Barbell Shrugged - Ask Me Anything on the Past, Present, and Future of CrossFit w/ Director of Government Relations and Research at CrossFit, Inc. Russ Grenne, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Greg Pitts — Barbell Shrugged #413

Episode Date: August 14, 2019

Russ Green is the Director of Government Relations and Research at CrossFit, Inc. His tenure at CrossFit started at the original CrossFit gym in Santa Cruz, CA where he admits he did not get along or care for Greg Glassman. He stuck around, continued to grow, and is now spearheading CrossFit’s defense against some the largest companies in the world in CrossFit’s efforts to raise awareness for health, longevity, and the benefits of functional fitness.   In this episode, the Shrugged crew digs deep in to the current state of CrossFit, Greene’s history with the company, moments where the company was under attack, and the future was uncertain.   Minute Breakdown:   1-10 What is the Director of Government Relations for CrossFit 11-20 Getting a luck break to work at CrossFit 21-30 is CrossFit the best methodology for training with all the new methodologies 31-40 Controversies in the CrossFit Community 41-50 Legally, what is CrossFit and battling for the trademark 51-60 The Russels and the final chapter of Russ Berger 61-70 Coaching is a different skill and is learned through doing 71- 80 Is CrossFit the Games or for old people 81-90 Why NSCA is confirmed to be lying about CrossFit   Connect with Russ Greene   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Greg Pitts on Instagram -------------------------------------------- Please Support Our Sponsors   Savage Barbell Apparel - Save 25% on your first order using the code “SHRUGGED”   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   WHOOP - Save $30 on 12 or 18 month membership plan using code “SHRUGGED” at checkout ------------------------------------------- One Ton Challenge    Registration is LIVE now   Find your 1rm in the snatch, clean, jerk, squat, dead, bench.    Add them up to find your One Ton Total.    The goal is 2,000 pounds for men and 1,200 for women.    “What is the One Ton Challenge”   “How Strong is Strong Enough”   “How do I Start the One Ton Challenge” ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes at: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/bbs-greene -----------------------------------------------------------------------   ► Subscribe to Barbell Shrugged's Channel Here ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Structure Family, we have a banger for you today. We get to hang out with Russ Green. He is the insider to all the knowledge of everything that has ever happened in CrossFit. He's like the gatekeeper to everything at CrossFit. The only person that knows more than him, Greg Glassman. I've been super stoked to talk to him. We've been chatting on text message and we've actually even had a phone call. Turns out he's a really legit

dude and he opens up and answers every single question about the past, the present, and the future of CrossFit. It is awesome. Super excited for you to listen to this. This is our first interview coming out of the CrossFit Games and it's a really, really good one.

I never thought that CrossFit would be so open and so willing to talk about the inner workings and where the company is going, why they're changing their marketing, how they feel about the CrossFit Games, the new sanctionals, and then the general messaging that they're getting out with all these weird videos of old people picking up water bottles in their house. But Russ is an awesome dude. We went and got lunch after. That's where a lot of the magic happens too.

Just very grateful that he was able to spend a couple hours with us in Madison during his busy schedule. And it's a phenomenal interview. The One Ton Challenge training plan is launching right now. You have today and tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday, to get in, improve your squat, snatch, clean, jerk, bench, and deadlift. Those six lifts, the big six that allow you to find out if you're actually strong. That's why we made the One Ton Challenge, because we want you to add all six of those lifts up. Squat, dead bench, snatch, cleanatch clean jerk to total 2,000 pounds.

Add them up right now in your car. Don't look at your phone to do it, but add them up. If you aren't at 2,000 pounds for males, you need to get stronger. If you're not at 1,200 for women, you need to get stronger. We have a program just for you. So get over to OneTonChallenge.com forward slash join. OneTonChallenge.com forward slash join. OneTonChallenge.com forward slash join. Join today.

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starting on Monday. You have until Thursday night and midnight to register. OneTonChallenge.com forward slash join. I want to thank our sponsors, Savage Barbell, the official clothing sponsor of the One Ton Challenge. And the show, and me, and all my Instagram videos. How awesome.

