Barbell Shrugged - 96- Christmas Abbott talks CrossFit, Tattoos, Nascar and Strength for Women

Episode Date: December 25, 2013

Christmas Abbott Christmas Special!

This is the show you've all been waiting for. Merry Christmas. Indeed, happy holiday. With our guest, Christmas Abbott. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbell Shrug. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson and Chris Moore with our guest, Christmas Abbott. What up? This is the show you've all been waiting for. Merry Christmas. Indeed.

Happy holidays. If you're not listening to this on Christmas, this posted on Christmas, look at the date that it posted. You can tell by the tree in the background. That's right. It's legit. There are subtle hints in the background. And by the date that it posted. You can tell by the tree in the background. That's right. There are subtle hints in the background. And by the intro, I suppose, at this point. That's right.

Make sure you head over to barbellshrug.com, sign up for the newsletter, and we will, in return, send you the top eight snatch mistakes. There's probably keeping you from hitting that big PR that's going to send you to the world championships. You might be overselling it. We're going to just lie and say we're going to send him to the world championships. You might be overselling it. We're going to just lie and say we're going to send

a sexy video to Christmas. That might be an over promise on the delivery. They'll get much better. It's only over promise if they have to test it or something. I don't think anyone's

going to believe me anyway. If you sell it to them and they sign up for it and they're like, this doesn't work, you'd be like, well, you're doing it wrong. I will say this.

I have gotten many, many reports that say that once they viewed that video and they made a few changes, that they hit PRs. Well, then there's your data. There's your proof. It works. That's all I need is a few people to give me that positive confirmation. In case you didn't believe me. I've gotten so many emails proving it. I got at least three out of the 30,000 people to sign up.

That's a good percentage. Yeah. Okay. Since he forgot what we're doing, why don't you go ahead and tell everyone that doesn't know you a little bit about yourself and kind of how you got into CrossFit. Yes, please. Real name is Christmas Joy Abbott. All my birth certificate was not changed after my birth. I actually, while I was teaching a level one seminar, the guy in my squat circle asked me if that was my stage name.

No, and we're going to see how you squat today, buddy. How'd you respond? That's what I told him. Oh, okay. I said no, and let's go ahead and check out your air squat. So I incorporated that into my intro whenever I do seminars now I'm like hey my name is Christmas Abbott it's not a stage name and don't make fun because I can torture you now you say that every level one certain now I let them know it's not a stage name yeah it's kind of a fun intro I let

them know that I'm very tactile I'm very hands-on and a little bossy and that way they're not surprised when I'm like what are you doing and they look at me like I'm the devil. You don't seem like you would've got too upset about that. You seem like pretty happy-go-lucky, like you would've laughed it off with a smile and not gotten super pissed about it. I did laugh it off, but I think that he was actually serious.

Oh, no. It depends on how he says it, I guess. What's going on? You could tell if he was being derogatory or if he was just kind of joking around. What's more common to you? People going, hey, is that your real name or uh the fumbling mumble mouth hey i just uh i'm good level one and uh i just want a coffee

dinner food are you asking me out i just, I enjoyed the instruction today. I question on my real name, to be honest. I don't get hit on often. Hardly ever. It's probably intimidating. Is it the intimidation thing? I was in your class yesterday, and you were, as far as, you know. You were trying to hit on her?

It's actually been a while. It's actually been a while since I've been in a CrossFit class before. Yeah. It's actually been a while since I've been in a CrossFit class before. But I felt like you were being pretty aggressive with the crowd, with the class. And I appreciated it. It was good. Mike's like, should I hold the bar right here? Or maybe move my hands outside?

Well, this is the way that I approach teaching my classes is that I have a lot of things to do. And I love coaching. And I am aggressive with my coaching. It's just a different flip side of me. It's the same time as when I go into a workout or a competition, I turn into a little monster and that's how I approach with my coaching. I'm a bit more aggressive than a lot of my other coaches, but a smile goes a long way. So if you're like, you're holding the bar wrong, then they're like, okay. I'm going to try that next time.

Fluffy coaches don't get far. Will it work for me? Will the smile charm my athletes, you think? Yeah, I think you may need to woo them a little bit more than I can. And maybe combing your beard would help. Get the squirrels out. Get the squirrels out of your beard. It looks trimmed.

I did have it. Did you do manscape? I haven't. Boom. I think it's gotten better. It has gotten better. I did have my stylist do my beard before we came. A little combing, a little trimming.

You guys got called out for the faux hawk earlier today. Yeah, I normally just swoop it over. I think I just made a mistake in the mirror this morning. That's all right. I don't care. Every word you chose is awkward. Hair is for fun, I think.

I mean, you should have fun with your hair if it's on your face or on your head or, you know, whatever. Wherever it happens to be. Now that I'm looking at you, especially with the headphones on,

you know the baby from The Incredibles? The one with the little blonde curl on the top of his head? The really good looking one? Yeah, the top of his head. The really good looking one? Yeah, the little baby. That can crawl really fast or something.

And it has this one golden lock curl right there in the middle. And you kind of look like that baby with the beard. That's all right. I'm like a baby with a beard. I'll take it. You're just like that baby, but you have no distinguishable talents or skills. But you know, you have even more similarities because I heard you crying last night. You did.

You did hear me cry. What'd you do to him? You want to explain to the audience what you did there? What was it that was happening to me? You can explain it better than I can. One of my masseuses, she scrapes. So it's kind of like ralphing. How does she scrape?

Ralphing. So she has this little pool that looks like a stone, a flat stone with a circle on it. Kind of like Graston? Yeah, that's what it is. And she went and scraped them and he cried. Ralphing is different. It's called... It's ralphing, actually.

Ralphing is different, too. Ralphing is what she's talking about. I thought that meant something else. She called it something else. What she was doing is like the ancient Chinese version of grasping. And it's called like gu bai shu. I call it scraping.

Okay, yeah. It does feel like she's scraping you. And yeah, I got, I went to my pain cave for sure. The shoulder wasn't bad. So I've got a messed up shoulder and a hamstring. Shoulder wasn't bad. Hamstring

was a little bit worse, but then she went to the adductor, the inner thigh, which is still very, very sensitive right now. Right in this area. And it's black and blue. Right here. So if you follow our Instagram, you probably saw me in nothing but my underwear and being tortured.

And I pointed and laughed. I wonder how many followers this did. There is a video of Christmas standing right in front of me while I'm in my underwear and pointing and laughing at my crotch, which was very demoralizing for me. I was like, this is not how I envisioned this whole thing going down. Was that the real reason you were crying?

Yeah, it wasn't from the picture. Stop laughing. Somehow i didn't think this would be what success is like you traveled all this way to see christmas and she just points i can't help it there is a little bit of satisfaction that i find when people are slightly tortured maybe that's why i like coaching so much i think most crossfit coaches that is the case for sure if you if you it, then you're just lying. Well, there is a very distinct, let's get real, masochistic sort of fetish quality to CrossFit. These rods are tough, they're torturous, and people can't get enough of it.

Yeah. Like, they want more of it. And the more pain they experience, the more neon tights they put on. There's a correlation there. I'm not the man behind it, but it seems real. I have a lot of neon. Oh, yeah. Give it to me. Give it to me. Water. There's a correlation. I'm not the man behind it, but it seems real. I have a lot of neon. Oh, yeah. Give it to me.

Give it to me, water. Harder and water and wider and deeper my domains must go. And you're just getting basically the equivalent of being slapped on the back as you wear your Lululemon tights.

It's a weird scene sometimes. That's what I'm saying. All right, so we asked you about how you got to CrossFit and all the further we got was about your stripper name. So go ahead and tell us about a little more of your background. You know, growing up, I did two years of

athletics in middle school. So I really don't really, I don't apply that credit to athletics. Athletics as in what? As in like high school or collegiate. You played a sport? I cheerleaded for two years and I played baseball for two years in middle school. And then... You played baseball or softball?

