Barbell Shrugged - 165- Setting Realistic Goals Regarding The CrossFit Games w/ Powerlifter AJ Roberts

Episode Date: February 18, 2015

This week on Barbell Shrug, we talk with A.J. Roberts, world record holder in the squat, about realistic goals regarding the CrossFit Games. Hey, this is Rich Froning, you're listening to Barbell Shrug. For the video version, go to barbellshrug.com. Welcome to Barbell Shrug, and I'm Mike Bledsoe, standing here with Doug Larson, Chris Moore with CTP behind the camera, and we have a return guest, A.J. Roberts. You may see this guy more frequently, especially if you are tuning into barbell business, since he has pretty much taken over that for us.

Team member, A.J. Roberts. We're all definitely working on barbell business together, but he is the lead on it now. And Rion over here. The guy takes a punch like nobody's business. Yeah, today we're going to be talking about what it takes, like what it realistically takes to get to the games. And we were hanging out with AJ here, and he was telling us about how he left powerlifting. He had the biggest squat in the world at what weight?

242? No, he was fatter than that. No, it was in the 308 weight class. Oh, you were, okay, you were fat, so. What'd you walk around at? I walked around at 320, so I was a hefty guy. That's pretty good, man. That's pretty hefty. But you got your goal of a 1,200-plus squat,

and then you kind of set your eyes on CrossFit. And we want to talk about kind of that process, the type of training you had to go through, and then the realizations that may have come with that. But before we go any further, make sure to go to barbellshrug.com, sign up for the newsletter. AJ, so you, I mean, if you watched the previous show, whenever you were on before, it'll be in the show notes.

Way back in the day, we talked about how you had a 1,200-pound squat, and then after that, you you know uh already looking to the next goal really quickly can you tell us about how that how that all went down yeah so you know i knew once i hit my goal of 1205 that i i was going to retire from powerlifting and so um you know when i walked away i knew that there would need to be something next and for a little bit i thought i could maybe just train to train and um if anyone who's been an athlete or, you know, competed before, and I think, you know, training to train doesn't exist. Like you have to have an end goal or something to push you.

Yeah, there has to be some purpose to it. Otherwise, it just goes by the wayside. It gets put aside. So, you know, I moved out here to San Diego. And I was, you know, teaching the CrossFit Paladin training course. And Dave Castro invited me to go and meet some other coaches, level one coaches at the baseball game. So we were hanging out, and his wife actually said,

so what are you doing now? And I said, you know, I'm working on losing weight. And she said, do you ever think you'll do CrossFit? And I said, actually, I really like CrossFit. You know, like I think it's an amazing sport. I'd love to, you know, give it a shot one day once I get in shape. She like looked at me like, what do you mean get in shape? And I said, yeah, I can lose quite a bit of weight still.

And I think I was about 280, maybe 300 even. Maybe it wasn't even that light yet. And she looked at me and she says, you need to stop being a pussy. She's like, CrossFit is the greatest weight loss program out there. And if you want to compete in CrossFit, you've got to do CrossFit. And so I kind of went away from that and was like, damn, she's called you up. She might have a point here. She might have a point.

And so that's what led me to being like, okay, what's my goal? If I'm going to compete, what's my goal? And so I kind of set a three-year path, like goal one. And the first year was to compete in the Open. Then I was planning to compete, go to regionals. And then year three was I wanted to be competitive and go to the Open, then I was planning to compete, go to regionals, and then year three was I wanted to be competitive and go to the Games, you know, but ultimately it was like long-term, like the goal was to set is on being, you know, the fittest man in the world, so I didn't know

how long that would take, but I knew in the next three years I should be able to go to the Games based on what I knew of the sport, and then, of course, as things unveiled, which we'll get into, those things started to change, and, you know, you start to get real on what it really takes and then you have to make those decisions am i going to continue am i going to sacrifice and and or am i going to choose you know something else and ultimately that's what i ended up doing competing in bodybuilding yeah you're the kind of guy that is you know you'll i mean you don't train at west side and uh put you commit everything to the sport of powerlifting if you're going to be one of the best powerlifters in the world,

and you did that. You have to. For some reason, that didn't translate all the way for CrossFit. Why is that? What about CrossFit made it so difficult to then do the same thing in a different sport? We can get into specifics, but ultimately what happened was just basically, you know, as you go through,

you start to see how much CrossFit becomes a part of your life. And you really, you know, with powerlifting, I was training and it was, you know, my life and it was everything I was about. But with CrossFit, there is so much more that you have to do. And especially for me with my background,

being overweight, obviously mobility, flexibility was absolutely terrible. And so as you start to reveal and see clearly what it's going to take. And, you know, I have the benefit of talking to a lot of athletes and top competitors and really getting a glimpse into a day in their life. And you start to realize that like crossfit is their life there isn't anything but crossfit because of the hours it takes to be to be an athlete you know and Sam Briggs you know she gets up and trains and then trains again and trains again and trains again and then she goes it's like it's regimented it's drilled and here I am traveling teaching you know these the powerlifting seminars you know know, business side, I'm building, you know, working with gym owners, consulting, working with Yannick Silva with the Underground,

which is, you know, you're out there at that event. I'm doing all these amazing things, but that takes up time. And you don't have that time if your goal is to be the best at something. I didn't do that when I was powerlifting, right? Because I've made all my sacrifices to powerlifting. So after I retired, it's like, okay, I want to be like, have a life and be kind of normal a little bit, you know, and walk for a hundred yards. I missed weddings. I missed birthdays. I miss family events. You know, if, if, if, if there was a meet coming up, if I was competing in December, that meant no Thanksgiving, right? Not food. I ate all the Thanksgiving food, but like, I wouldn't be traveling for Thanksgiving Thanksgiving because it would mean I'd miss training which means I would be behind for my meat so there's a lot of things like that

and so it wasn't something that I wanted to give up and as as it came through and I decided to understand all right like it's going to be the same commitment it took me 10 years to break the world record in powerlifting like am I going to spend the next 10 years be the same commitment. It took me 10 years to break the world record in powerlifting. Like, am I going to spend the next 10 years doing the same things as before? And at 20, you know, I was 26 when I retired. So at 27 years of age, I'm looking at it being like, you know, I'm not, am I going to be doing this when I'm 37? Who's the oldest in the sport?

And I think it was Matt Chan at the time. He still may be if he competes again. But I think it was 33 or something like that. Oh, he's ramping back up. Right, right. But it's like, okay, like, I have to catch these guys and do more than they're doing in order to be better. So their life is already full-time cross.

