Barbell Shrugged - 106- Olympic Gold Medalist Rower Erin Cafaro and Brian Mackenzie of CrossFit Endurance

Episode Date: March 5, 2014

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we interview Erin Cafaro, Olympic gold medalist in rowing, and her lover, Brian McKenzie. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson. We left Chris Moore at home and we traveled to Cookville, Tennessee. Sorry, Chris. He'll be on the next show, hopefully.

We traveled to Cookville, Tennessee to hang out with Brian McKenzie and Aaron Cafaro. Bam. I asked you right before the show, too. Yeah, I know. You gotta be a good Italian. Aaron Cafaro. Cafaro. Cafaro. I practiced it and Bam. I asked you right before the show too. Yeah, I know. You got to be a good Italian. Aaron Caffaro.

Caffaro. Caffaro. I practiced it and everything. I know. We had a discussion. threw me off. We're here because you guys are running an athlete cell camp at CrossFit Mayhem. And you're going to be coaching.

You're coaching Rich Froning a little bit this week. Yeah. Yeah. I've been working with Rich for kind of a little bit on and off for the last couple of years. And then a lot this year within the endurance stuff. Yeah, I've been working with Rich for kind of a little bit on and off for the last couple years, and then a lot this year within the endurance stuff. So, are we getting in the pool tomorrow? Yeah, we're getting in the pool tomorrow.

Maybe CTP will be able to catch some of that footage. I'm sure he will. Is that one of Rich's Achilles heels right now? His swimming isn't quite up to par with his weightlifting and his gymnastics. I think if you watched the CrossFit Games last year, you will have noticed a 30th-plus place in the swim event. He doesn't like that 30th marker. Now you have to crawl your way back from behind.

Dig yourself out of a hole. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that definitely is Achilles' heel for him. I don't think so so much anymore um he's been doing some work with a coach out here who's a uh she was a d1 swimmer um and he's between all the guys that have been out here the feedback has been his technique has changed a ton which is which is great because i'm throwing workouts i with it adam and i can only do so much from being in southern california what your background with swimming? I know when people think Brian McKenzie,

they think when I think Brian McKenzie, I think running, even though you have a swimming and cycling in your book, but do you have a big swimming background as well? Yeah, I actually have a bigger swimming background than I do of a running background. Even if you're not on board? Yeah. You're all about some surfing. I'm all about the surfing. I'm actually more of a surfer than I am anything, but I swim one to two times a week when I'm typically at home. But I swam from about the age of four till probably 21 or 22. So almost 20 years.

And, you know, I got tired of the lane line thing, but I had an extensive background with swimming so I mean fairly extensive so okay and Aaron uh what's your background you're probably the most decorated person here yep um let's see I started out playing basketball cross-country track in high school and then walked on to the rowing team at Cal Berkeley. And, uh, that worked out pretty well for me. So I got invited, uh, well, won two national championships while I was at Cal. And then, uh, that kind of boosted me onto the national team and won, uh, I think it was about six world champion. No, three world championships. But every time I competed I was on

the podium so you can't count your world championships you're doing just yeah there's a yeah there's like like at home there's so many damn medals in the safe that it's just like you know between the two golds from the Olympics and then world championship

medals as well the world championship medals are actually pretty badass looking. I hope so. Can we get some pictures of those? Yeah. Oh yeah. The world championships ones, they look like a big quarter. Yeah, but they're really, really shiny. They look a lot...

Whatever. Other than the jade that's on the 08 gold medal, which is actually the more expensive medal. Yeah, but the Sochi Olympics, did you hear they had like part of meteorite was put in some of the medals? No.

I know. Wow. Could have had some meteorite. I should have. If she was a winter athlete. If I could handle the cold. If she was on the bobsled team. If I could handle the cold and had a pair,

then yeah, I think I would have done. I've heard of people switching over from whatever sport they were in to bobsled. This is like super common. Yeah. A lot of track and field athletes. As long as you're super fast. Push, be really quick and jump in and hold on for dear life. I'm trying to remember who I talked to last.

I talked to someone last and they were like, and then I did some bobsledding. What? Like it fit. It was like a, it's like they had like the sports background and went bobsledding and now they're doing this other thing yeah it's like yeah it was crazy yeah so what do you think made you so naturally good at rowing or do you even feel like you're naturally good at rowing we'll start there um you kind of just said i walked on and then i won a world championship uh yes and and no i would never consider myself a naturally talented athlete by any means, especially in rowing. Like, um, the typical rowing athlete is at least six feet tall

and for women they weigh, you know, around 175. So it's typical for women to be six feet tall. Yeah. So I, I lived in the land of giants. That's why I like being around CrossFitters because then I feel like I'm a big girl again. But yeah, no, now, you know, I just walked on to at Cal and it's not that it was easy. It was that all the work that I put in, you could see it paid off. And it was kind of like a one-to-one.

Like the more work you put in, the harder you work, the better you got. And I really liked that. Um, not so much, you know, in basketball, you could work your ass off and still suck. But, uh, you know, it, it, it kind of just, I think it was right place, right time. Um, and I happened walk on to one of the best teams in the country um so that helped as well and had one of the best coaches in the country um specifically for the rowing part rowing yeah how was the strength conditioning at the time did you go in with a big strength background or no no no no yeah um i was all you know i was just an endurance athlete i guess i that's the naturally talented part i'm good at suffering like that's yeah that's what i'm good at i don't know way and and crossfit and rowing you know any sport where you're having to push like that lactic threshold

yeah being able to suffer it's not necessarily the starting or getting out there fast but once you know you get into the suffer land that that's where I'm at home so uh so I like the endurance sports um and then was 2008 or the the fall before 2008 you know I was I'm undersized for a rower and there's you know equation power force times distance couldn't make up for the distance you know I wasn't getting any taller so try to work on my force and my brother introduced me to Kelly Starrett and over at San Francisco CrossFit and they started giving me supplemental programming and I got stronger and I got faster on the water and that's how got into you know the strength and conditioning world. What did that strength program look like?