Baseball. Nice. With the boys. I like that. I got hit a lot. Wow. I did. I'd always go at the bat

and the boys would hit me when they were pitching to me. Wow. So I either walked on base. I actually was... I guess middle school is like that age where you hit girls

when you like them, right? Were they hitting you because you had cooties? Maybe they couldn't look past her to the catcher. Is a cootie thing still at that stage? Like, oh,

look how gross Christmas is. I don't think so. I think that you outgrow cooties after fourth grade. And then 10 years later, you go, what were we talking about in middle school?

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for hitting me then, guys. So you didn't have a super athletic background then? I didn i didn't so after when i was about 12 or 13 i started kind of wandering into the other side and i really started to just kind of start smoking um drinking and you know people were like you started drinking at 13 well yeah because it's kind of like the creepy uncle story like you had your first drink at 13 or you started drinking? No, I started partying.

I started partying. Chris's creepy uncle story. Not your creepy uncle story. Not my creepy uncle. I don't have a creepy uncle. I remember the first two times I got drunk, the first time was involved at least a six-pack of Zima purchased by somebody's creepy uncle. I'm not proud of it. It's just, hey, at the time Christmas, okay, that seemed like

a really cool thing. Oh, wow. I always heard this stuff is pretty fun and I'll get to drink it. I got started earlier. It's deviant. Did you just sit in the back of his pickup truck at the lake in the dark? You know life is hard sometimes, young Chris. Sometimes you just need a drink. Here, have a cold one. Thanks. Sometimes Zimas are

the answer. So you started smoking too yeah 13 yes regularly like smoking like chain smoking early yeah i started experimenting with cigarettes when i was around nine wow wow so i started smoking regularly um you know my family i love my parents they're they did a really great job with me instilling that work ethic but they were both smokers. As little kids and growing up, we kind of grew up in that biker lifestyle. My dad was a biker.

My mom was kind of like the biker hippie. We're kind of hard times, and you are a product of your environment a little bit. So you weren't athletic growing up you started smoking and drinking when you were like what nine or nine to thirteen something like that yeah thirteen i really started when did you start crossfit then i started crossfit when i was i think 24 and so when you started crossfit was it a disaster at first like smoking for 10 years it was so the So the series of events is I accepted a job overseas with my mother. She told me about this job and I was like, harass this company until they hired me.

Went over as a laundry attendant. So I was basically taking people's dirty laundry and giving them their clean laundry. Exotic career opportunity. You know, I have to say that no matter where I am in life, I'm going to be able to figure out how to make it. Was overseas and just realized that I had a very unhealthy lifestyle. And that was an opportunity for me to make things that make better decisions for myself. I had no intention on being a health freak or even healthy. I just wanted better things for myself.

So I quit smoking, raging B for a couple of weeks. Like I warned everybody and I ate candy the whole time. A year later I started working out and then shortly after that I discovered CrossFit because a guy in the gym showed me this video of these three girls doing the, you know, the infamous nasty girls video. And I was like, I want to do that. I want to be a nasty girl too. It was so fascinating because these girls were my size, Nicole Carroll, Annie Sakamoto, Annie T. People do your CrossFit homework, understand your CrossFit history. If you're going to come into the game and not understand who the original CrossFit girls are, then you

need to, you need to go and to go right now and the founder and people sometimes I'm just kind of blowing away yeah so I saw this and I was like they're my size and they're doing amazing things and that was when I started kind of doing my own CrossFit style and because I couldn't get on the internet very often 2004 you said mm-hmm 24 i was 24 i gotta do the math so went around about way trying to figure out how old she actually is so your birthday is tomorrow my birthday is tomorrow how old are you gonna be i'll be 32 years strong oh shit i have to say like that for no one yeah you're strong wait so so is the realization to get

healthy like a gradual thing while you're over there you're just like man like i'm going down the wrong path or you just like sit in bed one day and you're just like shit something's wrong i gotta make a change cumulative or like all of a sudden like oh god no it wasn't even get healthy it was just making better decisions for my life when i was in iraq because you're you you sit there and you're in a enclosed camp with people. So you, you only thing to do is work, sleep, drink or workout.

Yeah. And you know, eventually one of those drinking got taken away. So you're like, well, what else do I do? You go to the gym and it's not like, it's not like real life in America or anywhere else in the world where you

have options to go do other things. You just work and sleep. And so I decided to fill some time to fill some time in the middle of a war zone at the time yeah i was i was not in the service i was a civilian contractor but i was in i went over to iraq in january 2004 that's when it was still pretty heavy and we were just getting settled in with the rebuild opera operation iraqi freedom and that was when we were sleeping in tents and mortars were still coming in. And depending on the sound, there's certain sounds that you heard.

So you knew whether one, how close it was and whether it was a mortar rocket or car bomb. We even had a drive by shooting one time. Don't worry, it's a distant mortar laughing about it. Well she's here now. It makes coming back home so much better. You can always laugh about it afterwards. Yeah, so obviously what's interesting to me is that you had this very, you're born and you're going through life and you have these parents and these things you assume you should do.

And all of a sudden things start accelerating. I guess that had to be a really formative experience being in that environment,, which had to be scary as shit, of course, initially. And then radically changed you into something else, like wow, you're so close to this outcome, this danger, I'm gonna do something awesome while I'm still kicking. Was that sort of what came over you? It was more, yeah, pretty much, you're in this environment that's so extreme,

and I had more of a, I just had such a wake-up call when I went over there, and I was like, holy crap, I was such a spoiled brat in the sense that I just didn't take, I didn't appreciate a lot before I went over. Unaware, maybe not spoiled. Yeah. Definitely unaware. And so when I went over there, I was like, holy crap, I really did have a good in the United States, even though I didn't have any money, didn't have an education and was like, you know, just barely getting by and causing a lot of trouble and whatever I could get into. But still, I had the opportunity to make those decisions. And instead of being a liability over there,

I wanted to be a contribution. And from there, I just kind of, it wasn't like, I'm going to get healthy. I'm going to change my life. It was more of, okay, I need to stop smoking so I'm no longer a hazard for everybody else in case something goes down I can run and get myself out of the situation versus have to be carried or left because they would leave you so you

and you were in Iraq for was it four years just on yeah just about four years doing your time doing my job so when you start cross with though it was still relatively early in the evolution of crossfit like you watched the nascar girls video but you probably couldn't just walk down the street especially in iraq and just find a crossfit gym like how did you get started then it was non-existent yeah i was the annoying person in the middle of the airbase gym doing crossfit or at least my version of it because until i found a couple guys that also did CrossFit. Right.

And then when I came home, that was when it was, it was the fight club of fitness and you had to, there was one at best CrossFit in major cities, major cities. So when you come home, you drove 30, 40 minutes to go to a CrossFit gym, you know, you, and there wasn't probably the best box, you know it's probably like because the one we started out in was man no code enforcer no and the world would allow that to continue one more second is that building falling down yet probably not i mean our building it was like that it was a shed a shed right yeah our first box was pretty terrible with a concrete wall structure sort of shoved onto the side of it to make one room. Did you guys have porta-potties?

I went to one one time with porta-potties. Ours bathroom was not impressive but it was better than porta-potties. Yeah, it didn't matter how clean that bathroom was. It looked dirty. People were like, you need to clean your bathroom. I was like, I did an hour ago. Some things just can't be cleaned. Some things can't wash away.

Some hurts run too deep. Can't polish a turd. And you can't put lipstick on a pig well you can but it's still a fucking pig you know i miss those boxes to be honest you know like my my facility invoke we we try and i have a little bit of old school mixed in with a lot of new school and it's because people are expecting you know they're expecting uh they expect more and more out of crossfit facilities which is great but at the same time man i didn't even know that they had a woman's bar until four years ago and i was like a woman's bar what do you why do i want to use a woman's bar what do i look like a weekly to you

and they're like no christmas is smaller for your hands and i was like i don't get it so for even after i discovered a woman's bar I still used to guys bar for for all of my going do you train at all with a men's bar now like I do when you go to a woman's bar to meet or something like at the American Open do you find it helps you does it feel like a toy in your hands it does but I get mad that they're not 45 pounds like I don't like to have to add that extra weight why is this shit so? You haven't acclimated to 35-pound bars yet. It's only been four years. Don't worry about it.