Killer Apparel, everything you have says Savage on it. That way, no questions. No questions. When I walk into the grocery store, everyone knows I'm Savage. We also sat down and interviewed Dave a little bit later. We'll get that interview out. But he's a phenomenal human being. Had a blast.

One-ton challenge at the games. Was so lit. And I'm just really grateful that we get to work with him. So make sure you get over and support Savage Barbell, all their cool apparel. Get over to savagebarbell.com and use the coupon code shrugged to save 25%. Savagebarbell.com. Use the coupon code shrugged to save 25% on your first order.

Also our friends over at Whoop, the official recovery tool of the One Ton Challenge. All these cool companies are showing up to do the One Ton Challenge with us. I think I'm actually headed to Boston next week to do it with Kelsey Keel. She might beat me because she's super strong. She's a Whoop-sponsored athlete. We had Jared

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Friends, support the sponsors. Get over to the One Ton Challenge right now. OneTonChallenge.com forward slash join. And let's get strong into the show. 20 kettlebell swings would be good. I get into the cycle of just warming up for 30 minutes. And then I'm just like stretching and I'm like, oh, you know what? I don't really know if I want to put weight on the bar.

And I just kind of feel real nice and I'm sweating a little bit already. Yeah. That's why EMOMs are good though, right? Because the first round feels super easy. It's your warmup. And then by round 20, you're fucking dead. Yeah. Round 20. Yeah. The first round feels super easy. It's your warm-up. And then by round 20, you're fucking dead. Yeah. Round 20.

I'm glad you get there. I really have noticed that I quit workouts with ease now. I set a high standard for myself and never fulfill it. Well, we did good today. We got to 20 minutes today. I did a round early, too. Oh, wow. You did 21 rounds. Yeah. i don't even know well i

did one cycle of that oh a full yeah because i thought you guys were doing it too we were waiting for you i had a little sweat going it felt good it's like everyone's working hard this is great well that was whenever i met connie more i almost always do amraps and emoms so i never have to actually complete a certain amount of work i can just leave in 20 minutes i can still work hard but like if i if i don't want to do, just burn myself in the ground, I can get out of there. I can put my effort into jiu-jitsu. If you're traveling, you can't be like,

okay, I'm going to do a 10-round workout, and it might take 20 minutes, it might take me 45. I really have no fucking idea. Can I curse? Oh, yeah, please. Please. Especially if it's authentic i'd like to have a little fire power behind the f-bombs are you saying that last one wasn't

for future ones your job 100 is just to be yourself okay yeah uh welcome to barbell shrugged i'm andrews varner doug larson greg pitts pitts in the house russ green i don't even know what your official title is i've only been following you for like the last 14, 15 years of my life, but I don't know what your actual – you've been like the force, kind of like the regulator of all things CrossFit for a very long time. But what is the actual title? Well, it's understandable because I've had many titles. It's always changing.

You know, for a while I was one of the Russells. Yes. Now I'm the russell we're going to talk about that but also um director of government relations and research is my is my current title it's a long time yeah government relations i wouldn't have guessed that i didn't know that i didn't even know we had a government chain an arm to crossfit a government arm well it's a little different from the way most companies do government relations because we're not trying to bring the government in.

We're trying to keep them as far away as possible. Yeah. But someone's got to do it. Yeah. When did you find CrossFit? How old are you? You're significantly younger looking than I. That might just be CrossFit.

How old do you think I am? That's right. He's 52. He looks fantastic. Well, I feel like when I first learned of you, I was like 23, so I assumed you were like the authoritative 35-year-old, but now I feel like you're like 35, 36, like we are. All right.

Well, I'm 32, so you actually just insulted me. So you were – well, I just assume everyone's my age. So you were like 18 when I was like, that Ross guy, he sure knows. You didn't know shit. You didn't know anything. I started working out 20 years ago. So I've been at this a long time. I've been doing CrossFit for 17 years. You just started writing online.

Yeah. I know. And my first CrossFit coach, I mean, give or take, was Greg Lossman. Yeah. That's all of us. Those were the days. Yeah. When did you first find it?

Like, how did it get started? Yeah. Why did you get hooked on this craziness? Yeah, I started working out in 1999. And I don't know if you guys remember the internet back then, but you got on through AOL. Yep. And I was like, I'm working out.