You have to do more than that. Yeah, they're in 10 years. Most of them are, because most, you know, most guys are younger. And so in 10 years, like, they're still going to be competitive. And so how am I going to get above that? And so it starts to really become clear that, not that it's not possible if you're going to go 100% all in,

but if you're not, is it realistic? What is realistic? And so that's how it progressed. And it took probably it took me going through that for i think i trained for eight months you know full on and then did the open and it took me going through the open and experiencing the actual competition in the sense and how hard it was to recover between sessions in the open i remember talking to camille um and she was talking about how she loves the open she's like i

love the open the workouts are so easy and i i do them two two times a day sometimes like i i do you know i do a multiple thanks camille a week and then you know submit my score and she was just talking about how like she loved the open and i'm sitting there being like i freaking hate this like and not because of of what it is but because of how hard I was finding it and so you know like doing your initial assessment was a little little aggressive for what you're willing to put into it exactly so you you left powerlifting where you gave it everything and you didn't think you'd have to give the same commitment to CrossFit is that no I think what it was

was I thought I was at a certain level of being as strong as I was I thought you were at a higher level. Maybe to be more carry over. I thought that basically strength would carry over. I get my conditioning down, I'm great. So my thought process was I get in shape, I'll be competitive. And, you know, because I didn't think that I'd struggle with the Olympic lifts. I didn't think I would struggle with the body weight movements because I was so strong.

But you forget how technical these things are. And of course, I hadn't done anything else but powerlifting for the 10 years. So, you know, I think back to when I was in high school and I was doing cleans and stuff like that. I'm like, I've done that stuff before, not realizing how far I was from being able to even get into a catch position. You know, and those are the things you start to practice and things aren't connecting and the frustration builds in and it's like maybe this isn't going to be as easy as I thought so it wasn't necessarily a case of me not thinking I'd have to go all in but it was more of a case of I had to do a lot more than I thought in order to even catch up to where these were where an athlete is it wasn't going to be like I could just train

multiple times a day I had to do extra mobility, extra conditioning, all these different things that I never had planned on in my head. And so, you know, going from maybe two sessions a day to, you know, five, six hours in the gym on top of everything else and then traveling, you start to think, man, I can't do all of this stuff. And I never had that stuff going on. So it was never really a thought process when I was powerlifting because I built my life around it. And so now I was trying to fit CrossFit in my life, and I realized that, you know. That just wasn't going to work.

Yeah, your life goes, just like in powerlifting, my life would have to go into CrossFit. Was it during and after the Open that you kind of had a reassessment? Yes, definitely, definitely. So you had eight months prior to the Open. You trained CrossFit. It would be cool. You made a lot of prior to the Open. You trained CrossFit. It'd be cool.

You made a lot of progress. You dropped a fuckload of weight. You're doing, what, like an hour of mobility work at a time, really fighting hard. And I guess you did have a lot of benefit to that. Oh, yeah. I think I was 280 when I started, so I dropped about 40 pounds already. So Castro's wife was right. Was she right, or was that just you not going out to fast food like five times a day?

And then you just automatically went from that peak weight. You want to say what your, this is so great, we can't wait any longer for you to say, the classic, or your classic palatine routine for meals daily. You estimated how many total calories, like eight fucking thousand calories a day or something it had to be close to everyone always asked me i said i don't know i just eat normally i call bullshit i've fucking been the west side i've seen some of these fucking meals go down i'm participating in a few i know you're not bullshit yeah i just uh you know i ate until i couldn't eat anymore but most people um i don't even know how i do it now. Like, I couldn't do it again.

But I'd get up and be driving to Westside to train. McDonald's was for breakfast. Three sausage egg McMuffins. You know, Diet Coke. You know, put the... Got to eat that Diet Coke again. Yeah, you're right.

I don't want to get fat. You don't want to get fat, right? Hash brown would go inside the egg McMuffin because you could eat it quicker so it didn't get so full. You'd get to the gym. If you put a filet-o-fish in there, you get all the food groups. Train for a couple hours and then we'd go eat afterwards. For me, sometimes we'd go to Waffle House.

We were talking about that. But most of the time, I would just stop at Burger King on the way home. I'd get two 4x4s. So, two pounds basic. Well, it's supposed to be two pounds of meat, but it's probably not. Because there's all kinds of other things in there that aren't meat, I guess. Yeah, fries and a shake, right? And then I'd get a couple extra burgers for the dogs.

They got to get gains, too. This is like 10.30, right? And then my training partner, Tony, would call me up usually around 12.30, 1, and say, hey, you want to go to lunch? We would go to, there was a pizza place we went to. There was this burger place. You trained in the morning? Yeah, there was a burger place we went to that had these huge burgers.

Light breakfast in the morning, early morning training session. And then we'd also go to Red Robin. That was our favorite, was Red Robin. So we ate most of the time at Red Robin. And so we had some variance in the menu there. That explains the 308 right and then between then and dinner

I would snack and so I'd eat a box of Oreos or whatever cookies I had in the house and drink milk and then the girl I was with

at the time she was a phenomenal cook so she always made amazing dinner meat and potatoes kind of dinner and so it was a big dinner but she would make

like a pan of say say, shepherd's pie, and that was like my food for the rest of the night. So every day she was making that. It wasn't like it was – You ate a pan of shepherd's pie a night. Well, she had a little bit. I let her taste it. I didn't eat it all.

Right. And then usually around 10 o'clock at night I'd be hungry again and I would go to Arby's or some other thing that was close to get food. Fuck, man. And then it was rinse and repeat every day. And so you get to a point in – Yeah, you've got to realize that's going to catch up with you. People will tell you, hey, AJ, I'm trying to get in the powerlifting.

I'm really struggling to gain weight. I'm getting in three meals, two shakes. How do you recommend I go about it? Come on, man. You're not trying. It's funny because a lot of people who are skinny and they have the skinny gene or whatever, they always tell me I can't gain any weight.

I eat all the time. And then I'm like, I would come eat with me. And you don't eat all the time. You don't eat a lot of food. But it was actually very frustrating for me because when I was doing personal training, a a lot of my clients who are overweight when i talked about their diet they really didn't eat much food and i would think to myself how are you so overweight and you don't even eat and i'm force feeding myself every day and i'm like looking at

you and you're bigger than me it's like you're not even trying so it was it's an interesting you know thing you go through but it's really like when you're trying to be the best at something and size matters for strength you know if your goal is just maximum strength not relative strength but maximum strength lifts as much weight as possible you can get big and like for you that that was your ticket was the bigger you got the stronger you got i guess about my peak was like 370 yeah i didn't quite eat this much aj but i did have a habit of, Andy Galpin will laugh, because he's just sitting watching me eat my nightly ritual of dark chocolate chunks, big dark chocolate chunks, like a whole half jar of peanut butter at a time.

