Barbell Shrugged - 67- How CrossFit Invictus Coach CJ Martin Prepared His Athletes For The CrossFit Games

Episode Date: June 19, 2013

On this episode of Barbell Shrugged we interview CJ Martin on how he prepared his athletes to get to the CrossFit Games. CJ coaches many games level athletes including: Josh Bridges, Aja Barto, and Michelle Kinney.

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we interview CJ Martin, owner of CrossFit Invictus, and coach of many games athletes. 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. Budso? 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 snatch 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 we give you the tools you need to succeed you become a tool coming soon. Welcome to Barbell Strug. I'm Mike Bledsoe here at the Central East. CrossFit Central East. Yeah, CrossFit Games Central East Regional with Doug and Chris Moore. And we have CJ

Martin on the show, owner of CrossFit Invictus and coach of many athletes, one of which is here today, competing today, Michelle Kinney. She's doing very well. A friend of the show. Currently in second place? Yeah, currently in second place.

Not a lot of points between her and first. It was pretty much right there. What's the space between two and three right now? Between two and three, I don't know. Doesn't matter. She's going to kick shit anyway. Yeah, that's a shitty question, Chris. It's a lot.

Oh, I've got more shitty questions uh real quick uh make sure you go to barbell shrug.com uh sign for the newsletter that way you can be notified of all the the stuff that we're up to and you're gonna see the some of the what do we got going on uh right now we have the top seven snatch mistakes video that you get when you sign in for the newsletter that that mike put together uh yeah sign up for the newsletter that Mike put together. Yeah, sign up for the newsletter. Every week we send out, when we put out a new episode, also we send out one email that has like a review of the 7 to 10-ish videos that we put out each week. That way if you don't get a chance to go to the site,

you can at least see like a preview of all the videos that we put out that week. We've got a lot of feedback on that email since a lot of people don't go to the site. They like to get that one review email. That way they can kind of pick and choose which videos they want to watch each week. Yeah. So we have CJ Martin here, owner of Invictus. And you coach a lot of CrossFit athletes. One that's probably the most well-known is Josh Bridges.

And here this weekend, Michelle Kenney. How many athletes do you coach that are like games or I say in regionals right now? I think we had 47 that went to regionals. That's impressive. Are you programming for all of them or do you have like a team? I do have two assistant coaches that help out. Okay. I get to oversee all the programs,

make sure that everything's planned out and know what direction they're in. Then I get to do all their programs, make sure that everything's planned out and know what direction they're in. Then I get to do all their consults and talk to them. How often do you talk to them? We talk every six weeks. Okay, every six weeks. It just depends, right? And then there's some that I've coached for quite a while

that I've talked to on a very regular basis. I guess some people maybe demand, require a little more tlc here and there maybe some of the more maniacs in the group who need to hear good words more often yeah for sure for sure there's nothing wrong with that i mean some people just a little more volatile a little more you know eager to dominate yeah a little more emotional there's nothing wrong with that the world needs emotional people and boring people and people in between so all right before we dig too much into that you want to give us a little bit about your background i know he said that you're the owner of vixens you have a lot of of regionals athletes but um can you kind of just talk about your your background and how you kind

of came into this world yeah sure um i was actually a securities litigator and uh oh yeah it sounds exotic yeah it was awesome exotic that's not what i was thinking but let me guess you woke up every day like i can't wait to go to work and do this. Right, right. Thank God it's Monday. It wasn't too bad. It wasn't too bad. But certainly sitting behind a desk, I didn't feel like I was doing a lot of tangible good. Yeah. And so got into CrossFit just to get back in shape.

I played baseball in college and was a fighter all my life, taekwondo and boxing. Oh, cool. Yeah, very cool. Got into CrossFit because it was Spartan, and I really enjoyed it. And that was 2006. Cool. And then, yeah, I went to the 2007 games as an athlete. Went in 2008, realized in 2008, I'm not a very good athlete,

but had some really good athletes that I worked with. What I like about that dude is you know better than you perform. Yeah, exactly. I feel like that a lot. It takes that wisdom and sort of grace to say, I'm athletic. I've got this history, but I think I can just help people and get the satisfaction. I don't need to, like, slay myself chasing the dragon. It's not necessary.

I went in 2007 and had a great time, right? And this is 2007, people forget. We were lifting weights out that out outdoors and drinking beers between squats on the crossfit gathering let's have a good time yeah it wasn't a sport then um but then 2008 i had such a good time in 2007 i i got all these people from the gym i was at i was like hey you guys are all going up we actually trained for it and stuff and so it yeah i was trained for this time yeah it got to. Yeah, I was trained for it this time. It got to a point, though, that

I think one of the events, it was like the third event for me, my heat time was the same time as four of my other athletes. And I was like, I'll just go coach them. That's like a good sign of when it's time that you probably should hang it up

and just coach your athletes if they're beating What yeah, nothing keeps you from training hard having fun with it, but you got to know when they're not completely I remember I did the chest of our Fran was that year and I was coaching some of my athletes that were Competing right before and they're like I hear my name called. Oh my gosh shit You know no warm-up or. So I realized at that point, I was like, I should probably just go into coaching. Yeah. It's like trying to coach and compete at the same time. It's practically impossible. And that decision brings you where you are. Yeah. A lot of coaching success. Yeah. So I just I absolutely loved it. I mean,

I was one of those geeks for a long time. And I actually, unfortunately, ruined myself doing it. But I was working you know 14 hour days at the law firm but my schedule i'd open the gym at 6 a.m so were you a lawyer i was yeah oh wow yeah so um so i would open i would open the gym um at crossfit san diego at 6 a.m i'd coach until 8 a.m grinding go to the law firm come back at 6 p.m., work until 8 p.m., and then have dinner. How long did you keep that up? And then I'd have to work until 2 a.m. or so because I still had to make all my hours. Research suggests that four hours of sleep is not good.

