Barbell Shrugged - 100- What Everyone Should Know About CrossFit

Episode Date: January 22, 2014

The impact of CrossFit

I am an athlete. I may be brand new, but I'm having fun. I'm learning how to compete for the very first time. And I've never felt so good. Label it whatever you want. I call it a revolution. A rebellion against everything I used to believe. Every failed resolution.

Every imagined limitation. I'm a teacher. I lead, innovate, and experiment. I mix methods and take fresh paths. I break rules. And while some stand still, I'll be out there looking for something brand new. This is a sport as dramatic, formidable, and inspirational as any other. We honor our heroes, and we are damn proud to serve as role models. All of the training and the sacrifice is worth it. Every tough day, every low moment, every risky venture, and every rebooted dream. Yeah, this community is worth it.

We're changing what it means to be strong. To persist. To fight on. We must because we are needed. Our children need to know what strong looks like. The world needs to see for itself that fitness is never taboo. And that great beauty comes in all forms. I'm having the time of my life.

But I can tell you that the journey is never easy or short. Things don't always turn out as planned. But then again, that's not why I'm here. I'm not looking for gifts or safe passage. I don't want the well-worn path or the short way around. I just want to work, grow, and see my dreams become reality. I'm prepared. Yes, I am an athlete.

Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrug. For the video version, go to barbellshrug.com. Chuck. I can never tell what song it is. Welcome to Barbell Shrug. Episode 100. Welcome, guys. I'm here with Doug Larson, Christopher Moore, and CTP behind the camera.

I am, of course, Mike Bledsoe. High on helium. High on helium. I'm waiting for this voice. Oh, here we go. There it goes. It's going back to normal. Anyone else want a balloon?

Yeah. Let Doug do it. We're going to celebrate here with, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh. Doing it for the hundredth time. This feels like the best time, doesn't it? We're having a big celebration here. If you haven't noticed, we're very excited about being episode 100. I tried to leave enough for you, but you might not have enough. There we go.

Will this ever not be funny? No. Not quite. Didn't work. Didn't work. Didn't work. There's plenty of balloons up there. Yeah, there is.

Yeah, so this is our 100th episode we have not missed we have not missed an episode in 100 weeks people might say how many years is that that's bullshit that's almost 2 years

very good a month short of 2 years we have made every single episode and it has been an awesome awesome ride if you want to go look at episode one,

I would recommend that you don't. It's not very good, and we just kept plugging away and going week after week. That's the point. We ended up doing some really cool stuff that we never even thought. If you would have asked me a couple years ago,

hey, what would you be doing two years from now? I would go, there's no telling. There really wasn't a clear plan. It was just like, we we're gonna do this no matter what for just as long as we possibly can we're not gonna stop that was the whole secret right you can get something cool done if you just plug and plug and plug away yeah if we went by the first few episodes that we did or the especially the ones that we didn't air like the ones like with you guys just like coffee shop and we did a couple like in in your garage that we never actually even put on the air. We just like little practice runs that were horrible and we had drank way too much scotch when we started.

They will probably never be aired, but episodes negative two and negative one, they were pretty bad. There's at least 12 episodes or at least 12 recordings of like podcasts may not have been called Barbell Shrug at the time. There's at least 12 episodes. I think there's like five of Chris Moore and I

at a coffee shop just recording our thoughts on training. Maybe one day those will be released. With heavy disclaimers. The black label. Please don't judge this for content quality. That's right. And before that, I might point out that we spent so many countless hours just talking shit with each other

for years before that. It goes back. It definitely does go back. It took a long time to prep for that moment. So how many years before? Four or five years we was talking shit all day about training to get us ready for this big moment. That's right.

I want to thank everyone who's come on our show. Wait. Everyone who's been a guest on our show. I didn't think it sounded bad until you looked at me like that. See where your brain's at. Episode two, we had Rich Froning.

And Rich Froning's been on our show, what, four times? Five? Four or five, yeah. I mean, that's a lot of times. I mean, he's the best CrossFitter in the world. For the men. And for him to come on episode two, and we were in Columbus, Ohio, just all hanging out in the same place at the same time.

We saw him at a party. He was like, hey, man, you want to go back to the apartment? It felt weird at the time. Rich, I am not hitting on you, but I would like for you to come back to my place. Listen, you're really fit. I've got this camera. We've got a guy with a camera. Don't get nervous.

Exciting media opportunity for you. That's right. Can you bring your buddies, too? That's right. Yeah, you're all so fit and shiny. Come on. Yeah, so that was actually aiting media opportunity for you. That's right. Can you bring your buddies too? That's right. Yeah, you're all so fit and shiny. Come on. Yeah, so that was actually a really big boost for us. It helped us gain some momentum and some inertia there.

Because in the beginning, we were like, oh, we don't know what to do. We know we want to record this thing. And then a guy like Rich Froning was like, oh, go on your show. And that really pumped up our spirits and motivated us. It really did help us start on the right foot. And he's really supported us more than almost anybody over the years. And there's really no incentive for him to support us. He just thinks it's fun being on the show.

That's why we love him. That's why he's a good champ. You see a guy who's very humble and kind and hardworking and very real. That's exactly what it is. And it actually made it easier to get more guests. Well, Rich Froning went on the show. I was like, well, I guess I'll do it too. It always helps, doesn't it?

Yeah. Really, over the years, he's never really asked for anything in return. He just thinks it's fun being on the show. We're very fortunate that he lives right here in Tennessee where we live, so he's not too far away. Serendipitous. Yeah. So thank you, Rich Froning.

And thanks to all the other guests we've had. I mean, we've had a lot of spectacular guests. In the beginning, we definitely had a lot of people from our hometown, some experts that live here in Memphis, some professors at University of Memphis, and just friends that work in the supplement industry, just things like that. That was really beneficial in the beginning.

And as time's gone on, we definitely snagged some big fish in regard to having guests on the show, and it's just been awesome. We've got to meet so many cool people. It's really helped us become better coaches and podcasters and being able to talk about this because over the last two years, especially the last year, we've really been able to sit down with the people who are the best, the best coaches, the best researchers, the best athletes, and find out what they're doing, what they think. And that's been, I feel like I've gained so much knowledge from that,

and it's changed the way I think about training. It's changed the way I think about the world, and it's been great. The amazing thing about this whole movement, which I guess we'll get into the full spectrum of the movement, this thing, this CrossFit thing, but we do find ourselves around amazing people, which which is so of anything I've ever accomplished, just being able to meet all these great people, these great human beings at the competition to the people who come up to you and say, yeah, listen to your show. This is a huge community

of awesome people. And to be on the very leading edge, like the very edges of what we know you can do and pull off at high level, a new high level thing like CrossFit. It's right where the edge is. They're combining all these methods and all the best coaches are thinking about new questions. It is exciting little place to be. It's amazing. And to think, I mean, it was all kicked off by Greg Glassman way back in the day out in California and it blew up into a worldwide sensation. You got to give those guys credit for dropping the spark in the big tinderbox. I think you would say, you know, you just started posting workouts on a blog. And people started following.