Yeah, so I had my things, too. I liked ice cream. That was my easy get down, like if I needed extra calories. So you wanted to lose weight before you got into CrossFit. Yeah. And you told us you had watched fat sick and nearly dead yeah so i watched that movie and the guy's talking about all the problems he has and at the time i had severe sleep apnea and paranoia set in because i wasn't sleeping i'd

wake up choking and what was funny is my partner had to go to bed like two hours before me it's intense because i snored on the way in and on the way out and somewhere there's a youtube video one of my old training partners made because anyone who tried to sleep in a room with me couldn't. And Jim Smith from the Diesel Crew, he works with Joe DeFranco now a lot on their stuff. My first ever business conference I went to, we roomed together. And the first night he was making bird noises to wake me up because I was so loud he couldn't sleep. So the next night I got him drunk so he could sleep through it but um but so I could be unconscious through it so I had all

these I had all these issues and of course I knew my health was really bad too anyone who's walking around at 320 you know red face breathing you know like you could hear yourself breathe you know I knew my I knew my blood pressure was really high because my nose would bleed all the time. You know, you know you have problems, but you walk that tight road of death, so to speak, because your goals are so huge that you'll do anything to reach them. And, you know, the late Mike Jenkins and I had a great conversation at the CrossFit Games about that, about, like, giving things up and pushing. And he would say all the time, you know, a lot a lot of times like with the way he was training and stuff like i know a lot of it is is on the edge

but i know i'm going to be the greatest and i think he would have been the world's strongest man it's a tragic story man right but it's like that commitment is is what makes you great at what you do and it's a part of that commitment but i got to a point where i psychologically i couldn't handle it anymore because i've been pushing for so long, so hard. And I try to fix everything else in my life thinking that was the problem. And it really was, you know, because there was this internal conflict. I knew that I was out of shape. I knew that I was not healthy. I knew that I was walking, you know, I was waiting for a heart attack basically. And, you know, having people who I was close to, um, have issues and have problems. I knew it was only a matter of time. Watch that movie and was like, you know, having people who I was close to have issues and have problems, I knew it was only a matter of time.

Watched that movie and was like, you know what? Like, I have to take care of this, like, you know, now. And that's really what triggered it. And then, you know, the thing was is I knew I had to leave Westside because if I stayed there, then I would have continued on. And for me, whenever I lost strength, I just went back to to eating so I knew I had to completely change to do that change environment everything all the inputs had to be scrapped and so that's really what I did so when people actually that's that's really cool because I have I've had to consult people coach people who are like you know uh for instance sleep is holding them, Oh, I don't get enough sleep cause I got to work this job.

That's I work 14, 15, 16 hours a day. So I'm only getting five or six hours a night and they're eating, they're doing good with the food. They're doing good with everything, but their sleep is totally jacked up. I was like,

well, that's the missing piece. You know, that's the key. There's probably going to unlock the door for you to like having energy, being able to burn fat, being healthy. And they're not willing to, to just tell their boss, hey, I can't work as much.

I'm not asking them to even quit their job. I'm saying, you've got to cut back. Like, well, I need to make the money. It's like, you moved cities. What, did you quit a job? Yeah, well, I was working mainly for myself. But, yeah, I did. I walked away from what I was doing. And then there was a job opportunity to come out here,

and that's why I ended up in San Diego. You had to make a big life change in order to be healthy. So when people say, hey, I've got to work this night shift, or I've got to do this or that, and their health is being sacrificed due to that, it is acceptable to quit your job. I think we've all found that if there's something you really want to achieve and you know it, the hardest part is not attacking that thing.

It's letting go of the things you already have that will allow you to... Everybody fears loss and giving up what they've earned, but you have to free up yourself to go after the new opportunity. I think that plays back to what happened with my journey with CrossFit. You know, I was very blessed to work with guys like Kelly Sturrett

and have conversations with guys like Matt Chan and Dan Bailey and be able to find out, like, how do you live, how do you train, you know, what do I need to do. And, you know, Kelly worked with me a few times and gave me— I think I saw him mashing your thigh one time. Yeah, you know, he would work with me and then give me stuff to go do and, you know, I would be doing an extra hour a day of mobility to even be able to perform

the, you know, a CrossFit, to be able to go through a CrossFit class, I would have to prepare to go through and manipulate my body to get into the position. Like an hour, spend an hour just getting your body ready to do a CrossFit class. And so, like, you know, whenever you want to make a change or make a commitment, there comes the sacrifices. And so, that is, like, what was going on. And, you know whenever you want to make a change or make a commitment there comes

the sacrifices and so that is like what was going on and you know as i went through and you know i thought my strength is good enough so i won't focus on strength i'll focus on everything else i'll learn the olympic lifts let's take a break real quick i want to talk about exactly what you did but let's take a break first. Okay, sweet. This is Tim Ferriss, and you are listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Barbell Shrugged 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 with AJ Roberts. So we were getting into exactly what you did. When you decided, hey, I'm going to do this CrossFit thing over the next, you know, first year I want to do well in the Open. Second year I want to do well at Regionals. Third year I want to go to the Games. What was kind of your training regimen the eight months leading up to your first Open? Yeah, so, you know, obviously I'd get up in the morning,

and early in the morning I was doing like some form of cardio. Usually it's like walking the dog. It's like slow steady state cardio, you know, because I was doing at the gym, I was doing high intensity cardio. So, you know, I believe you should use all assets, right? There's nothing that a lot of people say this is better than this. And in my head, everything has its purpose and can be used correctly. So I was first thing in the morning just moving, getting used to moving and getting up. And then I'd come home and I'd foam roll, do some basic stretches and stuff like that.

But then usually I'd go to the gym and train sometimes even noon or two, just depending on the two guys I was training with. And so I'd go an hour early and I would do my mobility and go through all of this aggressive stuff. I loved the beauty queen and the scap drills. In many ways, harder than any power-up in the world. Yeah, you know, flossing my wrists, my forearms, my biceps, my shoulders. Everything. It's like a mummy in there, like, moving around.