Lots of squatting, box squatting? No. It was actually, so we did a lot of volume. As Brian said, we did more volume than marathoners or about the same amount of volume as marathoners. As a rower. As a rower, yeah. It was like over 200K a week.

If I do like 5K, my ass falls asleep on the concept too. I think for reference, people should understand that their race is only two kilometers. Exactly. So it's like a seven minute race for women. Under six minutes. So yeah, typically. So it's a little counterintuitive, but still, you know, just worked on the, on the strength and conditioning piece. And it obviously seemed to seem to help.

So 200 K a week, most people are more familiar with like a 500 meter row, which is half a K. Yeah. So you're doing the equivalent of 400, 500 meter rows every single week back then? Doug likes to think in math. I know. I'm like, I think you lost me. When she was training for the Olympics, yes. I'm trying to break it down for CrossFitters so they can understand really what that means.

Everyone knows what a 500 meter row means in the CrossFit world. But 200K, they go, I don't know what that means. Do you have any tips? This is the most important part of the podcast. Do you have any tips for my ass not falling asleep on a concept to row because that's pretty common.

Yeah. No, that is common. I know actually a couple things. First thing that I just found out lately from my good position coach over here is, you know, sit more on your high hamstrings rather than down on, on, on your butt. It's going to help you, your back in better, straighter position, um, and be able to use your posterior, not just your anterior. Everybody thinks that they're,

you know, their quads are just blown up on the, on the rowing machine. But if you do it correctly, you should be able to use both systems, right? Um're tucked under that's when things are going to turn off uh the other thing is get a seat pad if you don't know if you don't know what that is just look it up i'll show i'll show you i'll show you one all you have to do is see pad saves everything and plus it gives you a little lift so it changes the position of it's it's almost like wearing an ollie shoe yeah yeah i've i've uh i've run into rowers who would see my ollie shoes and go oh that looks a lot like a rowing shoe is that is that accurate or was that talking to somebody oh all right the rowing shoes are exactly like track shoes without the spikes. Okay.

Yeah. And you're on footboards just like the ones on the Concept 2. You can actually alter the pitch and then it also helps. You can actually alter how far in and out they go, which is very helpful. I, you know, be great to do that on the Concept 2 as well. Get a little bit wider. Have you been on that newer concept too that kind of it moves with you oh the the dynamic one yeah yeah yeah that's um that helps you have it's a little bit truer to the feel of the water so in the on the concept too there's uh on the on the original one there's a little bit of this um

dead spot in the in the front i don't know if you know what i'm talking about but like when you're in compression to the old one with the wood handle uh no just the just the normal concept too not the dynamic one and it then it kind of jerks you back when you just when you um basically get the resistance and uh that's not how it feels on the water you need to be a slack on the water exactly there's no slack unless you what we call miss water and then you know the right boat jolts um so the dynamic erg was created because it does have more of that it encourages more acceleration like it doesn't have as much resistance in the front and encourages you to build the acceleration throughout so that's why more like being on the water yeah another difference with the way you guys row is you're rowing on one side some of us

yeah the uh we they call us sweep donkeys you go sweep donkeys go to one side uh scholars they're more uh technical and you know there's a single so that's you know person just balling out by themselves and then there's a double um and a quad which is four people um they're yeah they're definitely a bit more technical uh you have two oars to handle not just one and uh then sweep is what i did going off to one side and you walk around crooked yeah so you've developed like some massive asymmetries because oh yeah oh yeah and we actually just saw like dr mate uh mate dr nate maynard and cookville and he straightened you out yep it's it's getting better um i didn't hear the screams coming in the room,

from the room like it was. When I was in there, I was screaming. You were nice and quiet. Remember that thing about suffering? She likes suffering. So what all have you done over the years to help kind of alleviate some of those asymmetries just to keep yourself healthy?

CrossFit, I like to say. And also finding, yeah. Um, also, you know, not trying to favor, uh, think about, you know, oh, I'm rowing off the right side, so I need to do more left side things. No, I need to actually be more conscious of that and do, you know, lift a barbell, but realize that I'm going to compensate, you know, have this compensation pattern. So, um, you know, lift it, still use both sides, but also, yeah. Awareness. Yeah. And the, I mean, like the general thinking, even within the rowing world or any world of sports specificity is that's okay. You're just going to overdevelop that, that side so that we can get, you know, cross that line. You might break a few ribs. You might herniate a few discs. But after that, you'll be good to go.

Now you're initiated. And literally, that is what happens with all of them. You know, and you see changes that get, you know, if you actually, oh, well, what if we actually attack the other side? What if we help build this up? And it's like they get better. They get stronger.

They don't break down. They don't, you know, it's just. Yeah. I mean, that happens with almost any sport that's not a strength sport is you develop these you know left to right asymmetries you know baseball pitchers have you know their shoulders are you know one side's higher or lower than the other and so i think it's like a good thing for people who have played a sport for a long time where they develop these asymmetries to have like they need to be aware where a lot of people probably don't think about what they're doing they're just going in and

training and not thinking you know i need to make sure that i'm not you know using you know my right side more you know if i'm right-handed like maybe i'm using my right side too much or something like that and let making sure your left side engages well and also we spend so much time in inflection that i feel like you know even throwing strength and conditioning is bench pulls deadlifts you know everything inflection and i'm like well what about the posterior like that we never addressed that um and once i did everything got stronger it was crazy a crazy idea, right? So you had some kind of glaring holes in your total body strength, and you didn't even know until...

I had no ass. Oh, no. That's a terrible disease to have. Yeah. Most rowers have it. Most runners. So at what point did you guys meet? Was that pre or post no ass?

Oh, it was pre. Oh, no. I met her. We originally met in 2009. Is that why it took you two or three years to start dating me? Yes. Oh, gotcha. I met her at No Ass.

