Barbell Shrugged - 65- Interview w/ Julie Foucher 3-time CrossFit Games Athlete

Episode Date: June 12, 2013

On this episode of the Barbell Shrugged podcast we got a chance to sit down with the reigning 2nd fittest woman on the planet Julie Foucher.  We ask her about her training during her year off from CrossFit competition, and how she balances Med School with training.

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we interview CrossFit Games athlete, Julie Fouchier. Yo, this is CTP and you're listening to the Barbell Shrugged Podcast, the number one strength and conditioning podcast for CrossFitter. If you want to check out the video version, which you should, go to fitter.tv and watch that because it's way cooler than just listening. And how do you spell fitter.tv there, Mr. Bledsoe? F-I-T-R.TV. He's a good speller. All right, while you're there, definitely go and sign up for the newsletter. As part of signing up for the newsletter, you'll get a video that Mike made where he shows you the top seven snap mistakes that you're probably making that are keeping you from hitting that next PR and lifting some big weight. Yeah look at the seminars, tune into the show and get ready to become a more awesomer version

of you. We give you the tools you need to succeed. You become a tool. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Chris Moore and Doug Larson. We have our guest, Julie Foucher. We're at day three of the Central East Regional. As you can tell, my voice is starting to go. But you sound even more handsome now. Yeah.

Day one and day two, I was nice and smooth. Now I'm distinguished. Yeah, exactly. Classic guy. And may I make the first comment on the show? I want to thank Julie for making a certain little boy's dream come true. CTP, this is a great day for you, isn't it? She's so gracious.

CTP has worked hard over Twitter to get Julie on the show. You're going to hear it and laugh later. Thank you, Twitter. Real quick, make sure you go to barbellstrug.com and sign up for the newsletter so we can inform you of all the stuff we've got coming up. We have some training camps and we have the weight gain, the muscle gain challenge starting up next month. So make sure to get on the newsletter so you can be notified of all that stuff

we've got going on. On with the interview. You've given up competing this past year. I have, yeah. Because I heard that med school is pretty tough. You made that assumption. That's what I heard, yeah. Well, it was just more time consuming this year,

and I decided I wanted to focus more on school and not have to make that decision about whether I was going to be training or whether I was going to be studying and not have any regrets about school this year. Yeah. What year are you in? I just finished my second year. Okay. So you were in school last year.

Yeah. And still did very well. Yeah. That's pretty fantastic. So it's like two years of coursework, then you're getting more clinical stuff. Exactly. More applied. Exactly.

So I just finished my second year, and i take my board exam in three weeks and then i'm actually doing research next year so fantastic we we ourselves are scientists and researchers yeah it just happens to be on meathead matters and not helping people live longer lives well i guess technically we helped that she gave that head nod like is he serious. I'm not sure be serious smile anyway The beard says it all That's what they call it right they had scientists here's your here's your soft experiment I don't know if it's a work of the chug it. Let me see how tingly I get So how do you feel like that year off is going to affect you next year?

Because you do plan on coming back next year, is that right? Definitely, definitely. I think it was the best decision for me overall if I think about where I want to be a year from now. I definitely am going to have a lot of catching up to do because all these girls have been working so hard all year. But I think overall it was the best choice. And I imagine you still train on a pretty regular basis just not as intense as you probably would if you're coming up right I'm just doing a lot less

volume and not competing this year gave me a little bit more freedom to focus more on my weaknesses so I've really been doing just mostly lifting and trying to get a lot stronger I was gonna say it could end up being the best thing ever for you because it gives you time to slow down. People want to accelerate rapidly towards what they want. Right. And one thing I say pretty often is that, look, there's nothing wrong with hitting an obstacle

or making a decision to do what's right now and slow down because it just sets things in better perspective later on. So for you to have the time to work on weaknesses, what weaknesses you may have, I don't know, but taking the time to nail that out, it's an investment to accelerate when you return to a full go. Then you'll be just more hungry for it next year. That's what I'm hoping.

That's what I'm hoping, and I think I'm going to be a lot more motivated. Julie, let me reassure you, that will come too. If you can visualize it, you will achieve it. Last year was the first year I saw you compete, and one of the things I noticed was you moved extremely efficient. That's one of the things I noticed was you moved extremely efficiently. That's one of the things that made you stand apart.