Kelly said, do this. If only Louis could have seen me, because he would always make fun of me at Westside whenever I'd try to, like, I'd foam raw. I was one of the first guys to do some soft tissue work. It wasn't like I didn't do this. If only Louie could have seen me, because he would always make fun of me at Westside whenever I'd try to, like, I'd foam raw. I was one of the first guys to do some soft tissue work. It wasn't like I didn't do anything. But, you know, when you're that big, you just kind of flop around a little bit. And I feel good enough to squat, warm up under the weights. But, you know, Louie was always against that stuff. Actually, he changed his mind. Jesse Burda came out to to west side with with mark and and they were um hanging out and uh you know louis complaining about something and uh jesse made him use the um well hockey ball you know the lacrosse ball and the lacrosse ball um and uh and so he used it and then he would be

he'd be on the wall like like a grizzly bear rubbing with that lacrosse ball and I said you're doing the same thing as I was doing he's like no you're rolling around

on the floor with a thing that looks like an animal yeah so it was it was hilarious and I said you know

if only everyone say goodbye to Doug Doug has to go so I'd say gotta go see ya so you know he would make fun of me anytime I was doing Doug has to go so I'd say gotta go see ya so you know

he would make fun of me anytime I was doing anything like that and the band stretches and what are you doing you know warm up with the barbell and you know

he's old school in that thinking so now if he had seen me doing what I was doing to get ready for a workout he would have just you know

laughed and ridiculed me and made fun of me so is the tide turning now or is more and more of this stuff showing up ridiculed me and made fun of me so is the tide turning now or is more and more of this stuff showing up on the west side well what you're finding is the guys are more open to a few bits of stuff but typically not really you do as little as possible yeah i mean i too i never really did much of it but then again it only became a thing i was even really aware of when kelly sort of got really popular maybe like 2009-10 whenever that

was so i was thinking maybe i could do a better job of getting in position and now it's my one I was even really aware of when Kelly sort of got really popular, maybe like 2009, 10, whenever that was. So I was thinking maybe I could do a better job of getting in position. And now it's one of my biggest focuses, a thoracic position. You're learning how to be less bent over at the hip, more upright. All that stuff's been huge. And actually, CTP just pointed out something, that people might not know what Westside Barbell is. Oh, well.

Can you give like a 20-second synopsis? So Westside's known as the strongest gym in the world. It's owned by Louie Simmons and has produced world record powerlifters since the 1980s. Louie has this whole system called the conjugate training system. We work with CrossFit HQ, obviously, running the CrossFit powerlifting trainer course. And Louie has worked with athletes across a broad domain, football players, basketball players. A lot of fighters.

A lot of track and field, a lot of UFC fighters and stuff like that. There's a group of UFC fighters, Matt Brown and his crew train out of there right now. Boxers and stuff like that. Louie's a powerlifter, so he writes about powerlifting, talks about powerlifting. So you don't hear him talk a lot about the people he works with, but he's worked with all sorts of athletes. He got famous really because he worked with Michael. That's true.

On the banded jerks and such. You guys have the banded workout from when you did that? I've trained at Westside three times. Yeah, the most novel time was when we were podcasting with Louie and he said something about banded, clean, and jerks. And I was like, Fuck it, let's try it. I was like, let's do it.

And he was like, oh really? Okay. So we hooked it up. I did power clean and power jerks with a deadlift bar. Yeah, it was fun. Actually, I could definitely see the utility in that for a more advanced lifter, of course.

It's very creative and you know him and dr romanoff they the most of their philosophies are actually very similar um which is crazy because they're from two different worlds you got a running coach and then you have a power lifter but when they start talking about stuff uh i love that so yeah very very good um you know very good place to learn about strength and and to uh you know um if you're if you're trying to get stronger it's definitely the the system i'd recommend so um you know that's kind of a quick snap on the west side anyway enough about them let's get back to me where do we leave off um so we remember so uh to talk about mobility and and the funny thing is

and and i'm sure you're kind of the same way um when i look back now at my powerlifting career you know i was all-time world record holder but now i look back with the things i've the knowledge i've gained from being in the crossfit community being exposed to the coaches i've been exposed to um you know i think crossfit has brought together some of the greatest coaches in the world i know some people are now doing their own stuff and not necessarily involved still, but as an organization, they really have found the smartest people in the world

and brought them together. And we benefit from that. We get to learn. I look now at everything I know, and I think, man, if I had known that stuff back then. And it's like, not necessarily would I have been stronger because of it, but would I have had a longer career? Would I have been healthier?

You know, would I not had the problems? Because, I mean, I remember waking up in the mornings and not being able to get out of bed, you know, and really not being able to move because my body was so destroyed from it. And I'm sure there's people who are participating in the sport of fitness and who struggle with aches and pains and, you know, constant injuries because they're pushing and pushing and pushing. And so I look at it like, man, if I had known some of the stuff I know now, how, how powerful would have that been to, to be able to utilize it and use it, um, as, as a power lifter. So, you know, even now I'm still learning to this day and it's like, I go

back and think, man, I wish I had known this back then. And we all say that, you know? So I think that that's the cool thing. Cause you see the next generation coming through and, Yeah, you know, so I think that that's the cool thing because you see the next generation coming through and, you know, you're able to help people. Like we have a group on Facebook, Conjugate Strong, and they say people who follow our method, right? And they post videos and stuff. It's a great book, a great group. Members give them feedback. But basically, like now, like if I'd seen someone squatting

and they had issues, I would have just said, oh, you need to go drag the sled or you need to go do this. Now I'm looking at it, I'm like, okay, is mobility holding them back or is it actually weakness? Right. You know, is it positioning? And so it's always, that's first, right? Technique first and then strength after.

And so it's really made me a better coach because of it as well. So it was definitely, it's like I wouldn't have traded for the world, you know. It was a hell, eight months of hell because I was pushing and training, you know, like I said, mobility for an hour, hour training session then we did extra cardio high intensity of cardio which a lot of times they'd have me do like seven minutes of burpees they would have me go on the aerodyne like so it's a real brutal stuff that i hated right and um it but but i i would be doing it it's so funny and and maybe some people can relate but i'd be going through the motions back and forth and in my head I'd be like,

why am I fucking doing this? Like, fuck these people. Don't these motherfuckers want to crush their face right now? Why are they making me do this shit? Like, I don't need to prove myself to these people, right? And the ego takes over

and so I'm having this like conversation. This internal struggle. And then there'd be this other voice be like, shut the fuck up, get back to work. Like, focus, focus. like focus focus like who who is in charge here and so who's talking now in my head i'd gone into that place of you know like back and forth and so but but physically i'd be there and that like the people the two coaches brian and Anders, that work with me, they're from San Diego Athletics, which was CrossFit PB. They'd be cell phone ready, like, do we need to call the ambulance?