And then I have to recalculate all my weights instead of just throwing 25s on it and being 95 at 85. I'm like, I don't want to lift 85. Tell your coach, like, treat everything like I'm normally training. Let me go out there and think that it's a little heavier than it is and it's going to crush the weights anyway. I like training with a guy's bar because it helps my grip especially with deadlifts and stuff it helps grip strength and i think it's just another variable point fat bars are awesome and then when and then suddenly when they program it into a competition people like

oh my gosh the strength i have found that um like a fat bar effect you just described like you go to a regular bar and it feels like a toy and you feel strong and your grips and your elbows recover a little bit too because you're always squeezing all the time yeah but it's kind of like when you add bands to it there's nothing special about it other than it's different enough to make it a little tougher yeah and a little funner and and this that's what makes it good i love it it's like a spice you sprinkle it around you train bands much do i train with bands my bands yeah they make with bands much? With bands, yeah. They make me dance. I was like, oh, maybe she didn't understand the question, but I don't care.

Bands are cool. I like where she's going with this. She's like, what are bands? I actually, I don't train with bands much. If I program for myself, I over train, so I've been getting on my coach a little bit more to make sure that I stay in line. Who's programming for you right now? I have Jason Davidson, Doc. a little bit more to make sure that I stay in line whose program for you right now I have Jason Davidson doc he went

with me to the American Open recently and I've been training with him for the last four years basically since I moved to Raleigh yeah and how did that go American Open I didn't see how you placed her or I think overall how your lips were my weight class 53 kilo I placed 17th and that was coming off basically three months of no training. And that's right. You had a back injury, right? Gnarly back injury. There was multiple back injuries. I did a competition and then I just worked through it because I was like really in my groove for a while and you know, just doing clean pools at two 45 or fives. And I was just

like, yeah, crushing it. Accumulate a little too much. And then, yeah, did a competition, kind of allowed my form to falter a little bit, which happens in competition. And then just didn't play smart on recovery. And I kept pushing myself. And then I did a Spartan race and wasn't able to finish it because my back was just like, you've had enough and we're going to shut you down Christmas. I did one of those once. A Spartan race? No, I watched it. you down Christmas. I did one of those once. A Spartan race?

No, I watched it. I watched it. I watched it from a distance. All right, guys. You watched them leap through the fire. Okay. Damn, shut down by CTP. Mike was like, let's take a break.

And CTP was like, no. No, he was telling me we needed a break. And now he's saying we don't. So I guess we're taking a break. All right. Here we go a break, and now he's saying we don't. So, all right, I guess we're taking a break. All right, here we go. Three, two, one. Dude, you're around my cord, bro.

All right, we're back. And, of course, you're watching Barbell Shrug. We're listening. We're with Doug and Chris. We're both listening and watching. Yes, and we are hanging out at Christmas Abbott's apartment. We won't tell you where she lives so that she doesn't get all the stalkers. Raleigh.

Raleigh, North Carolina. She's like, I want stalkers. I love stalkers. They have to go through a lot of security. That's about it. If you get a stalker,

you just out-crazy them, right? Is that the strategy? Hey, man, what's your email? Just get off in their face. Hey, baby, I just got off a tough relationship and I'm not really ready for this amount of attention right now. I think that might backfire.

Yeah, pretty sure it backfires. Yeah, it's a risky play. That's right. Especially after the show, everyone would be like, stalk her. It's the only stuff you do when you're really bored and tired of telling them to fuck off. I was at McGolder giving with Africa,

all the African guys would just follow us around like hoping we'd give them money and they would just sit there and ask you questions and McGoldrick would just fire back. He'd just be asking questions. What's your favorite color? Where do you live? What size shoes do you have?

And they would be like, oh, I gotta go see you. And they would just leave him alone. Do you have a pet lion? That's pretty accurate to where if a woman's in a bar or a gym, that's kind of how we are like the guys will follow you around if you start actually asking questions and engaging then they get intimidated

and run away oh yeah yeah we're cowboys don't do that guys listen gentlemen what i understand of women which is very little but i do think i've heard five times at least that confidence seems to be very important you gotta got to have confidence, right? I mean, you know, you got to, if Christmas comes, you'd be like, hey, what's up? You going to buy me a drink or what? And if your tongue falls out and you go, I drink. Yes, for you. Money.

Here. That shit ain't going to work out, man. Little girls don't sit at home dreaming of being swept off their feet by you. So how'd you get started in this NASCAR thing? You're the first female pit crew for nascar is that correct uh it's a little bit like there was um boob sweat that was weird all right or boob sweat awkward awkward sound if you don't want to talk about a mask it's okay full-time full-time pit crew i was uh with michael walter pracing and one of the crossfitters that diego had called me up because he was coming up to charlotte to do some promotional

stuff and potentially sponsor a race and we did a pit crew challenge I excelled in hitting lug nuts you hit lug nuts you jack the car and then you throw on a tire and you know when when you first start CrossFit you're like snatch jerk jesus people can we focus on the lecture now we get so annoyed but at the same time when when so when i was coming to nascar and pit crewing specifically when i was going to pit crewing i just like every time i would i would go to practice they were like okay christmas i need you to i need you to really focus and and hit those nuts really really hard and i just go. Sorry, I can't take you seriously.

Can we call you something else? So, and then I'd have to, you know, I'd have to go into my little animal mode to be able to actually focus and not laugh. Animal mode. Yeah, let's back up. You almost skipped right over that. Animal mode, what's that? Animal mode, like your monster mode.

Monster mode. Just like monster mode. Oh, yeah. Like gorilla mode. Yeah, all that stuff. Fire mode. It's like the Hulk mode. What's your Just like monster mode. Like gorilla mode. Yeah. All that stuff. Tiger mode. What's your animal?

It's like the Hulk mode. What's your animal? You're getting closer. I don't really have an animal. Have you not ventured into a deep, you know, imbibed state and discovered your spirit animal? My power animal is a squirrel. That's what you found? Squirrel.

Oh. Yeah. Wow. So how'd you figure that one out? Yeah, what's the distinction? I guess from when I was a little kid, I just saw a whole bunch of different types of squirrels. Like they would always kind of come to me.

And now that I'm an adult, I realize that they'd go to anybody. But for me specifically, Kendrick Spears. I saw, whenever I would travel, I would see that area's squirrel. Like, so I saw an albino squirrel when I was in DC in fourth grade.

Did it scare the shit out of you? I saw an all black squirrel, like around the same year. I don't know, plus I like their mannerisms. That is a strange animal to be into. They're a little crazy. I could get it. They kind of harvest things, they hoard things. They're the cute bushy red squirrels.

Yeah. In Europe and I guess the North. So you have an infinity for squirrels. When I was growing up, I liked cheetahs. Are we going? Yeah, we're recording. Cheese, dog. Fucking amateur over here.

Cheetahs. He goes to Australia for three weeks and he forgets everything. What is this? That's a Macintosh. Can you say Apple? So what's curious, I was thinking about this

on the flight over. Thinking about what deep questions I would ask or what issues I would have faced in my own life, you see. There's two distinct things. One, I can't remember the last time I changed a tire, even like on a Volvo. And two, I've never fired a gun at all, much less a machine gun. So I feel even though I'm 5.7 times your body weight, I'm somehow half the man you are. That's my struggle right now. She said that like, oh.

It's weird for a male. Yeah, I haven't ever. I made that joke this month. The last time I shot a gun, I had to pump it 13 times beforehand. And you were probably trying to shoot squirrels. I shot a mockingbird and it broke my fucking heart. Oh, no. That's our story on the show.

I think you did. I think you have. I'll abbreviate. I was like, you know what? That's a hot story on the show. I think you did. I think you have. I'll be real good. I was like, you know what? It's a good story. I shot the bird in the head because it was pestering our cats and stuff. I was like, I got to get this bird out of the way.

I shot it, and as the pellet leaves the minute, undersized barrel that was my pellet gun, it travels out, hits the bird, it falls. I go, fuck! The fact that I just took life hit me hardcore. I was like 10 years old, 13, maybe. You didn't think about your consequences of your actions. No, no, no. And fact that I just took life hit me hardcore. Like I was like 10 years old, 13 maybe.