It was like a tipping point. Like, oh, the ass is big enough. All right. Yeah, yeah. No, we originally met in 2009 and uh she was actually coming off of a broken rib at the time and this was just post 2008 olympics um and uh she kind of she'd already been crossfitting a little bit but then she had come she came to a seminar that i was doing actually down in chula vista right next to the olympic

training center and she came spent some time with me and, uh, you know, just started to become more open to ideas. And we stayed in contact through that time. And then New Year's day, uh, 2012 was when we started really dating and that was, uh, and then leading in the 2012 Olympics, we kind of, we messed around with a lot of stuff, um, nutrition training, monitoring everything. I think the biggest thing we, the biggest change we made was nutrition. Uh, but we also started attacking all these things and figuring out what she could do with 200 K a week of other stuff. And you said that she's pretty low carb even with that high volume at that point yeah we actually dropped carbs um at that point um and increased fat and

you know one of the typical things you know i just saw that rob actually had done a recent post on adding carbs for a lot of what yeah on yeah rob wolf on adding. And he's seen women that like tend to lose cycles and stuff with things like that. So it was interesting because I've seen it that way, but I've also seen it where there's just no fat in the diet. And that was where a lot of these gals have been at, especially at the elite level. I even see it with men where they're just terrified of fat intake. And so we, the big thing was, is that we actually upped her fat intake, um, which in lowering the carbs allowed for a lot. And we immediately within the first week, we saw recovery levels just increase. I mean, she was recovering faster. She was feeling better. Everything was just starting to make a whole lot more sense.

Right. So he said you were feeling better. But how like from your from your perspective or your own thoughts, like how are you feeling? Like what was that transition like? Yeah. From what I remember, it definitely wasn't immediate. You know, you kind of have to your body has to adjust to this new fuel source. I live the endurance carb life. You know, you go out to Italian food and eat a big plate of pasta or whatever. You got carb load before your races, you know. Cafaro. Yeah.

She's Italian. So, you know, and then I, when I was introduced to to crossfit i started trying out this paleo thing but still you know i was i was scared of fat i'll say it now yeah i thought fat made you fat you know and that's what it's called fat that's what you know it just made sense one-to-one it was a good marketing scheme right um so i i definitely took a little bit of time and trust to, you know, he would give me a spoonful of coconut oil and be like, here you go. I'm like, okay, here it goes down the hatch. But, you know, there's that transition and some people call it, you know, the ketogenic

flu. I think I had a little bit of that. I don't know if it was the volume or what, but, you know your mood kind of uh gets a little messed up you feel like you're you got the flu or you're a little sick um you just don't feel right and you always people who go from high carb to like paleo and then like a few days in they're just like i'm like yeah you're just burning a ton of fat yeah yeah and all you want is like to crush some like chips or you know oh it's all you want to do. But then, you know, once you break past that, you're good to go.

And I, yeah, literally, you know, they say when you get older, you're supposed to have less energy and recover. You know, recovery time is supposed to be a lot slower. But my early days of rowing was all plagued with injury like I either had a broken rib but torn QL like this or that you know throughout my there my early career and then towards the end of my career well especially my last year is when I didn't have an injury yeah you're just not getting enough fat to produce the hormones necessary to recover exactly you know that's what people miss out on they think about fat making you fat but don't think that you need fat to create all these hormones that are necessary for recovery yeah

and i mean it i mean it's it's funny because the norm is these none of these gals get their cycle like they're just they're not and they're like oh yeah because she does like a badge of honor you're like oh i'm training hard i'm training hard right now and it's like no that's, they're not. And they're like, oh, yeah. It's kind of like a badge of honor. You're like, oh, I'm training hard. I'm training hard right now. And it's like, no, that's not okay. You're not recovering. You're not optimal. You're actually not optimal.

You're actually dealing with a lot more inflammation at this point. And, you know, it's like immediately things change for her. So that was a big, big plus for her. So we shooting for 2016? Two years out. Ooh. Yeah, no, you know, I am very satisfied with my rowing career and what I've done so far.

Like I am a happy person with the accolades that I've collected. There is still a question in my mind. You know, I still got both of the gold medals through a long, slow distance program. And so there still is this question in my mind that can you have less injury? And, you know, as especially for the older rowers or the rowers that are going through a second cycle or even not just rowers, but endurance athletes, can you still be successful? Can you

go fast under an interval based program? Yeah. And Brian, I remember, um, I've been following you for years and I remember reading, uh, like how you would crush pizza on the ultra marathon. You were like, fuck it, whatever. I'm just going to like, you know crush pizza on the ultra marathon you were like fuck it whatever yeah i'm just gonna like you know at whatever mile marker i have a pizza waiting on me and i just crushed that i was like interesting and then like kind of changed your tune uh a few years ago yeah i don't remember exactly what point i just remember remember reading that i went the moment i actually started eating paleo was like that that all changed which that was in the last my last 100 miler which is was in 2007 so that I was I was eating clean at

that point I was not I'd eaten cheeseburgers during that but I still eat cheeseburgers today. Um, just not with a bun typically, but, um, during runs and stuff, I would absolutely eat pizza. I would, you know, and so would guys like, like Dean Karnazes, who a lot of people know about, you know, he used to eat crush all that stuff. He doesn't do any of that anymore. We've all, I mean, I think we've all kind of wised up a little bit to the point of, you know, I mean, if we actually want to last longer, if we actually want to recover quicker because we are not getting younger, if we actually want to last longer if we actually want to recover quicker because we are not getting younger that we're going to need to smarten up a little bit about this stuff and it wasn't that i was being done it was just like oh i need to

fuel myself i need to do this right then it's like you start to realize fast what am i feeling now what am i feeling myself with and now we're seeing guys literally there was a guy who won a hundred mile or not too long ago uh who he's he a, I believe he's on a low carb diet. I know it's grain free. It's basically paleo. He, he took in 1500 calories total on a hundred mile run. Wow. And you can do that if you're at a point where you've got your body trained enough to deal

with something like that. And I think that's an individual thing though. You think some people just, no matter what, they're just not going to do well on that low carb for that, for that distance. To, I don't, in an ultra marathon world. No, I think a lot of people could actually, I think the intensity is low enough. You get, you get CrossFitters and people who are doing a ton of intensity. Like you get a CrossFit endurance athlete. So that the intensity is low enough. You get, you get CrossFitters and people who are doing a ton of intensity. Like you get a CrossFit endurance athlete. So that's a ton of intensity.

