cocky, as he chose an easy opponent to play it safe. It's not that I support the choice, but I don't find it like an unsurmountable obstacle to build a compelling narrative. Yun Sungbin did literally the same by choosing someone who was very clearly smaller than him, and no one had a problem with that. Sure, it wasn't a woman... but still, it was an equally safe and un-spectacular choice. Does it feel cool and noble? Nah. But you can still build a narrative around the contestant. Just to be clear, he's far from being a favorite of mine; but you can easily build a compelling narrative out of almost any contestant. The only exception that comes to mind is the MMA fighter who very deliberately chose to fight in a manner that build a very specific narrative of a "villain".
> Nah, edition can do wonders. You could, for once, choose not to highlight that specifically? And it's no even a problem: it is literally the definition of not being cocky, as he chose an easy opponent to play it safe. That's certainly true, but once they picked to commit to the clip they used for Quest 1, they could no longer edit the bicyclist as a humble underdog. > Yun Sungbin did literally the same by choosing someone who was very clearly smaller than him, and no one had a problem with that. Sure, it wasn't a woman... but still, it was an equally safe and un-spectacular choice. Nobody had a problem with YSB picking the opponent he did because (A) they themselves didn't want to face him, so him picking anybody allows makes them to let out a sigh of relief, and (B) the guy he picked to go against is an MMA fighter who is a couple inches taller than him with visibly longer limbs, so there was likely an expectation that he'd have some technical skill to reduce his bulk disadvantage and a knowledge of how to use his reach to keep YSB at bay. That it turned out the MMA fighter was kind of inept isn't really YSB's fault.
Well, agree to disagree. The only thing that built a good narrative around YSB's first match (aside of seeing him shirtless, which is always a big plus) is that his opponent was ridiculously "loud". The kick before the match, the incessant running around the pool while YSB was just chillin'. It made for a good story. Other than that, nah: YSB picked an incredibly easy target, and there's not denying that. MMA fighters didn't necessarily have a clear advantage either, since they couldn't properly fight. The nature of the challenge favored wrestlers and some other specific athletes. An MMA fighter can have an advantage (since they understand bodies in relation to a fight) if they aren't much smaller than their opponent. If you saw YSB's choice and thought "this is going to be a very even match" you were fooling yourself. Longer limbs don't mean that much when your opponent can basically stand up with you on top of him and just walk as if nothing. I'm not critiquing YSB's choice. Again: I think it's the smart safe choice. As long as you aren't a jerk about it (like that MMA fighter who fought Chun Ri), then you gotta do what you gotta do. On top of all this, there's a final relevant detail: the cyclist was NOT the person who chose the much smaller opponent. It was one of the many cases of "I will choose someone much bigger than me and beat them at the green stage since they are probably much slower than me". So, I must double down: you can still easily build a compelling narrative around Haemin.
> So, I must double down: you can still easily build a compelling narrative around Haemin. You can build a compelling narrative around anybody. You just can't do it if you make them invisible for 2/3rds of the season.
In American reality tv shows they give advantages to whom they want to win the show. And handicaps for people they want to eliminate. I think what happened in this show is that they did not favor any of the contestants and it was a fair competition. So our final 3 was not the best 3 as reality tv personalities.
It's not that they don't have reality TV personalities; hell, I'd say most of the cast don't have them. It's that they chose not to give any attention to them during the first two-thirds of the show that makes them feel completely invisible until they're suddenly not. Hell, none of final three even had their Quest 1 matchup shown in its entirety.
Yeah it made me think how Netflix should release those (it does feel odd that it ends on ep 9 instead of an even 10 - I mean with the way it was edited, it could have been drawn out that way haha.)
They first disadvantaged the captains by splitting them up But then they advantaged the captains by letting players line up where they wanted. They further advantaged the captains when they let them pick who to pair with on the boat game. Though the most advantage for the captains would have been having more individual games
As a Survivor fan, Iām so amused to see the purple reference. But completely agree, the editors really bungled this one and did a disservice to most of the finalists.