I want to learn how to work out better you know i was just doing the cybex machine circuit that the trainer showed me how to do and i was like this doesn't seem like it's the best way yeah so i go to aol go to the aol fitness forum and just start reading the posts and they're talking about like oh yeah you know it's not about isolation movements. It's about compound movements. And, you know, don't just do steady state cardio all the time. Do, you know, high intensity interval training. Yeah. And this sounds really obvious right now, but 20 years ago, this was like revolutionary stuff.

And one, you know, started reading about high intensity training. I don't know if you guys remember that. It's like one set. I learned about it on T Nation. I was doing the, I remember doing like seated rows for like 45 seconds as hard as I could. And then I would go to the next machine. Yeah. But there was no like compound.

I was basically doing like bicep curls for time in a way. I mean, it was almost like the CrossFit before the CrossFit. Yeah. In the sense that like, you know, super high intensity training. The people behind it were really behind it and everyone else kind of hated it t nation had like a couple like a year of a lot of articles that came out bodybuilding.com yeah i feel like i never read anything really positive about it though almost everything i ever read about back in the day 15 20 years ago people were just kind of ragging on like it's just not it's just not enough unless unless you're if you're not a real athlete maybe

it's enough for you but like if you're a real athlete there's better options yeah i'm not saying it's the best training program out there but you know there are some people who did it who did some pretty impressive things like one of the cornerstones of it often was like high rep squats and they had guys doing like 400 pounds for like 25 reps right 500 pounds for 20 reps you know that's i don't care who you are that That's super impressive. That's impressive. But I actually went to a high-intensity training seminar at, do you guys know who Dr. Ken Leisner is? Don't know. All right.

He was like the original high-intensity training guru, and he had a seminar at his garage like maybe 2001 in Long Island, and I went to that. That was probably the first fitness seminar I went to. And then I started reading about Westside. So this is all pre-CrossFit. And then finally, so remember, we're talking about this AOL Fitness Forum. One day someone throws a link in there to CrossFit.com.

And it was like, okay, it's compound movements, high-intensity interval training. And, oh, the other thing was people had been saying, you know, I know the food pyramid says you need 11 servings of grains a day, but, you know, maybe if you're just working out once a day, that might be a little bit much. You know, so I go to CrossFit and it's got the compound movements. It's got the, you know, high intensity interval training. And the nutrition seemed to be pretty consistent with what I'd learned on the AOL forum.

And I was like, oh, this kind of has everything in one spot. Yeah. It kind of made sense to me. And then I started trying the workouts. That was about 2002. And I think the first one I did was, like, hang power cleans and push-ups. That wasn't too bad because, you know,

you can cheat a hang power clean even if you don't know what the fuck you're doing. Yeah. That's a bicep curl. Then the next one was like one leg squats and pull-ups. And I couldn't do one leg squats at all. But then I remember there was one day there was overhead squats. Gets everyone.

Keep in mind, there wasn't a CrossFit gym within 3,000 miles. Where were you doing this? I was in a YMCA. Like what city? Jersey, gotcha. Yeah. And I go for my first ever overhead squat with 45 pounds. And I just, like, go six inches down, fall behind me,

throw it forward in a gym full of, like, 30 people. And at that point, I knew. Metal plates. Bang, bang, bang. Everyone's staring at you. At that point, I knew. I was like,, bang, bang. Everyone's staring at you. At that point I knew. I was like, you know, this is what I want to do. Well, that was weird.

I should do more. And then I just, my family, I just got really lucky because my family happened to move from New Jersey to California just about six months after that. And I just happened to be an hour away from the first ever crossfit gym so you know soon after moving there i started training at the original crossfit gym you know greg glassman taught some of the classes some of the other coaches you know got to meet all the ogs they call them nicole carroll um brendan she was a dream nicole carroll she was the reason i think i stayed with crossfit when she was kicking the shit out of all the firefighters

and 95-pound overhead squat tests. Yeah, she back-squatted, like, 290, like, 15 years ago. You know what I mean? Savage. Like, I don't know how much she weighs, but it's not a lot. And, yeah, so I've been doing it since. When did you kind of move? When did Glassman look at you and go, you're going to be a part of this team? It's an interesting thing.