Yeah. That'll fuck you recover right in the head. That's what I hear. Yeah, so I did that for about 18 months and then decided to open Invictus. And at that point, I had to make a decision. Was I going to stay on at the law firm? The law firm is obviously very good money. But decided ultimately, I was like, if I'm going to be decent at this, I've got to give it everything I've got.

If you're going to fucking be happy, man. Yeah. You know, you've got a dream. You're going to chase it and give yourself over to it 100%. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah. So 2009, we opened up. It's a lot more fulfilling. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. You know, you got a dream. You're going to chase it and give yourself over to it 100%. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah. So, 2009, we opened up. It's a lot more fulfilling.

Yeah. Oh, man. Especially on days like today. Yeah. Never look back, for sure. Oh, good. For a while there, you did some stuff with OPT. Yeah.

And you kind of split off. Oh, no. You still hold the OPT Athlon at your facility and stuff like that. I'm not saying, like there's anything bad happen but you guys have you did a lot of things with OPT and now it seems like you have a little bit of a different philosophy on training

I don't know if that's true we were still good friends and he's always been a good mentor I didn't do anything with him in terms of I've always had a little bit different philosophy, but I've learned so much from him, right? As everybody should, by the way.

I mean, he's a phenomenal resource. But James, you know, I did his first series of coaching programs, and he was the first guy that I really came across. I had done some of the, you know, I'd done all the CrossFit stuff I'd also done some Paula Quinn Paul check and stuff James James was the first guy that I realized had he had already done all that and he was giving the shortcut to all these gym owners and and and myself included you know I just he's such a wealth of knowledge and I did came on it's kind of like reading through peer-reviewed literature like what do you do as a

scientist you go I got an idea. And you go, what's been done? And you read through all these articles. You go, I got an understanding of what people have done. I need to do an experiment. I take that into consideration because they've already built this foundation. What I need to do needs to add to this. Right.

So it's fucking awesome that a guy comes along and says he peels through all that great evidence, has that geeky mentality, digests it all. Yeah. And it's not like you're not doing shortcuts by taking his advice. You're being wise by saying, look, I can take what you've done and this evidence you put together. And I start building on my little unique experiment. I add to that.

I feed back into it. It's a beautiful idea. It's how it should work. It's how any system that marches towards the one truth needs to sort of operate in that way, that cumulative way. It just makes sense yeah no he's I think he's he's so phenomenal for the community and for coaches out there because he's got it he's got a great program to teach coaches to be more conscientious about why they're

choosing to do things and so to get back to the question I you know I might choose to do something a little different than James but it's well informed mostly because of what James has taught me. Gotcha. I like when people get back to the question. Yeah. It's kind of an inside joke. The audience is like, oh, wow, you closed the loop.

I learned something. It's crazy. Wow, bro. So we're talking about training philosophy. How has your training philosophy changed over the years? It's got to evolve as you learn more things and as CrossFit progresses as a sport. Can you elaborate on that? Absolutely, absolutely. got to evolve as you learn more things and as CrossFit progresses as a sport can you elaborate on that absolutely absolutely I think in I think probably the biggest shift was in at the 2008

games right and for me CrossFit was and anybody that was unfortunate enough to train with me in 2006 2007 uh it's a humble thing to say really they took the learning curve on the chin oh man they did well and it didn't help. Josh Bridges was a really good friend. And so he and I would train together. Well, so every workout was an hour long. It was like, all right, we'll do this and this and this. And then we'll add a three mile run and then do this.

Oh, you're just doing long. Sounds terrible. Yeah. Really long conditioning. Just beating yourself into the ground every day. And so I got to the 2008 games. And I had made some friends chris spieler being one of them in 2007 and uh so it come into that last event the 155

pound squat clean and jerking and uh i had my camera out and i was fixed on chris really you know rooting for the small guy and jason kalipa was right in front of me and i'm like filming chris cheering him on all of a sudden I hear his judge saying like 25, 26. And I'm like, what the hell has happened here? And I realized that in 2008, also with my athletes on the deadlift burpee workout, I was like, you know what I realized is that you can grit through a lot of things, right? If you're strong enough, you can always have heart and grit through. If you're not strong enough to move weight, there's no amount of desire.

Gravity doesn't give a shit about your grit. It is not mental at that point. That's exactly right. So then that was, I would say, my biggest change in programming philosophy came then. It was like, I've got to make all these athletes strong enough. If I can make them strong enough, we can also train the mental aspect that they'll keep going i had that moment too when i watched two years ago two years ago they introduced the dog sled right and i saw all these like very happy girls going through whatever the movements were before the dog sled event uh go yeah everybody

looks confident and like one girl in particular popped off fit medium-sized killing pull-ups or whatever the shit it was what she was doing and she gets down just yeah Let's go push this fucking sled across the turf. She grabs it and then nothing happens She backs off like her soul. It's got sucked away. Yeah Was it Gretchen Kittleburg it may have been like I remember that moment because I was coaching Josh bridges And we're in the back and it's the first heat of women. We're like, nobody knows what the sled's going to look like. Nobody knows how it's going to move.