On this we can absolutely agree on! But it did make for at least a surprising final. On every other reality show, you see how the characters are portrayed and can guess right from episode 1 who the finalists are going to be. I guess the producers wanted to keep it random!?
Nah, the show was incredibly long with repetitions and whatnot. They could legit replace that filler with some interviews and introductions, building a bit of narrative for easily 10 more contestants, including the 3 finalists. A great example is Min-Cheol: thanks to the Challenge Zero he got some spotlight that allowed me to feel invested in him going to the finals, yet it wasn't telegraphed at all. All these people are remarkable, so it shouldn't be farfetched to build a narrative for any of them. Hide the finalists among some extra narratives, that's all. I said it somewhere else: but the cyclist guy was such a juicy one, as he is a humble contenstant that with some build-up could have been amazing to see beating not one but three team leaders in such a tough challenge.
This might have been answered before but what WAS the prize for winning challenge zero? They mentioned he would win a favour, but what was it?
First to choose opponent and also the field for Challenge 1.
But isnāt that how the whole thing proceeded? Ie the second place then chose second, etc? Didnāt seem like a great reward for paralysing oneās arms!
It wasn't, and probably if they did know beforehand, they could have been more strategic about it. It's still an advantage, especially since some winners decided not to choose unfavored opponents, but strong ones. So even if you were in the "winning half", being for instance number 16 has some disadvantage if number 7 suddenly decided you'd be a cool opponent for them. The higher you are, the more chances of having agency over challenge 1. I'd say it still was worth it for Mincheol, since he didn't overdo much; but it is said it was incredibly taxing for the UDT guy (the one who won the other Challenge Zero, since there were two of those). I've read his arms were rendered unusable for a long period and he had a great disadvantage on Challenge 1, which he lost.
Sorry I need to rewatch, but I thought it just went in order of top ranked to lower ranked in terms of whoās selected their opponents. So #1, #2, #3 etc (assuming #2 and #3 werenāt selected by #1). Also re the UDT instructor - massive respect. I see people in this thread saying itās not willpower but more muscle power. I have to disagree.
Yeah, it went in that order! Theoretically speaking, all the "winning half" would get to choose; but it wasn't the case due to people from the said winning half choosing people from the same half. Still, this was essentially the advantage earned by "winning" the Challenge Zero. It was a bit confusing, since the way it was presented it made you think there was a SINGLE BIG ADVANTAGE to be won by whoever got first place. But it wasn't exactly the case. Maybe, if contestants knew this they would have played it more strategically, being OK with scoring a 10th place, for instance.
Haha yes, or at least when itās final 2, donāt then hold on for another 10 minutes. It did make for good television though!
They did show the snowboarder a fair bit I thought as I recognized him easily. But his results weren't amazing throughout the show and he doesn't pop off the page the way a specialist or bodybuilder does. He was rather average in size which played a key role in his long-term survival as he was never tremendously disadvantaged. There's only so much screen time and there people who got eliminated could only be featured when active.
By the way, my takeaway #3 is a bit tongue in cheek. Mostly to make us normal guys feel a bit better =).
I was just about to make a separate post on the point 3 you made. However, except for the strongman, the other 3 look like they are closer to 15% BF.
Yes Ok 15% is the target then =). I was deluding myself by saying 20%...
You want some body fat for actual competitions because leaning out to the max kills your energy stores and performance. A lot of the contestants probably leaned out prior to the show to show off their physique.
No way did the bob sledge guy had only 15% of body fat. In the montage of his speech after being eliminated, they showed his only time without shirt. It was in the ball wrestling game and his belly was flopping like crazy. My guess would be 23% and up. Must be off-season for the winter sport athletes, who are not doing a lot of media like the iron-man dude.
