Barbell Shrugged - 135- Transitioning from CrossFit to Weightlifting w/ Aja Barto

Episode Date: August 3, 2014

This week on Barbell Shrugged we have the pleasure of welcoming the big man, Aja Barto back to the show. In case you missed it, make sure to go back and check out his last appearance on Episode 76. It’s always a great conversation.    We caught up with Aja at the 2014 USA Weightlifting Nationals in Salt Lake City, Utah. Our chat came before his turn on the platform, but I knew he was going to put up some large numbers. Just look at his recent training. At 6 foot 5 inches and 220 pounds of bodyweight, Aja has put up a 250 pound strict press, a 520 pound back squat, a400 pound squat jerk, just for starters. That’s very impressive. I wasn’t surprised to hear that he later snatched 310 pounds and clean and jerked 352 at the meet. Hey, not too shabby for a Crossfitter, right?   It actually might be more accurate to call Aja a Weightlifter, at least for the time being. He made news earlier this year when he decided to sit out the 2014 Crossfit season in favor of pursuing Weightlifting full-time. His reasoning was simple, “I just decided I wanted to see what I could do if I completely dedicated myself to it, without having the interference of burpees and box jumps.”    Interference might actually be too strong of a word. The truth is that Aja has made a really strong run in competitive fitness for several years in a row now, ascending from Crossfit rookie to three-time Games athlete in relatively short order. But despite that success, he ran into the same problem that just about every other athlete comes across eventually - Progress started getting really tough. The easiest gains were long gone.    As Aja saw it he had two choices. First, he could spend another year beating himself up with tough METCONS in hopes of moving up a spot or two at the Games, but he’s the first to admit that it probably wouldn’t have made that much of a difference. The alternative was to switch gears. Instead of another year of the same old thing, Aja decided to commit himself to getting really strong, to refining his technique, to seeing just what he’s capable of on the platform. It’s a wise move. He’s definitely stronger, and will probably end up being much fitter in the long-run, should he return to competitive WODs.    Between you and I, I do hope he does make a return. He’s just too much of a beast not to. But the return might come in some other sport all-together. Sure, he could do proper Crossfit again, but I was thinking he should try something a little different this time. Something a little more powerful, shorter in duration, and befitting a behemoth of his size. Yeah, I was thinking he should actually give the NPGL a try. I guess we’ll see, right?   For more from Aja, make sure to check out Behemoth Crossfit. You can also follow the man and his monster lifts on Instagram, Twitter, and YoutTube. Aja, it was great to see you dude. Take your time with the Weightlifting. I don’t think we’ve seen your strongest work yet.    Cheers,    Chris

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we interview Asia Bartow, CrossFit Games athlete, and tallest weightlifter in the world. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. This is awesome! Go! This is awesome. Go. Welcome to Barbell Strugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson, Chris Moore, CTP behind the camera. We've traveled to Salt Lake City to USAW National Championships. Yeah.

So fancy. We're standing here with the one and only, Ejibarto. Look how tall you are. I know. You are a big man. Jesus. You got to earn this mic height. Are you the tallest weightlifter in the room right now?

I don't know. I call you weightlifter now, right? We should go figure that out. We should find out. I think you might be the tallest. Yeah. I could be. I walked by Kloakov earlier.

That guy is quite dense. He's a monster. That man is... His Instagram videos don't do him justice. He's what we call in the business, the real deal. Which, by the way, we got a bottle of vodka coming for that guy later. Really? We'll mix it up.

Indeed? Yeah. You guys should try to get him on the podcast. I think we are. You are? I think he's on next. Be prepared for about 17 words. Well, no, that's what the vodka's for.

We'll fill in, Will. The Soviet Russia weight lifts you. Before we go any further, make sure to go to barbellstroke.com, sign up for the newsletter, and we will send you interesting things. Nothing you will dislike, I promise. And if you do dislike it, you can unsubscribe. Mike was right. This email is so interesting. So many interesting offers.

CTV writes the emails, and he's just a genius, creative wordsmith. It's true. So Chris Moore describes you as dreamy. How do you respond to that? Was that just now? I forgot already.

He is dreamy, though. Let me reinforce it. I've got that a couple times. It might be the tall Dark and handsome maybe It is Like the Like the nice tight Like

Samurai butt Like the intensity And it also helps That you're a really Awesome lifter now Yeah You've quit doing All the silly

Metcon shit Haven't you You know what I'll be honest I It's probably been About eight months Since I've done

A conditioning session So do you have Like a heart condition now Your world is not in flames Right You have a heart condition I feel like I feel like when I do When I do my next one It's conditioning session. So do you have a heart condition now? Your world is on flames. Right? You have a heart condition? I feel like when I do my next one, it's going to hurt pretty bad. Did you have like a one-week period where you're like,

I feel like I'm doing something so dirty. I'm a dirty boy not doing my Metcons. No, I really never felt that way. It was actually I'm kind of enjoying not breathing hard. Oh, Jesus, thank you. This is awesome. Yeah, exactly. So last year you were at the Games.

Right. And you got to compete at the South Central Regional leading up to the Games. You got to compete with one of our buddies, Mike McGoldrick. Mike McG. And, you know, the one guy you hate in the CrossFit world. I hate him. Is that true? I hate him deeply.

Yeah, one of the things he said about you when he came back from the competition is how you don't let things phase you. He was really impressed by, like, you know, especially being a taller athlete and they had to do toes to bar. Yeah. And, you know, you can't get a good swing because you're having to bend your legs to get under and stuff like that. Right.

