Barbell Shrugged - 160- What The Hell is So Cool About Obstacle Racing

Episode Date: January 21, 2015

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we interview Hunter the Sheriff McIntyre, Spartan Race Champion. Hey, this is Rich Froning, you're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. I've never met my neighbors before, like anywhere I've ever lived, and I know all these guys already. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe with Doug Larson, Chris Moore. We have brought our guest, Hunter McIntyre, onto the Larson estate.

That came out pretty abruptly. I didn't expect that. Slash Barbell Shrugged headquarters. This is the first San Diegogo shoot first san diego shoot uh we all moved here a while back except for this guy yeah and uh now we're just trying to get people to come to us so we don't have to travel so much uh we reached out to hunter someone made a suggestion we reach out to you a while back and uh and they they uh told us about this article yeah no that's the world famous article.

Is this an article that you're trying to hide from your mother, but it's too late now? Well, you kind of ride the fence. Either people are just rocked by it and have a good time, or you'd be like, my mother, just a very judgmental person. They just take those words so heavily. They're like, that damn devil boy. So we shouldn't send this link to your mother. No, you go ahead. You just said that.

Now you're going to be like, really pissed. Everybody except your mom, go google it and read it it's a pretty awesome piece don't google my name please yeah so uh hunter you're you are a spartan racer that's right a man of the mud like professional level how is this working here this is interesting because we just now learn people like you existed really because we we knew a spartan race and we knew it was awesome and people would go and discover themselves out on crazy mountain obstacle course races but we didn't know there was a professional class. Yeah, we tried to keep it a secret. We don't want anybody else coming in.

Honestly, it's pretty crazy. The circuit has just grown so enormously in the past few years. It used to be something that was more of a raw experience where people were trying to just get out there and do something wild and now they wanted to to see people do it faster they wanted to do it heavier they wanted to do it you know some more extreme ways and that's how the professional element was

born and uh you know i came in started throwing down about two years ago and it's been non-stop ever since you just come in and win races and then they offer you the opportunity to be a professional or how does that work? How do you become a professional? That's exactly how it happened. The funny thing is you wouldn't expect it, but it didn't have that very dense population of rock star athletes when I first started. And luckily I've been able to hold on. Hopefully I stay with that.

But honestly, I came in, I started running some races. People like Joe who owns Spartan Race, they said to me, hey, man, we really recognize you're doing a great job. We'd love you having on board for the pro team. And actually, my dad fronted me my first few races. So thank you, Dad, if you're listening. Thanks, Dad. Yeah, awesome guy.

And from there, just kind of picked up a couple flights. They flew me to crazy places. And, you know, I started hustling on their dollar a little bit and built something from there. People know Spartan Race. They may have heard of the Spartan Race stuff from the shows we've done with Joe DeSena in the past. But they have like a 5K version or a 3K version.

It just builds over time, or maybe not over time, but they have three. What are the different versions? Well, there's the sprint, the Olympic, and then there's the full, like, you know, time uh or maybe not over time but they have what three what were the different versions well there's the um there's the sprint the olympic and then there's uh the full like you know the the full distance which is called the beast in um spartan terms and uh it's like three to five miles for the first one uh six to eight miles for the super distance the olympic distance and then there's 13 to like 16 miles for the full-on one. Oh, God. And then they double that for like one super special event called the Ultra Beast, which is a marathon of just gnarliness.

Wow. Yeah. I've never done that. That's too much. How can we kill people? Double the hardest one. That's right. Two laps.

Two laps. Is that what they use for the world championships? Well, basically, they'll take the world championship course, and then they'll double it for the Ultra Beast. They'll have it on the second day and uh just it's just so brutal uh actually the kid i'm hanging out with right now he won this year at the ultra beast it's something that you know it's much more mental than it is physical i was gonna say so physically you're just going further and longer but also as we talked about earlier the craziest thing about spartan race is it's not they're not just

pushing physical variables they are fucking with your mind. Oh, no, totally. Like, intentionally pushing, like, once you get up there on a mountain, you're basically presented with puzzles and confounding variables and, like, tricks and... Those will throw anything at you, whether it be, you know, sometimes in specific events,

they even will have you working with a Rubik's Cube. Like, why would you want to go, like, balls to the wall, you get to the top of a mountain, you're like, thank the Lord, and they hand you a Rubik's cube. What is this? I would punch somebody out, but I haven't had that happen to me. The Rubik's cube would ruin me. Oh God, yeah. So you have to put it

together before you can go on to the next piece, or how does that work? Yeah, you have to put it together. They'll do things like, this is all Joe DeSanto. You guys know him. He's a madman. He's also a genius, so things that he can barely do himself, he'll test people to that limit. Most madmen are geniuses in some way or another.

That's why we think they're mad. We're just saying that. But it's incredible. There's a lot of tests, whether it be physical, mental, agility, all these things. It's very broad. For someone who's never been off the couch

or been outside of running down the block, especially for people who live in these very sedentary lifestyles, it's something incredible. And as a professional, it's something I have to deal with on a daily, but still there's some points where I'm just so tested by the end of it, I'm just fried mentally. It's awesome. What got you into it and where did you start?

And actually I got so many questions. Oh my God. We'll start with that one. Yeah. It's funny. Um, I was actually talking to him about bodybuilding. I used to be just all about the meat, you know, anything that I could put inches on, whether it be my legs, my shoulders, anything.

And, um, anything. Yeah. Ron Jeremy products. Yes, exactly. There you go, my shoulders, anything. Anything? Ron Jeremy products. Yes, exactly. There you go, man. I was sold. Extreme Spartan Race cock pumps. Yeah, exactly.