You're going to need actually to replace some of those carbohydrates at a, at a higher scale. Right. You know, and, and that's where it'll catch you. And, and I've been in that boat,

you know, I wanted to believe that low carb, no carb would work forever. And we've, you know, but that was not what happened. And you hit walls and you go, okay, I guess I got to add this back in. It doesn't, it doesn't work if you're doing CrossFit competitive style, like you're burning a ton of sugar. Yeah. But when

you're, when you're doing those, in essence, like a CrossFit, a CrossFit endurance program is literally going to be, you know, there's going to be two, three days a week where you're doing doubles, if not triples, depending upon how long you're into this and how competitive you want to be, um, with your racing. So, you know, and that was argued, you know, that was probably one of the first programs that was out there with CrossFit where it was actually putting out two a day workouts, three a day, you know, things like that. So when you're doing, you know, if you're doing CrossFit in the morning and then in the evening you're, you're doing 400 meter repeats till your butt falls off. That's a whole lot of, you know, that's a whole lot of tap in that glycolytic system. Yeah. In which case, I mean, what,

what do you do for carbs at that point? Well, I mean, you've got sweet potatoes, you've got things like that. Can you handle milk? Can you handle stuff like that? I mean, like with you, it's like, you know, you got the goat milk thing. I mean, there's, there's, there's a, there's a positive right there. Right. You know, but it's all based on what you can handle, what your body is not allergic to, what you don't have poor reactions to. And I, and I honestly believe that unless you're willing to pull everything out that you potentially could be allergic to, there's no way to really find out unless you're going to get extensive, expensive blood work done right now, which, you know, five to 10 years from now, that's not going not going to be extensive expensive it's going to be a prick of the finger boom here's

what you're allergic to here you know and yeah you know so right now people what a good idea would be like remove anything that could make you allergic or that you could be allergic to add things in you know yeah go clean for like 30 days add things in every third day you got something new yeah and then you'll find out like, you know, sometimes like my wife, she did that and then she added in like maybe 10 things. It's like two months into this thing. Yeah.

And then she adds tomatoes back in and tomatoes destroy her. And it's like, oh, all right. So now she knows like something that everyone's like, well, tomatoes are good for you type of thing. They're good for your colon. Yeah, so now she knows like something that everyone's like, well, tomatoes are good for you type of thing. Yeah. But like, you know, tomatoes just upset her stomach. And so she just can't, especially if she's going to train that day. So I think a lot of people have heard to do that, to go cold Turkey, basically just meat and veggies, and then add stuff in slowly. Typically,

what do you start with when you add stuff back in like what what's the most common like first five foods that you would dare again dairy is the first thing you had back in i'd toss around dairy uh just because like most people love dairy you know it's like okay well let's find out if you've got that allergy if there's a reaction and you'll know immediately with the dairy thing you know um you'll then maybe typically bread or grains things that you know you that you really crave and like um this also becomes a very slippery slope for a lot of people where they go from being paleo or low carb that right back into high carb because they're like oh yeah i want my dairy i want my my bread i want this i want that

and then all of a sudden it's like you know you're on a high carb diet again where you know for most people that's just not as optimal and what we just because it's functioned well for what it's been doesn't mean that that's necessarily the in my experience it's because i've been high carb and i've had every one of my athletes high carb in the past the comparison between being high carb to paleo and actually monitoring and watching this type of stuff is night and day. The, just the recoverability, all that stuff. How would you describe high carb, like a percentage of calories and what would you, what would you define as like low, typically low? I think over 60%, you know, would be high carb. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And then what would low carb look like on average i guess you

would say on average i'd say probably under 40 so kind of like more of a zone yeah more yeah yeah yeah okay and you'll see typically even with like zone people in crossfit is it's like you're on zone for so long then it's like you're like two times three times four times fat five times fat i mean i walked into crossfit and glassman looked at me and was like, what are you on like a 18 block, five times fat? I'm like, how'd you know that? He's like, kid, you're doing ultra marathons. Like you've got to be getting those calories from something, you know? It's funny though. I remember reading like CrossFit journal and people remember, you know, I played around with zone for about three months and then, um, and then I started tweaking from there. Yeah. But then people would go,

oh, what do you do? And I go, oh, you know, I do like three times fat, you know, this many blocks, three times fat. But then I started thinking, well, you're not doing zone anymore. So like I saw people writing

in the CrossFit journal. That's my. They're like, I do zone plus this. I'm like, why are you telling people you do zone because you're not? You're doing zone and then you're bastardizing. We're on the same page with that.

I lasted a week. I was like. I am not measuring anything anymore. Obviously with the numbers and everything else like out the door. I've been measuring things since I was 15 because I was a weird kid

and I know everything by like grams and calories. So grams and calories and then you want to like make it in blocks now and that just confused me. I think it probably helps people that have never counted calories before

and grams, but for somebody who's got experience with it, I kind of got lost. Yeah. It's just one more layer of complexity. It'd be like really taking grams and now we're doing blocks, which are a bunch of grams

and then if we did cubes, which are a bunch of blocks and you take one cube of this one cube of this then you gotta figure out how many blocks or anything you gotta figure out how many blocks per gram it's just one more layer of complexity that's not needed if you're already comfortable with grams but i do find that it does help people who've never counted calories before i i agree i i and i agree but i you know i like i'll you know it's it's you get somebody learn hey here's how much you actually have to put into your system

in order to function better and we adjust until you feel really good then you understand how much you actually need when you're training and then it's like nothing is ever spot on it takes it takes a you know it takes a gram or you, it takes a calorie or a gram of carbohydrate just to digest a gram of, you know, to digest a calorie of carbohydrate, right? So, like, if you're counting calories, did you adjust for that? Or, you know, it doesn't all add up. But the fact is, is you start to see the deal to where you can actually get your hormones regulated, your body in a place to where you can actually synthesize everything to maximize potential and recoverability and i think that's the important part and then once you've done something like that like if i can get somebody to weigh and measure for three weeks good done