You didn't think about your consequences of your actions. And I go out, here's the tough part. I go out and look at it like one wing flapping desperately.

Like you can hold on, you can live. I have this motion floating over me and it gets up and flies over the house with one limb. I haven't fired a gun since

of any kind. It was a bummer. So we know you're not a hunter. I'm not. I get really, I got to hang out with some real men and get that skill

because if the zombie apocalypse happens, I will die quickly. I'll be the first to go. When you're rich to show you. Doug and I aren't real men. He hangs out with us, I guess. Is that what you're saying?

Eventually he's going to find some real men. I'm not a hunter actually. We had different childhoods. I remember being cut loose in the woods with a shotgun and being like, on my birthday,

I just went out and shot everything that moved. Happy birthday. Everything. Here's 100 rounds of 20-gauge shotgun. Go for it. Yeah, our childhoods differed significantly. Most of my time playing Super Nintendo. I was kind of, I liked to wear my Easter dress for as long as I possibly could.

I loved my Easter dress. It was the only time I got a new dress every year. And I would go and build forts and play with my neighbors. And my sister and I, you know, we moved around in the dress. So this is not too different from where I am now. And, you know, she would,

we moved her a lot growing up. And we would live in, you know, like a farmhouse for a while. And I remember we would just go and play in the cow pasture in the woods and wear my my dress for as long as possible but then we also grew up around guns like my family had some guns and then we would go to my uncle's house and shoot but I never went hunting like I don't have an interest in hunting but I like the fact that my family hunts and we harvest the meat.

But otherwise, I just like to shoot guns just in case somebody comes in my house. If we ever get in an apocalyptic scenario of Bledsoe, I'll contribute the skills I have. You and Doug, forage for food, kill the animals. I will contribute dick jokes and distracting commentary to your efforts.

Wait, wait. If you have dick jokes, you have to do dick tricks. Oh! Let's see. It's a whole different skill. Is that too far? You got the helicopter down?

He just got uncomfortable. He's like, I don't know about that. I have to Google that and see if I'm capable of executing the maneuvers, I guess. If I have the inventory. Little practice should be fun. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's what has to happen. Did you just say something about the inventory? Yeah, I gotta make sure I have inventory. A little practice should be fun. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's what has to happen. Did you just say something about the inventory?

Yeah, I got to make sure I have the appropriate inventory for that job. Well, it depends what you're talking about. I can only imagine. I did play football with a guy. No, I'm not going anywhere. Oh, my God. Listen to this. You should have seen this day trade.

I played a footballer guy His name was Rocco He was a long snapper He was a good athlete And all But he was Did you just call him A long snapper

He was a long snapper Which is a position In football Okay Snapped the ball To the punter My sport knowledge Just shined right there

He would get up His thing was He did like stand up comedy So he would get up At a team meeting So imagine like Just a room full of 18 yearyear-old knuckleheads, beasts, basically, and football staff and everything.

I feel like I worked with them overseas. Probably. Same evil. The head coach would get up and be like, OK, good meeting. Now we have first. He'd go like, Rocco said he wanted to talk to you guys before the meeting adjourned.

And he's like, OK, yeah, we're all, whatever, maybe he's like a pep talker. Come on, guys, let's band together. Win-win for the Gipper type shit. No, he gets up, and he proceeds to go, gentlemen, this one's called the Rockweiler. And he pulls down his pants, and he begins like, he like takes his

testicles, like puts them over on top, and he starts stretching out and doing puppetry. And he goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm going, what in the shit is this? And the whole room explodes with shocked humor. That's dick tricks. Like that. Is that dick tricks?

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Dick tricks. Because I knew a puppetry of the penis, which is a thing. There's a team of guys who go around doing opera performances. They were on the Howard Stern Show one time. They go, this one's called the sailor, or the sail. The sail. He goes, you stretch things out to form a sail,

and use something as a mast, and you can use the rest of your imagination to fill in the gaps. So now you know that. So it sounds like you have a good base to discover how to do these. Maybe that's my calling. Maybe that's my passion. I don't think my wife would be too happy with me pursuing that passion.

Listen, honey, I quit my job and I've discovered this penis puppetry thing. I've got the URL, dicktricks.com. I got my Instagram ready and my YouTube account. And your specialty is football teams. Hello, boys.

You need motivation. That's right. We had Shayna right there. This would explode into just a complete mess. Oh, my God. Everybody would love every second of it. I love Shayna. She's such a little beast.

So I saw her. First time I met her was at, I think it was the first year they did the NC sectionals, the CrossFit sectionals. So that was my first year competing. 2010, yeah. That was my first year. I literally got forced into it. Somebody else paid my entry fee and signed me up because I was not going to. And they did it a week before the competition.

So that was my first ever exposure to competing. And I was like like all i want to do is finish all the workouts finish the top 50 and hopefully you know like let things happen the first workout was a sandbag carry squat one and i'm running and i'm waving to all of my people i'm like look hi guys i'm in a competition and they were like go christmas go and i, well, you guys said to have fun. And then come to find out I placed fifth and then went to, uh, and I was even just like playing around a little bit, but she was there and I was like, who's this little girl? She's like my size, but smaller and bigger at the same time. And then she, we both went to regionals, which was in Florida.

That was when we were in the dirty South. I still, I'm still a dirty Southerner. And yeah, I was there in Florida. That was when we were in the dirty South. I still, I'm still a dirty Southerner. And yeah, I was there in 2010. Yeah. That was, that was a, I felt, I was like, man, I've made it in competition. It was cool. It was really, really rad. That was a good section or a good regional to be. Yeah. And I saw her perform and I just, every year she performs, I'm just in awe of like her strength to size ratio because i think that it does make a difference and i'm she just grinds it out and i just love it she goes into animal mode she goes into monster mode and she's uh she's been a big influence on me just saying eff it i don't care about being small i'm gonna be strong as shit and make them keep up with me anyway yeah she really

shines in competition yeah i agree with how awesome that is? Jesus, that's a good thing. You know what? Fuck this big, small shit. Give me a man's bar and shut the fuck up. It's fun. It's fun. So I used to, I don't do this anymore because of my injury, but I'm working back into it, is that I would load up the guy's weight.

If I would travel to another CrossFit, I would load up, I would try and beat the best guy in the gym. Use their RX. Is that the lingo? Yeah. I did that one time by accident. I just don't pay attention to shit. It's a prescription. Prescription.

Put some fucking weight on the bar, dude. People go crazy about having to have it RX. People will kill themselves for that little RX symbol. It's a problem. Scale people. Understand your ability and build. You got to go with the weight that's right for where you are, not what you want to do.

I still scale. Do you have a trick for, you do scale, huh? I do. I do. I need to understand if I'm on the borderline of over training, if I'm recovering for something, if the workout says 315 pound deadlift i laugh and do that no i think like not yet for you it is heavy for a lesson for less i mean i scaled in

your workout yesterday yeah yeah during the warm-up because what you see traveling new environment new coach new procedure new method you should scale down. I bet you're a broken, broken figure. But the thing is, I could have forced myself into the positions to let the ego get in the way and then make things worse, but I know better. You wouldn't be training. It's not hurting you. Is there a way to like,

because that's the hardest thing sometimes as a coach is to get people to check that ego and say, hey, I'm gonna do this safely. Do you have any tricks for convincing people that they should scale? Because people are really opposed to it. Yeah, lead by example. All of my coaches, so when we program the workout, we want them to hit a certain stimulus.

And with that certain stimulus, that's where you're going to get the best return out of your workout. And we tell them, hey, you may be able to do 135-pound clean, but we're going to sit here for 30 minutes waiting for you to finish when you should finish in 8 to 12 minutes. Ideally, you know, 8 to 10 minutes. So, and then, you know, maybe you overestimated what you should be. So scale the weight to, or whatever it is that you need to,

to be able to hit that time domain or that weight domain, whatever it is, depending on what the, the, the, the outcome of what you want it to be. Um, and so people have to understand how to analyze the workout and to be able to analyze themselves, to know where to push it, how to push it and, and really get the best return out of it. I think Louie's, one thing Louie always said that stuck with me forever is that you got to realize that you got to train optimally, not maximally.