It's a nasty, nasty sled. And so we're all sitting there, and I'm like, I've got to watch this. And Josh comes over. He's right by my side, and I'm like, I've got to see what's. And then we see her hit it, and it goes nowhere. Nothing happens. That's a bad time. Yeah, my stomach dropped a little bit.

I was like, oh, God. This is going to be interesting. But he did end up winning that event outright, just for the record. Yeah. Yeah. There's that moment like, okay, strength's a pretty important thing. Right, right. Yeah.

So for all your athletes that you know are going to go to the games or that have gone to the games before, do you have different phases of training throughout the year? Do you have a particular way that you decide to structure the different phases of training after the games, you know, kind of the off season and then at leading up to competition do things change or is that more of an individual athlete thing or how do you work that absolutely i mean i i would say that uh it's not too individual in terms of periodization on the on the macro template right like we we need to know what we're doing in the off season now what they do within that template or period is

is going to be significantly different. Right. I go to Asia Bartow also. And so I always use Asia and Josh is the two examples. They couldn't be more different. Right. One's up Asia. One's five,

five. Asia's listening right now. By the way, Asia is, I mean, Asia's Asia's a foot taller than Josh. Right. And,

and they're different kinds of athletes, very different muscle fiber type, so what they need to do in the off season is gonna look very different. It's individualized at that level, but for the most part, all these guys, we're gonna make sure that they're ready to peak at regionals and then re-peak at games.

So I don't want to give away any secrets, but what does that macro cycle look like, roughly? Like I said, it's going to depend on the individual. But if you've got an athlete that's not strong enough for the sport, right, we're going to spend a big chunk of the offseason just getting real strong. I think probably most people still struggle with this idea. Like, look, like we were talking about with Louie the other day, the most important thing you need to do is spend time with the shit you

don't want to do and the shit you're terrible at. And it's common sense that people get anxious. Like, if I spend time with a barbell, marching it up and getting stronger, stronger, well, I guess I'm just getting fat and out of shape at the same time. And they get nervous about it. They don't, like, engage it and fully embrace this development that needs to happen that's going to take a little bit of time but will pay off if you just trust and buy in.

A lot of people go, I'm going to do a strength phase, but I'm also going to kick my ass during the WOD after the strength phase. Now I'm having shitty recovery, and an off-season now is no longer an off-season, and it sort of undoes, takes the wheels off your plan. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think, you know, with every athlete, what we look at is what is the strength or conditioning quality that has to change, right? And you have to know what the time frames are for those qualities to develop.

I think the best example is if you take a bodybuilder, right, and you don't have him lift anything, or a power lifter, and you don't have him lift anything for four months, guess what? You put him under a barbell, he's still going to be pretty damn strong. He's going to be just fine. You take a marathon runner, and they could take four months off they're still gonna be able to go longer than your average guy you train everything right in the middle right and that's all you do it's really tough to get real strong or to develop that

aerobic base so when medium sucks man medium is my worst the worst thing i i hate fucking it's the best shirt size it is okay exception for shirt sizes um so so so what we look at then is is you know using josh and asia right i need that off season to really develop strength gains for josh and we're going to need to use a big block of time to make sure he gets as strong as possible for asia that might be aerobic base work right aerobic base takes a long time to build also, right? He's a strong kid. And then as we get closer to competition, all of that middle stuff becomes more and more important

because that's our sport. Our sport is go real fast, but you don't have to go long. Moderate weights. So you're always peaking with the stuff in the middle. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we want to get closer into that middle stuff. Right now right now going into games if we haven't built that aerobic base for some of these guys there's going to be a problem right um so that's where it gets a lot more individualized and then what they do between now and games is going to change what about the

differences between training men versus women do you have any general differences in between the programming between the genders? You know, not that I can, you know, not that they're so significant. I think training men versus women is probably more emotional, psychological. That's what I was going to say, man. It's like it's not necessarily always physiological. There's women throwing stuff at the TV screen right now. I actually enjoy coaching women more than I do men.

Yeah. And, and don't get me wrong. I think I've had, you know, I've had some amazing male athletes, Josh, obviously being one of them.

But, um, I think I've actually carved my reputation with women, not, not with men. And I'm fine with that. I, you know,

I, I really enjoy coaching. You get more of a difference between in, in, in this, in, in the sexes where you got one guy who's a champ, puts his nose down,

grinds, leans forward, does whatever you say. And you got another guy who's a fucking basket case who you have to always sort of no, no, no, no, no. Just focus, focus, focus on the plan. Come on. Hold on. Hold it together. You got to work on your strength. Keep focused. Eight weeks of this. Trust me. Trust me. And the other guy's like, no problem.

I'm driven. And that's the same like, no problem. I'm driven. And that's the same with men and women, right? When I say it's more psychological, it doesn't mean that they're training changes or that one's needier than the other because I've got plenty of needy males, right? That's a lie. There's plenty of fucking PMS men.

We're not naming any names. Not naming any names. No, no, no. So a totally different question. What do you think of Matt Baird? Let's preface this. Matt's listening, too. Hi, Matt.

Matt's our fucking boy, man. We love Matt, too. Matt is our boy. He is our boy. He knows he's crazy. He knows it, too. Matt, I'll tell you what. I cannot confirm nor deny your statement.