I use that. Don't hack on my sponsor. So I was just lifting weights in the gym, kind of just thinking about my six pack. And one of my buddies challenged me. He's like, dude, he came into my room, started spartan race and i was like yeah we're going crazy what was your sporting background before this you're did some lifting but wrestling and body building and cross country but the wrestling in in cross country is something like my dad said if you don't do this you get a job so there any signs that you had a future in physical stuff,

or were you just kind of aimless and you had all this fucking energy? No, I kept on getting the most painful award to get most potential. It's like kind of a slap in the face, like you didn't do what you should have. You could have brought it to the next level, but you're just slacked. Potential is a French word for ain't done shit yet. Yeah, exactly. That's how I felt every single time. And, you know, I had some potential.

Yeah. You got a lot of potential, kid. Thanks, exactly. That's how I felt every single time. And I had some potential. Your motivation. Yeah. You got a lot of potential, kid. Thanks, coach. I remember what you said about that a couple days ago. Yeah. They popped that balloon. You might as well just throw that in the closet and never look at that ward again. And it went from there.

I showed up. I had actually showed up in my underwear and a headband, and I just was rip-roaring like most people. Yeah. Like a Rambo band yeah yeah I drew it like the dramatic knot behind your head exactly how I felt 80s rock music going on yeah and no return no surrender that that's that's actually the the other side of the sport people really like to feel raw and wild and crazy and And I came in, I was introduced that way. Yeah. And I did well. I don't even really know how to think about it.

Is that your fundamental quality? Is it your raw and crazy default setting? Dude, macho man Randy Savage. Oh, man. Oh, yeah. Come get some. Is that real? That is real. Jeez. Come get some. Is that real? That is real.

Jeez. That's amazing. So, obviously. That was one of the best moments we've ever had on the show of any episode. He exists. So, obviously, honey, you're not like this average boring guy who's like, oh, I don't know. I'm kind of, I don't know what else I'm going to do.

I'm going to try this. No, you, this sort of suits you, it seems. Yeah. Like the unpredictability, the idea that you're going to go up there and no one's going to try this. No, you, you, this sort of suits you, it seems. Yeah. Like the unpredictability, the idea that you're going to go up there and no one's going to know what's up there doesn't throw you off at all. No, I love that raw, brutal feeling of just taking on the world. How long was the first race you did? It was only three and a half miles.

It was in Malibu four years ago. And it just was something where I kind of, it was like a drag race. Like all of a sudden I just went out full throttle. And then at the end of the track, I just kept on going. And then I just was in this like full on area. It was crazy. I was climbing up shit. I was like, Oh my God, where am I? And it just was a whole nother side of the world. You just never thought about. And I took myself from that kind of, I'm not going to hack anybody, but that just kind of small and tasteless world of just always being in the gym,

and I brought it to the outdoors, and that's what Spartan Race gave me and all these OCR events. So from there... But it's also like, it seems like there's that level of like what we all know to be like the default, like typical gym experience, where you don't really know,

there's no connection to what this means in your life. You just go do this shit. You don't know why. There's no plan. There's no... to what this means in your life. You just go do this shit. You don't know why. There's no plan. There's no. There's also like the modern functional fitness movement where people are getting better at learning. This is how we become better humans.

But there's added level of becoming an optimized human being out in the wild doing shit that is quite honestly dangerous and crazy sometimes. Oh yeah. In a controlled setting. But this is not. This is not Fran. This is fucking ancient, deep, dark, stimulus, unknown, scary place sometimes. Oh, yeah. In a controlled setting, but this is not, this is not Fran. This is fucking ancient, deep, dark,

stimulus, unknown, scary place sometimes. I keep pointing at this mountain, but this is symbolic. The mountain is symbolic of, this is not a gym. I have a feeling

we're climbing that mountain today. We might be climbing one of these mountains. You guys are stuck. I'm going to tell you all today. I'm going to bury these assholes, these meatheads. So do you have a record

if you're a professional? How does that work? A record? Well, the way that we're tested throughout the year is our five best races for the point series. You know, the point series maybe gives you a better understanding of how our whole year plays out. And then some guys will just show up just and uh do one race like the world championships but um you know like my points ended up adding up so i ended up becoming first in the world last year but sometimes it just doesn't play in your favor if you just showed up to um five races but you only did the lesser distances like the shorter distances are 280 points middles are 290 full or

300 so if I did three of the shorter ones and then two middle and there's another guy who did all five of the longer ones, he ended up having 1,500 points.

It's like a NASCAR style rating system. You just accumulate the points. Whoever gets the most points is like the champion of it or whatever.

I have no clue how it works. What's the next one in Southern California? What's the next one? Actually, throughout January, there's four races back to back on the weekends. In Southern California? Yeah, right here.? Actually, throughout January, there's four races back-to-back on the weekends.

In Southern California? Yeah, right here. Temecula, I think, is like a stone throw away. It's only like an hour and a half away or something. I'm going to sign up for that. Are you? Yeah. I'm holding you to it.

Yeah, I'll sign up. All right, dude, we're going through it together. Wait, wait, wait. What's the distance? What's the distance? Hold on. You already committed. This year's over.

It's like the death race here this year. Actually, all three distances are tested throughout that time. So I'll let you get through the sprint if you really want to. What's the easiest one? I think three and a half miles. I think we have sprints coming up for that. Short distance, very doable, but it's fun. I've been jogging on the beach about 10 minutes every other day.

You sound prepared. I should be able to do it. You've been doing a little jogging? A little jogging, yeah. I watched a little bit about your training methods. I actually loved your point how you were talking about, yeah, you can go out and jog on the beach or run in Central Park or whatever, but that's not really going to do shit to help you.