never do it again yeah don't have to do it you don't have to do it bled so did once they have the perspective of what their plate is supposed to look like yeah then exactly and i mean you take somebody like uh you know like like rich who's just like yeah i don't do anything i just get away you know i barely eat and i you know yeah he does he does not eat that much the funny thing i remember uh this is like maybe a year year and a half ago so i was talking about mike mcgoldrick last night we're staying standing around, and Mike McGoldrick is a games athlete, and he, good friends with him, and he is more dialed in than any athlete. Like, he's able to count everything. He's very disciplined. And then he came to hang out with Rich for a weekend and train,

and, like, I'm getting, like, text messages, like, this dude is eating Pop-Tarts and s'mores, and he's eating cereal for dinner. He's like just totally blown away. And he recognizes that that would not work for him, but it works for Rich. I think Rich is at a point where Rich's body has adapted to just whatever he wants. But in you as a human being that if you think you can step into something like that like you're just not gonna do it like i i'm positive she would melt if she were to start crushing cereal and eating pop tarts and doing things like that i mean we've seen it with just dairy type of stuff you know my whole life would fall apart. Just everything. The marriage, the house, everything.

That's the point. I think a lot of people try to look and see what the top athletes are doing, and they think that is the ideal. Right. It's not the ideal. Even with position and how you move, Jason Kalipa, yeah, he can pull a great score on 2k and and you know half marathon but is that the ideal way to row no not necessarily he could probably do it better if he just clean up

his form is that what you're saying uh or Aaron's calling you out Jason I know I'm just saying look at the people at the top of their sport you know like or not just the top of their sport, you know, like, or not just the top of their sport, but look at the, the positional, the best position you should be in, or look at the best, you know, research out there on, on diet. What is the ideal? Have that be your ideal. Not what, you know, Rich is eating or how Jason's rowing. A lot of these guys are doing things that appear to us to be not ideal,

but because they're doing well, why change? Yeah. Like if I'm being extremely successful, why would I change? Could they do better? Maybe. But, you know, why change if you're doing the best? But, yeah, what you're saying is don't use those guys as an example. Yeah.

There will be a time and a place that everybody will change. Yeah. And it always happens and when you're 26 27 right it's in your you know you might handle inflammation a little bit differently at 26 you at 36 and you've you know you yeah it's just it's a totally different game it's a totally different ball game and nobody really takes that into context they're they're always oh well if he's eating peanut butter and jelly, guess what? That's what I'm doing. And it's like, dude, you don't understand. Don't get it. I've talked to this about, I think we may have talked about a little bit last night,

and I've had many conversations about this, is that people look at what Rich is doing right now and want to mimic what he does right now, but never take into account everything he did leading up till now. Maybe you should start where he started and then build your way up. Yeah, like the first year he went to the games, how many workouts a day was he doing? Two, three maybe? Yeah, and he was getting them. I talked to him about that.

I was like, how do you train? I saw him at sectionals, and then I saw him again at regionals. And he was like, oh, you know, I just go to a website, and I just pick one, and then I go to another website. He was just going to different gyms, websites and cherry picking workouts, but he was doing like two or three a day. And at that time that like just blew my mind. I was like, all right. Yeah. And I mean, everybody wants the secret, you know, like everybody talks about this and there is no secret, you know, and the fact that he's just training or just eating what he wants, that's actually not the answer either. It's you're, you got to look at the entire path and it's like,

you look at her entire path of her career and it was beginning, it caught up with her pretty quickly in, at the 2008 Olympics, you know, where it was like, they're, she, they, they want a gold, but what did that feel like? Where was she at? And it was, you know, broken ribs, torn, you know, where it was like, they want a gold, but what did that feel like? Where was she at? And it was, you know, broken ribs, torn, you know, QLs. It was thing, you know, and this is something they all deal with. And then it's like, how do I fix that? How do I not, how does it not feel like that to where in 2012, she's in tears because she felt like she could have gone harder and raced another race. And I'm like, no, that's exactly what it's supposed to feel like. Like that is how you should cross a finish line in the Olympics.

If you're winning, like Usain Bolt is smiling at seven, 70 meters and looking at cameras because it's over because it's done. You know? And that was what, that's what happens with the, that's what happened with women's aid. I mean,

it was over from 500 meters on. Yeah. Done. Yeah. I was freaking out, you know, but the tape tells a different story you know it's just like they were out in front the whole time by him by a big margin i think another thing

too people who come from like that volume background they're coming to crossfit they can usually handle a lot of things thrown at them and it's almost like you have to lower the volume for them but if they come from a strength background they can't jump into the volume like you have to lower the volume for them. But if they come from a strength background, they can't jump into the volume. So you got to build them up over time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You'll, you'll see different variables accelerate like a strength background accelerates obviously with anything that's got weight and you can handle lots of weight, things like that. Whereas an endurance athlete is just going to be able to go and go and go and go and go and tack it on tack. mean that was my experience i came into you know into cross it with this enormous aerobic base but i still had no idea what intensity was and you know doing a

six minute fran for your first time i was you know on my ass there wasn't enough oxygen in the room and you know there i thought i had this enormous, you know, right capacity. And it was like, what just happened? And that makes the wheel spin, man. That's like, Whoa, what is that? All right. We're going to take a break real quick. When we come back, we're going to find out exactly what you guys are doing in Cookville. The secret're gonna release the secret and we're back hanging out in cookville we got brian mckenzie aaron cafaro oh boom round two got it so what's the uh big secret big secret to put them on the spot with that one

which which big secret yeah you know the real reason you guys are here uh uh training camp training camp yeah uh kind of timed it to where aaron was doing a seminar last weekend uh wanted to come out and hang out with thomas his wife um and thomas is super cool yeah i've met him several times but we got to spend more time with him in the last day like yeah than I have before yeah

he's super cool Thomas is man and then working with Thomas working with Rich all this week and then leading into 14.1

and we're doing a training camp this weekend at CrossFit Mayhem with Athlete Cell so they're gonna announce the WOD tomorrow night yep and then uh everyone

at mayhem is gonna crush it on friday night yeah yeah and then have a big party it's gonna get crazy yeah that's right and then do another three or four workouts on saturday and sunday so 14.1 friday night and then four workouts on saturday Five workouts on Saturday and then I believe four workouts on Sunday. Training camp. We got to get these kids dosed. Walk away with something and recover during the week and

then you got to do 14.2 on Monday through Thursday. Right? Erin, do you participate in any of that? You can do the open and whatnot uh yeah I signed up for it last year probably I haven't signed up yet but I feel like Monday to sign up oh well there you go just show my support you know uh but there's I'm not competitive just doing it for fun. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm, I'm big girl in the CrossFit world. So bullshit, you know, she's the most competitive person in the room at all times. No. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We should get like a game of chicken foot or something going on tonight. Crazy. So we were in here the other day and we were all talking to Thomas, Thomas Cox.