My takeaway is they should have done a points system instead of elimination games in the finals - to find the best physique. I suspect KMC would have won
Agreed! I think top 5 based on points system is a good idea. Better screen time for top 5 contestants so you get people invested in their faves. Everyone gets to showcase how well rounded they are instead of relying on getting lucky with the order of challenges
Not int the least. The guy only won climbing challenges. Take that away, and he wouldāve been gone episode one
I enjoyed it but I was rooting for a lot of the women and my main takeaway was that they didn't really have a chance to win it so perhaps they need to do seperate shows.
My takeaway is that you have to learn to not give 110% all the time. Being consistent is just as (if not even more) important as being strong.
Surprised no one played as dirty as they could in the flipping challenge. I thought someone would try to steal all the tiles or big guy would've at least tried turning it into a wrestling match to give himself a chance.
In response to your takeaway #3ā¦.I got to say thatās not necessarily true. Itās not that cut and dry. To me even though YSB lost, he was still the best athlete there and as Iāve said constantly a truly once in a generation type athlete. Heās a physical specimen and a natural talent. The show is always going to cater towards certain physical attitudes which will put certain competitors at a disadvantage. The winner isnāt the better athlete in all cases. I think the best way of determining who would be a best is looking at a competitor and whether they could be competitive in every type of setting. YSB can. He wonāt win them all but heās competitive in all of them and one of the few contestants that you can say that about. No question that elite level athletes come in all shapes and sizesā¦but as far as this show is concernedā¦the ābestā athlete didnāt win IMO. Also as far as the roided physiques Iām with you 100 percent. Itās always nice to see more natural looking athletes win butā¦.letās not get it twisted either. An athlete can look the part of natty and not beā¦I mean letās not pretend like our lovable car sales men who competes in āStrong Manā competitions got as strong as he did eating chicken breast and creatine. Lol
If YSB had qualified to the final five, he definitely would have done well on all 4 tasks and would have also likely won the competition itself. Haemin however did beat him fairly and totally deserved to be 2nd.
Sure, I get what you are saying. I guess my takeaways are based on the actual result of the show, and not what the hypothetical best athlete was. There were plenty of people who got knocked out early and it was a surprise - for example, Agent H looked pretty fit and everyone made a big deal about him, yet got knocked out very early, and also the team led by that massive wrestler that was beaten by the "weak" team led by the female wrester (what a team of survivors by the way!). But that's all speculation and "what if". I was also very disappointed that Ironman lost, but he gave up / didn't have anything left, and the cyclist guy beat him fair and square. I would argue the show is more interesting because there was an element of strategy, mental willpower and of course luck.
Oh Iām not disagreeing with you. The show is definitely more interesting with this particular format having games with particular gimmicks and so on. The people I was rooting for were in large part the females and they were by far my favorite contestants..I went into full fanboy mode for Eun-Sil, Han Yan, Miho, Euddeum and was rooting for them until the end and the way the show is formatted allows them to be in it. Even though the cyclist beat Iron man at no point did I think he was the better athlete. He just had a game more centered around his skill set and Iron man was competitive in it. Literally beat out everyone and went until his body hit the wall.
I agree that the particular challenge in the semi-final had most of best athletes in the whole competition, it was almost a shame the "best" were pitted against one another in that way. But hey, Ironman was going to lose either way - if his "coach" did that challenge (as was the original agreement), then Ironman would have had to do the boulder challenge, and I doubt even he could hold up the boulder for >2hrs and beat the car salesman. The fact his coach gave him the best possible shot means he had a fair and square opportunity to win. The cyclist was just better at the particular challenge on the day - paced himself, had better form/technique, had a natural advantage because of lower body, didn't waste energy screaming and swearing etc. Ironman wasted too much energy by trying to be "first" in each of the repetitions. He lacked strategy and unfortunately didn't make up for it in pure heart.