I mean, without the internet, obviously, CrossFit would not have grown like it has. So that's been very influential. But the way that Greg Glassman and the CrossFit headquarters has pushed this forward as a sport. And just doing the seminars. And, you know, I hear stories from people who were like there at the beginning. Oh, yeah, we talked to Brian McKenzie. And he was like, oh, yeah, I was invited out to this seminar. He was like, hey, why don't you come to that Level 1 seminar

and talk about running for an hour, part of the Level 1 seminar. And he did. He was like, oh, okay. Kind of hearing little stories about that, about how it it kind of started in the beginning it was very grassroots it was kind of like everyone was kind of they were doing something better than what everyone else was doing and that's why people were showing up but they were still like figuring it out it was still low budget maybe no budget at first it starts off just like this thing on a bigger scale of course like crossfit has gotten really huge but it starts off with one guy, a couple of people going, you know what? I like all these

disparate ideas, but how do you get them together in some way that works? Like, how can I do gymnastics? But also I'm interested in cleaning jerks and I want to run better. And, and all this box jumps are cool. Like, how do you put them together in some thing that gives you a direction and then a rap competition? It was a bunch of things that were in existence, of course, but they're all separated. And before this thing starts, you have these clans, like these tribes, powerlifting, strongman, weightlifting.

Like, they're all classes, a good example. There's so many things there, gymnastics and martial arts and self-defense and bodybuilding and weightlifting. No one will talk to each other. Like, you go, but you're at your one thing. Before, I came from a reality where weightlifting and powerlifting,

we just would talk shit to each other. There's no conversation about what's good with both and how we can mix it into something brand new. I remember the fact that we as weightlifters trained with you at a gym where you were the sole powerlifter. We would tell people, oh yeah, we have a powerlifter in our gym.

They're like, black and white side style powerlifter trains with a always loved. We would tell people like, oh yeah, we have a powerlifter in our gym. They're like, black label. West side style powerlifter trains with a bunch of weightlifters. This is an anomaly. And I loved, I loved weightlifting.

I could never really do it. I wouldn't really suit it to it to some injuries and I was in powerlifting and trying to be good at that. So I was like, well, I can't try to also do snatches.

How could that, that would just mess up my powerlifting. I wasn't even thinking that I could mix them to be something better. Or I could also row that would just mess up my powerlifting. I wasn't even thinking that I could mix them to be something better. Or I could also row and it wouldn't affect my strength.

And I could also do some basic gymnastics things like what I do now, handstands. Because of CrossFit, a 300 pound ex-meathead sees the importance of shoulder position, handstands, and moving his own body weight. I knew of it before. I was like, fuck you, I'm benching.

You know, that's what changed. That was my impact. So Greg Glassman came along and he kind of mixed the gymnastics the weight lifting the track and field type training mixes it all together makes it a fitness program people start kind of competing in a way that worked in a way that worked they post clearly differently like that was people have dabbled in it sure but it worked in a way that set off the fire yeah and i think i think a big part of it was blog and people were competing via comments. They'd say, post your time. Very novel.

How many rounds did you get in that AMRAP? Super novel. The fact that they even made it for time where it was actually measurable and you could compete in something that wasn't just competing in a mile run or a 1RM bench press. Or reps.

How many reps could you do in one set? You know? And so now you have, now you have like an infinite number of different workouts that you, that you can compete in. And there's more than one way to measure your fitness where as before, everyone was just doing how much do you bench? Right.

The closest, the closest thing to like measuring fitness might've been a decathlon or something like that. Yeah. That was the standard for the, the best athlete in the world was something like a decathlon. That was the standard for the, the best athlete in the world was something like a decathlon. And that was really not that or the dreaded triathlon iron man. It was really not that diverse really. You know what I mean? It really still was like a one single

modality thing. It was like track and field, you know, basically all running and jumping and a few throwing, but there was no, no heavy lifting. There certainly wasn't anything like a one rep max back squat or, or anything we consider to be athlon like more raw strength the best example still didn't have heavy lifting didn't have snatch or yeah these things that are objectively mechanically by the laws of physics a distinct very difficult thing was never tested force and speed of force development was never tested in high, those high loads ever. So we had this little bit of competition happening online and then Dave Castro, I don't think,

I mean, you know, we will maybe get the opportunity to, to interview Dave one day, but, uh, I would love to get Dave Castro on the show, but,

uh, you know, I don't know the exact specifics of the story, but I mean, it sounds like, you know, he, he had,

his family had this ranch out in Aromas, California. It was like, oh, let's all get together and compete at the same time. Not on the Internet. Let's bring people out here and kill them. We'll sacrifice them on this hill. Well, you look at the first CrossFit Games. I mean, it was very, very simple. A single day, not a lot of volume. And it kind of grew after that.

They did the next year, 2008, they did it in Romans, California again. In 2009, I think the city wouldn't let them do it. I think it was just, they were like, oh, this is becoming a hassle. Insurance thing, super magic. So they were like, oh, I guess we'll go to Los Angeles and do it there. And it kind of grew from there.

But, you know, CrossFit was growing really well due to the internet and doing the seminars, but I really think the games made it explode. And look, again, objectively, whether you like HQ and Dave and what they're doing with the games or not, look at it objectively and look at the explosive growth and look how it is getting. They're improving it every year. Two years ago, maybe three, I was like, I don't know if some of these things make a lot of sense. To be fair, this doesn't pair well at logically been like last two years. I'm like, I don't think I could have like, if I'm trying to put Dave's hat on and arrange things,

I couldn't have thought of anything more interesting than this. Like I really love my favorite thing. And the highlight so far has been the introduction of, and I've heard Pierce Demas might be interested in this kind of arrangement where you have weightlifting done in a novel way where you have a rapid fire of attempts like in this ladder style i love it it's like the best of weightlifting without everything that sucks about weightlifting power which is the slow pace and the grind like oh good lift and then you wait that's guy dilly dally's with his chalk and shit back jacket when's this asshole gonna come up it takes two seconds. Have 10 platforms and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

It's exciting. Yeah, watching weightlifting is like watching golf. And the guys can watch you and then you golf clap. You can be on a platform next to your competitor. Oh shit, he missed.

That changes what I'm going to do right now. I think that's going to be a new model. Guys like Piros and Klokov rising up. Weightlifting is mixing with this thing too and becoming brand new and very interesting. Like a new version of it. That's incredible. It is interesting how the games made watching exercise fun to do that's

never happened before oh yeah it's awesome people coming over the house live stream people making a whole weekend of it it's competitive hell i've flown to la just to watch it and drink it's got great sexy ladies and handsome ripped guys that That definitely helps. My favorite part. But yeah, I mean, it's a beautiful, exciting, intense spectacle. It's perfect. It's fun to watch for people because what, 99% of the people watching actually participate in the sport, which doesn't happen with any other sport. If you go to a basketball game, 99% of those people are not doing basketball or playing

basketball or shooting hoops or whatever you want to say on a weekly, if not daily basis. Yeah. Biggest sports out there like NASCAR, football, no one's going out and playing. They're fattening on the couch. I know to this day, there's going to be a lot of people who want that kind of attention and it's okay to feel like, fuck man, we need to get that going on. But people are showing up and watching in big numbers because you're missing the point. If you're a great weightlifter and you snatch 400 pounds, which is like mind blowing, no one can identify with that before but now it's like we're all doing it like i've deadlifted i have i've tried that muscle up i know how it's hard is you you show up and go wow look at that guy do those muscle ups what can i learn from him you don't get that in mba yeah who knows what it's like to dunk a basketball you can either do that or you

can't and there's only a few people who can. It's very cool. Everyone has perspective on how hard it is, all the things they're actually doing. If you're watching the Olympics and you're watching the rings and they're doing, you know, Iron Cross is like a low level gymnastics skill if you're at the Olympics, but still it's like way beyond what most people could ever do. If they're out there doing like triple

backflips and stuff, it looks cool, but you really don't have perspective on what that means or what it takes to get to that level. But when you're watching the CrossFit games, you've at least tried all those things. Maybe you can do some of them, but you can't make it look so effortless like they can on TV. They'll do 20 of them and then just hop off and go run. And like, they don't even look tired. So since you have perspective, it draws you to that sport and you want to keep watching

it because you understand what it takes to try to do the things they're doing and for years everybody like you go wait with the meat uh and i gotta say guys wearing shirts like casey one time had this shirt on me i saw him like i don't burger yeah i'll add exclamation like i don't fucking bench i snatch but people ask you all the time you're a big strong guy what do you bench because that's all they knew that was their perspective i bench a lot what do you bench yeah but now it's like i bench sometimes i squat what do you squat i snatch what do you snatch i But now it's like I bench sometimes. I squat. What do you squat? I snatch. What do you snatch? I do muscle-ups.