And he was saying that, uh, when coaching football players players there's kind of three types of guys that he trains there's the guys that they train super hard all week long and then on saturday they do exactly what they did in practice exact same intensity exact same like if they run a route they run the exact same way in the game whatever they do in practice is exactly how the game's going to go and they know that that person is super consistent every single time then there's other guys who they train super hard all week get in the game and just screw up the whole thing they just they can't compete under pressure they always find a way to mess it up then those guys that are the total opposite they kind of just like coast through practice and they they work pretty hard but not like amazingly hard and then something about game day they just They just turn it on and they're incredible.

Yeah. Are you one of those three avatars? He's asking if you're blue. Never mind. Yeah. It's a movie reference. The blue avatars from the movie. I do have a braid though.

I get distracted anytime anyone uses the word avatar. I don't know what camp I fall in. I definitely... Brian's like, you don't know? Brian knows exactly which camp you fall in. He's like, you are not self-aware. I know which one I don't fall in.

Humility actually is one of her downfalls. She's so humble with everything that she tends to overdo it. She's number one. She works her tail off and then puts everything together when it's time

to put it together. So you're super consistent? Yes. Yeah, but on game day, there's something there that you just can't replicate in training. But I think... But you perform well. Yeah. But on game day, like there's something there that you just can't replicate in training. But I think. But you perform well. Yeah. Yeah.

I look forward to competing or testing because that's just where I am at that point. Like, I don't feel any extra pressure because I'm like, this is not a basket case on competition. No, no. I get excited. I was like, oh, how do you deal with butterflies i'm like if they aren't there that's when i get nervous because then the first part of that race is gonna hurt really bad you know yeah i i it was a trip for me to see her at at the olympics i was there for 10 days and um i saw her a couple times uh but like when they raced

like she saw me she saw her family it was just stone cold nothing it's such a game I've never it's not heartless it's just

no no no no no did she scare you no it didn't scare me no no no it didn't scare it's intriguing to me because as a coach you look at all these athletes you see these athletes

but it's like you know it was I relate it to somebody who's like kind of like spec ops or something military when it's like it's time to go in and do something like you see all this stuff and you meet these guys and you work with them and there there's a switch they're just certain individuals that have it and it's boom i'm on and i I credit our coach for that a lot too, because, you know, in the, in the boat, he can't go out there with us. He can't be on the sidelines yelling at us. He, and he knew that he just tried to give us as much confidence in ourselves and say, you're ready.

I mean, the pre-race talk, some, you know, sometimes they were like profound, but usually it's just like, you're ready. You know, it's not, he's not going to hold your hand. Um, he's not gonna, you know, tell you secret move to do. It's just like, go do what you do every day. You know, you're prepared, you're ready. And that, I think that's the best thing that, uh, you know, one of the best things about my, my coach for the Olympic team was that he did, he had a really good job of getting us ready and, and confident in ourselves. Whereas sometimes I see with these other athletes, they still need to have their hand held and they, they almost don't take responsibility for all the work that they put in. They attribute it to their coach more than anything. And they're like, Oh, you know, I,

I don't know how to, how to approach this workout without my coach telling me, well, yeah, you do like get out there, go, you know? Um, so yeah. And also it also helps to be, uh, in a boat with a lot of other women who are alpha females who are exactly like me. It was just the environment. It was the environment that I was in. Um, and I guess that's part of the humility thing is that, you know, I was not any better than the rest of my teammates. And I wouldn't get anywhere without the rest of my teammates, you know. Rowing is the ultimate team sport. But you do, I mean, it's not like we were all passive and, you know, like, oh, no, you go first, you go first. No, we were, it was a cat fight.

Like, it was literally like a shark tank like training we would be tearing each other apart and it was it was the oddest thing we were witnessed in sport literally yeah because here's a team of women there's like i think how many of you guys start off with 30 roughly in the program something like that yeah and the you know and it just chips away it just chips then they just start out out out it's like a celebration when someone leaves no but everyone because i've seen programs where like when someone leaves it's almost some people are like celebrating because i mean well there are certain individuals that i think that yeah everybody's like always like, yes, thank God.

That was a detriment. That was somebody who was not helping the team. But you've got a bunch of women who most of these girls are literally Ivy Leaguers who went from a Ivy League school out to a national team who are not making any money, even though they're in a professional sport, who are willing to sacrifice everything and anything to win a race. And they're all, nobody wants to share any on the team. Nobody on the team wants to share anything that they're doing extra or like, Oh yeah. And then the coach, you know, I have to give it to her coach because he did create an environment like nothing I've ever seen where there's just a command of respect, but a respect that did not enable athletes.

It empowered athletes. And it told these girls to step up when it was time to step up. I'm not going to hold your hand ever. You're going to go out and you're going to do what you're supposed to do, what your damn job is. And that was it. And you just don't see a lot of that. And I mean, that's kind of the school I really was brought up in. And it was like, there's no handholding.