What's your background? Why do you think you move so well? I did gymnastics growing up, which helps a lot. I think that's a perfect background, just being able to have awareness of your body and pick up new skills. And then I have a really great coach who drills the fundamentals all the time, so we're always working on basic movement. Who's your coach? Doug Chapman from Hyperfit USA. I knew that.

I just wanted everyone else to know. I knew that. I'm cool. Someone just sent me an email saying we should come up to Hyperfit. That's your deal? You should, yeah. Okay. It's fun.

Yeah, they were trying to get us to go do training camp up there. I was nearby there last year when they had youth nationals for weightlifting. I almost went, but it was still too far from where I was at. So what weaknesses have you been working on, and what have you been doing about them? I've mostly just been working on strength, trying to get a lot stronger. Why does this theme keep coming up on this show? Could it be that it's the most important thing to work on always?

It's probably the deficiency that runs most deep in CrossFit. Because I think everyone gets introduced to CrossFit on the conditioning side of things. So they get sucked in, and then they're like, oh, shit, I've got to get strong. Is that how you get sucked in? You get sucked in with brand or something like that I gotta get strong oh yeah definitely I love the Metcons and then I did that for a couple months and then when I decided I wanted to compete my coach had me do just strength for months and months and I hated it I just wanted to get back to the Metcon. Wow. I'm like the other way around. We're like conditioning? Yeah, I've learned to love it now, but it wasn't what got me in. So were you a duck from the very beginning?

Yeah. Okay. So you started in that facility? Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, lucky. I got so lucky. Yeah, I mean, that's a great gym to start off at. I mean, they've been around for a long time.

They're catching their solid. It's always nice when something outside of your control sort of clicks into place and turns out to be one of the better things you can do. It's just sort of, oh yeah, I happen to be in a really great place. It's the only reason she's really successful. She's lucky. Always in the right place at the right time. I've got to go with that and the genetics, that and the work ethic, that and the good

personality. Yeah, I'm lucky. So do you feel like having done CrossFit, I mean it's a tough sport,. Do you feel like maybe you deal with, like, med school better than some of the other students? You're like, oh, this isn't that hard compared to, like, you know, doing some of this other shit. I think it's given me a lot more perspective for sure. Just because I have something outside of med school that's really important to me, I make sure I spend time on it, spend time working out. And all the lessons, we all know all the lessons you learn in CrossFit transfer over to everything else.

So now I'm studying for my board exam, and I was just making a list of, like, all the reasons why CrossFit and studying for my board exam are the same. That gave me the thought. How – in pop culture, I mean, I kind of considered for a while going to med school, and I was like, eh, I'm not smart enough to go through all the chemistry classes really I like biology but not all that damn chemistry stuff like you always have in your mind the picture of the med school students like fried too much coffee cramming for exams being pushed around by dickhead instructors like memorize all this they're so just stressed out so do you

think for you it's like having the balance knowing how to organize and manage stress eating what you need so you give's like having the balance, knowing how to organize and manage stress, eating what you need so you give your body a fighting chance to push back against the stress, understanding recovery. All these kids in grad school, you must be like just frazzled all the time and unfit, unhealthy, pasty. Yeah, I'm going to study for my test, make a fucking A. I'm going to go do a WOD.

You want to come? Wow, Julie's a super person. I don't know about that, but it definitely gives me a lot of perspective and a lot more balance sometimes yeah you think of it like a wild like okay studying yeah like just one more round you can probably do a book on that life you know famous CrossFitter instructs you how you can go through med school more efficiently. Those idiots are always spending like $100,000 a semester on school anyway. They'll throw out $20 for that book. A business idea.

So I think it's maybe a misconception or maybe it's real. And I feel this way a lot of times when I meet doctors and they say some things. I'm like, are they reading the research? And I know that you have to do that in school. Do you feel like there's a disconnect between trying to heal sick people versus optimizing health? And how do you, I mean, do you guys get nutrition classes? Because I've had some friends that are doctors that say, oh, classes in med school it's kind of shocking to me it is shocking and I I think you're definitely correct our health care system and a lot of our

medical education is set up to teach people how to care for really sick people that's who yeah and yeah exactly and the system is just not set up well for for prevention. And everyone knows that, and we're, you know, trying to make it better and trying to improve. But the way that it is, we don't get a lot of nutrition classes, but there's just so much to cover that that kind of, you know, especially in the first couple of years, you're just trying to cover everything,