How many muscle-ups can you do unbroken? This is your fucking aunt asking you these questions. This is not like some gymnast down at the local YMCA who's desperately trying to find a place to train. This is everybody on all walks of life in every major city now going worldwide going, oh, man, look at like a soccer soccer mom goes you see that guy snatch 300 that's beautiful never fucking happened before 2005 ever yeah i can say that as confidently as hell i am from an appreciation level but you now have yeah you have soccer moms learning how to snatch i mean that's why they know that they they walk into a gym and people now i feel like i

walked in the gym at faction the other day and I was looking around. I was like, I bet half these people would be doing nothing if it weren't for CrossFit. You know, because they don't have, you know, you either before CrossFit, it was like you either have a gym membership where you wander around, you know, the Gold's Gym aimlessly. If you don't know what you're doing, it's probably pretty close to aimlessly. You pick a strange rep combo you've heard, 3-10 I guess. Something out of a magazine. Yeah, but the motivation's low.

Or you could spend, you know, 100 bucks an hour with this personal trainer and now it's kind of like, you know, and then there, even then that personal trainer, you know, what they learned was probably out of a magazine

and now they're just passing it down to you. I mean, that could be the case. Not always, but you know. Not always, but that's still common. There's nothing in the middle, but then. Even if it was good, it was $1,000 a month. Yeah, it was just so expensive. But now people can spend a couple hundred bucks a month, have access to really high level coaches who are trying to better themselves.

And then, and it gives coaches like a way to, like a path to learn as well. Because before, like I remember when I was studying fitness before CrossFit came along, it was like all I had was like an NSCA book, like a textbook. And then there was all these random routes you could go. You'd learn more about weightlifting or this. It was very, very random about your education. You had to be very select very carefully and cross it kind of came along and goes oh here is you know you can do this this and this and now you're going to be a better coach

than anyone in your town yeah i love a lot of the traditional training stuff and you do get a lot of you're getting a lot of physiology beautiful you get a lot of mechanics uh basic technique stuff basic periodization advanced periodization oh that's great but how much of your time is spent like okay which what part of the gym should the power be a worrying on like uh how much of that how much mobility pragmatic mobility uh advice and shit was in those materials how much business experience could you get out of that how much could you get self-defense from any of that there's so much left untouched with the traditional model yeah Yeah. So much that never

even gets touched upon. And CrossFit was actually introduced to me by one of my buddies. It's, uh, in the Navy. He's a Navy SEAL. And that was one of the things that popularized CrossFit was like, Oh, the Navy SEALs are doing anything Navy SEALs do ends up being popular. Uh, even though CrossFit is not the only thing they do and they do other stuff and they pretty much do a bunch of different things but there was a period of time where a lot of those guys that's what they were doing and so one of my buddies who happens to be a Navy SEAL came to town introduced me to it he goes

oh can I learn the Olympic lifts better because I want to get better at this CrossFit thing I was like well I thought all you guys did was run swim and like lift traditional bodybuilding. A thousand box jumps well yeah before that if you're if you're doing like navy seal style training it's calisthenics running swimming they go in the weight room do some curls bench squat maybe but it was like now they're doing

weight lifting kettlebells you know they're doing much more athletic movements and now you're bringing coaches in uh that have this really deep exercise science background that I don't think they would have been there without CrossFit because everything is so traditional in the military. And bringing CrossFit in there was able to like break ground. And now you've got guys coming in,

they're hiring like legitimate strength coaches to come in, which wasn't happening before. And I think it makes everyone in our military safer, stronger, faster, all that kind of stuff. There's a, I think some people automatically will have that scarcity thing popping to go. If I can't have my thing and you're having your thing, that means I, you're taking potential and opportunity away from me. Like my traditional strength conditioning thing, you're fucking with it. And that's actually not true. Like people who are prepared to sort of step up and show what they know to this community

are given a huge new opportunity for spreading exercise science knowledge. Like the opportunity is ripe to have the old guard refreshed and take everything, you know, and it's exploded and make it applicable. And like, take all that research and let's start mixing it into the, this big experiment. Like, let's see what was what I says, pushing this break new ground on new sports science experiments. Let's see what is so like before, break new ground on new sports science experiments. Let's see what is so different. Before, based on my old school sports science knowledge,

I would have told you things like, there's no way Mike McGoldrick is going to run a half marathon and then fucking pick up that 400-pound stone. And the day I saw him do that, I was like, you're not going to do that. I know, like, I know gravity is real, but you can't fucking do that, Mike. And I watched him do it, explosive. I go, well, fuck. Paradigm shift. I don't know what I think

I know. You can probably train both those things at the same time and be really good at both. And that's like, you just always assume you couldn't do that. You assumed you couldn't do that before. Yeah, I think also like there was some endurance coaches out there like promoting strength training within, you know,

you know, do some strength training. You talk to endurance athletes still that aren't doing crossfit stuff and then you know they do their strength training is like three sets of 10 on this or that for a few different movements and then go run forever uh it's not strength training but it's also now it's brought a lot of strength coaches in the endurance community you know it had i had it not been for CrossFit, I probably would have never thought about, you know, not pursued training any endurance guys.

And now I've had the experience of training some endurance guys and I now understand the relationship between strength and endurance much better because of it. But that's something I might not have ever pursued. With your bias removed.

Yeah, it helped remove my bias. With your rose colored lenses taken off, you can see it for what it is. Yeah. It really has revolutionized a lot of communities that are outside of just crossfit like you mentioned the navy seals and the kind of the spec ops community but it's also revolutionized the whole rest of the military right not not just the seals but like like just standard infantry and anyone that's in the military or even police and firefighters people that might encounter or shit they have no idea what they're going to encounter on a day to day basis. And they kind of got to be prepared for everything. The whole CrossFit, it's unknown and unknowable.

The people that really have day to day lives like that where they don't know what they're going to encounter. It's revolutionized the way that they train on a daily basis. And not just when they are kind of like in their group training setting where like there's an instructor telling them what to do. But when they're on their own, their training is much different now because they're going to go do CrossFit on their own. Whereas before they might have gone for a jog, done some bench press and called it good. Now, when they're all by themselves, that's not what they do anymore. Now they go do a comprehensive real training program and they don't have any kind of gaps in their fitness. Yeah, the average person doesn't need

to get as strong as possible and only focus on that. They don't need to be focusing on just being able to run a marathon. The average person needs to like, 99% of the population for their health need to be kind of covering the entire spectrum. Of all the things that set me off

about criticisms of CrossFit, you can name plenty of legit things and people will listen to that because this is, if you pay attention to what was critiqued two or three years ago, those issues, there's new critiques now.