There's no, you don't, you have a job to go do, go do it. Everyone's responsible for themselves. Yes. And that's what the end. But when it came together, I mean, when these girls had to go compete, boom, they were a team. All of a sudden you have like this shark tank of women who are some of the most educated on the planet who are like, who could be lawyers and, you know, doctors and like just these alpha females somewhere in the professional world that have chosen not to do that and take no money buying for an Olympic

medal. And it's pretty interesting. We were just stoked that we didn't have to compete against each other again. We were like the rest of the world. Okay. At least I don't have to compete against, you know, Caroline. Wow. Yeah. You see that, you know, my, my understanding with a lot of the, you know, cross athletes that I've seen is just like, you see a lot of these kids who are not the ones that need to be handheld and they are winning. They've said the other day that, that rowers and other Olympic athletes, especially the ones that aren't making any money,

which is probably most Olympic athletes, like they are willing to sacrifice everything. As you just said, yesterday you were mentioning something about like they would just call random families and just be like, Hey, can I stay with you? Yeah. Which is like, that's a hard thing to do. Yeah. Just like host families. Yeah. Like maybe elaborate on that. Yeah. No, I mean, there's potential for things to happen with us, but there's, you know, like these girls will

literally go from college to, or whatever each year. And they contact a family in the area where they're going to literally be, have to train and say, Hey, I can't afford to really live. I'm wondering if you might be able to let me have a room in your house and I'll live with you while I train for the Olympics. And it's a yes or no. And there are in, in Princeton, there are these families that have literally opened up their homes to these athletes and have taken care of these athletes and allowed them to do that. And they have literally packed up everything from where they're from, whether it's, you know, you're from Yale or whether you're from Stanford or

whether you're from Cal, packed up, moved to Princeton, New Jersey, and you know, that's where they're going. And that's something that you were saying a lot of CrossFit athletes are starting to realize now is that they have to start training like that. They need to not have a job. They have to train multiple times a day. Like if you want to get to the, to the, the upper level, if you want to go to the games and be successful at the games, and especially if you want a podium, you can't have a job and be taking care of your two kids and be having like a different business. You're trying to grow on the side and trying to train multiple multiple times a day what i think we'll see yeah you're i absolutely agree with you i i think right now it's the person who wins it that's doing that there's a few that

aren't doing it below that but and then there's guys that own gyms but are they really working at gyms like mike was saying last night but anybody who's working a job and literally trying to train to win the crossfit games they don't understand what energy means they don't understand that they don't understand recovery and literally you know you got somebody who's doing 200 kilometers a week who's doing some extra work on the side you know to make sure that we fix those imbalances who's doing some extra work on the side, you know, to make sure that we fix those imbalances. Who's eating a diet. She's waking up, eating,

going to practice, coming home, eating, sleeping, going to practice, coming home, eating, sleeping,

training again. Yeah. So you're taking multiple, multiple naps a day when you're getting ready for the Olympics. There was one or two, at least one. Every day. Minimum. I would would i do that so i can work from like 10 to 14 hours like yeah there's some some days we had a long long week long hard week i would sleep 14 hours you know

like 10 at night and then a four hour nap and that was my recovery um some people most people probably never worked hard enough where they could accomplish that. They wouldn't be able to sleep all that time. Right. It wouldn't be able to stay asleep. They would just lie there. She is a professional sleeper. I'm not kidding,

dude. It's like a bear hibernating the moment she goes to sleep. But she's also one of those people who goes into deep sleep immediately. Like it's an, it's an immediately start. She's jumping, twitching. You know, the deep sleep immediately. Like it's an, it's an immediately start. She's jumping, twitching. You,

you know, the deep sleep is happening where it's like, you know, somebody like me is not, who's constantly thinking and trying to fix things and wants to do things is like, I'm not a deep sleeper until it's late. You know,

she's deep sleep immediately. Probably a sign of success or potential success. Yes. Yeah. I mean, 14 hours a day. I mean, 14 hours a day, I mean, and a lot of people complain. I tell them, you know, get nine.

They're like, I've got to get nine? Yeah. Like, I'm crazy. I'm like, yeah, but you look at like the top athletes, all they do is train, take naps, eat. I think my friend Max, he described like what a professional athlete looks like.

He's like it's it's training sleeping and playing video games like like you should not be having to worry

about anything because it's not other than the video games I think it was movies and books yeah but it's not about it's about like avoiding stress

like if you're working exactly even if you're spending that same time where that guy's playing video games reading books whatever and you're spending that same amount of time but you're working there even if you're spending that same time where that guy's playing video games, reading books, whatever, and you're spending that same amount of time, but you're working, that stress is stress. And a lot of people don't see it that way.

And they think, well, I can just I can work a nine to five. I can train, you know, two or three times a day somehow, you know, maybe in the morning, lunch and the evening. But you're still not going to get you're not getting enough recovery to get the correct adaptation that you're looking for. It's, it's stress and, uh, willpower. I, I, I'm totally of the belief that you can, you can grow your willpower, but I think it is finite. Um, and so if you are, you know, you have to make a lot of decisions based on a bunch of other things. You know, if you're working, you have to make decisions at the office and then you have to make decisions on, you know, how to train, but it's, it's fine. You're, you're going to tap yourself out. Um, and my only decision, my, my decision was how am I going to get better today?

You know, like that's, that was my focus. Um, but you know, I guess I grew up, I'm not that good of a multitasker. I'm trying to get into that, grow my myself a little bit more now that, you know, I'm not training full time. But I really like focusing on one thing because that, you know, it preserves your willpower and your stress levels. And, you know, obviously, I don't know, for me, it worked. Willpower is an interesting thing that a lot of people don't know very much about. It's, it's tough to do research on such a, an intangible thing like willpower. Like what does that mean? How would you measure it? How would you test that? But the, the little that I know about it, I've seen studies where they take people and they'll, they'll do something along the lines of, Hey, cookies aren't good for you. They'll give like a little talk to people and then they'll make one group make like two decisions, even if

they're not hard decisions. They'll make another group make like 10 decisions in the same period of time and then they'll offer those people cookies and they can find a statistical significant difference between the group that had to make 10 decisions. They're much more likely to go and give in and eat the cookie compared to the other group. And that's been consistently tested and found to be what happens with people when they have to make too many decisions throughout the day. That's why people tell you to do the most important part of your day or the most important thing of your day first before you get distracted, before you get worn down, before you get tired, before you lose your willpower. Because if you wait, you know, like if you wait until after work to work out or