Because you might run a marathon distance, but it happens to be up a mountain over obstacles, which is a gnarly – you can't just be a runner and do this, can you? Well, it's really incredible that the race directors go out there with, like, they have a topographical map a machete and then a bunch of power tools and like you know some guys who are just so driven to build the most death-defying acts that you can imagine and give it to the public well that's a good point joe's crew of builders are insanely capable and maniacs like they'll build that build that

staircase so long dude that's too crazy right, so what's the difference between, so we have the Spartan Race series, which you kind of just described, and the Death Race. The Death Race, you know, that's a whole different, I mean, that's more of the adventure racing, and that's where you really crack into the mental game. They're trying to pull all these things together and, you know, kind of wring the towel out of your soul and find out what's in there.

And I mean, it sounds silly, but they're crazy. I think he described to you last one that they did. They tied like four racers together on top of two by fours and everyone had their feet. And they had to walk together for like a half marathon. That's not physical.

That is all mental being able to do. I would want to murder everybody. Exactly. Everybody would want to murder me. By the end of the driveway. By the end of the driveway, you want to murder them. Like, ah.

Yeah. So they just, the death race is more of an accomplishment of your character rather than your physical being. Right. Yeah. Have you ever done that?

No, no, no, no. You're not really going to test a character? He's like, those guys are crazy. I went to Seal Fit to test my character and I think I failed that, but physically I passed it. That's an awesome experience by the way, if you guys haven't done Kokoro yet. Which, as you did the, was it 40 hours? It's 50 hours.

Yeah, 50 hours. Crazy stuff. That's the farthest I've ever gone to that distance, but no, no, I've never done the death race, and I do not plan to. What was that like, doing Kokoro? It was mind-blowing. It's 50 hours, you don't sleep, you just work out the whole time. A lot of cold water.

They'll tune your guitar for whatever your message is supposed to be at the end of that experience. You know what I mean? What does that mean? Oh, I'm sorry. If we all went in there, maybe they realized that you weren't comfortable in the water. Um, you were not comfortable with being in the sand. You were not comfortable, you know, any, whatever. And I, my, my problem was, is I was not a team player. So they were really always like putting me with people who were, um, I was going to have to push myself harder

to actually work with that person. They would always put this little guy behind me in these log P-tree drills where he would basically just use his little fingertips to hold it up and it would be sitting all on my shoulder. Son of a bitch. This guy. I'm like, you piece of shit.

Pick up that log. And they kept on catching me and it's an incredible experience. And at the end of it, I still don't think I graduated with what they wanted me to, but I survived it.

Well, you're hard enough to crack, Hunter, right? You got a lot of work to do. Well, they drowned, they drowned me like a hundred times when I was there. It was so horrible.

It seems like, it's like, I'd love to hear that because it seems like those push you hard, but that's not the way to always improve, right? Yeah.

It's to go for what you need. Like you can, sometimes you would love them to get on your ass and push you hard and hard. You'd be like, okay, bring it. Yeah. You're in a sadistic way.

You'd probably love it. What we didn't like was, no, slow down and bring everybody with you. That's the way you could improve and be a better version of yourself. It hurt bad. It was like such an experience and I love them for it.

Like I'm always reading Mark Devine's books and things like that, trying to find out what the real message is. But I think it's something I can't keep on telling you guys about. You should just sign up already. Yeah. I think a lot of people just heard you say

you got drowned a hundred times and they want to hear more about that. What does that mean? Well, it was funny. At first, I think within like the first 30 seconds, they had me singled out on the ground, like doing like leg kicks with a hose in my mouth like this just blasting

me in the face and I'm spitting all over the place and once they realize you're struggling that's like you know blood in the water shots are coming are you thirsty asshole did they spray it yeah and then they put me in a bucket of water and what they said was the bucket was about the size of this table and you're

sitting in there and what they do is they have you put your head out of the water where your earlobes are touching and your chin's touching and there's only this little circle out to breathe and once you start to panic in there they're like all right we're getting this sucker good then they put a they took a nalgene bottle they cut off the bottom of it and had me breathing through it and they get me in deeper i move up a little bit they put an ice block on my chest chest and then all of a sudden they they sink me down like that i move up again they put an ice block over top of my head and they just pound you i was like tell us what you know that's how i felt like where are the protein bars yeah we were smuggling stuff

hiding protein bars while we were moving but it's one click away from just being waterboarded. I was waterboarded, I'm pretty sure. What they did was illegal. I paid for it, though, so whatever. So here's however much money it is. Now waterboard me. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Hey. You said that experience has it given you particular insights on how to train better and move further in this sport of Spartan because obviously one thing I love is combining these experiences

you learn so much when you combine experiences being able just to channel where your mind is during a certain time and you I'm sure you guys have that where you're going

through a workout or you're going through just a hard time being able to kind of transfer all that pain and pull it out and put it to the side and keep on the train tracks and come back to it later and like when you're running a race and

you're just so gut busted and you're just like i can't fucking i'm just i'm out and then be able to remove that you know pull the emotion out of things and that's kind of a cold way of looking at it but if you want to perform or get something done that has to be done sometimes people who are interested in that should probably pick up mark's book going to be about mine right because? Because I think one thing that becomes clear when you meet Mark is that he can show you things you never considered about how to harness the power of your mind to push you further. Because what shuts down first is your mind. Like your body can do, I think most people's bodies can do twice as much as

what they think is possible now. The 20X theory, I think it was. Your mind caps it to keep you surviving. But there's a way to, but it takes extreme it takes extreme work just like you work a snatch. You got to work, work, work to get breathing and your mental focus trained.

Yeah. Mark's book is an exceptional way of doing that. Have you guys done box breathing yet? Yes. Oh, he's done it,

dude. 10 times harder than any workout. I'd rather do Murph five times in a row. And we did meditation and surf. All those drills

are way harder if you just used to squat. Way harder than a squat workout or some shit like that. Yeah, way harder. To prepare for Worlds this summer, because you get exposed to really cold water. You have to swim through it.