Yeah. Like they train maximally not maximally yeah like they train maximally when that's appropriate but yeah what's the best thing you could do now not the most of the things you could do people think that you're going to get better through the more work you do that's just a classic trap you pull into i just i'm doing this this and this i thought i'd be improving it's not happening what you're doing way too much man it's like medication recover from the thing then the strength comes right You get that from being optimal. Especially for more experienced CrossFit athletes,

the thing that holds people back from making progress isn't the fact that they won't work hard, or they won't sleep, or they won't recover. It's the fact that they peak, and then they get injured, and they take a little time off, or they have to back it off a little bit, and then they think they're better, and then they get injured again, and they kind of go through the cycle

of little injuries here and there because they don't scale. I mean, he's had a big back injury. I'm a little happy because this is the last three months of my life every competitive athlete is guilty of that oh yeah our pride is big when it comes down especially returning because you're like oh yeah i can do this and it's light and it's easy and then you realize that you should have scaled like i feel fine yeah the last two weeks i've been scaling and it's been awesome and i feel stronger than ever

and i feel good and i'm gonna to come back to be, once I RX it again, I'm going to be able to really demolish these workouts. Can I mimic the voice in your head? Christmas, those fucking tires aren't getting any lighter. Put some fucking weight on the bar. Is that what you hear in your voice? I do. I hear myself. I shit talk myself.

So there's a couple of different voices in my head. Oh, is this schizophrenia? Only during my workouts. Not hitting on her tonight. So there's one that's like, NASCAR Christmas is just a different individual.

And crowds for Chris are like, NASCAR? People keep talking to me about this fucking NASCAR stuff. No, she's crazy. No, don't. there's like three other Christmases that run around. They always confuse me with my friend.

So there's a voice in your head that says like, you can't do this. You know, it's the one that's like, there's no way you're gonna be able to pull this off, you aren't good enough,

et cetera, et cetera. And you have to just shut that mofo up. And the way that you shut them up is you totally lie to yourself and you're like, I'm the baddest bitch in here. I'm going to piss on this bar. I own it. It is mine to take, right? I'm taking this home. I am the baddest one here. I'm going to do this the fastest. I'm going to do

this the best. And it may or may not be true for, in my case, it's usually not, but it makes me feel good and it shuts that other voice up in stark contrast to you my voice says if you think about it it's cream eggs and sugar it's really just kind of like breakfast not ice cream really so much actually speaking of nutrition over the break you started talking about paleo and you started you're really slamming it i wouldn't say you called it bullshit but but you had a pretty strong opinion about it what do you think about paleo and you started you're really slamming it i wouldn't say you called a bullshit but but you had a pretty strong opinion about it what do you think about paleo overall you can still get an insulin spike with just paleo like under blast me still my heart it's true go ahead and explain yourself i kind of you know and and bless them i honestly you know

you come into crossfit there's a lot of information and i've been in crossfit you know since i don't even know how many years now but and i'm still learning and i'm always going to be learning but understand that there's another option there's multiple options and i think food is a drug so you have if you're and this is kind of like my two second spiel where um people are like what do you do paleo i'm like look if the doctor prescribes you this amazing amazing medicine and he's like you're gonna feel better you're gonna perform better you're gonna look better you're gonna think better you're gonna feel better emotionally yes you want it right it's called testosterone i don't think any of those things are associated with testosterone or too much. Excuse me. Too much. That came in a pill. You were like, I don't know about that. Too much testosterone.

There's like rage. But you make a good point. If that came in a pill. Came in a pill. People would fucking mortgage their house for it. They're going to go crazy for it. Yeah. So that is food.

If it comes in apple form, like, well, fuck that apple. Well, think about this. Your prescription. So he says, I have this amazing drug I want to give you. And I'm going to write you a prescription. You go home and you have this bottle full of these amazing pills and he didn't write down how often you take it

or how much you take. So you have no idea. So you're like, do I take five now and the whole thing now? You don't know how to balance out your dosage. I know Chris would take the whole bottle. Well, if one's good, five is five times as effective. Right.

You're dumb. Hold your hand to everything? So look at food as in the dosage and the quality. So paleo is the quality of the drug. Like that's probably the best type of drug you're going to get. You know, that's not the generic brand. But the dosage on how much you take and when you take is zone. And how much you take and when you take is much more influential on your performance and your emotional state being and all of those other things than paleo.

So you can you want to balance your hormonal response throughout the entire day. And you can offset that balance greatly by just eating paleo. But you if you do zone and you do it properly, then you're going to, no matter what you eat, you can deviate from paleo. You can have that ice cream. You can have that beer. Whatever you want to eat, you just have to eat it in the correct dosage. So for me, tomorrow night is Vice Friday. How many blocks is the terminology of beer should I have?

The rule is five by five. So no more than five blocks at one time and no more than five hours without eating. So five pints. Is that cool? Five pints. You heard her. He's going to be drinking beer and eating chicken. I got lost on the whole zone thing

when they started breaking grams into blocks. I go, why don't we just use grams like we've been doing our whole lives? Right. But you have to understand. So it's kind of like pounds and kilos. It's like whatever you figure out works for you, then do your own cheat sheet and stick with that. I got it. Yeah.

It's not that hard. Like you cook your food, you put it on your plate. All you have to do is put it either put it in a measuring cup or put it on a scale in between so there's this fiddle factor too like here's the recommendation let me dial it in so i so i get the response i want and yeah you can totally tweak it to so this is kind of cool because this is part of my workshop is i'm going to walk you through an entire week of nutrition like a food plan and then we're going to talk about wad analyzation because i really i like geeking out on and this is the stuff that I that works for me so this is kind of why I'm so so into it is because it did work really effectively but I don't

remember what you said I tried to do it once I go right okay let me see tried to like, I was like measuring out strawberries or something. The blocks and the units. I got it. And I, I made the measurements. I go, surely I'm not supposed to be eating two fucking bushels of strawberries. And like a glass of like, what the fuck, man? Oh yeah.

Pretty sure that's going to make me real fat. Nope. Nobody got fat eating fruit. I'm pretty, pretty sure of that, first off. No one's like, oh, I ate too many apples. Look at this. I understand it's a rare issue, rare condition, you know. But in my case, I don't need that many blocks of that.

But you do. You just get to choose whether you want it to be paleo and have 10 bushels of of strawberries or if you want three pieces of toast ben and jerry's baby or you know just toast i miss the bagels and cream cheese sourdough toast cold coffee and shame for breakfast every morning garlic cheddar sourdough is the best to san luis sourdough next time i go back to san francisco we're to get some of that. Let's get into the shit here.

What are your favorite cheats? What's your philosophy when you travel? Do you take time? If you're in San Francisco, where's a good place that sells the stew? The stew. The seafood stew. They give you a big, piping hot, crispy, fresh. You get a bowl of cioppino, and they offer a offer a big crusty fresh loaf of sourdough bread.

You're going for the bread, right? I mean, you're in San Francisco. Do you count that more beneficial than sticking to the diet? I stick to the diet. So, for example, that's why I love Zone so much is because if I'm ordering stew, especially if it's just a base meat stew, then I still need to get my carbohydrates. So I get to eat that guilt- free and I still have a pretty good balance. You just quantify it, right? Yeah.

And then I crush a cupcake for dessert. Hell yeah. Can I, at the Christmas party tonight, can I crush some cupcakes? Yeah. Somebody better bring me a cupcake tonight. What's up with the cupcakes and kettlebells on a t-shirt? I'm avid on how much I love cupcakes

because one, it's an individual cake just for you and you do not have to share it. Where like real cakes, you have to share. And you're like, I don't want to share this. I've eaten the whole cake

like 15 times in my life. You haven't been to Chris Moore's birthday. I'm just like, all right. But if I don't share, they're like, God, Christmas is such a little thing. So cupcakes, I can look at you and be like, that's a cupcake I don't share they're like god Christmas is such a little you know

so cupcakes I can look at you and be like it's a cupcake I don't want to share are we going to have cupcakes at your birthday party tonight I hope so

I hope somebody does it's not her responsibility Doug yeah I knew there were going to be some I brought an outfit she might have she might have managed cupcakes

and knew they were going to be there there's actually this really good place in town Gigi's cupcakes. We got one of those. I want to, I really want to own a cupcake shop. Not so I,

cause I, I like to bake in my pastime, but it's not always that great, but it's pretty good. But I want to own a cupcake shop and probably tell you how to do it. Just so I can have cupcakes whenever I want. My wife sent me a picture of her office and somebody brought in those exact cupcakes, like the holiday editions.