He's going to die. He's going to blow. What's going to happen today? And I'd push and I'd push and I'd push. And then I'd go home and it would be, okay, how do I recover for tomorrow? And that's where the real fight begins too. So you woke did you did uh just some steady state cardio in the morning you went and did an hour mobility and then you would let these guys destroy you on conditioning for what an hour two hours so we trained for about two hours and then it was depending on mostly

conditioning yeah high intensity conditioning olympic lifting conditioning those are the things we would do wads obviously but it but for me, it was about moving. So I wouldn't do weights that didn't matter if the weight was heavy. It was about us being moving, moving, moving, moving. If it wasn't heavy, you'd slip right back in the powerlifting groove quickly. You wouldn't be doing what you needed to do now. I remember one workout we did was a deadlift, an overhead plate lunge, and then some bodyweight stuff.

And so the deadlift was like, I don't know, 315 or something like that. So heavy, but for me it wasn't. So I remember doing the deadlift, blasting through him, and then doing the overhead plated lunge. Well, when Kelly first met me, he said, put my hands up overhead, and I raised them to about here. And he said, no, put them up overhead. And so I leaned back.

And so now I'm trying to hold this position with a plate. And, of course you know my shoulders can't handle it my course my legs i've never lunged before and i never do lunges when i was at west side never in my powerlifting career had i done a lunge um and so like that like i just remember my legs being completely jelly and that was the experience i had people don't realize there you know just completely destroyed like in mentally i was you know, just completely destroyed. Like, mentally, I was, you know, tough enough to fight through it. But physically, I was pushing myself, probably doing way too much way too soon, thinking that, you know, this is what it takes, so this is what I got to put in.

You're looking at what people who are at the top tier, you're looking at what they do, and you just want to mimic that. You don't think about, hey hey maybe i should ramp up slowly and and for me for me it was like okay like rich was the only one at the time he was training the the volume he was training no one could keep up you know people were tried and kalipa and matt talked a lot about how they had taken stuff away and you know they were doing multiple sessions a day right but it wasn't multiple training sessions a day. Right. But it wasn't multiple training sessions a day, right? It was a session on gymnastics and skill work and stuff like that. So I kind of figured, okay, well.

Rich was doing like multiple hard and high intensity conditioning sessions. I'll just say that again. Most people will try to take on multiple sessions a day thinking, well, that's what you do to become like these people. You really have to be super cautious about that. If you added in an extra session, that needs to be really minimal. Toe in the water. If you're doing multiple high intensity conditioning sessions in a day, cautious about that if you added in an extra session that needs to be really minimal toe in the water if you're doing if you're doing multiple high intensity conditioning sessions in a day

you have to do that with like very carefully if you're doing weight lifting here and the volume's kind of low you know mid-range for a weight lifting and then the same with gymnastics and you throw in a conditioning session that's a lot easier to manage. The moment you start doing multiple conditioning sessions, which I've had to program that for athletes in the past, it gets real sketchy, and you've got to stay on top of those athletes. People doubt whether overtraining is a real thing or not. Do that, and you'll find out quickly if it could be a real thing.

When I have athletes that are getting into 90 minutes to two hours of total conditioning, like higher intensity stuff in a single day. And then we do that multiple days. And then you got to like closely monitor so they don't crash. It's like running a marathon every day. It really becomes an endurance sport,

which is, you know, it's not endurance because of the workout you do. It's endurance because of the length of time during the day you're doing the workout. And the key amounts of pounds adding up is huge. You know, like you guys are going to find out. Like I know you guys are doing a Spartan race and probably by the time this comes out, you'd doing the workout. And the cumulative pounds adding up is huge. You know, like you guys are going to find out. Like, I know you guys

are doing a Spartan race and probably by the time this comes out, you'd have done it. Why are you reminding me of that? We'll have some great video footage of that. But the point I'm making

is like, if we said, let's go run a marathon, like, maybe you could do it, Mike. But like me and Chris are looking at each other like, we better train for this shit, right?

We better start out with like one. I have done a marathon on a whim before with no training. So you could, it, Mike, but me and Chris are looking at each other like, we better train for this shit, right? We better start out with one. I have done a marathon on a whim before with no training. So you could explain. It was pretty tough. The pain afterwards was what was bad. Yeah, and you're an in-shape guy. You can run. Me and Chris aren't really the best runners in the town.

So for us, we have to, all of a sudden, so instead of thinking like that for CrossFit and being like, I've got to build up my work capacity and get used to it. I mean, I've never done a rep over a single rep, right? The reps we did at Westside, like, it was all with accessory exercise. You might have done doubles, but it wasn't like a max effort double. You need to understand yourself. Do some doubles

and triples. Maybe a set of five and squat every once in a while. So I think the most reps I did is five and then for the sixth and sixth exercises, you do higher reps, but it's mini movements. It's nothing about compound stuff. It's not hard. And so now, all of a sudden, everything is repetition, but it's mini movements. It's nothing. It's not compound stuff. It's not hard. And so now all of a sudden, like, you know,

everything is repetition, but not just, you know, for us, max effort. You work up to your max single and you get out of there, right? Well, you know, when you're doing a WOD and it's as many rounds as possible,

you do seven and then you come back to do seven and come back to do seven and you keep going, keep going. And when you fail, you take a breath and you wait two seconds and you keep going.

And so I think to myself, oh, I got to build up the work capacity. I just try to throw, throw myself in the deep end because, you know, I was a high level athlete and you know, that was always embedded in your head. Like this is what I was. I should be this. So I'm a high level athlete. So, so I should be able to do this. And it's like, really what the truth was is I was a high level athlete in in three lifts right right in crossfit i was an f probably not even on the grading scale let's be honest you know like we talk about specialization that's the word gets kicked around cross by you you could pull what's your best point over 800 yeah like you get strength peaked in one area but you have to give up a lot like to hold a plate over your head is something that's really really hard a lot of

people know really that's hard for somebody who's so strong well yeah but it's so specified even to this day my overhead squat i wouldn't classify as an overhead squat right i go through the range of motion but it looks terrible um i got pretty much every movement down apart from pistols i i when you got the junk of my ankle my knee and my hip stacked it goes out the window in terms of being and i think that's probably the highest um degree of difficulty movement there is is the pistol in my opinion well for me it is right um and so it's funny i can do certain things and like i learned muscle ups i did my first muscle up at 260 and you know um there's only a few other guys probably that weight who can do it but the thing is i had the strength to do that however like stringing them