I would sit in the water in Colorado on these freezing cold rivers and try to do box breathing for about 20 minutes straight. Oh, nice. And it just was the most challenging thing. Just keep your eyes closed. Just breathe. Just listen to the water. It sounds silly, but that right there is just like so much mental volume you can't even take it.

I like doing box breathing just in a warm up. Yeah. Just do it before you train and you'll be more prepared for the training. You found something that you're weak at.

I think people think of running more lifting more but think like to have control masterful control of your lungs in a sport like you've got

is the most important thing. It was the hugest one of the maybe biggest weaknesses you had at the time when you learned to get in a cold environment. You had no control over the most important thing in your life, your ability to make your lungs work. That full diaphragm, pull it all in, really work yourself in. It's something everyone should check out, definitely. A silly thing is also, have you guys ever fooled around with those training masks?

Try doing box breathing in one of those. Oh, like the simulated altitude masks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A hundred bucks for those things. That right there, that's a real challenge. Breathing through a straw. Yeah. In between intervals, try to do that.

That's a crazy way of just training. Let's say if you got like aerodyne, you're just like, take a minute off, put the mask on, and just do that box breathing. And honestly, it sounds silly, but like, you know, for someone like an MMA trainer where you have to bring yourself down, you're at that threshold point and then you have to bring yourself back down to a state of calm and then get right back into it. That's something that you can use as a tool that just is awesome. You have to sharpen it up real quick. It probably has a lot transferred to every aspect of your life too. If you can teach yourself to recover from,

because things are going to happen, things are going to get crazy, you're going to respond. Like driving in Los Angeles? Yeah, you're going to have a lot of stress,

but if you can train yourself to defuse your stress response quickly, you can recover faster, perform better, and a crazy ass event doesn't matter what they feel actually,

you're going to be able to be initially shocked, freak out maybe, but then get over it and get back to the job of getting over the fucking thing. You know Tony Schwartz when he wrote The Powerful Engagement, he talks about tennis it and get back to the job of getting over the fucking thing. Yeah. You know, Tony Schwartz, when he wrote the powerful engagement, he talks about tennis

players and the only big difference between the guys that are at the very top, like the, like the number one in the world versus like number two, three, four, and five is, is after like the long sets that are, you know, deep into the, I don't know if a mattress set or I don't know all the tennis terms, but like hours into it, the guys that can like, serve and then win a point and then can just cut it off, turn away and then totally relax in between each serve, each set

or each volley, whatever the fuck they do. Yeah, exactly. The guys that can turn around, totally relax and get that little bit of rejuvenation Charlotte's laughing back there. We're all like throwing out tennis things. We don't know what they're talking about. She's like, these motherfuckers don't know what they're It's like these little ones don't know what they're talking about. These meatheads don't know what they're talking about.

I mean, the suit looks like that, right? Yeah, but getting that little bit of rejuvenation, even at the highest level of the game, the guys that are winning versus the guys that are getting second, third, and fourth place, the guys that can rejuvenate in between each set are the guys that can keep up pace. That state of calm. Yeah, they're the guys that can rejuvenate in between each set are the guys that can keep up pace. That state of calm. Yeah, they're the guys that can

hold out very late in the game and still do really well. I just found out across my whole life is that it's not necessarily how much you exert, it's being able to put forth an effort but radically rejuvenate and restore yourself quickly and then do it again and keep the pace. Not just fucking go crazy in one direction until you hit a wall.

That's not a very wise way of doing anything. That worked really well for me when I was about 21. Yeah. Until you realize you're not immortal. I ran out of juice. You're not immortal. You're not unbreakable. Then you realize you got to start doing shit differently.

Exactly. But those days were the best. Those were the best. You're still going to end those days. My pre-workout was only 25, man. He's still there. I remember what that was like. I had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for pre-workout.

Dude, I still eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on a daily. Yeah, I know, it's because you're 25. Yeah, that's right. 25 was my peak. That's what we're talking about. I go through a loaf of bread. Rob Wolf scared me away from bread just recently, but I go through a loaf of bread.

If you eat that bread, you'll die of cancer. That's right. Just cancer, though. Your leg's going to fall off. Well, the leg's not so bad as long as other things don't fall off. Yeah, that's right. Let's take a break real quick. When we come back, I want to find out how you train for these races.

Okay. Yeah. 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 barbellshrugged.com and sign up for the newsletter. And we're back.

Yeah, so we were going to talk about your training, but instead we decided to talk about your nickname, Hunter the Sheriff. The Sheriff. How'd you get that nickname? Two years ago on the Venice boardwalk, drinking in front of tattoo shops. It actually started, and now this will... Not fitness related at all? No, this will actually paint a different picture of me.

I used to be a raging, crazy partier, and when we get into these episodes of binging, I came up with this alter ego called the sheriff, where we'd all be sitting around a table like this, partaking in certain things, and I would just snap out and pretend to be an undercover sheriff and be like, you're dealing with the sheriff. You're all going to jail.

I mean, pro tip, this is the only way to ruin somebody's trip. You're all going to jail. I'm the sheriff. The best part about it is I would do it in situations where there'd only be one close friend to me and the rest of the people would have no clue. And they'd be like, what the fuck is wrong with this kid? And yeah, we would have a blast with it.

And it kind of just ended up. He says we. You had a blast with it. I know. I thought you were an asshole. Me and the people in my head. I was like, dude, that was not fucking cool what you did last night. I was in a cocoon i was soaking warm so you

fucking changed that bro bring that sheriff guy up again yeah and i just stapled it to my chest and it's kind of more of just a you know fun mentality just to kind of always have something else in your back pocket being the sheriff or have macho man on my side. Wait, so what's on your chest? The sheriff badge. A tattoo of what? The sheriff badge. Oh, okay. You were on Venice Beach Boardwalk. Yeah.