Oh, I love them. And she goes, it was something like, you know, the big question is how in the fuck are you supposed to survive this kind of off-survival? And there's a picture, it's like 45 fucking dozen cupcakes for eight people. They keep getting brought in.

They're like, come on. They don't eat. They just keep, it's pure sugar all day. See, my preferred cheat. No keep getting raw. They're like, come on. They don't eat. It's pure sugar all day. No real meals required. What is your favorite cheat meal? Because I'll tell you what mine is. I'll give you my theory. I've thought long and hard about this. Longer than my career goals or anything.

I think to myself, I notice that when I eat cake, I get a huge... You agree with me, CTP. Cake triggers some sort of visceral, unpleasant response in me. I get heavy. I get a huge, you agree with me, CTP. Cake triggers some sort of visceral, unpleasant response in me. I get heavy. I get very sad. Ice cream?

Never a bad decision. Fucking never a bad decision. And a whole pint minimum of Ben and Jerry's for me. Preferably Chubby Hubby. What's your go-to, like, Christmas, like, you did not nail the lug nuts today. You had a shitty day. You come home to the apartment. What's the soothing meal you're going to go for?

Meal or cheat? I consider cheat dessert. I'm going to have a good meal and then be able to off balance some of that hormonal response. If it's just like a real simple one for the day. Your dirtiest, filthiest moment, what do you go for?

There's two different situations. If I didn't perform well that day i don't reward myself you're not an emotional you're not an emotional eater not really okay um but i you know if it's just like a normal cheat whatever then i go for a cookie if i don't feel like going all the way it's a chocolate chip cookie um sometimes too i i can't eat a lot. You know, like I'll nibble here and there. But if, you know, if I'm like, I've been really good and on it and it's time for my cheat meal, then I'll go get a Gigi's cupcake. Yeah. Not too bad.

We can work on that, dog. We can dial that up. When's your off season? We'll rendezvous for version two of the show. We'll do just, we'll blow it out for epic cheat meal. I'm on my bulk cycle right now. Can't you tell? One cupcake's not going to do super huge over here.

I'll trade you some of my weight. Have you thought about going from 53 kilos to 58 kilos? Yeah, that I naturally can't hold. I can't hold it. Don't you have a solution to this problem? She says she can't gain weight. She's talking about eating cupcakes. That is the solution.

So before I got injured, I was... I bet you'd sneak up there real quick. My Fran time would be 10 minutes. I don't know. I'd be blown to bait. I don't know. I think we should test this. So during the summer, after regionals, I started, you know, I went back to milk.

Love, love whole milk. Don't give me that nonfat bullshit. I drink raw goat's milk. Oh, it's good. Yeah, you don't have to convince me. I'm all about it. I think the whole milk from the grocery store is disgusting and watered down compared to like raw milk. Yeah, raw milk is delicious.

It's just like heavy cream. Yes. Yeah. Yes. So I decided to consciously just put on weight and I was doing really well. And I was, I think I had gotten up to like one 22. Um, there's a lot of women out there that hate you right now. What are you weighing right now? My natural physique is petite anyway. So, you know, and I, you know and i you know i think i'm right now i'm i'm like right around 118

so but it was like solid mass and i was super excited and everything the weights were light and then i got injured um so i i lived at the 53 which is um you know 116.8 or whatever which is pretty easy to hit um but naturally if i were to gain you eight pounds, it's not gonna happen in a year. I don't think so. I think you probably would be pretty aggressive about it. Yeah, and I've been aggressive. I add blocks and I make sure that I, and I start, you have to add the calories.

You have to have the calories. And so it was awesome because for the first time in years, I really was just like went off the reservation on what I was eating and it was awesome it was awesome i was like i'm gonna have lasagna today a big drawback like anytime i try to gain weight i just hate it because i don't feel as good yeah and then when i return back to like the normal eating because i'm a smaller guy too like i have a hard time keeping weight on but i'm just happier when i'm not trying to put eat those calories yeah people when i go back i'm just happier when I'm not trying to eat those calories.

When I go back, I'm relieved. We see that all the time. It turns into a chore. When people are struggling to lose weight, I go, you should try to gain weight,

like purposefully. Like I know you've just been spending the last 20 years just kind of living this disheveled lifestyle and that's one thing, but to lose weight is tough. If you're like Mike,

you need to gain 10 solid pounds. That's harder than losing weight. It's the hardest training you've got. It's way harder than any workout you're like mike you you need to gain 10 solid pounds that's that's harder than it's the hardest training you've got it's way harder than any workout and you're uncomfortable all day because you have to eat even when you don't want to eat and i love to eat for pleasure yeah and it's like it kind of sucks to happen inside your life because you can't it's like i'll eat this third plate of roast beef and mashed potatoes i'll go for a nice stroll nice walk enjoy that doesn't happen you you lay in your shame. Most people never had the experience of gaining weight and then plateauing while trying to gain weight and then trying to keep going after you plateaued. It's a huge pain.

That takes over your whole life. You eat all day long. You don't get any breaks. It costs a ton of money and it turns into everything you do. All you do is eat all day. Yeah. What was the workshop you mentioned a minute ago? I'm doing a Christmas habit workshop where it's a one day workshop. I'm going to be hosted by CrossFit affiliates. The first part of the year is going to be domestic. So all U.S. And then the second part of the year is going to be international. And really, it's just going to go through like my backstory of not going from an F up to somebody that has you know had a really good

run with athletics and you know understanding how to make goals but ultimately it's gonna have a big section on food and understanding what it does for your body and your training and it's for competitive crossfitters body modifiers, or maintainers, you know, so people that want to gain, lose, or maintain. And we're going to do an entire week of a food meal plan. And from there, and you can tweak it, you know, I'll explain how to tweak it in the workshop. And then afterwards, we're going to do a workout and then we'll go into a WOD analyzation. So understanding what workout it is, what stimulus you want to hit and if you're doing

two a days three a days competitive training versus maintaining and understanding understanding what it does to your body and how to recover

and really just get the best out of training without having to over train or under train because we all over train

and if I program for myself like we were talking about earlier I start shit talking myself in my head. I'm like, three rounds. Three rounds is nothing. And then I'll convince myself that I need to do two more, which is I did this earlier today.

I need to do two more rounds and that might be sufficient. And so if I don't have somebody there saying, Christmas, stop. This is what we told you to do. This is what you're supposed to be doing. Then I'll just keep, I'll drive myself into the ground. That's why even great athletes need good coaches yeah most people don't tend to over train when they're training but for some reason endurance athletes and crossfitters will do it it's like that's the you get outside of those two groups and nobody's overtraining it's

not an issue but you get that triathlete or a crossfitter and now all of a sudden it's happening unless you're really high level like weightifter you might be pushing it really hard but only certain times a year though. You're not doing it all the time without breaking. You're not feeling

depressed. The weight's going to limit you. You're not feeling depressed by resting. That's not what the problem with weightlifting is.