together didn't happen until i dropped significantly because you know dropping at 260 and trying to catch yourself in in full script position you slip out pretty easy so yeah it's hard on your shoulders there's benefits and negatives so there were certain things that I I did excel at because of my background but then there was a lot of things that I was because of my background also put me way behind most people right and you know I never accounted for that because you don't you don't think like that as a high performer you don't start to think of all the things you're gonna suck at right you just you have you you when you just set out with it you got that optimism and you're like oh yeah I'm gonna do great yeah I've always done great yeah and then you show up and

you're like oh I'm not that great. Exactly. And even with the dieting, right, like realizing that what I put into my body affected the way I trained. Oh, yeah. And being the way I ate, I wasn't deficient really in any nutrients because I was eating so much. There was no way my body wasn't getting. You were bound to get a little bit of everything you needed. Yeah. There was no way my body wasn't getting everything it needed and in excess. Right. And now all of a sudden I'm trying to, to restrict calories,

to lose weight. But at the same time, I have to be very careful on the timing because I need the energy for the workouts and stuff. Right. So now I'm battling instead of going, okay, I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to do CrossFit, but I'm going to do it to, to get in, to, to lose weight, to get my body composition right. then i'm going to work on being an athlete i was trying to do everything simultaneously you see and the obviously the downside to that is if you're trying to do everything something has to give you know and that's when i started getting little little injuries here and there and you know nagging pains i didn't have before and i was always like man i lifted 10 years lifted all these heavy

weights never had a problem and now i'm like jumping on boxes and running around and my body's just hurting even more, you know? But it was because like I, my coaches were telling me, you know, Hey, you should probably take it easy. But high level athlete, you know, and you see it in any competition, people say, why do they, why do they attempt it? If they know they're going to fail, they're an athlete, dude. If you don't, if you don't get that, then you're not an athlete. That's okay. But I'm not going to go easy. I'm here.

Go about 80% in the WOD today. Who are you kidding? What the fuck is that? Who are you kidding? There's a lot of people also who have that. There are a lot of tough people who are just discovering CrossFit. They're not in that advanced athletic background, but they're just as fucking

on fire to attack it and they run into the same problem but they try to get it all done at once. Like I always say, like, they have one ass and they try to ride

three or four horses at the same time. Like, this doesn't work very well. No, and that's why I have absolute mad respect for the CrossFit athletes

because we're at a level now where they're not, I don't think any of them are just part-time. You know, I really think that they're 100% all in. And most of them don't do anything but train for the sport. They're 100% dedicated to it.

And that's the commitment it takes. Is this kind of like MMA now? You've seen the same thing in MMA. Oh, yeah, definitely. People are taking long periods of time to master these disciplines of boxing and wrestling and jiu-jitsu. They're not just going, right, I got a good boxing background. Let me just take a couple of jiu-jitsu courses and jump right in.

Now they're getting smashed. And I predict moving forward the only people you'll see at the games, not necessarily immediately, but in 5-10 years, will be people who started CrossFit in their teens. The same thing happens in weightlifting. They're going to be that good where it's like if you don't have the background

you're not going to be able to master it quick enough to be able to compete with these people. The only benefit you have, like for me the only benefit I had was I had the strength that was necessary. I neglected that because I thought it would, you know, carry over. You know what that reminded me of? Like, fuck man, I'm thinking about my experience in college football. I was like, okay, what did I do for a long time? Well, I played football from middle school. Like I was sixth grade, short, fat kid through college. I remember being in college being so intense and fast. But I could hang because I'd been there for a while.

But imagine if you were like, yeah, you know, I've been in an office. I've been doing this. I've never played football before. I really dig it. I think I'm just going to go give college football a try. You get so fucking demolished versus kids who've been playing since Pop Warner. It's the same dynamic. I've known a couple guys that did that.

But it's so rare. It's like one dynamic. I've known a couple guys that did that. But it's so rare. It's probably one in a million. I probably know the only two guys who have done that. They were in the Navy. And they're kind of crazy anyway. And there's a lot of other sports, I think, that you can cross over and be successful pretty good. But Taylor Stallings, she was a former world record powerlifter.

She's amazing. She's amazing. But the first year year she tried crossfit she didn't do that good right sorry i shouldn't say she didn't do that good she didn't do as well as she thought because you know i would i imagine the same thing she wasn't didn't have the weight to lose she's in phenomenal shape always has been in phenomenal shape but there was still a learning curve she had to learn certain exercise in that first year i I know her ability wasn't able to be performed because there was things that she was still mastering. Now, of course, she's at a much greater level, you know, I think two years and maybe three years in now, you know, standout performance in the grid league. But, you know, now you're seeing these athletes and she had an easier transition.

And but but her life is about that. She lives in the gym. She works in the gym. And so for me, it was, OK, is my life going to be about this again? And after doing it for eight months, it was like, I'm not willing to give up everything to go move into the gym. And, you know, what if not a sustainable path? What do you think so somebody who um maybe they played college or high school football you know they were an athlete earlier in their life maybe they've had a few years off they discovered crossfit it's really piqued their interest uh you know when

when i was running the gym when i was there day to day we would get emails like i saw the crossfit games i wanted to go to the games and they would come in and then i'm like okay well you know maybe we got an animal on our hands and they would come in and i'm going oh they can't even do a full depth squat or overhead squat because of mobility restrictions you're like yeah they're athletic they move well you know they could probably run a pretty fast 5k um and they've got like all these assumptions built around and then they get in there like oh what i mean and i have an idea what i would have that person do but uh i've never and they've got all these assumptions built around it, and then they get in there, and you're like, oh. I mean, and I have an idea of what I would have that person do,

but I've never come from that myself. I kind of slid into it early in CrossFit before it was so competitive, so I kind of got to grow as an athlete as the sport grew as well. What advice would you give people who, you know, they have this background where they've been really good at stuff physically before, and now they're going to attack this CrossFit Games thing. So for me, I think honestly, like, when I look back, if I was doing it again,

before I'd set the goals that I set, what I would have done is just, I would have participated in CrossFit for a year or so and said, do I have the consistency? Am I able to show up every day? Just try to go to four or five CrossFit classes a week. Exactly. And then if you want to do extra cardio for condition, you can. There's lots of ways you can monitor that.

You could do a couple extra sessions a week and things like that. But then mobility, you can do mobility stuff at home. But I would say don't throw yourself in the deep end right off the bat. You're going to need time to adapt to the training style to the to the training load the volume and you need to see if you really enjoy it and you love it and i love crossfit don't get me wrong but with all the traveling and everything i do it's it's it's not so easy to find and get into a crossfit gym you're not in necessarily a place where there's a gym close it's not like you know they're in big cities they're easy to find sometimes what's cool is there's crossfits all over the place what's not like, you know, they're in big cities. They're easy to find sometimes. What's cool is there's CrossFits

all over the place, but sometimes it's just not easy to get in and do what you need to do. Yeah, do what you need to do because they run classes and stuff and they don't have open gym, right?