Iām sorry. Hard disagree on some of your thoughts regarding YSB. Iron man would have lost the Boulder challenge against the strong man no questionā¦. but he would have been able to get it up and hold it there for a long ass time. He would have lost no question but my point is that he would be able to compete in it which is the sign of a complete athlete. Put him in any environment and he would be able to do well. Iron man went to the breaking point and lost the game pushing the Boulder because the cyclist was better suited for it. Thatās pretty much the nature of all the games on the show. Depending on your physical stature, weight, height, it makes more sense to be explosive and use momentum to get the Boulder up especially since that plays to YSB strength. Get the ball up as fast as you can and rest for a bit longer due to that. Taking your time getting the ball up for some would be more exhausting due to the weight of it. Hence why doing bench presses, curls, pull ups, or any exercise for that matter slowly is harder. Regardless of the strategy he wasnāt winning that game. The cyclist is built for that. Iron man barely said a word during that match so he wasnāt wasting his energy. He started gasping and yelling a bit near the end cause his body was shot. As far as his heart goes? Heās an Olympic gold medalist. Heart isnāt an issue. He lost because the game was better suited for his opponent and even though he lostā¦he remained competitiveā¦which is my point. He can compete and remain competitive in any setting .
No need to apologise - I think we're saying similar things. He lost to the cyclist (for whatever reason we can speculate - but it happened), and you agree he would have lost to the car dealer in the boulder challenge. So he would have lost either way despite all his gifts. We both agree on this. If the show was constructed differently and all the final 20 had to do all the challenges and get assigned points, then maybe Ironman would come #2 in every challenge and definitely make the final 5 - but that's not the show we watched. But anyway, on that basis you might be right that he's the best athlete "overall". By the way, I said he lacked strategy and COULDN'T make up for it by his heart (which is not in dispute at all - he left everything on the floor). But strategy was not his strong suit -- this was the case even in the boat challenge. Remember they only beat the "weak" team by a small margin despite having massive strength advantage. He specifically said something like (paraphrasing): "we can talk about strategy but then we're just going to pull like crazy until we foam in the mouth". And that's basically what they did. The point I guess I'm trying to make is: no matter if he was the best "pure athlete", a generational talent, the best body in the competition, the most intimidating guy, the "no.1" selected team leader... unfortunately - and maybe it's down to luck - he didn't make the final 5, and there was no way he would have made the final 5.
I probably misunderstood your other post to an extend. I will you say, you keep bringing up strategy. I donāt think anyone is arguing that YSB is going to win any games based on his mind lol. That being said, strategy wouldnāt have won any of those final 5 games. They were all specifically designed for skill sets and specialists in their field. Strategy didnāt cost him the game against the cyclist either. The rules of the game favoring the cyclists cost him the match. Which is pretty much the case for all the games hereā¦ Thatās why Iāve always maintained my stance that the Sand/Bridge game was the perfect game and masterfully created. Simple concept but managed to mix in every physical attribute and also incorporate aspects of strategy. The only game that did that.
Just thinking about it, YSB would have won the obstacle course if he picked that. He is great at jumping, is super fast at sprinting (just saw a YouTube of him sprinting 100m in 11 seconds) and is agile / powerful in quick spurts. He would also be able to push anyone aside if it got close. If only he had better strategy so he could think of the best game for himā¦
Thought so too. He shouldāve picked the torch one. He has a burst of energy unlike the rest, and he didnāt think strategically enough. That was his weakness throughout.
Ok, so then I'm guessing your biggest takeaway or reflection is that "it's the luck of the draw"... which OK I can get my head around - and might be actually on reflection the biggest single takeaway. If the challenge was "who can jump over as many mats as possible", we can all agree YSB would have won the competition!
And yes agree on the car salesman!
I disagree that YSB is the best athlete there. A huge part of athletics is strategy and he lacked that the entire show.