whatever, you're much less likely to do it. You don't want to go to your doctor late in the afternoon. Because that's when you're going to get a bad prescription. Go early in the day. When he's fresh. That's another thing too. They've done that with

judges in court. Oh wow. They're just fed up by the end of the day. Yeah, there's... You're cooked. They talk about a powerful engagement with Tony Schwartz and Jim Lehrer. Yeah, yeah. I don't remember the other book

they talk about it in, but yeah, like, if you can go, if you, like, even if you get, like, a speaking ticket or whatever, you want to, like, get it taken off your record. If you go in the morning

when everybody's rested, you're, like, four times less likely to get them, or to get the outcome that you're looking for to get it taken off your record than, like, if you're, you're like four times less likely to, to get them or to get the outcome that you're looking for to get it taken off your record. Then like, if you go like right before lunch where everybody's like hungry and tired to come after lunch, it like, it like swings back the other way where everyone's kind of like, they just, they just had a break. They got some food, they have relaxed for a little bit and they're much more lenient again. I think they did that. I think they did a study with like criminal like judges that were like looking at like murderers and stuff like that and like

it's like if it's late in the afternoon people were getting the axe and like if it's people people early in the day life yeah it's just your life but it's you know they they looked at all these cases and found that that was kind of what was going on it was like it's like holy shit like for some reason i end up in a predicament and try and make every court thing happen in the morning like you never know what could happen you know or just bring the judge a snack yeah yeah there you go i always have to have snacks yes that's the other thing snacky cakes she has a she has a fear of hunger. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I call it Bo. When my wife and I first were married, she would actually carry bars around in her purse. Not for her, but for me. Because I would get so agitated when I got hungry. She's like, he gets angry when he gets hungry. Typically, that's what happens. She found out about me. She found out about me.

That's what Aaron figured out with me. It was like, yeah, dude, have you eaten? Because you are nasty. All right, let's wrap this up. What do you guys

want to promote? We got athlete cell camps. We have a CrossFit endurance. Got three fuel over here. Miss three fuel right there. Yeah. Yeah. I know.

I heard you're the brains behind the operation. She is. She runs the whole show. Yeah. See, there. Yeah. Yeah. No. I heard you're the brains behind the operation. Shit. She is. She runs the whole show. Yeah. See, there's that humility thing. She's like, no, not me.

Not me. So tell us what it is. Three fuel. For people that don't know. I was the, I guess I was the OG guinea pig for, you know, when I changed my diet in this last Olympic cycle, trying to find a supplement that I changed my diet in the, in this last Olympic cycle, uh, trying to find a supplement that I could take out in the boat with me. You were out there for two hours or even, you know, something I could take immediately after that when I couldn't have

the convenience of real food. Um, and so Brian and, um, you know, he had business partner and they went into the lab and, you know, started testing some stuff out, some HDP, Waxy Maze for the carbs. And, you know, came up with a three macronutrient supplement, you know, the highest quality whey protein you can find on the market. And was it HDP, Waxy Maze? It's called Thermocarb. And then a fat, course coconut milk so those three macronutrients in one supplement and I would take it out in the boat and I wouldn't bonk I would stay steady uh and it was it was a lifesaver because then you know you see everybody

else literally they would have lunches in the bottom of the boat, you know, bars, bananas, all these little sugar things. And you would see them like, we would have multiple pieces. You'd see them go up and go down and up and down. And it was, you know, I think that helped my recovery a lot too. So that was three fuel. And, uh, you know, they were, they basically made it for themselves and their athletes. And I was like, Hey, I think other people would like to have some of this too. Uh, so I've, you know, had, yeah, it started off as a very selfish venture and then turned quickly turned into, you know, Oh, maybe we should make this a business. Yeah. It makes up for yourself. And everyone starts asking about where can I get that? And then you go,

maybe I should sell this. Like at every seminar we did, you know, with CrossFit Endurance is the seminars we run with CrossFit is, you know, people, well, what do you fuel yourself with if we're going to eat clean? Yeah. And it's like, well. Because liquid calories do come in pretty handy when you're an athlete and you're training a lot. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it just, it's an inconvenience to stuff, you know, a chicken breast and broccoli and some other, an avocado down your throat.

Yeah, I don't have the appetite sometimes for that. Yeah. Getting it down is tough. Especially right in the middle of my workout. Yeah. I just don't have it available. Yeah. Yeah.

So that's how 3Fuel came about. And yeah, it's been taken off we're uh we're coming out with the chocolate that's been like the biggest thing i guess everybody likes their you know recovery shakes and chocolate so that's that's coming but um how else am i gonna get a fix you know yeah yeah uh what else are we doing athlete cell which we already talked about you got your book out there still my book out there power speed endurance we got another book coming out probably between late spring and mid early summer with the unbreakable runner so it'll be a kind of a manifestation of everything i've done with power for speed endurance and then kind of looking at it from a perspective of how we came to these

conclusions why we came to these conclusions, where things have gone and giving programming out for anywhere from, from a basic person or a novice person to, you know, intermediate to an elite. We didn't actually talk that much about CrossFit endurance specifically on this show, but we did mention it a ton on the last show. What episode was that? That was 82 wow episode 82 I know look at this how many episodes he's a savant wow I mean just rolled that off yeah 82 so that was

like 20 weeks ago yeah 23 weeks ago our first live episode that was our first live episode in front of a live audience

have we done one since at the gym like oh it went so terribly. We offended so many people live. Did we? So many F-bombs. We can't do it again.

Yeah, I guess. You can't play that in front of your kids on the way home from work, right? No. Chris Moore had a few drinks. Yes, he did. It only accelerated things for him.

Yeah. He'll never make it this far on this episode, so he won't even know we talked about him. All right, guys, make sure you get the barbell shrug.com sign up for the newsletter so we can

inform you of when we get these podcasts out and a bunch of other cool stuff that we do. Thanks guys. Thanks for having us. Thank you.