We love the guy. Matt's a phenomenal athlete. He's a freak, man. And I think this year, I think what you're going to see is that this year will motivate him to achieve his full potential next year. We're talking about that, man. I think that's the most brilliant thing is that McGoldrick went through this. When he got injured, was it two years ago at this regional?

Yeah, he was injured. He had that crazy event. He dropped the weight on him. He had a bad injury, and that's not a good thing to go to. Michelle had the dark period. You know, you kind of have a couple years of success. You maybe get a little drunken by that. You expect I'm going to be back next year.

I'm going to try to win this thing. And then not that you had any conscious decision to let things slip or whatever, but, like, you didn't have this hard to nail down quality that you get when you go, oh, shit, I didn't make it. And you have to go home. You drive 10 hours back to Memphis where Michelle is training, and you go, fuck, man, I've got to think about this hard. Like, I want this so bad.

And then you have this off season where it's just building and building and building, and it pushes you through this hard training, gives you that fire. And you show up here, and you put your hand on the fucking dumbbell, and you don't let go, and you snatch it to your end second place and your position to get what you want. And you enter that third day hungry as hell to just dominate everybody. You're going to get that just by winning every year. Like, maybe guys like rich are just freaking up just

to show up and kick everybody's ass but for most of us mortals you need some quality to give you that pack that that fire that drive this energy source that it's the most important thing like perfect programming minus giving you everything you got will not fucking put you on the platform yeah I think a lot of I think a lot of athletes maybe in oh eight oh nine may have gotten comfortable because they weren't seeing how fast things were advancing it's like puts you on the platform. I think a lot of athletes maybe in 08, 09 may have gotten comfortable because they weren't seeing how fast things were advancing. It's like, oh, I did pretty good last year.

I just got to get a little bit better. It's like, no, you got to get like 50% better from like 09 to 2010. And so I think that people are kind of recognizing that now is you can't maintain. You got to be pushing the threshold all the time. Michelle does look the best I've ever seen her. She looked great out there today. She moves really well.

And focused. When she was jumping on that box and jumping down, she looked hungry. Like, I'm going to go fucking plow through every one of these jumps and take this. She has a lot of grit. She can grind some shit out. She's very tough. Michelle's phenomenal. I mean, in terms of athletic she's she's one of my favorite

athletes to work with because you know we have a saying and I think James used it for years also his full effort is full victory right it's from a Gandhi quote and and that's what we want all of our athletes to do and and if they do that we know they're gonna maximize their potential and and Michelle you never have to worry that she's not gonna give full effort she's gonna go out there every time and try to crush it yeah very tough girl to break yeah how do you how do you monitor say technique for like Olympic lifts and stuff like that remotely how do you do that video so yeah we'll do video review yeah that's tough I'd love it I'd love for

all my athletes to move out to San Diego and be able to work with them. I like that, too, by the way. Life keeps you chained down sometimes. Hey, guys, anybody listening, open invite. You want to move to San Diego, we got a spot for you. There you go. It's so tough to get people to visit San Diego. Right. Said by no one ever.

So what are your favorite resources, books or, say, certifications, or, like, if you wanted to learn more about how to be a better CrossFit coach, what would you – Yeah, if you're going to go through that now. What are your, like, top five things that you would do? Like, say all you had was a CrossFit Level 1 certification and you wanted to be the best CrossFit coach ever. In terms of certification, I think James does such a good job. He blends – you know, like I said, I've done all the Poliquin courses at this point.

I've done a little bit of Paul Cech. I've done courses at this point and i've done a little bit of paul check i've done some you know i've done a little bit of everything the nice thing is so is james and he's done crossfit and he's you know competed and he's coached in crossfit and so he blends it all i mean i and i tell this to affiliate owners all the time like if you want to if that's really your focus is improving as a coach they do that course he's just he's giving you some shortcuts to to doing it the hard way or the way I did it, which is I spent, I think in 2009, I spent $30,000 in education. Oh, wow. Not every CrossFit coach has that disposable income.

But let that be a lesson. Let that be a lesson. If you open up a gym and you go, I want to learn, what could be about anything really? Like I want to learn how to do something and master it and go, yeah, I'll buy a couple of books and I'll spend five minutes a day on the internet and I'll just, that's not a passion, man. No.

And I think, you know, I didn't take a paycheck that year. Right. I mean, but it was important to me that if, if you make the invest, just like your athletics, right. If you make the investment up front, these guys don't come out here for this weekend and crush it. They did that because they're busting their ass three hours a day every single day. And it was the same for me as a coach. It was like, I better invest.

If I'm going to be good at this, I better know as much as I possibly can. I mean, I got a full library, and I'm trying to churn through that stuff as best as I can. Yeah, people think that these kind of milestones are reached because you're super talented. Oh, man, I wish I had the talent of CJ. Well, yeah, smart as anybody, but, like, you didn't – it wasn't a mistake that you became a good coach, right?

No, I mean, and even before, you know, before I opened Invictus, before I made the decision to leave right it was The reason I stopped you know law is that I couldn't not work or read You know training articles for six hours a day So do the same thing and so so right like I was a total geek and then it was just like okay I'm doing this for 12 hours and this for six hours I'm like damn if somebody could just pay me to do this that would be like ideal you know it's like i think james now probably a good conversation on this

point because he's kind of a out there guy when it comes to i'm kind of out there i think we have a beautiful relationship but like weirdos if you buy an idea that there's just like ever-present energy like you can tap into it that moment when the muse speaks to you i got a great fucking idea and energy just comes to you right like you found a point where the energy lies for you it's like it's it's like the universe is screaming at you dude it's not law like what do you want if you could just stop you could put the law book down right now what would you do for for nothing what would you stay up to two o'clock in the morning doing like you were doing it became so obvious that this is what you should do yeah i don't know how people miss that like what what what would keep you up to two o'clock in the morning even though you didn't

have to do that? Here's the one caveat that I'll say because I talk to a lot of business owners, and there's a lot of people that jump, right? And we all love CrossFit. You can't be dumb. Yeah. If you've got a mortgage, you can't be dumb. So the one thing I always tell them is, right, remember, I did that for 18 months, right?