And you had been partying? Yeah, we were always kind of a state party. So you were like, well, I should get a tattoo. You just walk in a tattoo shop? Yeah, my buddy got his belly button pierced and I got a sheriff badge. Oh, my God. Oh, no.

That wasn't Isaiah, was it? No, it wasn't Isaiah. Oh man. But he did good with one of those. Yeah, a little gem. But I know,

you know, it didn't start. You know what, fuck it, you got to do it. You know what, I want this badge on my chest. I'm doing it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it ended up always being when we're kind of just in epic periods of life when I'm with a friend

and we're just partying our butts off and we're just kind of having a really good time and it ends up being something where like, you know what, we should do something

really dumb today. I'm going to get that sheriff badge and you're going to get your belly button pierced. My buddy got like an eagle tattooed under his armpit and I ended up getting

Macho Man Randy Savage. It's funny, I'll show it to you guys another time, but I have a butt pirate tattooed on my butt. He's got a butt pirate tattooed on his butt. Are you butt pirate buddies?

Is that what this situation is? Yeah, we are. Oh, man. Your girlfriend's so proud. She is. She's like, love. Yeah, you know, you got to have some fun tattoos. You got them.

You got any? I don't have any tattoos. Doug has no tattoos Mike and I are on the overboard with the tattoos that won't last in SoCal you gotta get jumped into the gang get some ink

the coolest thing people go is aren't you afraid of that looking stupid or whatever when you get older this that and the other people are like regret heavy they have their regrets

before they even make a decision to do what they want to do they don't want to know they're so scared of what the consequence of doing what they want to do might be they never fucking do it.

My attitude was, look, I want it. I'm getting it. Are you afraid to look like, when you get old, you're going to look like an old tattooed man? Yeah, a badass old tattooed man. It looks cooler than just a regular old man. I do have a little bit of, I don't know if it's regret. I have a try to, check this out, hope it doesn't knock off my mic, on my entire back. Jesus, look at that.

That was a crazy point in my life where I was like, yeah, I love the Navy SEALs. I'll probably become one one day. That is the guaranteed way not to make it

through the program. I know. I got my ass kicked. Who's this fucking kid think he is? Poseidon? I saw a guy in my buds class

had the trident tattooed on him. Yeah. Didn't last but a couple days in he beat him into the ground. Oh, this guy thinks he's an ocean god, eh? Well, fuck. Yeah. Didn't last but a couple days. Beat him into the ground. Oh, this guy thinks he's an ocean god, eh? Well, fuck this guy.

Trident being the Poseidon. No, no, no. The trident is a Navy SEAL. Oh, yeah. No. That was Poseidon's weapon, though, right? Yeah. It's a very symbolic thing of you rule the fucking ocean.

This guy had the trident. The. Okay, the. That's a badge you have to earn. So you get the SEAL badge before you become a seal it seems like a bad move yeah i don't know what he was thinking yeah but even the trident like there's no way you would get a you'd you'd catch a ton of shit i get cooked they cooked me when i was at that kakoro thing yeah yeah i never should i should have worn just like very double shirts

so they never could have seen it but yeah it just happened the happy way happened how do you train for spartan race uh you mentioned that you do crossfit and i'll imagine some other things as well yeah it's mostly um i always do like a little bit of an abc method now which i kind of try to approach where there's days where it's strictly um just focusing on that of the endurance aspect. Like you are a runner for this sport. Like you cannot ignore the fact that you have to really focus on your running. I immediately regret my decision to do the sport. But you said you've done marathons.

We're going to get you through it. Yeah, I can do it. There's some very aggressive terrain though. So you have to do a ton of like the trail running. Prepare yourself for that. So my beach jogging. Oh, that's perfect. Beach jogging? Yeah, that's good. You're going to have very muscular calves by prepare yourself for that. So my beach jogging. Oh, that's perfect. Beach jogging?

Yeah, that's good. You're going to have very muscular calves by the end of that. Beach running is perfect, actually. It builds a lot of ton of strength. But then there's days that I focus more on the 5x5 squats, things like that, where I'm just getting in there, getting under something heavy and moving it around. And I do try to get three or four days a week

of those Metcon-type training. So my girlfriend and I just signed up for a CrossFit gym I do try to get like three or four days a week of those Metcon-type training. So, like my girlfriend and I just signed up for a CrossFit gym up near where we live, and we're just going to beat ourselves into the ground until the Open and see what happens. Which box is that? It's called Precision. Precision. Precision, yeah. Precision CrossFit?

Precision CrossFit. My girlfriend goes there. I don't know. Obviously now, this is very new, preparing for the pro class, competitive class, the Spartan racing. How many guys are training

in a way so many, how many people understand the importance of doing strength work to help them prepare for these challenges? Or there's, they said there's probably a fair share of this

ultra marathoner guys. Yeah. Like the traditional way of doing this versus you. Are you very, compared to what they're training like, it's intensity it's shorter so more powerful and more intense you're expanding your abilities into more long right but how's that compared to what other people have been doing my methods um it's very rare to find someone in our sport that trains the way i

do um like i came fifth at world championships this year, and the long course won, and the top four guys ahead of me all ran over 100 miles a week, and I ran less than 20 a week. That's a big difference. Yeah. The cumulative difference in your training load is huge to do the same event. We were just hanging out with this kid, Ryan Atkins, yesterday, and he's very well known for the 24-hour events,

and he was world-class status for mountain biking and things like that and he competes in our events now and we're like, hey man, what's like a training day look like for you? And he's like,