And he was like, yeah, and I was really getting agitated at, like, little things that were going on, and every athlete does. But Asia was like, huh? He just kind of went with it. And he said, you know, he was, like, really impressed impressed that was one of the things that made you a really good athlete so the question is asia is this true or are you a compulsive dick on the platform absolutely not no no that's that's definitely true i mean those are things that are out of my control so you know i'm gonna worry about the things that i can't control and the things that i can i can't

get too caught up in or it's gonna affect my performance or affect what you know the things that i do want to control which is my my performance and whether I'm lifting loads or doing gymnastics or whatever the workout may be are you naturally just chill or are you like me and that you've arrived at this mindset only after some 33 years of trying to do it the other way and it's finally realizing this shit doesn't work you got to be chill you gotta let things kind of roll off your back sometimes I think both yeah you, when I used to play pro ball, I would get super hyped up and I would get super anxious. And I think that affected my performance. And, you know, that's why I didn't have a very illustrious career. You know, I was really good coming out of high school into college

and kind of fade a little bit. And then once I got into pro ball, it kind of went up a little bit. But then I think I got too much into that kind of anxious period and getting too riled up so once i transferred over to crossfit it was kind of like you know what i'm just gonna be chill and whatever happens happens and just believe my ability and you know be confident in whatever i do and let that carry over onto the uh under the floor what made you do go ahead i was gonna say so what's the story there i actually don't know your background where do you play pro at and what's the yeah so i so I played a few years two-lane baseball over in two-lane New Orleans at two-lane University. Played three years over there and then I signed with the Texas Rangers. Played with three... What years did you play, by the way? Yeah, two-lane? Yeah, two-lane.

06, 07, 08 was my last year. We played you guys, but I'm much older than you. You're Memphis, right? Yeah, we used to play two-lane. What kind of wave? We were talking about baseball right it's the green wave yeah we're talking about baseball we're the fucking green wave yeah you're talking about football i was about football yeah but we i graduated i was done playing like 99 2000 my bro played football there he's the he uh he's played there for about five years i think he was they weren't very good but i do recall i do recall that very good I do recall them playing you a few times. It was like the battle.

Who's the best or the worst? Yeah, I guess that's true. I prefer to phrase it differently. We are the best of the worst. Let's play and find out who's not the worst. Collegiate baseball, I guess you went off from there. You played some pro and pro

stuff? Played a few years with the Rangers organization, which was just minor league. I played a little bit in short season, low A, high A. I did that for a few years. I actually played a fall season, kind of an instructional league in the Dominican, which was a cool experience to see that side of it.

And then after that, it just kind of burned out in my third year and was like pretty much done after spring training. By's how long position were you playing i was playing outfield outfield yeah so i was you know coming into crossfit i was i was i was always athletic you know i was a bigger guy i had speed i had power i had all five tools i just couldn't really put it all together but they're 10 there's 10 tools no there's five tools only five i would be really terrible if i had five of the 10 tools no there's five tools right only five I would be really terrible if I had five of the 10 tools no there's five tools you know I could do everything pretty well I just couldn't

put together on the field so you know I ended up leaving and uh stopping after my third year but my strength coach got me to CrossFit basically was like hey check this check the strength and conditioning program out he knew I was a gym rat and so told me to just start with one of the girl workouts um I had no clue what he was talking about. What was the first workout? The first one I did was Helen. It was a component of Helen. I did like quarter-strict pull-ups.

I swung like a dumbbell, an old rusty dumbbell, and I think I ran like 600 meters. I was like, whatever, 400, 600, it's the same. Same thing. And it's the same story as everybody else. You're dry heaving afterwards or you're puking up your NO Explode, and then after 20 minutes of laying on the ground, you're like, you know what, this is sick, but awesome. So that's just kind of where, kind of where my journey started. Did a little bit from in my

garage as much as I could. And, uh, once I felt like I needed more equipment, I looked for a gym, found a gym and that's kind of just where the journey started. So last year you were at the games and then we found out a little bit shortly after that that you were just gonna not crossfit anymore yep and you were gonna go 100 weightlifting right my first thought was that's a really tall dude to just want to pursue weightlifting however you're a tall dude to pursue crossfit at that level as well so these are sports that are usually uh dominated by the shorter fellas right but i guess to to mike's point, Mike McGonigal's point, he wasn't going to let that – he wasn't going in thinking,

well, I want to do this, but I guess I'll just accept the fact that I won't be any good because I'm tall. No, he just kind of ruled that out and said, well, other people have disadvantages they're working with. I'm just going to train hard and do what I do. How tall are you? 6'5". 6'5".

Okay, so I have people that hit me up and they're like 6'5", 6'4", 6'6", and they're like, what do you think I should do? You think I should give up on this dream? And I'm like, you know, I tell them, hey, it's going to be a lot harder for you than it is the guy that's 5'9". Yeah. I promise. However, there are guys, I mean, you're a good example of this,

who have competed at that level and done well. So what made you decide to, you know uh just go full weight lifting um you know i'd competed the past four years um i think in 2010 i almost made the games um i figured if i put a little bit more effort into a little more dedication i could do it and i did it for the next three years and you know i'd been in that stage i kind of came to the terms you know last year that's like it's just unrealistic for me to win the games. I'm not as fit as some of the guys that finish at the top. So it's like, you know what, I can work my butt off all year long,

dedicate what I need to dedicate to the training, go to regionals, do my best, qualify, go back to the games, and then for the most part do the best I can at the games. But it's always going to turn out with a kind of finish that I'll have, somewhere in the 20s. Or if I have a great, great weekend at Carson, you know, maybe I'll be, you know, in the teens, but for the most part, there's going to be some events that, you know, I'm really good at, and there's going to be some events that I'm really shitty at, and to be honest, like, I don't really want to work that hard to become really good at those events that I might be, you know, pretty shitty at, so that's kind of what led me to my decision. It's like, you know what? I love Olympic weightlifting. Um, I went to the American