Usually you hit it hard for an hour or whatever or two hours however long you get your train and the rest of the time you're not even

walking or doing anything. You're eating on the couch. I think it's more apparent to a weightlifter when they're overtraining or a powerlifter when they're overtraining. It's more apparent sooner than it is for a CrossFitter or an endurance athlete. As soon as your snatch feels dull,

put it lightly, then you're going to go, hmm. Well, there's major signs in a CrossFitter that you're overtraining and they tend to ignore it and allow it to, you know, and it's not something super radiant that is like oh my gosh it's a red light that you're flashing but it's pretty obvious if you know what the signs are and you know what are

the signs for you yeah um fatigue in the sense of i'll get i love sleep and i'll get eight hours most of the time i'll get six to eight hours probably you know on a regular basis and I'll wake up and during my workout even after the second or third round I'll feel like I'm still lifting through mud that's just a major one for me that's when I know that there's a red flag and I need to kind of just go home and people think that taking a day off is just mobilizing or stretching or going to work or doing a hike. Sometimes at that point, you have to take a couple of days off for your body to reset. Hydration is huge. Proper supplements

and not just taking any old shitty supplement, understanding what it does to your body and when to take it and when it's optimum. What do you take right now? For what? What supplements are you taking today? I have a pretty- And why?

So I wake up and I take my fish oil, obviously. I take the Luron Living, which is the deer antler stuff. It's really boosted my energy. It's kind of, it's really neat.

I feel good on it. Someone asked us about that. I haven't tried it. I hear people talk about it all the time, but I've never tried it. I take something else for my cardio. Like a,

what is it? CQ 12, CQ 10. Cocoon. Yeah. I can something else for my cardio. What is it? CQ-10? Cocaine. Yeah. I can't pronounce a lot of this stuff. And I'm like, okay, let me take it. The voice in your head says, shut the fuck up and take that pill. I drink amino acids throughout the day.

And then my post-workout protein shake, which I take immediately before I even cool down. Just protein or anything else? I mix it with coconut water. Oh, okay. And I have the protein and the carbohydrate. And yesterday, I didn't have coconut water,

so I ate a cookie. My body's going to burn it that quickly after a workout. It's like, I don't even care. And if you did do that, those extra two rounds, a cookie is not a big deal,

you know? Yeah, I think I did do that. In fact, you probably could eat like five or six or seven. Probably be a benefit to recovery. That's my prescription to you. Christmas, eat more cookies. And then, let's see. More cookies, less cookies.

I'll take a ZMA at night. Yeah. Gives me crazy dreams, like waking up with people in my bed I never had the kooky dreams though I wish I did I have yeah I don't have me either ZMA has definitely put me in a better dream state very fortunate to hear that so have you scheduled any of those workshops no i just launched my website and to be because i was redoing my website and to be able to have the the workshop and so people can register and well and it crashed like the first day from too much traffic right it did

crash it crashed the first day and the second day and he's like just don't post it on facebook and i'm like oh yeah just don't don't tell anyone about it. Keep it a secret. You're a victim of a bro avalanche. You know, what's funny is most of my followers are women. Oh, are they? Yay. Yeah. Well, none of us fucking guessed it, but hey.

I love the feeling. Not us. No. So you popped up on my radar originally because of your pistol tattoo. Okay. Yeah, that picture. That's what I was I was expecting one picture you was a pretty cool one that was like the yellow probably saw you before that but

that's right that's what I noticed years ago I have to say that's a great picture that was really good lighting and then my photographer who he so I lured him into CrossFit and he came in he was like he did BMX extreme photography he's like I want to kind of get into something else. I'm interested in CrossFit. So we were like, yeah, come take some pictures. So he comes in. He's pretty cool.

And he's gotten some gigs for some photography. But it's nice because we were just like hanging out in my gym. And I had my pistol there. And this guy came in to fix the toilets. And I was like, uh, kind of awkward just hanging out here naked with my 45 bathroom excuse me all right what sorry tangent what inspired that tattoo so when I went over to Iraq I didn't know how to shoot guns I you know I had shotguns kind of when I was a little child with like my dad would give me the the shotgun and kind of laugh when it blew me over

hold this little girl oh hold it tighter um but i didn't know how to shoot before i went overseas and i was to be honest i was actually pretty much anti anti-gun because i didn't understand them i didn't know how to do them i was like they are terrible didn't know how to turn them off if you needed to turn one off. Had no clue. Didn't do any homework. Where's the off button? No education at all. So I went overseas and I realized, I was like, holy crap, if something goes down, I need

to grab one of these guys' guns and be able to use it. They would really appreciate that. Looks scary. Oh, where's my pistol? There's Christmas. Just shooting shit. Like fucking Bruce Willis. So when I came home, I got a, you know, I went to a different employer, which I had to actually qualify on the Glock.

And so I decided to learn. I learned how to shoot and I fell in love as soon as they put it in my hand and let me fire it. I went through an extensive training session before where I had to understand the safety. Nothing was ever loaded. I had to be able to load it, unload it, carry it around properly. That's the answer to the gun problem, right? Education solves that problem, doesn't it? Understanding what it does and how to handle a gun.

If you're not familiar with that weapon, don't pick it up. Don't put yourself in a situation where you're like oh i accidentally shot my toe off because i didn't know i had a didn't have a safety on there well shit yeah so do you have a you have a gun now i yeah i do yeah it's that that gun in that picture is mine so do you have a was it a glock no it's a kimber 45 okay yeah kimber 45 that's a that's a lot of aiming so it's so funny because people are like, why do you have such a big gun?

I'm like, well, if somebody comes in my house, I'm not going to piss them off with a nine. I'm going to stop them. I don't know what the number is, man. I assume it's a big gun she has? Yes. Was it a four something, four what? A little more stopping power.

It's a 45 caliber. So the bullet is like half the size of a dime? Oh, that seems- You want to see one? A bullet, not my gun? I'm not pulling my gun out. I trust you. I trust it's a very accomplished, capable weapon.

Follow her. Yeah, go follow her, man. So what's happening now? We'll keep entertaining people. If you're only listening, this is not good for you. She's come back with a gun case. That's an ammo can.

Just an ammo can and everything. Look at that. That's pretty rustic. So that's the 45. Whoa. Jesus. Yeah, that thing traveling at you. Well, I know a 9mm travels 1,300 feet per second.

How fast does one of those travel? I don't remember. I don't know how fast that travels. It travels fast enough to stop them. So one of those traveling about that speed will hurt. Could be fatal. Could be. I'm probably going to get ragged on for the case

of my bullets, but why? Yeah. Maybe some people, the other half of people are going to think it's awesome. It's an ammo can. Oh, that's cool. I jammed it. You jammed it you jammed it that means you weren't holding it tight enough whatever they're very sensitive guns um so yeah i i fell i fell in love with it and when i went overseas i i knew how to shoot got to shoot a lot of different guns, got to shoot a saw, all kinds of really, really rad stuff.

Very cool. Yeah. It was really, really cool. And, oh, man, I have it wrapped up. Shit. Okay, I'll explain that in a second. So when I came back home, like, RAC really just kind of made me aware of my situation or, you know, situational awareness. And I wanted to always make sure that I was protecting myself.

So the gun, I love to shoot. And ultimately, you always have to protect yourself and just be aware of your surroundings. And it's just a protection thing for me. But that tattoo serves as a reminder of that, right? Yeah. To be aware, to protect, to stand for yourself. Yeah, and it's cool because something I really, seems to be kind of a continuing story in my life

of what I didn't think that I was gonna to enjoy or was against even I ended up loving because I just was exposed to it and I took time to learn about it and educated myself I find many people who are anti-gun once they fire one all sorts of shit changes it's like farfing i've introduced three different people to guns that they were not big fans of them and then one afternoon of shooting and they're like oh let's learn more about this yeah yeah it's fun take a safety course know how to handle the weapon before you get the weapon and make sure you have all your license you know it's as a civilian and law-abiding and you know i i pay my taxes on time it is nice to be able to be rewarded by being able to protect myself yeah and yeah taking a class is not scary maybe some people might be intimidated by that but if you go

to a gun range they're not going to expect that you know anything they're going to be really good with you yeah and they're not going to give you bullets no they give you the little i had the little uh what are the neon orange ones forever until i'm not i could show yeah it's like just a fake bullet so you can put it in the chamber and shoot it but it doesn't actually like shoot um so it is it's just like a pellet for the gun so you can practice loading it and unloading it yeah awesome so what's funny is um josh and i my boyfriend and i went shooting at the range and when i lived in charlotte and he didn't know he came in and i hadn't shot my gun in a while so i told him i was like uh you know i haven't shot my gun in a while. So I was like, I told him, I was like, you know, I haven't shot my gun in a while. It might be a little rusty. And he took it as in, I haven't shot my gun in a while.