and it's hard to to get it all in but i feel like it's like very fashionable to say that about doctors how they you know they cover sickness and they don't cover actual health and wellness but that's okay i think in my in my opinion that's why we have nutritionists and trainers and coaches and physical therapists and all these other different categories that way if you have a team a doctor and oh your mic went out scandalous share it i think someone stepped on a chord my mic went out but you know if you have a team of people as an athlete if you have doctors and physical therapists and chiros and nutritionists and coaches like that really is the that really is the ideal way to do it is to have that whole

complete team yeah but you bring up we did hold on we did an episode with a guy named jeremy draper who i saw that yeah you did see that yeah that was great yeah so it's something like that having a doctor's office and across the gym and maybe like a nutrition center as like one comprehensive health source is that something that might be like a long-term vision for you absolutely And I think you bring up such a good point where I think that is the optimal situation, but right now it's so fragmented. And you're not, like the doctors aren't working with the trainers, and it's not, you know, set up to do that. And so what happens is we're getting all these people who are really sick

who could have easily been prevented if we were working together as a team like that. I see that as being very similar to how CrossFit came together. Athletes in CrossFit, they started learning from powerlifting coaches and weightlifting coaches and gymnastics coaches, and it came together as this comprehensive functional fitness health system. I feel like that same thing could happen in the medical profession where they're learning from the same people. They're learning from PTs and learning from other doctors learning from coaches and it comes

together where it's not just sickness anymore it really is pure wellness I feel like wellness is really growing yeah Jeremy is now my position yeah I got this moment why this revolted I realized why am I going to the same doctor he's just saying things he's assuming he's right cuz he's a physician he's bought into that he says yeah you should do XY He's assuming he's right because he's a physician. He's bought into that. He says, yeah, you should do X, Y, Z in nutrition because that's right, right? And I go, wait a minute. You don't have any real understanding of the latest issues in nutrition. I know more than you, and that doesn't feel right.

And you go to a guy like Jeremy who gives this very rich, immersive experience where he's working with you. He's got all this expertise. He's got an open mind. He wants people to join him who can give their expertise. Just like Doug is saying, it's like the problem is most of these physicians do think they're expert in exercise and nutrition just because they carry the banner of doctor.

They don't have the open mind to pursue all the knowledge and have that, you know, best of all the worlds and bring this together kind of mentality. So I will say the more jullies who join the good fight and join Dr. Draper, the freaking better. We've got to do all we can to motivate more Physicians that take this path. Yeah, you want your rheumatologist like six months ago? Cuz I have some shoulders some elbow issues and the guy was kind of like

I'd probably just hang it up You have your insurance card? That's how it was too He didn't do shit Told me just not to work out And train hard anymore Take Advil And he charged me like $500 And I went home

And I was like That was fucking worthless And I never went back To see that guy ever again I think it's I mean I think a lot of people Like to try to maybe Demonize the doctors

But like you were saying earlier It's the system you know The system's kind of like Forming the education Side of things And you know I think all the kind of like forming the education side of things and, you know, I think all the doctors go into it with good intentions, but the system is just working against you in a way. And because there's so much bureaucracy in the medical world, like,

you know, it's illegal to, like, do some things that might work. And so, like, where there might be really quick advances on with strength and conditioning and physical therapy and, you know, like what they were talking about, like everything working together, I feel like that might be

kind of tough in the medical world just because of all the bureaucracy and the laws that apply. Yeah. But we don't have any, there's really no laws, you know,

that we have to abide by as strength and conditioning coaches. We need less rules. But you've got, you probably have a shit ton of rules that you have to abide by as strength and conditioning coaches. We need less rules. You probably have a shit ton of rules that you have to go by, right? Right, right, yeah. I think there's definitely a lot of obstacles. It is true. Even being two years into medical school, you see a lot of people, like the more I'm

exposed to it, the more I see that everyone goes into it with all the right intentions, but sometimes the system just doesn't, it kind of takes a lot out of you and it sounds just like politics where a guy has this idea he's going to change the world he gets in the machine and then he gets changed right and at the end of the day like you have to remember that like your doctor went into it for the right reasons and he really she like really wants to help you but a lot of times there's so many constraints on on things that they're doing so even like like i'm thinking i'm probably going to go into primary care and there's not you know we need more people in primary care but it's not the attractive thing to go into because you're seeing you don't make

as much money but you're also you're seeing now people your appointments are like five minutes long seven minutes long and you have to spend so much time you know typing up everything that you did and basically your whole day is documentation and a lot of extra stuff so I went to Jeremy's clinic and I sat down and he met with me there's nobody there's no staff I don't see a nurse I don't feel like he's walking on the hallway doing nothing and he's making me wait on purpose he ducks in for five minutes and ducks back out he comes back and says take this go home no he sat there with me for like two hours. We're talking nutrition.

