Hye Soo's Breakthrough

 

How Hye Soo Made the Jump: A Season Built on Appropriate Priorities

This was a massive year. First-ever in-person semi-final qualification, highest quarterfinals finish of her career, and an invite to Magic City on the table. Before I break down what we did, the credit starts and ends with her. She came into this offseason with a more exploratory mindset that was process oriented and focused on the details that allowed improvements. That shift made everything else possible.

That said, I want to be honest about the coaching side of things, because when an athlete has the capacity to compete at a higher level and isn't getting there, something in the approach has to change. There were several things that helped drive this change, but taking on The Stimulus Matters Podcast pushed my boundaries as a coach and helped me grow immensely as a coach. This is something that I was able to pass on to the athletes that I coach. 


Priority One: The Engine Needed to Grow

Hye Soo had most of the tools take the next step in competition. The engine limited her ability to express that capacity. So that became the main priority for everything this season.

On Mondays, we started stacking VO2 running sessions on the back end of class metcons. The fatigue context matters, because quality aerobic work under accumulated stress is more potent than doing it fresh, and it forced adaptation faster. We also leaned into the competitive environment at CrossFit NOLA. Even athletes who aren't actively competing anymore push a high standard in that gym, and that external pressure creates a training stimulus you can't create solo.

Thursdays became long run days. "Long" is always relative, and given her history with knee issues, we took a slow, calculated approach building carefully up to 40-45 minutes and not going beyond that. The goal is always health first. The most ideal training stimulus in the world means nothing if the athlete can't stay healthy executing it.

Tuesdays were reserved for what I'd call low-bottleneck metcons. I intentionally selected movements where there is no skill or strength limitation. Just heart rate and breathing. This is where we could directly expose her physiology in a sport-specific manner. The amount of effort and attention she gave to that work this season made a measurable difference in her ability to perform in both the Open and quarterfinals.


Priority Two: Gymnastics Skills that are Resilient to Fatigue

This is where I want to spend some time, because I think it's where the most meaningful work happened.

We identified two primary movement limitations going into the season: ring muscle-ups and handstand walks. Neither of these were unique as they'd been on the list for a while. What changed was how we approached attacking them.

With the ring muscle-up, I adjusted the technical cues and the accessory strength work we were pairing it with. We spent more time refining hip mechanics and teaching her to use her hips effectively. What was interesting is that we rarely touched the bar muscle-up as specific priorities, and it improved anyway. Chest-to-bar pull-ups got better too. When you fix the root issue, the movements that are limited by that cause will improve as well.

For handstand walks, the focus was to improve the stacked position. She was stuck in a shape that made it nearly impossible to breathe during high-effort sets, which meant the movement broke down as fatigue increased. Given that HS walks historically tend to come up late in workouts, that is not a winning formula. We refined her positioning and put in a lot time upside down. The payoff showed up clearly in the fourth quarterfinal workout, where her strict handstand push-up endurance was in a completely different place than it had been.

Another method we used for both: end of session EMOMs once or twice a week. This creates a neural fatigue stimulus which allows the body to learn to coordinate these movements when it's tired, because that's what creates separation in the sport. Volume under fatigue builds the kind of tolerance that keeps technique from falling apart in the third round of a metcon.

Technique work is time-consuming and often boring. It requires long, clumsy setups, deep focus, and a lot of discipline to do it week after week. The fact that Hye Soo showed up for every single one of those pieces tells you everything you need to know about why the season went the way it did.


What's Next

We're heading to Birmingham. She'll compete alongside a talented group of athletes I'm genuinely excited to watch go head-to-head. The work put in this season has positioned her to move from the outside looking in, to a qualified spot. 

One thing this season reinforced for me as a coach: when an athlete has the ceiling but isn't reaching it, something has to change. That doesn't mean throwing the whole program out. It means being honest about what the limiting factors actually are and being willing to build around them.