So these guys that are like three months into CrossFit, like, man, this is so awesome. I'm going to quit everything. I'm like, no, hold on. Like, make sure. I was coaching. I was researching. I was doing all this. And it just came to a point where I had to do it. I've been doing it for eight years now.

I mean, you've got to be willing to take a pay cut. I think a lot of people, I've known of some people who do, oh, I'll start a CrossFit gym and I'll be able to replace my income. It's like, well, you're probably going to have to take about a 50% pay cut i think a lot of people i've known of some people do oh i started a crossword gym and i'll be able to replace my income it's like well you're probably gonna have to take about 50 pay cut if you want to start that you might be able to get up to where you were at you know eventually but not in the first year yeah it's gonna take a while i mean yeah that's i mean i'm still not where i was at i was making a really nice income but uh but you know it's it's i'm four years deep, right? And so, yeah, I had to be really realistic about this. Yeah, and how long have you invested in your law career before that?

I mean, school, four or six years? Yeah, of course. How long were you at the firm? Five years. Yeah, so look, you're talking like a decade where you built up to something. I mean, people just expect shit to fall into their lap like, I got my dream, right? Well, like anybody lands into their optimal situation by not giving it

everything it got and doing it for a long time. After a decade, things will come, but are you prepared to keep fucking grinding at it till you get it? That's why most people have these dreams and they overcome anything other than something living in the back of their head because they're not willing to sit down and do shit like that every day when they'd rather just sit on the couch and expect

a knock on the door and here's your dream there you go you got lucky you won the lottery this week I was actually looking forward to hearing some more resources that you that you were gonna tell us about but we got derailed a little bit you said ob-t certification is fantastic yeah what else would you recommend I would say if you're a business owner okay 99% of your your gym members are not going to be games competitors right I think precise yeah I think precision nutrition does an unbelievable job with their curriculum and their certification because they're

teaching nutrition but they're teaching a philosophy on how to get people to buy in to behavioral modification right so yeah they can philosophy on how to get people to buy into behavioral modification, right? So they can teach you how to make change. And so to me, I think coaches can apply that to their everyday member on the nutrition, on their workouts, on, you know, regardless of what it is. I think Precision Nutrition and Berardi do a really nice job. Half the certification is like how to get, how to manipulate people. In a good way. How to help is like how to manipulate people. In a good way. How to help them.

Positive. Help them. Positive behavior change. You have the perfect diet. It won't matter unless you abide by it. Yeah, but, yeah, I mean, half that cert is just learning how to help people out, not the science of nutrition. So that is a good one.

Yeah. That's 80% of the results. You can tell people what to do, but if you don't provide information to them in a way that makes sense to them that they can understand and they understand why they're learning what they're learning then they're not going to follow your advice and so they they take that other stuff into account and i've followed variety for a long time i'm nutrition certified too i highly recommend it as well for any crossfit coach out there that wants to learn more about nutrition and not just

about the science but about the practical part and the psychology behind it. He's great. Fantastic. The other book that is going to be like required reading is called The Only Way to Win. And it's by Jim Lehrer, I think, and talks about character development. And it's for – I think think the books written for athletics business you know anything Schwartz with a powerful engagement yeah so he that book though for all my athletes I'm just gonna start sending it out as soon as they come on

board because I want them to understand that for for me you know in making a career change also this is as much about, you know, character development and giving back as it is about what actually happens on the competition floor. I think we learn a lot of lessons in the training process and the competition process. And regardless of, you know, I got girls going in Canada West right now and they may not podium, right? But it doesn't mean it's not the best weekend of their year it doesn't mean that they don't learn a lot of really cool things it doesn't mean it doesn't make them hungry to be better at whatever it is they do um and so i better athletes and better people too better people and i think sometimes we get lost on that in this sport uh in

any sport right and you start to lose balance of why you're doing that but some of my favorite moments from these regionals you know i have nothing to do with the top three competitors. It's seeing somebody do something in competition that they, you know, in many ways had no right doing. And I'll give a little shout out a couple of my athletes. in Northern California and Mark Bouskas in Northwest. I mean, they absolutely, after every event, they would come back and I'd give them a hug and I was like, dude, that was 110%. You know, they're not moving on, but you looked at them and you were like, that was everything they could give. And that, as a coach, man, that's all you can ever ask.

Yeah, if you see people, if you see athletes from year to year doing better at regionals, regionals is getting tougher, and then they keep moving up in their ranking. It's like they're becoming better athletes. You know, you can't control what the other athletes are doing, but you can do, you know, help them reach their potential. Yeah, that's good. Very satisfying.

Actually, let's take a very quick break, and we'll come back and hit on your point. Hey, guys, this is Rich Froning, and you're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to fitter.tv. Hi, welcome back. We're here with C.J. Martin from Invictus here at CrossFit Games Central East Regional. I can say it. It learns. You couldn't remember at the very beginning of the show either.