We're talking training and family and life and supplementation and the conferences he had been to lately and what he had learned. I had this wash of like, why can't every doctor have this set up? He's kind of taking the pressure off himself. He's not hiring a bunch of people. The people he does hire are bringing in a lot of value. He can charge more. I mean, he's looking for ways to break out of the traditional insurance models have charge you a price That's fair and reduced doesn't have these middlemen in it. He's giving you amazing value in return

I want people deserve that kind of experience when they're sick and not feeling well They deserve to have somebody they can trust and have this really engaged with that's what a physician should be Not this asshole who walks around outside, like, making you wait on purpose because, like, gives them more power over you. You come in, yes, sir, what will you give me today? What are my pills? Chris' perspective. Yeah.

Sorry, Julie. I don't know. I've never sat in a room with you like that. Got some anger coming out of you. That asshole, he's doing nothing out there. Well, maybe walk into the doctor's office and you're the only one guy there, but you're still waiting for 30 minutes. Why?

But, I mean, what I think about that is, like, isn't that like the insurance system that kind of pushes that five-minute thing? Yeah, absolutely. And the way that there's also, like, a high demand. There's not enough primary care doctors. You're not getting reimbursed very much. So that's why it's so rare to see a practice like that, like a privately owned practice,

because most of them are just going under because you can't even support yourself on that kind of practice anymore. That's a shame. You go broke if you do two-hour consults with everybody. There's no money in really helping people, sucker. Join our crew. Hopefully we're going to see that improve. I hope so.

In the next several years. We'll see. So you don't feel like orthopedics is, like, the natural fit for you as an athlete? No. Everyone says that, but I've never really been interested in orthopedics. I don't know why. Dang. I've always been more interested in, like, the biochemical side of things than the, like,

physical side of things. More on the physiology side of things? Yeah. Cool. All right. We're going to take a quick break real quick. Quick break real quick. Quick break real quick. The Department of Redundancy Department.

You know what? It's because I was drinking this Progenix Force. I'm all hopped up. It works. Hey, guys. This is Rich Vroning, and you're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to fitter.tv. All right, we're back. We have Julie Foucher on the show, and hopefully you're enjoying

the interview. I am. Oh, I thought you were talking to the audience. Who are you talking to? But we're glad you're enjoying it too. She was like, I didn't know if I was going to enjoy this or not. I was really nervous about coming on these guys' show, then I realized it was full of shit. It's fine.

I think you approached it better than CJ Martin yesterday. CJ was like... He sat down low. He didn't know what to expect. What are these guys going to ask me?

Are they going to ask me something crazy? He's like, oh no, we're just going to bullshit for 45 minutes. And a couple pearls thrown in there for good measure.

Good. So have you trial run all these wads just so you can go back after everyone else finishes and kind of see where you end up? Like, ah, I beat you. I actually haven't.

I did one, but I'm going to wait until I get back more into training before I do them again, I think. Is it true that you did all the open wads in one day? I did them over the course of two or three days. I did like, it was like 36 hours. So nothing crazy? No. Sounds pretty crazy to me. I mean, doing one in one day is pretty tough for me. I've done none any days.

Gravity rides me too hard to do these things. God bless these athletes. God bless them all. Gravity rides me too hard. Yeah, yeah. It's rough being 300 pounds. It is. So what's your training schedule look like right now since you're, like, way off season? Yeah, I'm just, like, so focused on studying for my exam. So usually four or five days a week, like, an hour, two hours working out.

Isn't it fun? Just five days a week, two hours. I'm not really training that hard now. It's kind of embarrassing. How much training? Like, five days a week for two hours a day. It's kind of, I'm sorry. It's what the surgeon General says, times six.

Actually, what do you think about that? Like Surgeon General's recommendation for, you know, working out three times a week for 30 minutes at a low-intensity pace, like walking. Right. Do they tell you to tell your clients that? What does the medical world advise you to say? I mean, always more exercise is better.

Pretty much every time you see a patient, you want to encourage them to keep being active. But, yeah, there are certain standard recommendations that certain, like, the ADA will recommend. The safest, lowest risk possible recommendation that anybody could ever make to anyone. Just go for a walk for 30 minutes sometimes. You'll live longer.