Right. So, like, there's a lot to it, but I think that the biggest thing is just because you've seen something on TV, right?

Like, you know, like World's Strongest Man, for instance, like you don't watch it on TV and go, I'm going to be a World's Strongest Man competitor. I did when I was a little fat kid in fifth grade.

I want to do that. People don't look at that and say they're going to do that because they see the size of the people. They say, oh, they must do it. They think, man, I'm going to be really strong. They see CrossFit and they see people who are in shape. And they think, I'm in shape. And I would say get around CrossFit, be around it,

go experience the competitions and see what the athletes are like. That was a big, you know, for me, the first CrossFit Games I went to, 2010, like seeing the athletes and being like, whoa, like these guys are huge compared to what I thought. Like I thought that a lot of them, like a lot of them had come out to Westside, but like as a whole, like they were a lot bigger human beings than I thought they were based on stuff I'd seen, know right experiencing something live is a lot different yeah other thing too is uh the physiques of i mean i went to regionals you know myself in like 2009 you know

i i was like side by side with these athletes and i went and uh either spect spectatorized on a team or I competed myself since 2009 and every year it's like the athletes, the physique changed over time. Like the physical development, the muscular development is much different in 2015. Oh yeah, there's like a lot of shit talking about CrossFit in those times. Like, oh, this is not a way to get strong. This is not a way to put on muscle. That's changed quite a bit. And you look at it though, it's the same athletes.

These guys are huge. And it's the same athletes. These guys are huge. And it's the same athletes. That's why. They've been training for a long time. They've been lifting a lot of weight for a long time.

The muscular development is getting pretty outrageous. And if we look at the numbers and we look at the progression from the years, you know,

I would say there's about 15 athletes that have been competing for the last 3-4 years now that are at the top. We all know who they are. But you look at their numbers and they've all gotten stronger over that period of time. If you're getting stronger and you're staying lean because your relative strength is important in CrossFit, it is.

You're not looking to gain fat or gain mass because it would hinder you in the other areas. And you're staying lean, you're going to add muscle mass to get stronger. That's like the basic foundation of getting stronger is adding muscle and recruiting more muscle on the movement. So being movement efficient and then getting stronger by adding muscle. And so we're seeing that. And so we've actually, we've actually tracked,

we've tracked a year to year with the average elite. I mean, we can, you can go on the website and like get this information out and Doug, Doug plots all this stuff. And we found like every year, you know we can you can go on the website and like get this information out and doug doug plots all this stuff yeah and we found like every year you know the the best you know athletes around five eight five nine for the guys but the weights that their body weight keeps inching up yeah and if we look if we look at what their numbers are right they're not the best power lifter they're not the best gymnast they're not the best olifter. They're not the best gymnast. They're not the best

Olympic lifter. But could they go in those sports and qualify for nationals? Absolutely. But look at Lauren Fisher. Yeah, Lauren Fisher could be a fucking Olympic athlete. I think she you know, I think she win nationals for weightlifting and then she's going to be

you know, who knows what she's gonna do so I go back to the comparison of MMA okay if I'm a MMA fighter UFC fighter

could I go from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to being the MMA fighter no no I've seen again in the early days

just like you're saying you could but not now I saw some Jiu Jitsu guys could you go from UFC to Jiu Jitsu and win and the answer is yes there's a lot of people who are UFC fighters or MMA fighters Yeah, you could, but not now. I saw some jiu-jitsu guys. Could you go from UFC to jiu-jitsu and win?

And the answer is yes. There's a lot of people who are UFC fighters or MMA fighters who are also very competitive in specialized skill set, right? Wrestling. They have the wrestling they do, and then they have the jiu-jitsu and all the different styles that they train. A lot of them are very high up, black belts and things like that. They go and compete in those events because it's an easier transition than trying to go and that's how I see CrossFit.

I really came to see it as it's the MMA of fitness. It's the thing that combines everything. So if you're doing it, you may not be the very best right now, but if you turn your attention to something, you have an easier transition because you have the skill set the bases and you can focus trying to go the other way you know i was a drag racer you took me off the drag strip i couldn't go around you know it was like i did one thing i you know i couldn't tie my shoes i couldn't put my hands up above my head but so because of those limitations that's pretty. But because of those limitations. By the way, that's not a typo in my voice.

He benched fucking 900. So going one way is a lot easier than going the other way. But as a high-level athlete, you don't want to admit that early on, right? You learn these things as you go because you honestly have to have the belief. And when I said – I did an interview with Power Magazine and Mark said, what's your goal? I said I want to win the CrossFit Games. And I wasn't BSing anyone. Like I really, that was my goal

and I had every intention to, so to have that confidence and to be able to say, that's what my goal is. I had to believe I could do what I needed to do. And as it goes through, it started to become clear, okay, this is not going to be a three year thing, right? So this is going to be, you know, a five year thing to get to the level where I'm competitive. Well, not only do I have to get to the level, but how am I going to catch these people if they're continuing to improve? They're also getting better, yeah. Right? So it's like-

The world is not standing still as you try to get to the sport. Yeah, so you start to wake up a little bit and it was like, okay, well, I still love the sport of CrossFit. I still love watching. I'm a huge fan. You guys know you are too, like nerds of the sport so to speak we study it we we watch it we say how would you you know we're always talking about how the optimal way to train for it and how do we incorporate all these different things and where's the sport going

to go and yeah but but in terms of being a competitor like you know maybe on like a low level but you know i know i'm never going to have that ability unless I was willing to go 100% in and give everything up to train for it. Yeah. So, yeah, if you're interested in going to the CrossFit Games, you know, you got to probably do what AJ talked about. You know, just see if you can walk in a CrossFit gym five days a week. Start with that. Get the mobility you need.

Work on the technique. Slowly add in the training volume over time. Trying to jump in trying to see what and i think rich running is actually pretty responsible and what he talks about because he really doesn't tell people exactly what training sessions look like day to day because i think people would try and do it and then they wouldn't be able to move for a week and so you've got to look at what rich did from the beginning you You know what I mean? He had a training background before he even found CrossFit. And then even then, he built his training volume up over time.