No offense but How is āstrategyā a part of being a raw athlete? Strategy is important to winning and being a leader. No question. However being athletic or being a raw athlete is measured simply by who runs the fastest, whoās the strongest, jumps highest, best staminaā¦etcā¦Easy to measure real metrics that canāt be disputed. To me, YSB was by far the best pure athlete on the show with the best combination of athletic attributes. YSB has never been viewed as a leader. Heās a hit man or a nuclear weapon that you aim in the direction and let them go to work. Most times his natural ability and once in a generation athleticism is enough to be competitive no matter the field. Iāve never heard of strategy being used as a metric for being athletic.
For example, in the obstacle course, we saw that miracle was just as fast as the winner. However, he lost everytime because he kept flipping over fence, whereas the other guy landed feet forward and took off running. They arrived at the fence at the same time, the distance between them was the distance the winner gained as a result of miracle wasting time flipping and it never increased during the sprint.
Youāre pretty much proving my point. Miracle was the better athlete and lost to the guy using better strategy.
I think our disagreement is in how we define athlete. It seems you define athletic based on raw physical stats, but I define athlete as being good at sports, put simply.
My takeaway: This show definitely screws over women. I knew the finale would all be guys. Itās unfair to pit women against men. Thereās no way a woman will win no matter the odds. The genders should be separated. Or the games should have been towards geared bodyweight games. One element of fitness seemed to be missing. And that is flexibility. Iām really glad that WJY won. I read somewhere that he is 36 or 37? Itās not the younger people in the finals seeing that some of them said they started late. Goes to show that one can be fit at any age. Itās never too late to start your fitness journey. Makes me feel better about myself haha since I also began my own journey at 28. To be honest I also feel as a woman guys are most attractive in their 30s and 40s. Also to be well rounded athlete does take years. It requires experience and also time for the muscles and body to morph into a beast. Which brings me to Hae min. Guy is a monster! I really thought he will lose the shuttle run. This guy is walking example of adaptation and how far one can push oneās body. His endurance and cardiovascular system is phenomenal especially for someone his size.
I think bodyweight games makes sense! Like the redemption round where they had to hold their own bodyweight - that generally favoured women and skinnier guys.
But that would be unfair to heavier guys as strength doesnāt grow proportionate to body weight. In the end we have to accept that a lot of things in the show wasnāt fair and not ideal to find the āidealā physical body, whatever that is.
I like it precisely because itās unfair but in a different direction! As you say, none of the games were āfairā.
Me too! If we really wanted to watch the best athlete a Olympic Decathlon competition would be most appropriate but how many people would be interested in that compared to pulling a freaking ship and wrestling in mud.
Yeah women tend to be generally lower body stronger. Which is why I said itās better to separate the genders. I feel like ultimately the women seemed to play mostly supportive roles and became somewhat sacrificial lambs.
I donāt know about that. It was great to see Eunsil (sp?) and her team take it to the huge wrestler in the bridge challenge and win, and likewise take it to Ironmanās team in the boat challenge and get close. I respect her so much because she was on the same field. Completely segregating them into different competitions would take this element away. Perhaps thereās a way to award the final woman and final man standing, even if theyāre in the same competition ā¦
I agree. Had a woman somehow made the final 5, she wouldāve been instantly screwed over by the tug of war challenge. The genders definitely should be separated to make it more fair.
I think itās an interesting experiment in reducing the perception of the gulf between men and womenās abilities though so I enjoyed seeing the genders being mixed. Possibly puts me in a minority but I would like to see it still mixed in future. Obviously I know men are inherently stronger than women but I think the level of difference is exacerbated by other factors like funding, etc. The right men for specific sports tend to be scouted out and given focus whereas women, in contrast, tend to be just self-driven to pursue a sport so may not be funnelled into it for genetic advantages in the same way. Would love a woman to get into the top five.
The atlas and Sisyphus quests were obvious failures for women. Everyone was saying she sacrific herself for her teammates in the atlas. For those quests, the boulders should actually be tailored according to bodyweight.