It's like read a magazine when you take a sometimes. You'll live longer. It's like read a magazine when you take a shit, you'll be really smart. Make sure you do it every time though. Three to five times a day. Depending on how much fiber you're getting.

How much fiber you're getting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're the derailer that time though. I was, I was, I was. Usually I'm not the derailer. Usually these guys are taking us way off track.

I'm trying to keep us on track. I don't derail. You've been really good lately. I have been. The show has evolved. I just didn't keep my mouth shut. That's good policy for you. Right here. Just like that.

Just like that. Yeah. So when, Julie, when will you resume the competitive, get the fire going again, set the goals, identify a competition? When will that happen? As soon as my exam is over. When is the exam? In three weeks.

Three weeks. Yeah. Okay. So, Julie, what's your plan? I'm going to be in the gym. I'm going to be in the gym. I'm going to be in the gym. I'm going to be in the gym. I'm going to be in the gym. I'm going again, set the goals, identify a competition. When will that happen? As soon as my exam is over.

When is the exam? In three weeks. Three weeks. We're coming down to the wire. I know. You're going to start training for 2014 in three weeks? Oh, yeah. Oh, I've been training for 2014.

But seriously, yeah. I have an interest in this. How do the study sessions look? What performance enhancers, supplements are using to help you sit down and get through this material? What does the intense study session of Julie look like? Coffee. Coffee. Mostly coffee.

A lot of coffee. A lot of coffee. Sprinkle a little Progenix Force, a little Jack 3D, mix it all up in a little stew, slam her down. Have you ever tried to study on Jack 3D? No. Don't try. Don't do it. You'll be very scared.

I think I'll stick to the coffee. It's sort of illegal now. That makes it prohibitive. It's a banned substance. You can't really get it, but if you can, man, it's good. She's like, oh, I didn't want it until now. Click off. Must be really good.

1-3-Dimethylmethameth. I call it Dimethylmethameth. It's the best stimulant ever invented by man. If you want to think hard or move fast, it works. Yeah, yeah. That's your recommendation for Barbell Shrug. Something to do with meth. I don't remember what they were talking about.

They talked about meth at one point. We talked to a medical professional, and all I got was take meth if you want to go fast. Meth, that all the time? No, surely not. All right, so actually supplement-wise, what do you take for supplements? I just use whey protein, about protein um that's about it oh and pure pharma like fish oil ctp do you see julie over there she's here but she's also over there did you see that it's pretty cool but they're probably thinking why the is julie over there is that weird you're like

podcasting in like a competitor's booth. Like that's your booth right there and you're over here in the Progenix booth. You're like, this sucks. It's okay. My picture is still. They said it was okay as long as we didn't bring it up on the show. Good job. I was not aware of this.

I apologize. The fish oil is fantastic. It is. So that's all. There's a little fish oil and protein. And it's shocking that I guess most of your nutrition comes from food yeah real food the highest quality get your hands on yeah that'd be a lesson everybody have you learned anything about nootropics and that's cool no we have lots of not

have an interest in these nootropics I've never even heard of that before no helps your brain function but I guess that was an idea. It helps the brain function real good. It takes it all the time. We're on it right now. What is this? I put together the actual pitch. What are neurotransmitter precursors that are supposed to help you?

There's different kinds. Some of them are like, it's a class of drugs, but there's also some natural versions of it. But it helps you retain information better and stuff like it learn faster when you go to sleep at night you know what may take three three hours to assimilate in the mind or the brain you know only takes say 15 minutes so there's like different there's different kinds within that class but anyways it's interesting to read about and uh put an asterisk on that statement because we have absolutely no fucking proof that that is anything.

I'm just telling you what Wikipedia told me. That's reliable. I think so. That's where I get all my information, just the Internet in general. That explains everything. Google searches. That explains a lot. How to start a business.

Google, how do you start a business? I've got it. Who was it? They went to the doctor. Oh, yeah. You went to the doctor? Oh, yeah, you went, CTV went to the doctor for a problem. You want to tell what the problem is? Top secret problem.