open. I wasn't on, I wasn't satisfied with my performance there. So I was like, you know what? I got some things to fix. And instead of focusing on Olympic weightlifting and burpees and box jumps, like, let's just kind of give this a try. Let's see where you said, I got one ass. I'm going to ride one horse at a time. Exactly. Right. So you say that you just realized, like, in weightlifting, I have so much more I could cultivate and develop here? I mean, because, like, you made a strong run at CrossFit, right? A couple years, bang, training hard, giving everything I got. At that point, you could keep doing it and keep doing better,

but it gets a little tougher and tougher and tougher. You get a little bit less for all that exertion every year versus in weightlifting, these big things you could tackle and make huge improvements. It becomes a natural decision no absolutely you know i felt like uh this was kind of an untouched realm for me and i wanted to just dive into it and see what i could do i mean i understand like it's just unrealistic to say that i can go to the olympics or compete with some of our nation's best you know ian wilson guys like that that are in my weight class but you know it's all perspective i

wanted to see what i could be be capable of if I completely committed myself to this kind of one avenue. And it's been awesome. I actually just switched my jerk style over to the squat jerk. I saw that. I was shocked. Which is another crazy thing for a guy my size. But to be honest, I just feel more comfortable with it. I'm able to stay back a lot better. I get a better bar path. So it's just something that when I played around with it,

I hit 90% of my best split jerks. So I was like, you know what, let's just mess around with this. Something to this. Yeah, if you can squad jerk 90%, you know, in the first week of trying it out, you ain't normally split jerking. But, yeah, it's something to explore, no doubt. I sent it to CJ, my coach, and CJ sent it to Coach Bergner, and they were like, you know what, it looks pretty good.

Like, just give it a go. Yeah. So I did, like, two, three months working just behind the neck style stuff and, like, you know, hit lifts that I wasn't able to do from behind the neck on split jerks. So I was like, you know what? I'm just going to give this a go and see where it takes me. Yeah. That's what's so awesome.

Like, Diane makes the point. There's a lot of good weightlifting coaches that make the point. There's all these rules, and by the rules, you would say, man, dude dude what are you doing don't try that you're fucking six five it's gonna be stupid but then you try it and then it feels right for you it's like there's there's the rules that you got to learn and there's finding what works for you what will make you strong what works for you what feels natural that's probably what's going to suit you it doesn't matter what some master coach thinks if it feels better you're almost looking as much as you can this way than the other way in a week of trying. You're on to something big.

I completely agree. I mean, I caught a lot of flack for it. Like, you know, you have to be highly accurate to do these things, and, like, you know, the margin of error is, you know, super big and things of that sort. But I was like, you know, I feel comfortable doing it, and I'm used to doing things that I'm not supposed to be doing. So I figured I'd give it a go, and it's worked out well.

I haven't necessarily hit my best clean and jerk with the clean and squat jerk, but, you know, I'm like two to five kilos off, and I plan to do it tomorrow. What are your lifts looking like right now? One, my best in training snatch is like 143, which is like 315. Wow. My best clean and jerk in training is probably a meet best, too, which is like 160, so like somewhere around 355 with the clean and squat jerk. But, you know, I'm shooting for 145 and 165, the 168 tomorrow.

What are you walking around at? I'm about right now right at 105, so 105 point whatever, which is pretty awesome, you know. I've been walking around and seeing this level of competition, seeing what guys are doing, you know, guys and girls are doing to cut weight. It's pretty ridiculous. It's tough, man. It's ridiculous.

Like, I can't imagine doing something like that. I'm glad that I hover around the 105 area because if I had to cut, you know, four or five kilos, I don't know what I'd be doing. It's amazing how much people's ego gets such in the way of their progress. One, they go, there's where you have a tendency to weigh. There's where you're going to be strongest. There's where your body wants to be, and you're going to resist it because you want to position yourself better in competition. It doesn't make any sense.

You should be the strongest version of yourself possible. And when it comes to people who are like 6'5", asking, Mike, dudes, guys, if I'm 6'5", can I win it all? Because if not, I'm not interested in trying. You can still really profoundly change your life and your performance if you get really good at whale. Don't give a shit how tall you are. Who cares? You know, just focus on yourself for just a little bit.

Do you find that your intrinsic motivation with weightlifting is easier to fuel than with CrossFit? So I guess what I'm trying to ask is, you know, with CrossFit, your comparison is always against someone else's performance. And the benchmarks change every single year. The competition changes. With weightlifting, it's easy to see if you're actually improving. Yeah. You know, do you feel like the motivation is different with weightlifting than it is with CrossFit? There's not as much comparison going on?