So it is moving in a good direction and anything growing rapidly under huge pressure with lots of resource accumulating behind it is going to go through growing pains. We're not saying any of that. Nothing's perfect in every situation. But the idea that

if you're, like, one of the main critiques that's valid is that this is not the way you should train if you're looking to deadlift the most amount of weight, which I go, oh, yeah. But to your point, Mike, for people who are wanting to be good at CrossFit, they don't want to be a strongman, and they shouldn't be. Your grandma

shouldn't be training to be a strongman, right? No, she probably doesn't want to be. Your mom doesn't need to be a competitive powerlifter. So training like that, if you're competing in those sports, is the best, is obviously the best thing you could do. But if you want to be fit and healthy, the best thing you can do is get exposed to all these disparate ideas that when tied together in a meaningful, progressive way, give you a better quality of life. That's the whole fucking point. Yeah. There's a lot of people that came from having a big fitness background already, whether it was from bodybuilding or powerlifting or weightlifting or whatever. And they already have, you know, decades of experience. And then they see CrossFit and they go, they say something like you just suggested, like, oh, there's no way that

will ever make you strong. And that to you, if a beginner hears that, they think, what do you mean it won't make you strong? Like, you if a beginner hears that they think what do you mean it won't make you strong like because the person with all the experience is thinking that's never going to make you deadlift 800 pounds yeah and the person that's a beginner doesn't give a shit about deadlift 800 pounds they just want to deadlift not 250 maybe 300 350 or 400 and crossfit can easily get you to over a 500 pound deadlift but it probably won't get you to 800 but most people don't give a shit a 500 pound deadlift is plenty and I will say in my experience, the most personal, I'm getting maybe in this a little early, but the most personal way I've been touched, like most personal aha, like, oh fuck, was when I learned in a very real, personal, meaningful way is that I pushed

so hard in certain specific directions and I got good results. These strength measures that were very specific. But for me to go back and relearn things with the lens of a cross-step mentality, learning from good weightlifting coaches and people like Kelly and people who are teaching, yeah, but you got to think about position and everything. I can go back and reteach myself to squat differently. Like I'm a, by the last decade of hard training, low bar, good morning style, heavy squatter, how much can i move now if you measure me in quote strength but you're measuring it in a more athletic position a position suitable for keeping your chest high on a deadlift and finishing with explosive pool or for a high bar squat that's more applicable to more athletic things and that way i'm way stronger i couldn't even get in those positions before so what is my strength worth nothing it was worth it was worth only it was only valuable on the powerlifting

platform for me. I couldn't bend over and touch my fucking toes. I couldn't do a front squat with fucking 200 pounds because I was so used to being bent over. I just couldn't even begin to hold it. I just mechanically couldn't even try. Once you stop competing, what's the point? And being strong and those

three things. But you couldn't do anything that the average person could do. You couldn't do a standing press with 185 three things but you couldn't do anything that the average person couldn't do a standing press with 185 pounds not gonna do that for 20 times yeah who's stronger who's stronger man that's the whole that's the question like before you doubt the efficacy something you should probably give it a solid fucking go until you do you feel how good it is to be able to do a handstand and how that benefits your shoulders at the years of bench pressing? You won't get the benefit it could have for you. You don't get the life benefit you could receive

just by trying a few different things. So that's where I am right now. And one of the criticisms that I saw often, especially over the last four or five years, CrossFit's gotten much better about this kind of on the global scale, but the barrier to entry is very low. You take a two-day certification,

now you're a CrossFit coach, and so anyone can do it. By the way, there's about a million two-day personal training certifications. Or just online. You just fill out like a check the box thing and then you submit your money

and now you're certified as a personal trainer. People that criticize CrossFit seminar process. You guys are the first thing. It's not any different than the other ones. It's not like there's a better one out there. Right. So if you're CrossFit certified, it could mean you're amazing

or it could mean you don't know anything depending on how well you paid attention on that particular weekend. The cert itself is fantastic. The information they give you is great,

but you could go into it with very little background, pay attention, and probably pass if you're a relatively smart person. Or you could go into it with 10 years of experience and maybe already know it all

and get your cert and now you look the same on paper. And so a big criticism, um, that I saw a lot over the last couple of years was people coming in and they, they would see someone on YouTube, either, either that is CrossFit certified with bad form, just cause they're still relatively new. They did their two day cert, cert, but they still don't have the most experience overall. And then from that one person who is trying to get better and is motivated and is trying to be the best CrossFitter they can be, but they're just brand new, people that were already in the fitness world,

that have experience, are already good, they judge all CrossFitters by this one person they saw on YouTube. It's conformational bias. They generalize off one person. Yeah, exactly. Confirmation bias. They want to think it's bad, and so they point to that one thing,

and it's not the big picture. I even see that within the CrossFit community. You have coaches that have been around for five, six, seven years now, which is very common. They've been coaching for that long, and then they're like, oh, these new coaches,

they don't know what they're doing. I'm like, did you know what you were doing six years ago? Cause I know that if I looked at myself coaching six years ago, I'd be ashamed of myself. What people are seeing is, is human traits that pop up in any field. Like how many bad professors you had that got PhDs? How many good ones do you have that had PhDs? How many shitty physicians you've been to? I've been to a few good ones. They went to the same schools. Have you ever had a shitty insurance salesman or a good one?

Like that's, people are either shitty, they don't care or they're excellent and they're beautiful and they're amazing and they study hard. You take the tool

and you make something out of it. The CrossFit seminars are a tool. They're, yeah, it's a little expensive to go but look, you may have Rich Froning,

you know, how many other big names have you had just in your personal? Chuck Carswell. Chuck Carswell. Yeah. That guy. Chuck's a man. Look, you have, how many other big names have you had just in your personal? Chuck Carswell. Chuck Carswell. Yeah. That guy.

Look, you have six people who have 10 years. You have six people who have been around basically since the start of CrossFit who all come down just to coach you. So six people who are pros at what you came to study are going to spend a whole weekend helping you. And they're going to have lunch. If you want to go with them and have lunch, they'll have lunch. You want to stay after hours and drink and talk train, they'll do that.

It is worth the money if you see why it's worth the have lunch, they'll have lunch. You want to stay after hours and drink and talk train? They'll do that. It's worth the money if you see why it's worth the money. If you don't, you don't. All three of us standing here have got multiple certifications and different personal training things. They range between $300 and $500 most of the time. Like the NSA was how much for our little CSCS

way back in the day. Oh, by the way, I didn't even... Yeah, I mean, it's $400. I didn't even do it in person. I studied in a book. I watched a video. and by the way, I didn't even, yeah, I mean, it's $400. I didn't even do it in person. I studied in a book. I watched a video. I went, well, I had to go take a test in person and that was it. There was no like in-person training

happening with that certification. You didn't show up and have to move. I watched the video and check boxes in a test. No one watched you do a Fran or a snatch or a depth. It's like, well, let's show me you know what you're talking about.

So there was 400. That was like 400 bucks. And I've been to, I won't name off all the certifications because I don't want to make them sound bad. And they're not bad. They're not bad. It's all about how you come into them and how you apply the information. You see all the good or bad you want to see. But I will tell you this is when I did the CrossFit seminar, I went in with some background and I was like, that was the best.

And I've been to some certifications and seminars since then from different organizations that were not CrossFit and they just weren't as good. Like what I got out of two days of training was better than anything else that I've been to. People forget the obvious market forces that would work. If people didn't think it was worth the money, they wouldn't fucking sell every single one of them all over the fucking world.

Like, don't you see that people all, do you see value in it? Right, and if you don't see value in it, then that's all right. If you don't, you don't have to go. No one says, listen,

you have to go to this seminar. They're not saying that. Right. There's not many people that go get certifications in other fields where they're not even going to use the certification

for their occupation, but they get certified anyway. Oh yeah, we've got so many people certified. Yeah. Just because they love it. They just want to know more.