I'll do Cindy and then I'll do an all-out 5K and then I'll go out and do like, you know, 10 miles in the mountains just running afterwards

and then... You know, like cool down. Yeah, and then the next day he'll run like 30 miles just in the mountains I don't fucking get this shit

that would destroy me I try to break that down can you imagine just dividing a hundred miles if I had to go if I had to go 30 miles in the mountains I would make sure to have

like a GPS tracking device in case I got in trouble yeah that's a huge I would bring like 30 pounds worth of food and water that'd be

that's how people end up dead. Doing silly shit like that. This guy's like, oh, well, it's my cool down. It's drastic though. Definitely you have to respect the fact that you are going to have to channel a lot of your time into becoming an efficient runner. Like right now I'm working with this guy, Rich Diaz. He's incredible. I'm getting on treadmills now and building up my speed until like 20 miles an hour until my body breaks down in some kind of form, whether it be cadence, one of my feet is landing heavier than the other one,

or like, you know, my foot is breaking in front of itself. So you have to like train yourself just as if you were an Olympic lifter. Do you ever feel like you, when you're just running your races to that point, do you ever feel like you have not, like is running the limiting factor out here? Oh, totally. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Like at that world championship event, I just could not give myself the output to keep up with these guys. Yeah. Sure. I could pick up something really heavy and do something crazy with it compared to them. But at the same time, you know, if everybody else is kind of moving ahead of you and you're kind of left behind the

after party that's why you have to really kind of focus on things that are your weaknesses and mine right now being a bigger guy is definitely the running so the obstacles are the obstacles are so short that they really don't play into the big picture of winning the race occasionally it depends on the race like there was one obstacle at our world championships that took some guys 40 minutes you had to take two 60pound sandbags and however you wanted to, had to move it about 600 meters up this double black diamond and then back down. Wow. Yeah, and like world-class athletes who were like world champions in mountain running

were like, you know, they were pissing out kidney stones type shit. It was horrible for them. They could not handle it. There was excruciating pain. They were talking about how you can go, it's easy to go further if you're fitter. Yeah. But if you're super fit and you have no experience producing force, you can't just go the other direction. And now, I don't care how long you can run, if there's a big log or a big

rock, a big tire, if you can't do it, you can't fucking do it. Yeah, I know. That's why no matter what, it doesn't matter what sport you're in, even if you're playing table tennis, you know, there has to be a foundation of strength. You know, and from there, you can add skill over it, and then you can add, you know, different kinds of intensities. So that's why I get in the gym, and I get in, like, you know,

I focus on that strength, and I'll never let it go. What I love about the treadmill move you're doing is people go, I like to be better at running, and then sometimes they go for the fanciest tool they have access to first. But you get a very fancy tool, this expensive, kind of dangerous, crazy-ass overspeed treadmill, but you're using it to specifically try to find the breaking point

and the thing you know is a weakness. Oh, yeah? Yeah. And let me tell you, moving on a treadmill that fast is terrifying. He had to, like, you know, coach me like I was a baby. He's like, let go of the arms. Now it's time to get on. No, just get on.

And I was like, no. Yeah. Anybody can type in YouTube over speed treadmill and see. There's an NFL guy. Type in NFL over speed treadmill on YouTube. You'll see a guy just blow your mind. His feet, the foot speed. It's crazy.

It's crazy. I could get you on that treadmill and I bet you I could get you up. No, come on. I think we could come up. Something worse challenging me. This would be like getting, what's his name, the guy at the Mohawk from the A-Team. Fucking Mr. T? Getting Mr. T on an airplane would be the equivalent of getting Chris on a treadmill.

Okay. We would probably have to drag him. It's easier. We could drug him. We could tape his hands to the treadmill. All right. We'll get it going. He'll come to you.

Wake him up. There you go. I'm gravity and running averse. It's easier for you to climb up that mountain ten times than me to do a mile on a treadmill. I just fucking hate it, man. Really? Yeah, I hate it. I can sprint. I can do shorter things, but this form you see before you is built for speed.

That's right. Not for endurance. An animal of different efficiency. Yeah, yeah. Also, just a side note, I'm incredibly top-heavy. I cannot do anything. Probably do in terms of like, if I get on a slippery surface, the first thing that happens is I just fall on my face.

Really? Yeah. We're going to take you ice skating. I need cleats in a football field if I'm going to be an athlete. I tried to get him to go ice skating. I told him I would hold his hands and everything. And he just wouldn't get out there. He wouldn't get out there.

No, don't take the risk. You split your training up ABC. ABC days, like, you know, you have to go more in depth in each one of those. Okay, yeah. The ways I'll break it up, I'll try to give you just an explanation of how I would treat a day. Yesterday, where I beat myself

two days ago, I beat myself into the ground. I worked where I woke up in the morning and we did this like little thing called the contenders challenge where I live at the top of a mountain. We started at the bottom. It's five and a half miles basically to the top and almost 2000 feet elevation. We just go all out and just kind of focus on exerting ourselves, doing some climbing and really,

you know, race against each other. So it kind of gets that mentality. Then I'll go later on in the day and I'll do like some of that speed work on the treadmill. And then, um, I would just like in the evening, just finish off again with another, you know, cardio work where I'm on the mountain bike and I'm just moving kind of just covering ground, covering ground. And a day before that, I may just get, uh, wake up in the morning and kind of pick up some of these sandbags or kettlebells at my house, and I'll just do different kind of intervals.