I think they're kind of equal. I mean, it all comes down to if you're comparing yourself to other people or if you're just kind of comparing yourself to yourself. In CrossFit and in weightlifting, I think it's pretty much an equal boundary because coming from CrossFit, I see a lot of people that are always comparing themselves to Froning and Kalipas and things like that. So I think that's kind of where they're running into a dead end. You can't really make the kind of progress that you want to make as an athlete

if you're consistently comparing yourself to somebody else. But for someone who's going to regionals or the games, when the competition is different every time, it's kind of hard to see if you're actually getting better versus yourself. Right, yeah, there's no physical attributes that you can look at. But weightlifting is a lot easier. You're like, hey, I'm making a one or two kilo PR on this. It's, it's easy to see the progress, but you know, it's tough when you're, when you're reaching your max potential. And then it's like,

all right, if I know my personal best is, you know, 315 pounds, but how often am I able to come into the gym and hit 315, 315 pounds? It's, it's rare. Like the only time that I'm really going to touch a hundred percent of my best max, or even have an attempt to personal best is most likely in a competitive meet. So I go more by, you know, if I'm consistent on my percentages, if my, you know, if my, if my failures above 90% or 95% are at a minimal, I know that I'm feeling good and I'm prepared and ready to go into meets because it's tough to really kind of go 100 percent every single day when you're when you're when you're only lifting. Yeah. Well, how many how long you've been doing the weightlifting meets and how many meets have you done? If you can count them this year since I've dedicated my time to it, I'm probably right around like a year of experience of just weightlifting. I didn't really start getting into the meets until like last year.

So I would assume that this is probably like my fifth meet overall. I've done like two or three locally. There's still a huge amount of improvement just by getting better at doing the meet itself, not even training. Oh, yeah. Just handling the meet conditions better. Yeah. So two or three local meets and then the American Open I did last year and then nationals this

year. So I guess I would still consider myself an adolescent in the sport. But it's crazy talking to the coaches, you know. Like I'm like, all right, after nationals I kind of want to, you know, go back to CrossFit or look to have other avenues or, you know, maybe continue to weight lift. And all the coaches are like, you know, you need to at least give this like three to five years before you make a decision on doing anything and i'm like i'm like the way that my body feels

right now like three to five years down the road i can't imagine they'll still be at least like at least like two yeah two and a half good years you know are you doing like 12 to 16 week cycles where you're maxing out only you know a few the four months? Yeah, I would say that the cycles we're on are a little shorter. They're more like around eight, six to eight weeks. But very rarely am I maxing out. I'm really just touching higher percentage numbers, 90%, 95%. But I'm a good competitor. So when it comes out here, I know that I'm more capable of hitting lifts

that I wouldn't usually hit in training. So i'm not necessarily going to those ends in training i'm just looking for consistency with with those kind of percentages i always love that approach it works in power thing too where if the bar is moving really quick you can tell it's moving faster week to week you feel more confident great if you're going for like 80 to 90 percent lifts and they feel great and smooth and you're moving efficiently, great. You don't need to test. Like go into the meet, you know, fucking down some coffee or some – what are these kids taking nowadays, Michael?

The C4 shit? Get all pumped up and then – I can't keep up with all the – You get out on the platform, you're going to feel like a fucking Greek god. You're going to smash weights. If you just don't run yourself ragged during training. You don't – it's like a guy who grows around a football field crushing fools during

practice and then doesn't have anything offered in the game. No, this is a time just to improve, not to test constantly. I guess that's what a lot of people in CrossFit are still trying to learn and getting better at, though. You can't just smash yourself maximally and expect to recover. You've got to have a long-term game plan here, man.

Is this your fifth meet in a year? I would say game plan here, man. This is your fifth meet in a year? I would say a year and a half. This is my fifth meet overall, really, since I've been cross-fitting and Olympic weightlifting. That's competing quite a bit in weightlifting. So that's every three months. So this is actually my third meet in a year. But overall, totally, I've done five total meets in my kind of career of crossfitting and olympic lifting but you know i did the american open and then i did kind of uh

you know another meet a couple couple months back about a month or so back just kind of a two-and-a-half meet and then i have this one how has this experience itself helped you become a better lifter i imagine this is the things you've learned like watching people warm up who are better than you yeah getting a getting a mixed with coaches, getting an idea for this pace. I mean, it makes your training a hell of a lot more efficient. It's really cool. It's really cool to come out here and see specialists in their field and, like, see the lifters that, you know, are at the top of the game in this sport.

And, you know, it's also really cool to see that they're super down to earth. You know, I had a conversation with Ian Wilson yesterday, and the guy's, you know, he's our Olympic hopeful. And he's such a good dude a good dude yeah a really cool guy but uh it's just it's just cool to see um you know the accessibility too you can go up to him talk to him yeah man take a picture with him if you want the same in crossfit as well if you want to be good at lifting which everybody does because it's fucking righteous if you want to lift huge weights bro go to any big meet like just take whatever money you can get together. Cut some yards and shit if you got to. Come to a meet like this. Like we're talking to a 16-year-old.

Most meets are like $25 to compete in. Yeah, be nice. Just come to a place like this and hang out in the back. Pick a lift that you admire. Somebody who you think you could, like, I could get there. Watch them warm up. Watch them pace. Watch their attitude. Like, how much time they're

taking between lifts they're watching the clock they're not rushing they're not fucking shaking and jittery they're not pounding coffee they're relaxed or chill like how do they warm up how they take how they engage other lifters all that stuff will make you better almost instantly yeah you may you know you bring up a good point i mean that's how i learned to lift you know i watch a bunch of videos on youtube you know i sent uh you know i take some videos of myself and i would send them to guys you know when i was coming up like Dutch Lowry or things like that. And they would, they would kick me some feedback and it's cool to actually get feedback from these guys. Cause you see them on, on, on TV or you see them in YouTube videos and you just watch them and kind

of mimic what they do. And that's really how I learned to lift. Like I didn't work with some specialist coach and do this, some spec, you know, specialized program. I just watch videos on YouTube and, and try to stay as light as possible to where i can feel good with the lift and master those mechanics and then just kind of build from there yeah and you can come to a place like this and anybody here will tell you anything they know about training just buy them a beer go hang out with them talk to them pick their brain go find your coach you recognize it go find a greg everson hey man can i talk to you for five minutes i got some ideas oh yeah they'll talk to you man yeah everyone here is super open super open yeah anyone coaching you this weekend or you