I don't remember what to do. So he was really sweet when we went into the shooting range. And he was like, so, you know, make sure that you hold it both hands. Hold it here. And he's like, show me all this stuff. I'm kind of, I'm letting him run with it. I'm like, okay. Okay, thanks, honey.

And we shot a few. And I always kind of like to warm up a little bit, and I always perform better under pressure. And so I shot a few times, and then I was like, well, let's time ourselves. Because he had his nine, and I had my 45, and I was like, hey, you have to unload it, show, you know, face up, unload it, show it face up, and then you get, you know, X amount of shots per whatever. And so I was like well let me

go first because because whatever and we went shot it and him and my tattoo artists are standing behind me and and he says three two one go i shoot all of it put it down and i look back to him i'm like done am i in time and him and my tattoo artists are like mouths open, eyes wide open, standing there staring at me. So I immediately I'm like, oh shit, I've done something unsafe. I look back at my table. I'm like, no, the, you know, the clips are out. The guns are up. You can see that the barrels are empty. I was like, like, and I looked back and I was like, what did I do wrong? And they were just kind of like, where'd that come from? And I'm like, what? I was like, I don't understand. What's going on? Tell me what's going on.

And then I was like, am I within time? And they were like, we didn't know you could shoot like that. And I looked at them, kind of like, really? And I looked back and I was like, you guys, I have a tattoo on my hip I own my own gun I was like there's you know I have to be able to have some kind of proficiency to be able to you know pull this up pull this off properly all right don't fuck with me so it's the inner boy and every man who goes look at this girl she's gonna try to shoot a gun watch this holy shit

that was the stomach fuck you shut the little boy up for good so Josh went and shot his and we pulled the framed if they weren't wrapped now I'd let you guess who's who but I think you know. Oh, wow. We're picking up your grouping. My grouping was much tighter and together. He definitely killed the guy, you know. That's a good thing.

You did good, honey. He actually just recently exposed me to clay pigeon shooting. Oh, yeah. That seems fun as shit, huh? I'm actually taking my brothers. That's what I'm giving my brothers for Christmas is I'm taking them out for clay pigeons for

Your brothers are going to be so grateful. Yeah. I had so much fun. I didn't know that I could shoot things in action. Yeah, it's fun. I really enjoyed that. You go on one of the little golf courses where you go to different holes? You know what I'm talking about?

Yeah. They have, well, there's- Whatever they're called. There's skeet shooting and there's clay pigeon. It's different. I'm talking about skeet. It's super, like a lot harder than clay pigeon. Okay.

I think so. But we were just at our first house in our front yard. I don't know the subtle difference there. There's trap and skeet. Okay. And the trap can, I think trap is where it goes along the ground almost. Oh, yeah. It's, there's, yeah, there's a few different variations there, but I'm not sure what's

more difficult. Yeah. I've only, I've only thrown them out in the air and shot them. Yeah. I've never done anything for sport, so I can't really comment. Yeah, mine wasn't for sport. We were at our friends that live outside the city a little bit and we were literally in their front yard. Yeah, we've always just been

idiots throwing them out there and shooting them. Hey guys, watch this. More redneck skeet shooting. Sounds like it'd be a really awesome drinking game. Skeet shooting? I once mixed skeets and alcohol and then I regretted it for

skeet, skeet, skeet. You don't want to meet... I think you probably did that more than once. No! You creep! I meant shoot clay pigeons! Christmas is embarrassing me so much on this show. Grow up, Christmas.

So immature. Come on now. Hold it together. Let's wrap this up. I think we could go on for a while, but I think we're going to have to end this because you've got to get ready. Yeah, I have a birthday dinner to go to. You might have a fierce dress to put on.

I do. Did you see it hanging in the bedroom? No. It's a beaded dress. Yeah, so birthdays for me are a big deal. I'm excited about this. Is it okay if we show up to your party wearing this? Yeah. Because we packed it up. I'm excited about this. Is it okay if we show up to your party wearing this? Yeah.

Because we packed this all the way back. We didn't really prepare. Yeah, the guys, you know, t-shirts and jeans, cool. Girls, we all wore sparkles.

So CTP was our liaison and he failed to tell us that there was a major birthday party going on. Otherwise, I would have dressed in nines. I coordinated it because I wanted,

well, you know, like I was telling you guys earlier, Josh was so bummed that he missed the American Open because of the weather. And he was just so excited to meet you guys. And he knew you guys were coming here today. So I didn't tell him that you guys were staying to hang out with them at my birthday party.

It's going to be fun. Yeah. He's really, really excited about this. He's in a fruit treat. Now, Chris, now that you've told this to Chris, he's going to go over the top and being entertaining. So that's what he tends to do. I'm just myself. He'll drink extra.

It'll be good. It'll be a good thing. If you want me to embarrass myself, I guess I will if this is a show. I do that every week anyway. There's a second time I've taken my shirt off. I think somebody should not have been taking my shirt off next to me. Your performance was great. Thank you.

I do appreciate that. It means a lot. All right. Any last things you want to promote? Twitter handles, Facebooks. I'm pretty easy to stalk. Websites. Yeah, just Christmas Abbott.

You did a great job on Instagram, by the way. Google your name and you'll probably. It's one thing to post pictures of yourself in a bathtub with a bar sub covering your vagina. It's another thing to offer real fitness tips for Christmas, so thank you. Thank you for that. Somebody asked me one time. You blushed, I think. Sorry.

I know. Good job. Somebody asked me one time, and they were like, so how do you figure out what you want to post? I'm like, I just post shit that happens in my life every day. What was it? We were at the American Open, and it was a dude's daughter, and she was like 12 years old, and talking about how you're a role model, and dude's daughter and there is a result and talking about how you're a role model you're like sorry that's a day

after Instagram was that night and that's another thing the next day I've had her just little girls way about this kind of stuff me you can be an awesome role model me so it smelled so good yeah the soap smelled nice but I also you know the next day I did well in my my lifts so I obviously didn't there was no way I was gonna PR with my my history of performance there but it's okay it was all right good all right get this dial shit out of my bathroom where's my pr snatch soap but that's one of the coolest things about about what i'm able to do is that there are either their parents email me or i'll get you know if they're of age then they'll email me or when i meet them that these rad girls that uh because her name was

alex right and she had just demolished all records yeah she now holds like all the american records for her age group and weight class i'm like starstruck when i'm meeting this girl and i'm like well i think more girls need to see people like you who can show them like yeah i know you feel like there's these set paths because society is a real fucking bitch towards women sometimes yeah they they try to shove you in a direction and tell you what you are really not really supposed to go after yeah and just like you were feeling that and then you slowly discovered otherwise you can just take all that experience and just give people a shot of a boost right when they need it at this that early stage and you could have used that yeah i think that's such an amazing age and i i really want

to do more work with that age group because it's such an amazing age and i i really want to do more work with that age group because it's such an influential age where you can really start messing up and kind of being embarrassed on trying out in case you fail um and there's just so many things there's so many moving variables with specifically girls of that age they're just really sensitive and for you know to for that girl she was 13? 12. 12, yeah. And smashing records. I'm like, can I have your autograph? Yeah, it's all right.

I told her dad, I was like, can I get a picture with her? Yeah. And she was like, oh, change that girl's life. She was also supposed to be taking the SAT that morning. Yeah, the next morning she was taking the SAT. So she's also really smart. Yeah, I was like, what? When I was 12, I didn't even know what the SAT was.

I would tell her, I've got to be honest with you, I would flunk the shit of this test. I still would. Yeah, good thing I took it a decade ago. Whoa, I'm old. 15. I don't even think I took the SATs. I took PSATs.

15 years ago, yeah. Terrible. All right, we're going to wrap this show up. Thanks for joining us. Had a great time. Thanks for coming, guys. I love that you guys Are my neighborhood

We wanna say Merry Christmas to our fans Merry Christmas guys Love y'all Cheers