Top secret problem. It'd be an embarrassing problem to say that. He was very itchy. No, it's nothing like that. But he said he went to the doctor, and the doctor went back, and he came back, and he said it looked like he, the doctor came back and was like, he was so unsure about what he was about to say it looked like he had just gone to Google and search it yeah it'd be like going to a CrossFit gym and

your doctor's like yeah hold that if you like going to a CrossFit gym and you're doing the air squat in your fundamentals class and the guys like okay so we're gonna uh all right what we need to do with your feet is, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, we're going to air squat. Makes you feel real good about his advice. The doctor didn't give him a lot of confidence, but he said it was like, he went, he checked me out, went in the other room, Googled some stuff. Actually, you know what? I have a question about that. So in the medical world, if you look unconfident, like that's how when someone gives you advice, they come back and sue you later. They were like, that person didn't know

what the hell they were talking about. Like, did they tell you just to like, even if you don't know what they're saying, just to kind of nod and smile and look confident and act the part, even when you have no idea what they're talking about. So you can like run out of the room and Google it real quick. I mean, they don't specifically teach you that. They probably should. I think that you have to have confidence in the things you know, but obviously you're not going to know everything. There's too much to possibly know. And I think, I don't know what your perspective is, but from my perspective, if you admit that you don't know something, but you're like, hey, we're going to look this up together. We're going to figure out what it is. That will

give your patients a lot more confidence than you running out trying to figure it out and yeah but if you're trying to explain something trying trying to cover something up i feel like a lot of doctors feel like they're not allowed to not know oh i think i think that's true i think that's the expectation from the patient's perspective sometimes is that well you're the doctor you're supposed to know but but all doctors know there's way too much to know. You can't know it all. It probably helps to give it a little bit of hints, like it could be X, Y, Z, but you know, we're not sure.

All the evidence is not back yet. Like put it on the tests that are out. Don't make it like you don't know. I need more information before I will know for sure, but we'll figure this out together. Me and you, me giving you the medical advice you need, you becoming a healthier, happier human being. Like, thanks, doctor. Versus going, I don't fucking know what's wrong with you.

Give me five minutes. Maybe you should have been a doctor, Chris. I am a doctor. If you don't know something, what's your first move? Like, if you don't know something, do you Google it? Or is there like a doctor's Google? There is. WebMD, that's right.

All doctors know that. I mean, I'm like a doctor's Google? There is. Web MD, that's right. All doctors know that. I mean, I'm like a second-year medical student, so there's a lot of stuff I don't know. But typically you're going to do exactly what you just said and say this is what I'm thinking it could be or, you know, this is, you know, the possibilities. These are the tests I want to run and then partner with the patient. Let's throw some pills at you until you feel better. Do you get the very ambiguous

questions where someone's just like, my back hurts. What do you think it is? People give that to trainers all the time. They've got to come to you like, my head kind of hurts. What do you think's wrong with me? You're like, I'm a doctor, not a psychic. I've got to run tests and I need blood work and we have scanners.

You can't just magically know what it is. I bet you're getting I'm a doctor not a psychic I gotta run tests and I need blood work and we have scanners and like you can't just like magically know what it is but I bet you you're getting that even now even as a second year med student um sure everyone comes in with different complaints but I mean I'm not even in the clinic that much only like I just mean like when you're walking around like your family members call you on the phone like my wrist kind of hurts what do you think's wrong my niece Julie's a doctor she can tell me what's going on with me my ankle's swollen what's that on with me. My ankle's swollen. What's that? Well, what did you do to your ankle? You're not going into orthopedics, so you

don't have to worry about that. Do you ever get into the high-carb, low-fat versus healthy fats, protein, vegetables debates? Do you have the paleo debates with the medical world? I try not to get into too many debates. Good policy. No one's changing their mind. Yeah, it's interesting. It's very

interesting. But it helps that if you look fantastic and are fit and are a high competitive athlete and you're a medical doctor, I think if anybody can convince somebody, Julia, maybe you, you may have to bury this burden yourself, but trust me, eat some bacon in the morning. I'm fit, I'm a doctor,

listen to me. I think it's becoming apparent that statins may not be the best drug in the world. Like, how's that going over the medical community right now? Are they still, like, prescribing that to everybody

with cholesterol, like high cholesterol? Um, I haven't been following the research on that too closely, so I don't know. But all the decisions

that are made in the medical community are based off of big research studies and the outcomes from those so I can't really say anything on that It's a conspiracy Pharmaceutical companies. I was thinking I can speak conspiracy against us the struggle I would always have Doug as I'm like look family member dear friend. I recommend you take it because

XYZ don't take that thing and by the way take this advice from your friendly 300 pound ex-power of the friend who's giving you this advice I can't I can't deliver that advice. No one's gonna believe me. They'll believe Julie Don't step out of bounds here Mike Bacon and eggs like in the morning with my classmates, and they're like, what are you eating over there? I'm not a dummy like you are. All the other girls are pissed. They're like, she eats bacon every day, and she's all fit. This is bullshit.