you counting your own reps and everything no like we were talking about earlier i feel like uh uh we're we're recreationally lifting me and my girlfriend she's she's kind of counting for me and helping out uh i think it's a little bit more complicated this weekend some of our local meets so uh i've called in some uh some help like i've asked like jody and chad vaughn to help i know chad's lifting a couple uh couple hours after me so jody will probably help count yeah um but uh for the most part cj's been coaching me this whole year which is cool to see you know he's working with all these elite level crossfitters but he can still build a good program for an olympic lifter which is really cool and respectable so we've been doing that you know very basic

program not doing any specific or you know specific training you know you don't need it like to your point you're a really good athlete but it's only been a year or whatever focused training you need simple still yeah and especially with running a gym it's not like i can come into the gym and and train two three times a day it's like i need one training session that i can do after a 6 a.m class and then i need to be back at the gym doing doing whatnot so it's worked out yeah it's worked out really well so yeah do you miss the variety after one year of just doing snatch clean jerk over and over and over getting a squat and are you getting sick of it you know I uh I think I'm still in that period to where I love it

and I'm not getting to those dark days yet but I tell you what, man. They'll come. Don't worry about it. Give them more hope, Chris. I foresee them in the future. Well, hey, Michael, you know, without the dark days, how can you recognize the beauty of a sunrise, bro? All right. Touche. That was my stoner comment of the show.

To be honest, though, I don't know if I can say that I necessarily miss the heavy breathing of CrossFit, you know. That part does suck, I agree. I don't know if I can say that I necessarily miss the heavy breathing of CrossFit. That part does suck, I agree. I don't know if I crave that either. It's fun when you're in it, and you guys can kind of second this. It's always the best when it's over, but for the most part, it's not something that I miss, shall I say. Let's take a break real quick. When we come back, we'll talk about the next sport you're going to get into.

This is Andrea Ager, and you're listening to Barbell Shrug. For the video version, go to barbellshrug.com. Barbell Shrug is brought to you by you. To learn more about how you can support the show, go to barbellshrug.com and sign up for the newsletter. And we're back. Ta-da. Yeah, we want to talk about the next sport you're getting into.

Actually, I was joking because I make up all of the breaks we're going to take up on the fly if you haven't figured it out yet but then you started talking about how uh was it progenics took you guys out to a lot of progenics athletes out to chicago yeah eft there's a there's a there's a training facility out there where they train a lot of the uh guys. Yeah, for NFL, right? Yep, NFL, that they want to go out and, you know, I guess they pay. It's like a six- to eight-week program. They come out after school, and they train for their pro day or they train for the NFL combine or whatever they may have,

either at their school or the pro one. Yeah. And we had the opportunity to go out there. Progenics took whoever was available. It was myself. Stacey was out there, Ben Smith. Stacey Tovar. Stacey Tovar.

Was she wearing them white shorts, yo? She was. She was tearing it up too, man. She was eating hard with those DTs. I saw her Instagram video. It was like a gigantic black man running by high knees, bang, bang, bang, just knocking it out. Big defensive tackle.

Then two or three more of those dudes and her come by, bang, bang, bang, bang. just knocking it out. Big defensive tackle. Then two or three more of those dudes, and her coming by, bang, bang, bang, bang. She won eighth the size of those guys. It was really funny because they would pair the athletes. However, their size was with whoever the skill, whoever the football players they thought they would fit in with. I got paired with the defensive – excuse me, the Deans and the Titans and then some of the smaller guys, some of the more skilled people. Then it was just Stacey left over.

And it's like, all right, Stacey, we're going to put you with these 300-pound defensive linemen. Put her with the kickers. Yeah, it's like these four gigantic defensive linemen. Yeah, she held her own. So what's one of the coolest things you learned and experienced running with? Because that's the guys who are prepping,

really hacking themselves, optimizing themselves to make a run at fucking $20 million contracts. This is a pretty intense place to be training. These are really, really cream-of-the-crop USA athletes going into this. How was it training with these guys who are probably super-duper raw athletes? Yeah, man, they train. We trained for a four-hour session, nonstop, which was definitely fatiguing for us.

We were talking about it, and it's like we're used to training four used to training four hours, but, you know, maybe four-hour segments where it's like an hour of rest, an hour of rest, or an hour, and then come back and do the final one. But they just train straight for four hours. You know, you have different circuits that you're doing, different focuses. They warm up forever, you know, obviously because it's a very explosive sport, and the things that they're training in the facility are, you know, very kind of anaerobic-based.

So they're doing a lot of specific warm-up drills, a lot of footwork drills, a lot of speed drills. And then, you know, the strength training is kind of at the end where they're doing, you know, more isometric style stuff and isolated muscular stuff. But it was a really cool experience. And these guys are super hungry, which is cool to see. You know, super, you know, really into what they're doing there. They want it bad. So it's really cool to see the work ethic that they have there.