And so that's the next step. They think it's worth the money. I've never had any of our clients that don't even end up being coaches. They just want to go to the level one. We have plenty of members. They get their level one. None of them came to me afterwards and go,

man, I wasted $1,000. Not a single one. I never heard anybody say it. No. We're not talking shit. We're just saying the truth. Look for yourself. If you think we're full of shit, just go out to one. I've never heard anybody say it. No. We're not talking shit. We're just saying the truth. Look for yourself. If you think we're full of shit,

just go out to one. You know, do experiment. Would you dare say, we want to say this, but we should do maybe a competition with somebody. Hey, let's have the loudest shit talker about these seminars. We'll sponsor you.

Go. If you love it, give us some money back. Yeah. I do appreciate all the really good strength coaches that have recognized that CrossFit is, is a sport that's growing at a very fast rate. And they realize that a ton of people think it's a lot of fun and it's not going away. And so rather than talking shit about it or giving

their opinion on why it's not as good as what they're already doing, they've come into the community and they're trying to make it better from whatever perspective they think making it better means but like they come into the community already having a good amount of experience in coaching and competing someone like someone like kendrick ferris comes in the community and doesn't say like all you crossers have bad weightlifting technique and then like making fun of them and you know doing cross is never going to make your weightlifting better he just comes into the community and tries to help. Right. Tries to help everyone get better. And everyone really appreciates that. And then everyone gets better because they have a really high level guy who knows what

he is doing. In the world of. Comes in and teaches. Yeah. I actually remember having conversations with some weightlifting coaches early in CrossFit and they were, you know, pretty critical of it. I was like, well, you could stand out here and be critical of it, of something that's going to grow.

Whether you're part of it or not, guess what? It's going to grow, whether you're part of it or not, guess what? It's going to happen. So you can be on the outside or you can get inside and change it and make it better because it's going to get better. Do you want to be a part of it or not?

And the people who are standing on the outside, well, that's what they are. They're on the outside. I would say thanks. From my perspective, I've seen Jesse Burdick and Mark Bell do great things on the palatting side. Oh, yeah.

A guy like Kelly bringing in his expertise, because he's worked hard for a long time studying what he knows to be able to say it now. Yeah. As a physical therapist, he could have come in and said, this is all terrible for you. This is all horrible. And he could have sided a bunch of ways and been very convincing,

because he's a smart guy, about why you should never do CrossFit if you wanted to. But instead, he came in, and he's making it much better on the mobility and technique side of things, the movement quality and efficiency side of things the movement quality and efficiency side of things genius the average coach understands movement at such a higher level that's what I really love

fuck if you take it to the the most novel example in my mind the most novel example is like what Tony does across at defense so now you got a copy of people like I'm learning how to move I'm gonna move a barbell and I was saying you know how to move a barbell watch this and he shows you how to use your body because now you get how to use your hand into somebody's face now punch this bag now you see like all the dots from

learning to clean a med ball your grandma learned to clean a med ball right at the beginning at the end she's like throwing a fucking punch by driving off her back foot and shit right do you now you see how it's all coming together to make better humans. Definitely. It's got shit to do with snatch PRs, really, in the end. It's about, you're a better human. Whatever you want to do, you can fucking rock it. That's actually a good argument for maybe teaching the soccer moms how to do a snatch or a jerk.

These are like fundamental movements. You have to move well to do it. Not to mention that all the research shows that you're less likely to have a hip fracture at the age of 70 if you're stronger. Let me be dead with that. Do you have the ability to produce force faster?

Yes or no? And if the answer is yes, your likelihood of a hip fracture from falling down is minimized. But my grandma, it's not safe for her to put a barb over her head, you dummy. What do you say to me? I'm everybody talking shit right now. Well, I think that you're, again, you're generalizing all old ladies into the same category. Doug's not talking to me.

I'm playing the role of devil's advocate. Let me be specific. There's some fans who might be like, Doug's talking shit to Chris. I knew they hated each other. That's right. People think being Chris hates each other. Doug's making an example. This is a lesson for you, not for me. Right, so like I was saying a minute ago, you could be cross certified

and be a terrible coach or a great coach. It just depends on the person. So there really are bad coaches out there that just put a barbell in the hand of any random old lady and just say on your first day, snatch. And they could look horrible, round back, no shoulder mobility like that.

Already previous back injury, already previous shoulder injury. Didn't ask the old lady if she's had, if she has any pain during the movement. Doesn't ask her anything. And that's a horrible idea for that woman to snatch on her first day like that there's probably other things you should do first maybe she never snatches ever yeah for some people but other people just because they're older doesn't necessarily mean they can't do something

like a snatch doesn't mean it doesn't mean you need to like load them up heavy on the first day maybe you start with a pvc like you probably should start any one of the pvc the answer is no matter who you are it depends there's no inherently dangerous movement for you know out of like the basic crossfit movements there's certainly things that are you know if you skydive without a parachute that's dangerous no matter who you are but like but if you are doing snatches clean squats and whatnot there's having enough range of motion to the movement with doing with a weight where you can do the whole thing correctly and have good technique without the whole movement. And age doesn't really play into it.

You either can or you can't. And the answer is it depends. That's such a small aspect of the circumstance. Most people who are 80 don't have great mobility. That's probably true. And maybe they don't need to be doing an overhead squat with their body weight. It's very likely. However, there's all these other variables that are much more applicable to the situation.

I'd say what's more likely. Do they have shoulder mobility? Do they have ankle mobility? If you're 80 and you have good shoulder mobility, ankle mobility, and your hips go in the right direction, fuck it. Do snatches, overhead squats. I can't tell you. But the average 80-year-old probably can't do it.

So it's not an argument of age. It's an argument of mobility and health. You know what's happening more often? A good coach will walk you through the progression, starting at the very low end of scaling and then working you through the whole progression. And if you get to a point in the progression where you can't do it correctly anymore, then that's where you

stop in the progression. And maybe the old lady doesn't jump right in and start doing kipping pull-ups. They start them with a very light ring row and if they can barely do the ring row, they just stay doing ring rows. But you know what's more common? Guess what?

We teach all these progressions. Coaches learn these progressions. That's why you're there. That's why you get certified. That's why you learn. People criticizing the snatch and the old lady, far more often I can tell you

that you'll go to any gym in this city or any city and see that old lady being put on a fucking leg press at the expense of the lower back. How often does that happen? That's happening every fucking day. You got to calibrate the risk to see it for what it is.

On most leg presses, it's almost impossible to do a full range motion without rounding your low back to the max extent. I think about how much I did that when I was younger. I think back, I'm like, man, I'm just lucky. I'm just lucky I'm not hurt from the stupid bodybuilder program design

that I put together based off of magazine information. Yeah. But all fairness to you, you're doing bodybuilding now. Have you learned? Have you learned? Don't tell anybody. I'm looking so huge.

Have you announced your stage date yet? When you're going to pose? When we shave. Does everybody know about that yet? April 1st. April 1st. April 1st. We're going to shave you for the episode.

On the show, Mike's going to be shirtless, greased up, tanned up. Bronzer. Oh, yeah. You're going to look so weird bronzed with that beard. We're going to shave you a monkey tail on your beard. For the monkey tail. I mean, you can't do a bodybuilding show without a monkey tail. If you don't want to be taken seriously.