It can learn. We're at CrossFit. Where are we? I was training myself all last time to do Southeast Regional. Now I've got to say Central East Regional. Too many regionals. Too many words. All right, right before the break, you were about to touch on a point.

Do you remember what you were going to say? God damn it. Oh, he's like, no, I totally know. We talked about the guy with the engagement book, and that goes out. 110% is more satisfying than a guy with super talent just walking through and crushing everybody. Yeah, I was just going to say that, you know, in this sport, not only can you not control the other competitors, but we don't know what the events are going to be, right? Sure.

You may get events that fall into your wheelhouse. You may not. And that may be the difference between you taking third or fifth or tenth, you know. And so I think that knowing that your goal is to give your absolute best can be the only thing that governs our training. I think that's interesting. You'll see, like, the big coaches that have a ton of athletes at regionals, you'll see, like, you know, a coach have, like, a lot of athletes move along one year

and then another coach, like, gets to take the lead the next year and it has everything to do with what got programmed at regionals yeah i think that's right so it's it's extremely frustrating to me i think i've said this on a podcast before it's like it's like it's like uh you see progress all year and then you have to like start programming really close to the regional you know or or to the open or games or whatever and it gets real frustrating because you're trying to anticipate but you know you can't anticipate. And then you basically have to prepare for any random event. Like Strongman. Strongman now has settled into as few things you're going to expect

every major competition. There's going to be stones and log, and you're going to do a lot of deadlifting. You know the things you're going to have to work on. If there's a mild variance in the implement, you're going to be okay. But CrossFit is still wide open. They throw that curveball at you. Not a lot of surprises. I mean, there's surprises, but I feel like regionals is kind of like

it's kind of settling into its own thing. But when you get to the games and you have, like, all those crazy skills that come out of nowhere. I guess Castro sitting back going like this, like, whoa, I can't wait to announce this. Watch if I go white. And, you know, no offense to some great Olympic weightlifting coaches, but, man, I'd go crazy if I had to coach two lifts for an entire year.

You know, like the fact that – Not in the variety for you. That's the tough thing about powerlifting and weightlifting. Yeah, but, I mean, I absolutely love the variety, right, because from an intellectual stimulus, I need to know that they can do a huge, you know, skill set. I need to know that they can train well in every energy system.

So putting together the programs, I think, becomes a lot more complex. And that's really fun for me to figure out and tinker with. And I think it appeals to the ADD side of me. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Of course. ADD and CrossFit go together.

So with regard to coaching specifically, what were some of the big mistakes that you made along the way that you learned from and took something from? Gosh, that's tough. I mean, early on I fell into the trap I think a lot of people do. It was more is always better. Just keep slamming them. If it doesn't hurt, it was probably not a worthwhile workout. And then I had to figure out that okay there's there's a lot more nuance than uh

just this should be reassuring to people everybody starts off with these kind of mistakes oh yeah like you just gotta you gotta you can't you can't know until you did the mistake look look back and cringe yeah i coach does that what was I doing? Yeah, I had one workout where we programmed like a hundred clean and jerks, a hundred rope climbs. And it was broken up. It was like you're in a park on Bulgaria. The German volume train. Oh, yeah. Cool. Rope climbs with this. Yeah, it was just I mean, we did so many ridiculous things. I let Josh Bridges, who, you know, is one of my closest friends, but,

um, don't ever let him program a workout for you. Duly noted. He, uh, you won't go run on the beach with me. Fuck. No,

man. Yeah. No, sir. This was like, you know, 2007, 2008,

but, um, you know, he, we would always love the 12 days of Christmas workout, but he would also, it would always start with a 400-meter run, right, which then puts you at, you know, whatever, three and a half miles.

He's moving you into a deficit so he can just, like, blow you out. But I remember we did this one, and I think he finished in over an hour, and I was like an hour 40 or something like that. And I'm like, great workout. But that's what we thought was cool at the time, you know. come back at five and do it again no no i'm telling you no i'm quitting i came from the the opposite side of the spectrum i was like we can do fran in under like 10 minutes awesome yeah like i don't want to work out for two hours i came from like weight lifting where you like hang out in the weight room for two, two and a half hours. But the whole amount

of work was 15 minutes of that? I discovered CrossFit. I can do a workout in 15 minutes? Fuck yeah. Let's get out of here. That for a while.

Yeah. It's definitely the fundamental difference and some people are just going to love to go at it forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

Yeah. I actually have another question. So we have a lot of guys right now in our audience specifically that are smaller CrossFit athletes that are trying to put on muscle mass. Do you have anything that you do for guys that are trying to put on muscle that's unique?

Or what advice would you give to people that are brand new that want to put on muscle mass and not be 155 pounds anymore? Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure that any of it's unique, right? Okay. Just general tips then. Yeah, a good strength-based program. One thing I would say is we've actually played a little bit.

I do think you can develop max strength and aerobic base together, which I'm not sure everybody would think of. But what I don't think you can do. That conflicts in textbooks, but it's possible. think you can do textbooks, but, but it's possible. Yeah. Textbooks. Yeah. I don't think, I'm not sure the textbooks are right on that. What you cannot do though with CrossFitters, I do not think you can do a lot of glycolytic work and develop max strength. That starts competing with the max strength. Yeah, exactly. And so, and so the, the aerobic base stuff, if you're thinking low intensity, right,

it's not going to mess up. Your cortisol levels aren't going to be way out of whack in the same way. I literally agree with that. I mean, if you can take a power out there and build them to a 1,000-pound squat and at the same time make them drag the sled for an hour a day, there's no conflict there. He can do that. He gets tired, but it's fundamentally different.