If those guys get picked up, it's going to change their whole life. Yeah, definitely. Did you pick up any tricks from that stock? Because the training is, for people who don't know, the prepping for a combine, not necessarily how they would train just to be healthy during the season or to prepare for a season. They're looking to do anything they can to maximize any trick or hack necessary to get those reps on the bench press, 225, 185 pounds for reps, vertical jump,

NFL shuttle run, 40-yard dash. It's a really geeky, novel, intense, heavily funded, like I don't know how long that period of time is. It's only like a four-week period or something. We're going to carve off as much of these excess numbers as possible get you as fast and strong as possible a lot of technique work which i'm surprised and and the technique work comes down to you know like the the foot this type of footwork how to how to line up for a 40 and things of that sort because like you're saying you know point you know a thousandth of a of a second is going to make or break a potential

draft picked or you're talking about fucking millions of dollars on the line. Oh, yeah. Running a 40 is a skill in and of itself. And just being good at running 40s could make you look two-tenths of a second faster than somebody who is way faster than you. They just don't know how to run 40s. Yeah, yeah. Or exactly how you position yourself to go into a cut during those shuttle runs.

Yeah. Because if it's.8 versus.5, you just fucking lost a million dollars a year, man. Yeah. So you're going to get in position, that's for sure. So there's a lot of technique on a lot of the sprinting-style drills, which is really cool to see. And, you know, having other people watch you and coaches that have been doing this forever can tell you,

oh, you know, you're stepping out to the side, or if you make this slight fix, you could potentially be really good in this movement or this lift or this sprint or whatever it is. So it's just cool to be out there for a few days and train with them and see that side of the sport. Did you find the atmosphere to be a little more intense than your usual CrossFit box?

You know, they were really welcoming, and I think it's because we're all part of the same family. We're all under the Progenix umbrella. So, you know, a lot louder music, a lot more just one genre. Guys super animated, you know, getting into it. So it's a cool environment. I think it's a little bit, like you said, it's a little bit more amped up and a little bit like that. I think that my best experiences in my life were being a part of that because I was terrible relatively.

I told Doug the other day, I wasn't really a football player as much as I was a guy good enough to sneak in and observe, like be a part of it, you know, and just get to be able to understand experience all had to offer the same thing, like with power. But yeah, it is super. It's not like you just go into a gym. Oh, here's the wad. Come on, everybody. No, it's really intense. Some days are like fights. Some days are like intense emotional experiences where you're like, man, I would rather do anything in the world than be here on this football field this sucks this sucks ass how long did you guys spend up there uh we were there for for three days we were there for four days we had three training sessions yeah three like four hour training sessions yeah i mean it's it's you start at nine in the morning and then you're not done till like

you know you do some a bunch of warm-up style stuff. You're not done until, like, 2 or 3 p.m., and then they all kind of go to the same restaurant where they all eat together, and then I guess it's back to the same hotel they're staying at. So, I mean, they mean business over there. I'm sure they're paying a ton of money to do it as well, but, you know, they're hungry. It's a big-money game. It seems like Progenix treats their athletes really, really well.

I see them getting, you know, flown to Boston or Hawaii or to the camp you're talking about. It seems like it happens frequently and with large groups of their athletes. Yeah, they really do. They're more than just a sponsor or supplement company. They've become more like a family, especially to my girlfriend and I who are both Progenix athletes. It's been really cool and rewarding. Paul and Ryan, they's been really cool and rewarding. They bring up Paul and Ryan. They offer us really cool opportunities,

and we try to jump on as many as we can because it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, whether we're going out to EFT to train with those guys, whether we're going to Hawaii or whatever that may be. They treat us really well. I think that kind of broad experience is what allows you to reach your potential. You can't just be good at CrossFit. I think you just can't be in the CrossFit environments. You've got to come to USA Way up to me. You've got to experience what it's like to be a legit lifter because it's going to raise your potential. You can't just be good at CrossFit. I think you just can't be in the CrossFit environments. You've got to come to USA Weightlifting. You've got to experience what it's like to be

a legit lifter because it's going to raise your game. You can be doing WODs and gyms all day, but to go and train with a group of athletes who are training for a shot at millions of dollars, that's going to make you much better in another complimentary way. You've got to get the experience. Learning how to surf is equally an awesome experience,

I guess. It doesn't hurt that you get to go to Hawaii to do it. I think, you know, the coolest thing that I saw out there too is, you know, you would assume that Progenix is, it's a CrossFit supplement line. It's specific to our athletes. But when we went out there, I mean, that's a Progenix gym, EFT. I mean, all the football players, depending on what their goal is, like you can only get the supplements there. So you've got to come in, you've got to put in the work, and then they reward you with a progenic shake afterwards. And these guys love this stuff. The more muscles help some of these guys put on 20 pounds in a month.

It tastes good. It's easy to put down. Besides the fact that it tastes really good, it's super effective. And to see it working so well in a different avenue like the NFL. Plus, those dudes are eating like fucking Fritos for lunch probably. I played football. I know what we were eating. We were eating fucking balanced.

No one ever thought omega-3, vitamin D, magnesium, vegetables, good sources of protein. No, man, it's like, fuck, hot dog, four hours of football practice. Most professional sports don't have quite the emphasis on quality nutrition like CrossFitters do. We've got a good friend. Usually. The greatest story I've ever heard was Leslie Schilling. Dr. Schilling has been onFitters do. We've got a good friend. Usually. The greatest story I've ever heard was Leslie Schilling.

Dr. Schilling has been on her show. Leslie Schilling is a nutritionist or whatever. Back in the day. Yeah, she's been on the show. Episode one or two or three. Four. She may have told the story, but back in the day, she was like an advisor to the Memphis Grizzlies. When she came in, like, I'm going to help these guys eat better, and they're going to really excel at their sport.

Discover better. Noble task, right? But she comes in. You're trying to tell a dude who's like, here's his story. I get paid $10 million a year to put balls through hoops, and I do it right now by eating Fritos and hot dogs, and I drink Coca-Cola.