No. If you want to win. So the last criticism I think we'd like to maybe address is the high rep stuff. I mean, I remember a long time ago a lot of weightlifting coaches going or people who were involved in weightlifting go you can't do more than three snatches at a time. This is ridiculous.

There's some rule. You're breaking it. But from their perspective the goal is to get a bigger one rep max on their snatch. Actually we did a barbell for boobs the other day or yesterday in the gym and one of the we like free Saturdays and we had people coming in that weren't part members of the gym and they go, Hey, I heard on the podcast, I want to say something about like not doing more than three reps on snatch or clean and jerk in the Olympic

lifts. Uh, you know, is that, you know, how true is that? And why are we, if that's true, then why are we doing barbell for boobs where it's grace 30 cleaning jerks for time and i and i was like well you know that what you probably heard was the perspective of a weightlifter somebody who spends their entire life trying to increase the one rep max of their snatch and their cleaning jerk in which case doing 30 snatches at you know a third of the weight or you know cleaning jerks at a third of their one rep max probably is not beneficial to their training. Yes, that is true. But that's not what we're trying to do. We're trying to improve the speed at which we do 30 cleaning jerks.

People don't get that. And so, you know, and I talked about, you know, limiters there, you know, if your limiter is your core stability, then, yeah, you need to be a smart athlete and not still yank that bar off the floor with a round back. I thought Sarah made an excellent point about this. She's like, well, doing it right is still the best way to do it if you're going to do reps. Just learn to do it right

and keep working at it. It doesn't matter how many you do if you're doing it correctly. It's like people talk shit about Kinnick when he did that 30, he was fucking around again, again. Fucking around, did it for 30 reps and people go, well,

look how he's going slow or whatever. Well, you can do it whatever pace you need to. He could, he could do that and then just do it a little faster next time and do it in the same quality. He'd be, he'd be crossfitting if he wanted to, but he's, he is training for the Olympics. It's still important that he snatches 400 pounds. Don't worry. He's only one of the strongest drug free guys in the world.

If you question that shit, let's, you come over to Memphis and we'll drive down. You can watch this motherfucker train and we'll drive down you can watch this motherfucker train and get whatever test you want he is legit on any level and he can and he's proof you if you want to do it safely just do it better do better for more reps i mean the reps don't mean you have to start rounding over and getting sloppy yeah all right let's take a break real quick when we come back we're going to discuss CrossFit, how this podcast has changed our lives and the lives of people who are now running CrossFit gyms and coaches and athletes. Yep. Boom.

And we're back. We're going to kick this next segment off with a toast. Properly. To all of you. All you fans, anyone who's shared us on Facebook, tweeted to us, left us a five-star iTunes review. I just mentioned it to a friend. We thank you.

Sincerely, we do. I mean, cheers. CTP, get in there. With open hearts. Anyone who's... Cheers, everyone. To anyone who's put up with the three of us, ramble on for hours on end.

How many dick jokes have we told? We have a tally. And CTP's artsy-fartsy... Bullshit. ...camera tricks. He's a genius. He is a's artsy fartsy. Bullshit. Camera tricks. He's a genius. He is a genius. And this would not be possible without him.

Cheers to CTP. We're cheersing. To CTP. With the intent that so much awesome stuff is yet to come. That's a good point. Definitely cheers to CTP. He really is the one that made all this possible. I couldn't do this without him.

His hands are so grizzled. Editing skills. And calloused over from holding that heavy camera for two years. Every Wednesday. He actually has developed a neck problem from this position right here. It's not good for a shorter position during snatches. They're hunched over like artist position. Usually artists don't have good snatches, I guess, for that reason.

They're all drawing, painting, obsessing over what they're creating. You got to open up. And also thank you to everyone that's given us feedback on the show so we can make it better. Every show we try to make it a little bit better.

We try to address the things that people actually want to hear about. And if we don't get any feedback, then we're kind of just in the dark about everything. So whether you believe the feedback,

whether you believe it or not, we try to listen. I know a lot of you don't believe that we're listening, but we are doing our best. Even the occasional troll will listen and yeah okay well maybe there's a point in that maybe there's a point still fuck you but still there maybe there's a point that's true every once in a while we get something that stings but but it helps us grow and evolve yeah as much as we don't want to hear it hey love the dick jokes maybe one too many gotcha

make that one count though lay it out there in the most dried silent moment you're gonna hit full speed yeah so i want to kind of tell the story a bit of how this all came to be because i think we just started it and we probably never went back and revisited exactly where it came from if you've been listening from episode one you may have pieced it all together that's for sure uh Uh, and I would not recommend going back to episode one yet again. I'll reinforce that point. Uh, we'd look back at episode one and cringe because the show has definitely gotten better and we've learned episode one isn't even one complete episode. It's like seven chunks, seven different YouTube videos. We like piece together on a playlist. Yeah. And if you're listening to this on iTunes,

I, I think it would be good to at least go and watch the first five minutes of this episode. It's like when you go back and watch the old Simpsons and Family Guys or the first episode, you're like, wow, look how better the drawing has gotten. But you can see the pearls are there. They're just not quite as fancy. Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about how this started and a little bit of the evolution of it. And, you know, Doug and I were working at CrossFit Memphis, Faction Strength and Conditioning. And Doug had been doing some Technique WOD videos. He had started. He was thinking ahead. And he was going, man, we, what was it?

Originally, Technique WOD was put together for our clients really because kind of one of those things were like, Hey, I want to, I want to like stop explaining everything a million times. Maybe it's like,

Oh, there's just a good resource. So people could, you know, when I go, Oh, what's that snatch again?

What's a snatch? They can look it up. It's a safe place on YouTube because not every YouTube video, if you Google snatch and just click the first thing that pops up,

hopefully it's our video. But if it's not, you know, that was the big thing. I didn't have a comprehensive resource to give our clients to go to learn exercise technique at the time, especially for Olympic lifts. So, so I just decided to start recording videos of myself and they were, they were horrible. Like I was just using my phone, setting it down on a box, like stabilizing it with like, with like a rolled up sock or like a band or something like that so it would angle back just the right angle He wouldn't let me film. He wouldn't let me help. Yeah, well a lot of times. I was there all by myself

I'm just kidding and the video was not great, but the audio was was horrible I was just yelling at my phone from 15 yards away, so Pretty much so CTP came on the scene, we started doing Barbell Shrugged about six or seven months later. We decided to roll Technique WOD into kind of like the commercial of the podcast, as everyone probably knows. So at least if you watch the videos, you know that. If you're on iTunes, you

might miss the Technique WOD. So if you haven't seen those and you only listen to us on iTunes, definitely watch the show every once in a while. It's pretty fair to say that the driving organizational procedural and like, here's how it can actually work is coming. Like CTV has got a vision that makes it all come together in the finished form.

God bless him. And Doug was driving like, here's a specific reason why this is a very good idea. And when the hell are we doing? We're the, we're in a coffee shop fussing at each other about, or in brainstorming novel ideas and strength edition. Blabber mouths. Blabber mouthing. Yeah.outhing yeah yeah well you know that was in the technique wad thing

and you know it's one of those things where i saw him doing it but i was like i will see what comes of it i really didn't see like uh you know it was like something to keep doing and people that weren't in our gym were definitely watching it but i didn't really have any idea of how that would work or how it could help anything grow. Like, what are we growing with that? And while you were confused, I was a hundred pounds heavier in the back screaming and being fat and lifting, powerlifting stuff and doing whatever the hell it was I was doing.