Julie, you know they're talking shit about you. They have to be talking shit about you. And I'm eating this bagel. They're stressed. I keep eating these whole grains of cereal. Nothing's happening. Getting all stressed. They're flunk're fucking these tests or bags in the eyes no passion to put that makeup on in the morning here you are like glowing coming

from a wide 6 a.m. crushing bacon and eggs I'll see you guys in class you can see I'm very mad I'm creating your whole world in my mind. I'm making all these assumptions and just running with it. Chris tends to make assumptions. It's so fun. If you haven't figured it out by now, this show should be no questions. No questions. The views and opinions of Chris Moore are not necessarily those of Barbell Shrug.

CTP put an asterisk in there. Disclaimer whenever I talk, ever. So what's your favorite midnight snack for all-night studying sessions? Coffee all night, I'm assuming. I try not to stay up super late, actually. You have pulling all-nighters in medical school? No. No?

I haven't done that since college, no. No? No big Adderall kicks? Yeah, in my program, we actually don't have any tests. Whoa. Did you not just say you had to wait until your tests were over? Well, this is my board exam, yeah. But, like, I haven't taken any tests for the last two years. So there hasn't been a lot of cramming sessions.

My kind of school. Yeah, that sounds awesome. I could have done medical school. I didn't even know it. Well, no, but Mike, remember, she's doing things that are very hard that you can't do, though. Yeah, there's no classical test, but are you going to be able to talk to patients and convey a sense of professionalism and knowledge?

No, absolutely not. You're hosting a radio show. Let's not get it twisted. Don't get too excited. But I do like that. The problem with a test, any test, somebody picks from a scattered information what they require of you. Okay, let me pick things that will represent her body of knowledge

versus just observing you, working with patients for a certain amount of hours, and you just demonstrating over and over and over again that you are understanding the material. There's no unnecessary pressure to just learn a few things that will come at you at random and keep your eyes on facts as opposed to concepts that you will apply to treating people better. Like demonstrate your knowledge of anatomy, demonstrate your knowledge of medicine and ideas. Don't just like your colleagues. I'm going to ask you a hundred questions from this thousands and thousands of pages of stuff you looked at. Let's see if you

get lucky and get the ones you might get right. That's not what a good physician is made by. You got to have this immersive. I love that Yeah, it's been really interesting and it it was definitely difficult to get used to just because you know all through school You're used to taking tests, but it's a lot more real life like in real life you're not gonna have tests to force you to motivate you to study and I think it allows you to Really learn the concepts and integrate all of that and not be focused on what do I need you to get and I think it allows you to really learn the concepts and integrate all of that and not be focused on what do I need you to get a good grade but what do I need to do to understand this you don't have deadlines we still have some deadlines yeah but it's different we

have instead of grades we do this portfolio which basically throughout the whole year we're evaluated by our peers and by our faculty members, written feedback on everything we do in small group sessions or whenever we're working with patients. And then at the end of the year, we write basically a huge essay trying to convince our promotions committee, this is why I've met all the standards that I have to meet to move on to the next year. This sounds a lot better than regular school. Yeah, so it's really cool. And you basically can set goals. You can say

okay, this is where I need to work on. This is what I'm going to do to improve and then you work from there and it's on things all over the map, not just medical knowledge but professionalism, communication skills, research, all these different competencies. It's been an awesome experience so far.

Has there been anything from the medical world that you've learned in your two years of schooling that's really helped you as a CrossFit athlete? Like anything new and novel that you were like, wow, I didn't really think I was going to get that from the medical world, but it totally helped me. I don't know, like, specifically with CrossFit training or anything, but. Probably just the experience of going through it and having success.

But, man, I'm confident that no matter what I take on, just diligence and working at it and achieving balance and keeping everything perspective i just make it through whatever i set my mind on that's probably the really awesome lesson of it and i think it's it's good too to not be so focused on crossfit that that's all i do that you know you can get so wrapped up in training that it's nice to have something else to focus on and get be able to get my mind off it whenever i'm you know nervous about a competition or something else i don't i don't spend too much time thinking about it it's like like rogan's wrestling his podcast like having that a human needs some release physically you got to use your body and express force and do what it is programmed to do if you can do that daily then everything else you'll do you'll hit

harder because you had that that release now you can focus wholeheartedly on what you're doing but those people who sit around never use their body hey your mind is active but it's too active it's it's attached to preoccupations and all these ideas about what you need but it never gets a physical release you never have that balance it's crazy more people don't recognize something that's so obvious like how can you how can you deal with stress if you don't just get all this out? And then you can sit back in a chair and read a book and be at peace when you read the book. I can see how people do it because it sucks, right, working out? It's painful.