So fuck you for telling me to do anything different. It's really hard to communicate why they should change until you feel better, that is, until you try something. When you're on top of your game, you're on top of the world like that, it's hard for somebody to come in and say that they can make this slight change and you can improve by 10%, 15%. But at that professional level, you know, it's small percentages. If you can improve by a small percentage,

like imagine how much you could be making the next year or what you can be doing physically on the field or the court or whatnot. As you were mentioning before, like, you know, a thousandth of a second can make a huge difference. Absolutely. What you ate from lunch yesterday might have something to do with how you run today. Next week is the CrossFit Games. Right.

You're not going to be competing. Are you going to go watch? I'll definitely be. I'll be back in Houston, but I'll be watching for sure. We've got a few new guys representing our region, so I'm excited to see that. I was a little heartbroken not to see McG go and some of the guys that went last year.

It's a big shakeup this year. It was, and it was really surprising. I was out there with support and my girlfriend, but it was really surprising to see the turnout, but I'm excited for the guys that are representing our region, and it'll be another fun week fun week in carson i'm sure are you gonna be are you anticipating any like negative feelings uh while you're watching you know like he's asking i wish i was like a baby because you're not there i wish i was there type of thing i mean no i mean you know i was i was

assuming that i would get that during regionals you know the jitters and the scratches but you know it was all the perspective i was there there to a hundred percent support my girlfriend. I wasn't worried about myself or competing or, you know, why I'm not out there. So as long as I stayed focused with that, it was fine. Being a good boyfriend and shit, right? I'm the best. I suppose you made a conscious decision to do something that you had even a greater passion for. It wasn't like you broke your ankle and now you're just like sitting in your bed sad. Which I'm sure a lot of the negative feelings could come from if I was injured and I missed out or

maybe I was out there and I didn't compete or excuse me, I competed and I didn't qualify, something of that sort. But no, I'm going to sit back and enjoy it. They already look like they have some pretty solid tests of fitness. I'll tell you, I won't be missing the beach workout or that triple three or whatever that may be.

That's not up my alley. I'm sure those guys will enjoy that. I thought about testing out that one. I thought about it. I'm glad you did. I was thinking about it. All I did was think about it and that was it. I did see that Rogue was testing out a new pig.

How was that last year? I feel like you rogue was testing out a new pig yeah how was that last year i feel like you would do really well at that yeah the pig was awesome you know i didn't it was certainly heavy i didn't have too much trouble with it i finished last on the run but i think i pr'd my uh my uh two mile shall i say i mean i ran you know 640 miles which is which is pretty solid for me yeah came in last and just kind of consecutive one after the other, flipped in past a decent amount of guys, but super cool piece of equipment. I was ready to go home

and buy one and bring one down to Behemoth, but for the most part, they weren't selling them. There were some issues with how they built it, but the new one that's coming out, I've seen some of the videos. It looks super cool. It looks like a big pillow. It looks like a giant heavy pillow that you just flip. That was one that looked like a plane tower.

It was digging into people's forearms when they were trying to flip it. Is it padded? It honestly looks like a block. Yeah, it looks like the boxes that they jumped on this year, like the padded boxes. It looks a little bit more narrow and a little bit longer, but apparently it's 350 to 500 pounds. You can load it.

I don't even know if you can load it. It's just their prototype, but I saw some videos of them flipping it. It looks pretty sick. In hindsight, maybe we should have made a gigantically heavy razor sharp implementation. Well, yeah, that really was happening last year. It wasn't like cutting into people's fingers because where they cut the metal

was kind of sharp. When you gun the thing on your knee, you're flipping a tire, so you get it on your knee by any means possible, and you're like, fuck, I gotta get this thing over. So you're gonna hug it, you're gonna squeeze it,

you're gonna get all over that thing. Yeah. Every surface has to be, well, not razor fucking sharp. I'm sure it probably felt fine until there's like 500 pounds of load on it. I think the big issue on it was they had rubber pads on the bottom

to just soften the blow, but that only left you about maybe an inch, inch and a half to get your fingers under. So that's probably why. I mean, you physically couldn't get under the rubber pads because it was just so embedded into the grass. So just left you those small little edges around it to get in, and that was a big issue. And I think with the amount of weight that they had in the middle of the pig it was starting to bend the metal too so as you flipped it it was starting to bend the

metal that might have been another issue but apparently they're coming out with a brand new one hopefully we see at the games I'll tell you what's an interesting thought you're dedicating this time to Whaleton you're going to give it at least we're committing at least two years of this be patient I don't know I don't know what I'm committing to.

Pro football next. Yeah, whatever it is. It could be pro football. You're going to be faster and more explosive, better lifter, a little more powerful, maybe a little more muscular. There's a little bit more of you to go around, which would be a good thing. Your girlfriend would appreciate it. But the question is, would you entertain going back to competitive fitness stuff, but maybe a different kind? Would you ever consider doing this crazy-ass professional grid league shit?

I think it's, you know, would I go back to CrossFit? I mean, it's definitely up in the air. You know, it's tough to take a year off and then get back into something that just continues to get so much more competitive each year, each year. But the grid league is something that definitely intrigues me. I'd be interested to see what it pans out to be this year, you know, with how they picked up the athletes and, you know, the NBC deal and things of that sort. It's a cool concept.

So I'm definitely going to sit back and take a look at that and see how that pans out. And if that opportunity comes up and it turns out to be a success, you know, I'll assess it and look at it. I'll look at you and go, you could probably do really well. I mean, it seems to be better for bigger, stronger guys. Exactly, yeah. It seems like a sport that would benefit me a little bit better where I can just go out there. Hey, go out there and lift that.