Like I work with this guy, Ken Blackburn. He just teaches me how to do – you ever heard of long cycle sport? No. It's kettlebell sport. So I'm just doing different kind of intervals with different kind of weights and practicing like that, and then I'll do a little bit of sandbag lifts, like 10 minutes all-out effort, try to get ground to shoulder. Then later on I'll go work out with my girlfriend and like, you know, just kind of go through

the, you know, the power lifting motions, front squat, deadlift, push press. And then in the afternoon, maybe do just as many pull-ups as possible. You know, I still work out a ton. And then there's the days that I really make sure that I'm doing something that is touching like every piece of the puzzle. I'll get out there. I'll go run 400 yards. I'll do something like a Helen and also I'll add like a spear toss into it. I'll try to add something that's like going to challenge me a little bit towards my sport. I don't focus too much on it. You're doing some of these mental tasks. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do something that requires precision. Yeah. Yeah. But like, you know, basic CrossFit stuff, you know, whether it be Diane, Helen, everything, I just kind of try to get things like that. So the ABC method, it can be done however you want it to, but spread it out and make sure that some days are focused on endurance only. Some days are focused completely on strength because that's something you always need to have. And then there's other days that you're just kind of getting in every piece of the puzzle

and challenge yourself. There has to be, like, I don't know how to do bar muscle-ups that well. So I get out there and I'll just start chucking them into workouts and I'll force it, like chest-to-bar pull-ups and things like that. I would never have to do that in one of my events, but we did it the other day where I did, for the first time ever, I did, what is it, Fran, and we had to do chest-to-bar pull-ups. Yeah.

And we practiced that before and that sucked. It might be surprising how much easier, or maybe it won't be surprising, how much easier it is for people to get over an obstacle if they can do chest-to-bar pull-ups versus just pull-ups. Oh, yeah. Or you're doing muscle-ups in the rings, but it actually transfers to getting over a wall. Sounds like this sport is one of the most helpful things you can do

because there's no formula. There's no, like, 10 years of, like, we've played and we've figured out how to best train for Spartan race. That shit has not happened yet. Right. I mean, people are still doing a lot of things. I guess the only thing you can really do is find where you're weak and find as

many ways to get stronger and better as you can while I'm just trying to manage holding yourself together in the process. Yeah. Well, you know, the thing is, is there's never a point where progress cannot, you know,

be made anymore. Whether I'm doing pull-ups with just chest to bar, or I'm doing pull-ups with just two fingers, things like that. I have a pull-up bar outside that is just little fingers, or we're working on a pegboard. You're always trying to improve in some kind of way in that domain. Every day is an opportunity. I'm lucky enough where I'm a sponsored athlete,

so I don't really have to focus too much on having a job, and I get to really mess around. Getting to meet people like you, I'll probably take a couple of tricks from you guys and bring it back to my house and just burn myself out for a couple of weeks. And then I'll have that in my back pocket for whenever I want to use it again. You don't, you don't seem like a guy who's like waiting for everything to be perfect before you go compete. I know you've done a lot of competitions. Like how much of your success do you attribute to just being like, fuck it, I'm not ready to compete, but I just gonna go compete anyway and i'm gonna compete a lot and you have that skill of competing well you know i had to go through that um it was like a little bit of

growing pains last year i said to myself i want to try to periodize where i'm going to become really strong so during like the crossfit opens last year i was just doing a ton of power lifting and only doing like met cons i wasn't doing any running whatsoever I was like I just need to get really freaking strong and then drag that strength into my championship season and I was going to races and I was getting punked

like you know I was getting beat out really badly by people who usually wouldn't beat me and that's just check your ego in order to make that happen this is a good

this is how you get real like you tried something and you get a sure result it's not a bad thing you got data for how to tailor your training next time around so that's probably a way you can still do the power thing or the strength focus yeah but not totally let the plate stop spinning that are going to allow you to get more efficiently into the next phase of training no totally i mean if you can check your

ego and you can go through those progression stages as an athlete that's where you're going to really see yourself like become something and take it to the next level and uh that's what i had to try for the last year and like i'm I'm doing that right now. I'm not doing anything where I'm going to be training to win races. I'm just training right now, getting in the extra miles, like, you know, screwing around and CrossFit, things like that. Training the race is like practice. You're not putting too much emphasis on, Oh my God, if I don't place well, what are people going to think of me? Yeah. Or just as a way to get data to help your training. It's the best way to get improvements.

You can't find out what you're really lacking until you get put on the spot. Yeah. And also, this isn't championship season right now, so that really starts in the summertime. So I'm lucky. The next six months is just screw around, do whatever. So how long does this championship season last? I mean, I didn't even know there was a championship season.

I just figured you accumulated points throughout the year, every year. I'm trying to market our sport to be something a little bit prettier than it is. There is no championship season. So, um... You guys, don't call my bluff, but, uh, yeah. Joe's sitting there going, what is he talking about? If no one says it, then no one's

going to believe it. So, basically, the sport's growing so much that now there's actually a period where you're starting to see a lot of championship races next to each it. So basically the, the sports growing so much that now there's actually a period where you're starting to see a lot of championship races next to each other. You know, sometimes there's going to be one that's like in may that no one's going to really, you know, we'll show up to, but the, the main events start out with like the Spartan race world championships, September 20th. And then there's like the, the warrior dash world championships. There's the OCR world championships. There's the world's toughest

mutter. And it stretches about two months long. There's the World's Toughest Mudder. And it stretches about two months long. And there's anywhere from like, I think there was four this year. That was right in the middle of that. And it was crazy. They were so drastically different. The World Championships for Spartan Race was almost a four-hour long, black diamond up and down mountain race.

Then there's the OCR World Championships, which took 20 minutes compared to that four hours. And then there's the 24 hour event at the end of it. And it's just, you know, almost a hundred miles of just going through the desert and circles, jumping over walls and crazy stuff. So,

so you can't, this is not something you can't like, how do you prepare for that shit? That myriad of challenges, I guess you just gotta be excited. I think it all comes down to the mental angle. Yeah, no, no. That's the whole macho madness mentality that I like to bring in, man. If you don't, just don, I think it all comes down to the mental angle. Yeah, no, no.