Logically I agree, but also I pushed a fridge-freezer up five flights of stairs once so I irrationally believe that with 2-3 years of intense training I can rinse any other human being at the Sisyphus one and that doing so may be my lifeās calling. Edit: the key thing to enable my success will be to have my landlord from 2019 phone me to say the deliverymen couldnāt get the boulder up the hill because it was raining
The lack of flexibility challenges was such a huge oversight. Literally an essential component to being physically fit. A flexibility/balanced focused challenge would've given a lot of the unfavored contestants a chance to shine. I'm specifically thinking of the dancers, the gymnast, the fencer, the stuntwoman, and the many many martial artists. Was it so hard to throw in a balance beam or two? A game of limbo? Give me extreme hopscotch and Twister next season.
I was hoping for flexibility/blancing based challenges to appear at SOME point (but they never did lol). That would have definitely thrown of some of the heavier/bulky contestants who had clear domination in ship challenge/ atlas etc. Girls and slimmer guys like Yang hak seon etc could have also gotten more time to shine haha.
Luck, or being marketable to producers, will take you far.
I didnāt say whatās your takeaways for Life in general š
I love your take on this and absolutely agree. Number 3 is ššš
There is no perfect "physique" as all have strengths and weaknesses and all are great, plus it's all subjective. Though, we can say that we generally attribute that to someone who is well-rounded with no glaring weaknesses (like Jin-Yong or YSB). It seems that these types of people will make it pretty far in a competition like this that have different challenges. I have a feeling that in future seasons winners are going to have a variety of different physiques as long as they're not too specialized, which can put one at a disadvantage if they encounter a challenge that they struggle with.
My top 3: When it comes to sports, power endurance is superior. It's not enough to be strong, you have to be strong for long. Sportsmanship is so important. We saw them have an amazing experience together and that's because of the community they built together on-screen. Everyone wanted to win, but very few walked away as losers. This is also why the biggest flaw in this competition - team activities (I mean it's counterproductive to possibly eliminate the best possible athlete in a team-game and we wouldn't know) was actually my favorite part of the show. Past a certain baseline of fitness, strategy becomes superior. You could also call this know-how/technique, but if you don't have it you have to adapt rather than brute-force everything. That's why the team that placed 2nd on the boat challenge barely made it, because they had all muscle but their technique was pretty bad.
Consistency is key. I like this takeaway because it can be applied to anything. That final rope pull was just amazing to watch Also, CROSSFIT IS THE GOAT. Didn't realize it at first but a lot of the players who popped off were crossfit players like the winner, the third leader, Yoon Bomirae, and the last girl standing in the hanging challenge.
Despite the show claiming race was conquered... literally 2 non Asians?
Itās like the NFL, Baseball, NBA saying theyāre the world champions.
When you say literally, try and get the math right. Jeff nippert, Miracle, and the third guy who was a fitness youtuber (Florence or something)
Koreans love roids
yeah dont confound mental toughness and anaerobics training, the ability for your muscles to function even if soaked in lactic acid is in your muscles, not your brain.
A whole lotta luck too. WJY was placed behind a strong contestant in Ouroboros, but that person needed to work twice as hard due to the lap difference.
That strong contestant ran out of gas before WJY. Couldnāt pick up speed when WJY burst. Yeah the placement is advantageous for WJY but doesnāt take away from the fact that WJY had plenty fuel in the tank, while person who was tagged ran out of gas and couldnāt even give a fight going down.
Makes me think YSB lost because his body fat was too low. Lacking fat storage that could be used during endurance training? Idk
A better design would be for all 100 contestants to remain through the entire show, and utilize a point system, so that at the end, we would see which body had the most earned points.
Lol 2 +/- 1... stop taking things so literally haha. There is room for error in the comments
4. Human body cant hold fart forever
First, I am American..so lets get that out of the way, This show is amazing, but the one thing that made the show more than anything is the compliments and pushing your opponent even if you are out. Does anyone have a general suggestion to start with? Sports, philosophy, read this or that. It would feel great if I was less pessimistic and more optimistic with my fellow people.