All right. Look, the bottom line is, too, if you're a larger-than-life figure personality, if you've got to come out there a big fucking samurai and play up your personality and really entertain the crowd and be this gladiator type figure, you can fucking destroy that. You'd be super hyper successful in that area. I'll sign with the team as long as I can wear a komodo and a katana in my back. That'd be sweet. I don't think anyone's going to disagree with that.

Tell Amit to get on it. There needs to be a pro komodo, katana, fucking all that. I'll talk to some of the owners. See what we can do. Make it happen. Gotta make it happen. Yeah, you do see a lot of guys, you know, in CrossFit, like I said, a lot of guys are like 5'9".

You know, 5'8 to 5'10 are usually the most successful. And that is one thing we saw when we've been going to the grid league stuff. Yeah, there's some, like, monsters in there. I'm like, that dude is never going to the games. he's he's showcased he has a place here which is you know which is a cool concept of that sport is it's just like a lot of these athletes probably have zero shot at getting to the games but guess what they can sign with the team they can become a professional athlete and they can specialize yeah you know that's why these teams are able to draft the guy who you know all he can do

is just snatch heavy weight. Well, guess what? When they have a ladder or they have a workout with that, it's like, hey, meathead, go out there, snatch that, and then come immediately back. One of the things I did hear from the athletes when I was talking to them is it was surprisingly aerobic. Really?

Because it's two hours long. It's a very fast pace, too. There's probably a one-to-two to two work to rest ratio going on. What kind of rest are they doing between workouts? It's about, so say an event, you know, one of the races is like five minutes long. It'll be like five minutes before the next race. Okay. So not everyone's going the whole time.

That's why I say like maybe a two to one or, yeah, a one to two ratio there because you're not going the whole time the race is going. You might be anticipating or something like that. For some races, you're not going the whole time the race is going you might be anticipating or something like that for some races everyone's going at the same time for some races all females going and where you would sit out so like uh overall it's probably kind of like a one to two ratio of work to rest so that leaves a lot of room for people who are really powerful however you know for two hours at five minutes on, ten minutes off,

that's still a lot of fucking work. People breathing hard and falling down still. No, it looks cool. I'd be interested to see how they do it. I think it's going to evolve a lot. They're going to make a lot of changes. So what you see this year might not be as indicative of what it might be next year. The inaugural year is always going to be

a fun one to watch. It's beta testing for better or worse. Exactly. It'll be entertaining to say the least. Yeah, absolutely. Anything else you want to bring up? Websites? Your gym?

Yeah. You guys, if you're ever in the Houston area, behemothcrossfit.com, take a look at us. Everyone's more than welcome to come out. I think it's really cool. People call our number all the time or they want to stop in, get a shirt. It's super cool. I answer the phone. I coach most of the class. My brother and I run the gym. It's very privately run and owned. If you're ever in the area and you want to come through, most likely I'll be coaching. You can go down there and watch him squadron in case you don't fucking believe it.

There you go. You can watch it tomorrow at watch him squadron in case you don't fucking believe it. There you go. You can watch it tomorrow at 9. I don't believe you can do that. Yeah, just, well, what this is in person, this is all already done, but I'm sure you can find videos of it happening because they are streaming this. Awesome.

That is one of my favorite CrossFit gym names for the record. You like it? They're running out of names, but you got one of the best ones. Awesome, man. I'm glad. It fits nicely.

Yeah, sometimes people go, man, opening a CrossFit gym. I'm like, oh, what's the name of it? They tell me. I'm like, Awesome, man. I'm glad. It fits nicely. Sometimes people go, man, opening a CrossFit gym, I'm like, oh, what's the name of it? They tell me, I'm like, oh, cool. Exactly. They're like, well, that was my 10th pick. I shot the other nine down. There are a few that are astonishingly

terrible. Motherfucker, did you not ask anybody whether this was a good idea? Even your mom would say, you know what? I don't know. I'm not a marketing expert. This shit is terrible. You have a terrible name. Couldn't roll off the tongue any worse. There's probably several people listening to this go, yeah, I'm one of those

gems. Change your name. We tried. We brand your shit. You've got to expect that with the freedom you have to choose the name. I always get the excuse, we know these were already taken, so most of the time people just revert to CrossFit 1420 or CrossFit 10, 15, whatever the street number is. It's an easy one to go to, right? It's tough, man.

Yeah, it's tough. I've talked to guys that were, like, trying to figure out gym names. And, you know, I'm, like, trying to help them out. I'm like, man, I am at a loss. But there are lots of words, man. I'm at a loss. Just Google fucking put Chinese characters up there or something. Instead of just putting like, you know, CrossFit.

Well, here's the thing. Barbell. It's not up to the owners. They got to submit so many requests and then HQ's got to approve them. There's a process there. It makes it. I mean, I've seen guys that like submitted 10 and they chose their 10th pick. Well, then go do something else with your life.

Don't open a gym with a shitty name. That's what I would say. I see people where I agree. Like, if you can't get a cool name, at least you can go, right, that's my business. I can put that shit on a t-shirt and feel good about it. If you can't do that, go do something else, man. That's what I would tell you.

Truth. You know I'm true. You don't have a gym, so I don't know. We'll settle down on that. If you want to open up a shitty gym with a bad name, go ahead. Or if open up a shitty gym with a bad name Go ahead Or if it's a great gym with a shitty name Doesn't matter

You gotta have a good name Alright guys Social media Where should they follow you? Behemoth CF Behemoth CF Instagram and Twitter Sweet

Alright thanks for joining us Enjoy the talk Pleasure gentlemen See you next time Dream come true Thanks Asia