But once you start doing it and you realize how good you feel, you realize how important it is. Yeah, absolutely. You guys put out a book, you and Doug, about your training. Doug put out a book, you and Doug, about your training. Doug put out a book, yeah. Okay. It's basically just all the programming that we did last year, so it's not anything beyond that. Basically, just every single day, what we did from the warm-up all the way through workout skill sets, everything, just for people to reference or get ideas from or see what we did. I haven't seen the book, so is what you did every day for an entire year? Is there explanations about why changes were made or why you did certain things? No, it's basically just the programming. It's pretty straightforward.

There's a small intro that Doug did, but I think maybe in the future he might write something more about the thought behind it and the strategy. Do you have any little sections in there where you put some notes or where you wrote a little section that talked about your training at all? Like your diary entry. Dear diary, this one sucked. This one was lame as hell. No.

I wrote a foreword for it so I basically just wrote about overall my experience over the last few years. What's the name of the book? You can buy it on amazon.com search Julie I don't even remember what the title is, but if you search Doug Chapman training for the CrossFit Games or something like that. I think I'm Julie Doesn't know the name you know what?

I think I myself also have a book on Amazon. I think underneath it says, you might also be interested in, and I think I saw that book, Train for the CrossFit Games. Oh, there you go. Yeah, yeah. I think it's right underneath. It's probably associated on Amazon. It makes suggestions.

CrossFit is the same keyword. Right. Cool. Yeah. I think we're going to wrap this up. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you. Really appreciate it.

We had a great time. Thank you for being patient with us, too. We had a great time. Thank you for being patient with us. We had a great time, right? Yeah. And again, thank you for, and thank you to

Make-A-Wish-A-Foundation for making CTV's dream come true. Before you guys say anything you want to promote, sponsors, gyms,

websites? Sponsors, I already talked about Pure Pharma who has been awesome to me, About Time, Arts, Jump Ropes, and Reebok, of course. Thank you, Reebok.

Thank you to all of them. Do you have a webpage? I have a blog. Okay. Do you want to promote your blog? Sure. I have a blog. Nobody read it.

Nobody look at it. I don't post very often. That's okay. That's one of my goals for next year, post more often. Is this your training log, more or less? No, it's mostly just random thoughts from my brain. Just be on Barbell Buddha. Random thoughts. I will.

But I will warn you ahead of time that it'll be very – This is Mr. Random Thoughts. It'll be only the kind of crap I talk about. I'll try to behave whenever I get you on, Julie. I apologize. Ahead of time. Speaking of that, you want to go ahead and plug yourself? Yeah, I'll plug

myself. So Progress is on. Progress, the book I wrote, is on iTunes and Amazon. Go check it out. I think you'll like it. Again, it's been labeled as exquisite. You don't hear that word thrown around lightly. I've been barbellabooter.com, my blog, and then the show we drunkenly launched Friday night at the CrossFit Games

that we're going to improve upon. Don't worry. It'll be on iTunes soon. Alright, and if you want to sign up for the six month Muscle Gain Challenge, we start that roughly every three months. We've got one going right now. Guys are making awesome progress. We have another one coming up on July 8th, which is about three weeks away or whenever this episode

posts. I'm not sure how far away it'll be, but there may or may not be some spots available. We're only accepting maybe 50 or we might be able to expand that to possibly around 60 people right now We're maybe around 35 or 40 so we're almost full if you want to sign up for the six-month muscle gain challenge You can go to barbell shrug.com click on the shop Click on the long line coaching and then click on the six month muscle gain challenge And if you have questions about that program, you can always email me, Doug, at barbellshrug.com. Make sure to head over to Facebook and like us there.

And follow us on Twitter, at Barbell Shrug. If you want to ask us questions about training or nutrition or anything like that, we have another video series called The Daily BS. And you can just shoot questions to us from the website under Ask a Question. Also, if you like the podcast, go to iTunes, give us five stars, and leave a comment. See you next time. Thanks, Julie.

Thanks, Julie. Thank you.