And it's not hogging the resources it takes to recover from the squats. But, yeah, if you did a lot of hardcore rowing or maybe heavier sled pushes then you're gonna start eating into that maybe think about like keeping the if you're training the different energy systems at as far apart as possible it's okay but as you start creeping in towards the middle you might be eating into the other yeah i think that's right so i would say that i think in terms of comment and and I should clarify, like if you look at our regular gym programming, right, we're programming for just GPP. So we will do some strength and then we'll do a little, you know, five minute burner or whatever. Right. But those guys aren't saying, OK, my goal is to get huge or get really strong.

And so so we'll do that in there. But when it comes to training a CrossFit athlete, Josh or Camille, in the offseason, they're not going to have a ton of that kind of mid-range stuff if we're in a dedicated strength. If you're building up aerobic base in the offseason, what does that look like? Is there a lot of rowing, airdining? Yep. I really like rowing. I really like airdining, and I really like swimming, only because we don't have the eccentric loading.

No impact at all. Yeah, the running um it's necessary and depending on the athlete it's you know we may do more or less of it um but if you're just looking for an aerobic base i i think they're recovering a heck of a lot better from some of the low impact stuff okay yeah it's not gonna be up your muscles or your joints joints as bad as doing things that have a lot of impact. So you were talking about, very briefly, you said something about having them on more of a strength program. Do you guys do four-week blocks, six-week blocks, or you just do week by week?

Or how do you structure strength programs for people that are trying to put on muscle mass? It's going to depend. I mean, that really is variable based on the athlete. You have some athletes that adapt very quickly. You have other athletes that take a long time to adapt, right? I mean, CrossFit, you said, is ADD, right? That's a really common mistake.

You'll see guys, like, they'll start to make progress in week four, and that's it. They change gears. Yeah, they change gears, and you're like, whoa. For no reason. Yeah, they were just starting to adapt. So you program a week at a time, and if they're making progress, then you just keep doing what you're doing.

Exactly. If they're not making progress, then you can change. Why would you change what's working? Why? Which, by the way, is a horrible business model, right? Just because it's a lot of work, you mean? It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work.

Because I can't write out a 12-week program, right? I can't just give it to them and be like, yeah, go for it. If you could sit down in an afternoon and write a 12-week program. I can't just give it to them and be like, yeah, go for it. If you could sit down in an afternoon and write a 12-week program and then forget about that person for 12 weeks and then start something else, you could handle so many more people. We've got to go week by week because I've got to see in their results, are they progressing? Are they adapting?

And if not, we've got to change something. Absolutely. If you want to give the person the best result, that's why you have to do it. Yeah. But you also have to be willing not to sleep on Sundays. That's right. Or go to bed at 2 a.m. Yeah, if your athletes need to be updated by Monday, Sunday suddenly is not a fun day.

And you personally are doing that for how many athletes? Well, I oversee about 50, right? But I will have two of my guys help me out with some. And as long as we sit and meet and say, hey, here's the direction and, you know, put together this. And then I'll just look it over and make some tweaks and changes if necessary. You have to give it a final okay. And I have about 15 that I, you know, I'm the only one that touches their program and I communicate with them. Yeah, that's probably a lot of work in and of itself.

And then you have to be running the business and doing all kinds of other responsibilities. 15 is a ton, yeah. And by the way, this also means that you can't push your personal training, right? Whatever you do is going to take a backseat to all these things. I feel like I'm still pretty bulky at 147 pounds or something. He's a bulky 147. Yeah, unfortunately. 147 pounds or so. He's a bulky 147. Yeah, unfortunately, and it's like the, you know,

I think we all have that one thing that just gnaws at us at some level. And it's the hardest thing for me is that I don't feel I'm not in great shape and I don't prioritize my own time. And so it's one of those things that is a constant battle for me. And I'm expecting my first child that is a little boy. Dude, it's going to go downhill a little bit more. Yeah. The hour you got the train right now in the garage or whatever, 30 minutes of that is going to that little boy or the little girl,

and you're going to want to do that. It's very important. But I think, you know, I'm looking at it a little differently. And, you know, I've gone through rough patches, and, you know, my fitness is definitely not where it should be but i also know that having that son i also want to be an example for him and so i'm trying to use that as much to motivate me like hey you better get your shit back in gear because you know sleeping four hours a night my cortisol levels are out of control right not not getting getting my workouts

in i'm like that's not being a good example for my athletes or for my son you know and um so my hope is as hard as i know it's going to be um is that i'm i really want to make that a focus for me personally um in this next season is find a little bit more my 20 month old is climbing up on the benches he's grabbing rings uh my wife will work with him. My 20-month-old is climbing up on the benches. He's grabbing rings. My wife will work with him. He'll do a bar muscle-up on the barbell when it's set up for a bench press, and he'll pull it up, and he'll pull his hips close to it,

and he'll smile real big. Man, there's no better feeling than doing what my dad just wasn't in a position to do for me. Tell me issues like, you know, pick up your shoulders, pull your shoulder blades back, stand up straight. Why don't you? No one told me that. And i went through football with that and like not till i was 25 that occurred like look i'm pretty bent over 25 years old like i could have

had my dad saying at one years old look here's how you hold a pvc pipe overhead right right yeah no it's a it's a it's such a great gift you'll be able to give to that kid well i realized um you know we were we were training one day and uh over at Josh's house and his little son Jack is mimicking everything he does. Yeah, I mean, come on. We were joking with Josh and my girlfriend. We were like, what's our son going to do? He's going to stand there and look at you with his head cocked sideways, like judging you.