You can't just – it'd be like going to Westside and trying to hop in with a workout with some of these guys. He's training hard now. But he's been doing that probably every day, all day, physical activity since he was probably a kid playing pop one. And if you look at Rich, and I love his story but one thing that makes him unique is his mindset. He's played an entire baseball season

basically in severe pain. So I doubt any workout he does is as painful as it was with a torn shoulder. So he has this mental aspect which I always think he wins mentally. You always see him smiling. You always see everyone else's grimacing, and he just... He wins the battle before it starts.

Whether it's an act or whether he really is laughing inside, I don't know, but he's phenomenal at that. But beyond that, you look at his story, and when he was at the Games, he didn't win the first time out, right? He's phenomenal, and everyone would say, well, if he hadn't fell off the rope, but he did. Why? Because he had a weakness that he hadn't trained. And so I'm sure when he went to the to the crossfit games like he never thought to himself oh i'm going to just compete like he was like there to win

and then and then things happen and so even he had to reevaluate and say okay i'm not never going to let that happen again right and so it fueled his training and so those are the things that like there's as you go through as you go through like whether you want to do this and whether you want to, you know, be a regional athlete. It's like, I know people who are regional athletes that haven't gone to the games, you know, and they're top five at regionals, right? Because they only take the top two, is it top two or three, something like that. It's changing, right? So I'm not sure. Not change all that, I don't remember what all the changes are. They're very competitive, but they've never gone to the games and they live in their gym. Like they literally like sleep, eat and live in their gym. They train

classes, they train themselves. Their life's a hundred percent and they haven't even yet to go to the games. That is the level we're at now. We're not at the level where you can just say, I'm good at what I do. Right. There's so much that goes into it. And it's like, it's not that it's not possible. Like I'm not saying this stuff to discourage anyone. If you truly believe that this is what your mission is and this is what you've been put on this earth to do, I say go for it 100%. I support that 100%.

I would say do everything you can to make that happen. But at the same time, if you think, oh, I'm going to be competitive, but you're not willing to do all those things, then you need to kind of reevaluate, like, why is this important to me? Because you can compete. There's so many local competitions now.

You can have a fucking blast and make a lot of improvement. It's the difference between major leagues and playing softball on the weekends with your buddies. Be realistic with why you're playing and enjoy it. Enjoy the whole experience. Don't beat yourself up because you didn't make it out of the open you know i think it's just it's fair to you to to whoever's thinking this stuff like to really honestly assess what what in my life is in the way what can i actually not give up if you have a family you need to spend

some time with your fucking kids i want to tell you now if you have a wife and kids you got a job you need or if you're like you know you work shifts again i ask a wife, you know? I want to tell you now, if you have a wife and kids, there's a good chance. And if you've got a job you need, or if you're like, you know, you work shifts, I get asked a lot, what do I do? I want to do these things. I want to train for power. I want to be competitive

and cross it, but I'm a firefighter or I'm going to be a cop or something. Stressful, erratic, sleep padded. Like, look, hey man, unless you're going to stop doing that, you've got to understand

it's going to wreck, train wreck your fucking recovery. If you're sleeping five hours a night, you're not going to have what you want, dude. If you look at the game's night, you're not going to have what you want, dude. If you look at the game's winners, both of them are married, neither of them have kids.

I know Rich said that one of the reasons... He's got a kid now. I'm not sure. And guess what? He ain't fucking competing next year. That's what he said, right? He said that this is my last year. He said this will probably be my last year

competing as an individual because I want to have a family. Even he's deciding what's most important to him. So if you have a family right now, like, what are you going to tell your kids? Like, daddy's going to try to be a, you know, mommy's going to try to be a CrossFit athlete and I'll hang out with you when you're a teenager?

Like, kids don't care. Here's an iPad and I need you to go in your room and occupy yourself. If all you're doing is training and you don't have a job, then you can probably, you can pull off a family in that. But if you have a job and you're trying to go to the games and then a family, that third, there's no a job and you're trying to go to the games, and then a family, that third thing,

there's no room for third thing. There's two things you can do. Exactly. If you're fully sponsored, then I think you can pull it off. Absolutely. That's what it's going to take. Past that, you're not sleeping eight hours a night.

I think that's the things you've got to understand is your priorities. And I mentioned that earlier, that your priorities, what is important to you? And when I was powerlifting, powerlifting was number one, you know, and I, you know, rightly or wrongly made sacrifices to make powerlifting my number one, you know, and like I said, you know, I ended up getting divorced and things like that. So you lose things because of that. And like I wouldn't change anything I did. Obviously, if i did it again i would probably take you know different course of action um but uh like you know i'm i am who i am because of the

way things were um and you have to be you have to realize that that's the way your life's going to be like the decisions you make will will determine you know who you are and move forward and some of those things you'll you'll look back and say i wish i'd done it a different way you know um but uh it's like when you're bit when you're deciding like what is what is it my life's going to be about if you're deciding that at like 30 30 years of age like you might have already missed the boat you know it's okay when you're younger and you're doing that because you don't have the responsibilities you have but the time you get to like 30 like if you've got a family and you've got responsibilities and mortgage

and things like that, like you can't afford to give that all up to go be a full-time CrossFit athlete. It's gonna, you'd have to transition to it. Like I said, spend a year learning about the sport. Spend a year really training as much as you can, letting your body adapt to it and see if it is something you wanna progress

and progress to that. But like, don't jump in head first if you don't have the experience the background um you know like i said coming if you're a gymnastic coming over or something like that you weightlifter you probably have a a quicker transition but it's still going to be a transitional phase it's not going to be like next year you're competitive and sponsors are giving you money and that's one thing with with uh thing with a lot of people too. They think, oh, I'll just get a sponsor. It's like, why would anyone want to?

They don't hand those out. You've got to really be good to get those. All right. Well, thanks for sharing your story with us, AJ. That was awesome. I think it's going to help a lot of people. Yeah, I think it was a good realistic assessment. And people will probably be able to identify with your story to a degree.

Even if they're not an elite athlete coming over. A lot of people come to CrossFit with a lot of, a lot of maybe goals that aren't that realistic, set realistic goals. You'll be happier in the longterm, you know, set goals that are achievable and then set higher goals after that. So, um, yep. Make sure to go over to Barbell Business if you want to hear more from AJ because he's joining us on the podcast on a weekly basis. And especially if you're a gym owner or a business owner at all, you'd probably really enjoy it. Make sure to go over there, sign up for the newsletter,

and also go to barbellstrug.com, sign up for the newsletter, and check out CrossFit Leucadia Physical Culture 101 if you live in the Encinitas area. This is a super cool little spot to train. You need to come by. Get you an outdoor WOD. Yep. Which with these poor sons of bitches up here.

Check it out. All right. Later, guys. Cheers.