That's the whole macho madness mentality that I like to bring in, man. If you just don't jump into the ring ready to throw down all the time, then you're never going to really have that opportunity to know what you could accomplish. Like, I've never run anything close to 24 hours, and we won the world championship for the world's toughest motor team event, and my feet are still just so beat to a pulp. They're just troll feet and um i have some regrets for doing that i didn't prepare well but uh but you did it you

had regrets in preparation not regrets actually doing no no no regrets for actually doing it but the thing is is you know you got to get out there and i tell that to everybody you know sometimes people have to build themselves up to it but if you get to a certain point where you know that you're like a fit person you just got to get after it to it. But if you get to a certain point where you know that you're a fit person, you've just got to get after it. Screw it. Whether it be a paddleboard race, a marathon, Spartan race, powerlifting event, just go have some fun. Having fun is the biggest, poor thing.

People go, what do I need to know before I do this thing for the first time? I'm worried about the outcome. I want to do well. Worry number one, just have a fucking good time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just act. Do what you want to do. Have a good time and get the data out yeah. Just act, do what you want to do, have a good time,

and get the data out of it and go be better next time around. Yeah, well, this championship season was certainly a test of, like, you know, everything I had. And some of it ended up working out pretty well, but, like, at the same time, I can pull all that information, as you said, and go into a new season with some, like, you know, real information to build up another athlete, you know, for the next year. I feel like for guys that have similar body types, but are different sizes, like you're,

you're a bigger guy compared to some of the other guys that come in. Like some other guys come in, they're 145 pounds and they've been doing five Ks their whole life. And they run like a 14 minute five K or something ridiculous. Like if you as a bigger guy are competing against guys like that, you're naturally going to have to do more strength training because naturally smaller guys have a higher relative strength level. Like you take two guys of similar body types and similar experience, similar body composition, et cetera, and one guy's 150 pounds, one guy's 200 pounds. The guy that's 150 pounds probably is going to,

with the same amount of training, get to a body weight snatch before the guy that's 200 pounds just because smaller guys tend to be stronger relative to their body weight. So the bigger you are, the more you're probably going to have to focus on strength in order to get to the same relative strength as someone who's smaller. So guys that are smaller,

they don't have to worry about it as much. They can just focus on their endurance because relative to the bigger guys, they're already stronger pound for pound. It's hard if you do it all. Which is why smaller guys tend to do better at gymnastics and running, et cetera. That's why our sport's kind of a gamble

where there's like, you know, this guy Matt Fitzgerald has a race and weight book where he talks about some of the ratios. at gymnastics and running and et cetera. That's why our sport's kind of a gamble where there's like, you know, this guy Matt Fitzgerald has a race and weight book where he talks about some of the ratios. There's a point in like, you know, tell me if I'm saying this wrong, but like in the pendulum where if you move one way or the other where the muscle is too overbearing

to what you're trying to accomplish in speed and endurance. And on the other side, if you lose too much weight, then you're just screwing yourself. You're just kind of pulling away from what you're trying to accomplish in speed and endurance. And on the other side, if you lose too much weight, then you're just screwing yourself. You're just kind of pulling away from what you could be with what weight you have. So me being a more muscular guy,

I am always trying to like, you know, I tried to diet so hard this summer. I dropped like 10 pounds. I usually weigh like 192 pounds. I got down to like 179, 182. Getting down to my weight. Yeah. You're like six inches taller.

I felt like a little bit of a rock star, but at the same time, I almost felt like I just, I was running on like a smaller battery. You were. You were running on, you had less force producing potential. Yeah.

We talk about with Andy, our good buddy Andy Galpin, Dr. Andy Galpin, in case you doubt the advice. This guy's a fucking real scientist. People go, that guy's too muscle bound to do you doubt the advice. This guy's a fucking real scientist. People go, that guy's too muscle bound to do what he's doing.

Look how tired he's getting. Well, the problem is not that he has more muscle. It's probably that maybe he got a little wayward in his training and he's put too much focus on the wrong kinds of things

to get the muscle. He's not training. If you can add muscle mass and train to be better at Spartan stuff, you're going to be better because more muscle in that specific training avenue

is going to lend itself to what you're trying to do. If more muscle in that specific training avenue is going to lend itself to what you're trying to do. If you're doing bodybuilding training all the time and not running the hills to gain muscle, that's where you fuck up. That's a distinction too

about what I just said. I was saying strength training is important because you want to have higher relative strength to your body weight, but that doesn't necessarily mean you want to put on a bunch of muscle mass.

That means you just need to be stronger for how big you are. That's not necessarily the same thing. Getting bigger probably isn't super beneficial in a Spartan race, but getting stronger definitely is beneficial. Well, it's the ultimate battle.

Do you want to stay a swole monster, or do you want to get skinny and win races? Chicks, bro. Swole monster. Yeah, dude. Swole monster. That's all I care about. You don't have that mountain, but are you swole? That's what I say. Biceps win races. That's what I care about you don't have that mountain but are you slow

that's right that's what I say biceps when races that's what I tell people sometimes it's like his trick man it's all by the way

he gave all bad advice so that nobody can be thrown down you've all been duped that's right alright let's let's wrap this up and go up

one of these mountains the montagna let's do it yeah put a barbell in Hunter's back and make him run up the mountain. That's right. I don't think-

Most people are like, watch this guy score. I'm like, I don't think it's really going to be a big deal for you. No, no, no. We'll see, though. We're tethering each other

together and going up. There you go. I like the sound of that. This is a radical experience, guys. Thank you so much for having me on. It was awesome having you. I've been waiting many, many years for this.

Yeah. Cheers for joining us. Let's go do it. Let's go run. Sign off, crew. Let's do this. Cheers for joining us. Yeah. Let's go do it. Let's go run. Fuck. Let's do this shit. That was legit. Yeah, that was fun.

I had a lot of fun.