That's right. For all of us, especially me, especially me. CTP, we're all different human beings at the time. That fall, after he had started Technique Quad, CTP came and started interning at CrossFit Memphis. CTI. Yeah, we called him CTI, Chris, the intern in the beginning. And he was a student at University of Memphis, exercise science department. He had CrossFitted with us before, but when, you know, he was a student of Doug's. Doug was teaching at the

university that summer and he was a student of Doug's and I think Doug and I were talking about, should we bring that guy on to intern? He wants to intern. I'm not sure about him. A little bit back and forth. I definitely said that. Eating my words now, CTP's an A player for sure, but when CTP was

in my class, I announced at the beginning of the course that summer that we were accepting interns at our facility and if anyone's interested, come let me know. And he rushed up to me, like the first opportunity he got and he was like, I really want to do that. And I was like, oh, I don't make

the decisions on that stuff. I need to talk to my business partners. And I fed him a whole load of horse shit. It's like, come talk to you guys. And then we ended up letting him try it out and he, he crushed it right from the beginning. So from the first moment, Chris was a ideal internship because,

you know, he's only got to come in four hours a day, but he came in early, stayed late, asked for extra stuff to do. You know, if you're, if you really want to get into anything,

you got to do it like that. If you go up, if you go and do the minimum, if you're if you really want to get into anything you got to do it like that if you go up if you go and do the minimum if you if you walk into a job and you do what the job description says you're gonna have a job you messed up you're gonna have a job that won't grow anymore you'll be doing that forever yeah so um he did great he was interning we got to be you know little buddy buddy started talking in the office a bit we started hanging out a little bit on the weekends and then he he let you know she's like oh i was in a band i really yeah i'm in a fucking band yeah here's me playing guitar he had a much different background than the three of us we all have very athletic backgrounds uh none of us were musicians

none of us were very artsy and then we have like this guy that comes from this very different background which has been the biggest plus ever. So he's hanging out. We're hanging out. I'd been listening to Rob Wolf podcast and it was very content driven. The audio quality was not fantastic. And it was just after 20 episodes, kind of hearing like the same thing. And it was, I love Rob Wolf podcast. I still listen to it.

This is a snapshot. It's really great stuff but i i never really occurred to me that oh we could do a podcast like rob wolf i think maybe the idea had crossed my mind but i was like i don't know if i want to do that doesn't seem like very much fun and then ctp was like this huge fan of joe rogan podcast he had we all are really we are now but like you'd listen to like every single episode while you're being pizza man of the year is that right yeah ctp was also papa john's pizza man of the year what year was that 2011 yeah so he he had been listening to joe rogan for a while

and he's like dude you gotta listen to joe rogan i was like oh i'll get to it and then like two weeks go by he's like did you listen to that joe rogan podcast i go oh uh yeah i'll get to it and then i finally got to where i was like okay i'll download the joe rogan podcast i started listening to it and i was like he's not talking about anything joe rogan's time are ufos bigfoot and legalizing marijuana like and, that was the show. I was like, I call it fantastic content. And I was like, no, no, what I'm saying, though, is like my only experience with podcasting at that point was Rob Wolf's super content during biochemist,

you know, nutrition stuff. It's very fair to say, though, CTP was seeing something. He saw, I don't know if you understood at the time, CTP, but you saw a clear something. Like something was tickling your brain. Like you need to fucking just do this. And no matter what it is, just go and explore.

Start digging. You find something poking out of the ground. Dig and see what else you find. But it was, it seemed really like a bad point. Podcasting was boring. You guys all talked to the, you know, training and stuff. I'd hear you guys' conversations. Y'all would all be talking like you are now.

And I was like, dude, how cool would it be if it was y'all doing this but on a podcast? I could take a camera and float around. I was like, dude, let's just talk jokes and training. So Joe was like, yeah, that was a big realization for me in talking to Chris

about it was like, it doesn't have to be all content. It can be fun. I think once we realized that. It can be fun. And I think, I think once we realized that podcasting could be fun. Except that when you realize that would be the, that'd be the way it had to be if you put all of us in the same room.

Like it wasn't going to not be any other way. That's the thing is like, it was, I think listening to Rob Wolf, motivation for starting a podcast, even though I like knew we all had a good knowledge base, I was kind of like, oh,

that didn't look fun. But as soon as I saw that Joe Rogan was having a blast on him, I was like, oh, I want to do that. Yeah. That really was saw that Joe Rogan was having a blast on him, I was like, oh, I want to do that. Yeah, that really was the ticket to our success is the fact that it is content, but it's fun at the same time,

edutainment, if you will, where it's going back and forth between learning something and kind of listening to us talk about CrossFit while at the same time, it's not dry and boring and an academic feeling. I think what the whole key is that if we turn this camera off right now and this computer shuts down and we want to talk about the topic, we're going to talk about it in the same

exact fucking way basically. Not quite as structured, a little longer, a little more loose, maybe a little more goofing, but we're, I don't try to say anything. You don't try to be something. Doug is doing what Doug does, which is take apart an idea and fucking reconstruct his mind and be genius at it and you see visions and seeTP is creative as fuck.

And I tell the world's most average dick jokes on podcasts. I mean, this is exactly what we did in the coffee shop with no one listening. We're just doing this. Yeah, I think CTP had recommended we do the podcast. And I was at the Garage Games. I was at some Garage Games event. And I remember we were, I don't even remember when this was. I don't know if it was like pre-podcast or like we were just starting the podcast.

But I'll give a shout out to Again Faster because I was talking to the owner of Again Faster and one of the camera guys. Were you there with me or it was Rob? It must have been Rob. And I remember we went and talked to the camera guy and John Gilson from Again Faster. And they make, at the time they were making a lot of videos and a lot of, you know, just really, they're putting out good content as well. And I was like, Hey, you know, what's the, what would you say? Like the number one thing is, I remember having this conversation.

What's the number one thing you should keep in mind when you're creating these videos? And they were like, audio. They were like, they told me it was like the audio can't suck the video can be average the audio can't suck and that's when like we went you don't feel like you're talking to a person if you've listened to a scratchy i know that you're not you don't feel like you're there yeah and we had we had the the blue mic the mic yeah that little mic and you and i table mic just one big community mic right in the middle of the table. Right in the middle of the table.

And you and I had been at a coffee shop and we started trying out this podcast thing. And I remember you and I recording, Chris Moore and I, recording these conversations about training that were like 30, 45 minutes long. They're good. They weren't bad. At Republic Coffee here in Memphis. And then we would give him the CTP and go, what do you think? He would plug him in his phone, listen to him while he's driving around doing the pizza,

the Papa John's thing. And then he'd come back and go, that was awesome. And I'm like, really? Are you fucking kidding me? I'm like, man. No way it was awesome. I was like, I don't know. But we had done quite a few of those.

We had done some in my garage. We did some in the spare bedroom in my house. We started screwing around. We started having some guests. Some of those, most We started screwing around. We started having some guests. Some of those, most of those never got published. But then there was a point where it was like, okay, we're going to do this. And we took $1,000

and we went down to Guitar Center and we said, hey. $1,000 that, look, it's never going to, if you're starting out with something, anything, you're going to open a CrossFit box, you're going to start a blog, a business, whatever.

I guess there's a few things you need to know. I'll just pause because these are the most important lessons I've learned. One, you're going to feel like it's dumb. You're going to feel like you're scared fucking shitless. You're going to feel like it's going to fail and your children will starve in the streets like animals. If you feel that way when you launch your thing, you are fucking 100% normal. You need to realize that if you just go and go, you don't need a bunch of money. We had $1,000 we didn't have. We took it and you bought a fucking soundboard. What was the real risk?