We're going to do what Dad does. Yeah. Not good enough. Death is poor. Do your athletes think that you look at them strange in the gym sometimes? Oh, probably. If I get weird looks. Yeah.

Yeah, you're not the only one. Not just you, bro. Yeah, I just walk through the gym and people are like, are you judging me? Always judging. Always watching. The eye is always open. The weird looks, I don't know. You always get weird looks, though. Even if people don't know you. That's true. You got that look. It's the beard. It's. Eyes always open. The weird looks, I don't know. You always get weird looks, though.

Even if people don't know you. That's true. You got that look. It's the beard. It's the weird curly beard. Intimidating. I think that means we're done. We're talking about my beard.

It's over. All right. Thanks, CJ. Thanks a lot, guys. That was fantastic. So if you want to be hired by people, where should they go? I said that backwards. Yeah. If you want to be hired by people, where should they go? I said that backwards. Yeah.

If you want to hire C.J. Martin or learn more about what they're doing. Yeah. You should email the info at CrossFitInvictus.com. Cool. Awesome. And if they're in San Diego, then come check you guys out too. Yeah. And move to San Diego, guys.

Seriously. Everyone move to San Diego. I want to. I mean, who doesn't? I would like to maybe reduce my online coaching presence and increase the number of athletes that are actually in my gym. And, you know, I would love to be able to do that in the next year. Not be chained to your computer.

You're hiring coaches right now? We're opening a second location in August. And so, yeah, shoot an email if that's something that interests you. Also in San Diego? Also in San Diego, just three miles from our current location. Oh, very cool. I'm going to send my resume over. But I, you know, honestly, if you look at what's happened in some of these regions, too, look at NorCal. You know, the best athletes are training together, right? And it's making

people even better. I mean, Garrett Fisher, um, from NorCal is a really one. He's a great kid. His sister's on my team. Um, and she's an amazing athlete. She's only 19. She's going to be one that, that you guys will hear about, but, but, you know, Garrett has the ability to go train with Jason and Pat Barber and Neil Maddox and, and, uh, for a young kid, that's invaluable, right? And so I'd love to have a couple guys, you know, that might be able to push the guys on my team and Josh and, you know. We have that, our females, we have some phenomenal female athletes.

And you look at their lifting numbers. Little Lauren, 19 years old, got invited to Junior Worlds as a weightlifter. And she'll be going, I think, Monday after games, she'll go down for the Pan Am Games as a lifter. Fantastic. But she has the benefit of lifting with Camille and Nicole on my team. She looks fantastic with her lifts, Camille. That video of her doing that 250-some-odd easy jerk I saw on Facebook

a couple weeks ago, I was like, wow. Good Lord, she moves fantastic. Cam, just, you know, I know we're wrapping up, but I will say this. Camille does not get enough credit for the work she puts in. She is a technician. And if you ask her to improve efficiencies a little bit, she will be in the gym until she has it perfect. And that's why she's so relevant.

Is it a French-Canadian thing, man? It reminds me of, like, George St. Pierre with this method he brings to everything, like the humility to where there's good information, go to it, and absorb it with everything you've got. He's got the attitude you're describing. Maybe it's something in the Quebec you order or something, that they're just hard-working, salt-of-the-earth folks. But I think it's always important for

me to i try to acknowledge that with camille because she has a charisma and a presence and i think a lot of people look at her and they're like oh she's just so cute she's so bubbly that's why she's good right and they they know what what they never see is her work ethic and dedication she busts her ass yeah it's not an busts her ass to be perfect. Yeah. That's a good point to fucking end on right there. I couldn't think of any better thing to say. Very cool. What's your website? CrossFitInvictus.com Go. Go right now.

Go right now. You go. Go to there. I'm telling the audience to go to that website. Oh. I'm not telling you to go anywhere. You stay here, handsome. No, you go. Okay, I'll go. Plug your book, buddy. Well, I'll go. Plug your book. Yeah, plug your book. Go to Amazon, iTunes, download Progress, the book. I wrote it. It's fantastic.

It's been called exquisite. That's all you need to know. It's not a lie. Go for it. BarbellBooter.com, guys. Oh, yeah. My co-host on our show. BarbellBooter.com for lots of cool blog posts.

Go. I'm going to write one right when we leave here. He also started another podcast. Yeah. You should listen to that. That's right. First episode was filmed last night. It was awesome.

We were drunk. If you like the entertainment factor of this, you'll enjoy that. Yeah. If you enjoy the content of this, stay here. Stay here. All right. We got the six-month muscle gain challenge starting in about a month. So we're a little over half full on that.

If you want to sign up for that, you can go to barbellshrug.com, click on the shop, click on online coaching, and then click on the six-month muscle gain challenge. We've got about 15 more spots available in that program. If you have questions, you can email me, Doug, at barbellshrug.com. And if you like the show, go to iTunes, give us a five-star rating. Go to Facebook, like us there, and check us out on Twitter at barbellshrug. If you have questions specifically for us, we will answer them on our other little show on barbellshrug.com called the daily BS we'll make a short little video for you answer your question and you submit that

via Twitter or on that ask a question tab on barbell shrug.com cool see you next time all right man thanks CJ thanks guys