I remember that day you came home with the mics. You were like, I spent $1,000 on mics. I was like, why? What's wrong with you? We don't have $1,000. $1,000. Yeah. For some reason, it's really easy for me to spend money. But you don't sound as stupid. You don't listen to everybody who's listening right now. Only if it's the community's money. You don't sound as stupid as you think you do. I'm really going for me to spend money. But you don't sound as stupid. You don't listen to everybody who's listening right now. Only if it's the community's money.

You don't sound as stupid as you think you do. I'm really going to spend my own money. Ask Ashley. You don't sound as stupid as you think you do. You don't sound as stupid as you think. You got to believe 100% even though you're scared shitless, you're okay. And whatever you have on you now, if you got a little money to buy the thing, take the risk. Because on the backside, you'll see the fear was really blown out of portion.

It was in your head. Go for it. I don't know. Fucking pursue it. Go, go, go. That could have been easily wasted if we sucked. Take the risk. Because on the backside, you'll see the fear was really blown out of portion. It was in your head. Go for it. I don't know. Fucking pursue it. Go, go, go. That could have been easily wasted if we sucked. We didn't. I mean, I think what made it work was the fact that we sat down and had discussions.

Like, if we're going to spend $1,000, we're going to be doing it every week. It wasn't that close, but we took a shot. You know, you can't do a podcast once every 10 days. You can't do it once every whatever. We made a commitment. We put on the website, hey, we're going to publish this every Wednesday. And we decided to film it, too. And had the accountability.

And we started filming it. And we didn't break the commitment. Well, we just went to Guitar Center and said, hey, what do we need for a podcast? I'm like, oh, it's this. Oh, it costs $1,000. Okay, let's do that. He started, yeah, that was actually super key. Gotta give a shout out to James Chaney.

James Chaney James Chaney yeah the first like 15 episodes he's the other guy in the cast there he helped us launch man yeah and then

you know instead of just being on iTunes yeah we're on YouTube and the filming that's been extremely critical

I think CTP tells people that all the time good stuff good stuff and they just kind of like,

we took, we started filming at CTP's house and then at, you know, we kind of moved around a bit and then we started getting good interviews

and it's just been, it's been an awesome ride. I think the fun part is going to people's, like we've been in Jason Kalipa's garage. We've been in Rich's garage. You've played in

Christmas Abbott's house. You laid in her bed. I was in Christmas Abbott's bed. Maybe I'm beside the bed she sleeps on. Who knows? Could get much more intimate than that. Oh, geez.

But yeah, I will say- Beyond just the start of the podcast, like without CrossFit, we probably never would have opened a gym on our own. Like the barrier of entry of opening your own gym with the CrossFit model is very low. You don't need much overhead. You don't need much equipment.

It doesn't have to be particularly nice. Like we- not a gamble when you open the gym it was just concrete floors like like loose like torn up wires hanging from the ceiling that fucking building was falling down it was not people thought it was awesome people asked me code opposite of code people ask me all the time like how much does it cost to open a gym and i tell them sixty thousand dollars for like the memphis area it's like that'll that'll make things comfortable and ideal that's more than enough too but we did with seventeen thousand and it showed um but how much how much would it be to like start a subway franchise i don't know or something that doesn't give you dollars yeah on the low end that i just want to say that because for some people, they hear 17 grand, they would be scared.

But you got to realize that it's the lowest entry to this potential thing. To have a facility, to have equipment, to offer a service, it really is a revolution. It's like what 3D printers are. It's like it gives you the confidence and a- 3D printers? 3D printers.

Oh, 3D printers. I don't know. It's the same kind of thing. I got a printer for like $30 at Walmart. What used to take a very large commitment and a very real gamble in a situation

where you didn't have a huge community of people to say, here's what I've learned from my mistakes. Don't make the same one. There's no reason why the costs are just enough

to where you got to really believe you want to do it to take a shot, but you can do it. Well, actually, you know, in that regard, starting a CrossFit gym is easy. I see the biggest

challenge for most people is when I try to make it from my corporate job, my nine to five, and I'm doing this CrossFit thing on the side in my spare time to make the jump and quit their job. That's harder than scrounging for the money to get the gym started in the first place. You know, and we were just lucky enough that we were poor college kids and young enough to where we didn't have wives and kids that depended on us. So it made it super easy. And living in the gym was not hard. I mean, well, no, let me say that a different way.

You didn't know any better. Living in the gym was hard, but it was doable because I didn't have to have my kids in there with me or anything like that. Yeah. We lived in the crawl space, basically in like the attic of the gym for a year, year and a half. You moved out before I did. I moved out after like a year and a half.

I did. Doug's like, I'm out. I was like, we're only making like 900 bucks a month at the time. People don't know this. We were fairly good by. The only reason I got married is so I could go live in my wife's house. I was like, I gotta get out of this crawl space. I'm going to get married.

You love your wife too right? Yeah yeah yeah She's a great lady Ashley's great She puts up with your shit I tell you You are the luckiest man alive To have her put up with your vision

She could have said This guy is fucking crazy There's a lot of women I can get along with for one night But Ashley is the only girl Ashley I hope the context Of that statement makes sense to you See the fact that he says shit like that

And she puts up with him Means she's the one for you. But she can stay with me forever and it'll be all right. Any other man who says, there's a lot of women who can put up with me through the evening. But you're the only one who's dumb enough to stick around with me. And go, I love you, baby. That's one woman in the world who has said that to you. Yeah, I'm not sure I can find one that would be able to put up with me more. You won't.

That more for 24 hours, yeah. You won't. Well, that beard, too. Yeah. As crazy as you look right now. She doesn't even like it if I don't have the beard. So, yeah. We ready to wrap this thing up?

Well, what? You want to say a little bit about, you know, we've fallen very optimistic about 2014, aren't we? I mean, we're about to fucking just uncork this thing even bigger. I was going to wrap it up talking about the past, but we- Fuck the past. We have not talked about the future. That's very true. We got a lot of trips coming up.

Yeah. By the time you hear this, we will just come back from Guadalupalooza in Miami, which will be an epic trip. Cuban coffee, pressed sandwiches, good looking people, and neon shit on the beach with abs and sexy buttocks and talks and education and fucking inspiration and big time visions and new partnerships. Fucking A. 2014, man. Such a good year.

We're basically going down to Guadalupalooza, like the best competition on the East Coast to hang out. Great warm climate in the middle of nowhere. You know, Trinidad was like kind enough to let us put on all the conference talks. So we got to organize the speakers that we want to hear from. Sky's the limit, man. Yeah, I mean, we got Dave Asprey coming out and we have guys like Zach Evanesh and Travis Mash

and Justin Thacker. We have like all these really cool guys. People who are just experts at what they do and they're joining this thing. Lucky enough that we get to hang out with these people. That's what this CrossFit movement is. It's all these people who are just such, have such beautiful, varied backgrounds and highest, like Dave is the first guy

to sell shit on the internet by a story and Travis, the world record powerlifter, Zach's been in this game of strength gurus and it's like, let me push a unique view

of strength for years and years and years for most people and we're bringing in all these great players and we're going to fucking blow it up and these people

listening to this show are going to benefit. They'll be the first ones to benefit. That's just January 2014. That's just fucking the first month of this year so uh just uh look look forward to things happening in 2014 it's going to be awesome take our word for it big plans in the works cheers one more cheers thanks everyone pour fresh champagne and say fuck man it's gonna be good

times one more big thanks to ctp thanks, brother. CTP, cheers to you. Couldn't have been done without him. That's right. You look damn good in that jacket, buddy. In a swoop, I love.