At the very highest level of CrossFit, there hasn't been too many new faces. I mean, there's a new CEO, but there's a lot of those old people still around. I mean, like Annie still owns a gym. She still comes to the games. Nicole, Dave, all those people are still from, like, the very first seminar staff and the first coaches from Santa Cruz. Yeah, Greg Amundsen still owns an affiliate, I believe. He was, I think, everyone's original hero.

Right? Yeah. And, sorry, what was the question? When did you start working for them? Oh, yeah. How did it transition from you're just at the gym? Did turn into a coach it took a it took a very long time um i actually didn't get along that well with craig for the first maybe five or six years i knew him did anybody get along with him yeah you know that's a long time to not get along with somebody And still be around He sure is charismatic

But I hate him I like the program I feel like I'm getting fitter We're just not personally vibing What was the vibe back in the day? What we all saw on videos Was Nicole Carroll, Amundsen crushing it.

But I would have never guessed that there was somebody in that gym doing workouts that were really, really hard that make you feel like crap at the end and you hate the owner. Not hate, but you're not getting along with the owner. It doesn't make sense that you would actually stay at a gym like that. I mean, it's not like we were yelling at each other. I feel like if I went to a gym and didn't like the owner, I'd be like, okay, I'll just go to the one down the street.

There wasn't any other option. I was mostly working out on my own. I was an hour away, so I'd go there maybe once or twice a month. But usually I was working out at another YMCA back in Monterey because, again, there was no CrossFit gym near me. And I went to college in 2005, so I was in D.C. I'd come back from time to time, go to that gym, but most of the time I was in DC you know I'd come back from time to time go to that gym but most of the time I was in in DC training but um graduated 2009 um from where uh Georgetown right on and uh

couldn't get a full-time job I was doing some Arabic tutoring and you know a little uh fitness training but uh nothing full-time and then one day in 2010, I'll never forget this, September 2010, I had literally, I just got married, didn't have a full-time job, and I had not been getting along with my landlord, and he literally just evicted me and my wife, and we packed up our bags and did not know where we were going. And I got a call from Tony Budding saying, would you like to work for CrossFit?

Now, I hadn't applied to work for CrossFit. I didn't think that was even a possibility. But here you are. Yeah. Just like the lucky break of all time. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't sound real. Like, that was literally the time. Do you have any idea why they called you like what was the i guess what was the

impetus to them actually reaching out and saying this is a position we need you in i i still to this day don't exactly know they were looking for people in their 20s that were ready to fight the fight but i need a warrior at that that point, I'd started, you know, I don't know if you guys remember, like, 2008 to 10-ish, CrossFit, but that was a very contentious era. Those were my favorite years. I was fighting people, too. I actually lived in Arlington.

We were, like, right down the street from each other, and they gave me the rights to CrossFit Arlington. It was like the... But I ended up going to grad school and moving down to South Carolina, which was awesome because the gym would have failed epically. But I was doing it in Gold's Gym, and every time you'd be like almost get kicked out of Gold's. Yeah, it was very contentious because people started dropping weights. There was only like one person in all of D.C.

Well, there was two gyms, like Maggie and Jeff Tencher owned a gym that was like half an hour out in Fairfax. And then in DC, there was... Tom Brose. Yeah. Who? You don't know Tom Brose? Maybe.

CrossFit DC. Is that the one that was in the fire station? It was at a church, I believe. Maybe. But yeah, there was only two of them. Yeah. And there was nowhere to go. Yeah.

I was driving like 40 minutes to Fairfax in traffic just to like, and they were giving away the intro sessions so you could just like learn a push press. It was really, really crazy times. And then every time you would learn how to do it clean in Gold's Gym, we would almost get kicked out of there. But there was one trainer, Chef Wallach, David Wallach. He ended up running CrossFit Rubicon for a while. But there was one trainer, Chef Wallach, David Wallach. He ended up running CrossFit Rubicon for a while.

That was, like, the head trainer at our Golds. And he bought bumper plates. And because he was the, like, head trainer at that Golds, it was the only reason we were allowed to, like, actually stay and wreak havoc on everybody there was because he would, like, go to bat for us. Like, no, CrossFit is the way way this is where this huge movement's going um yeah it's funny how it's it's never like oh we convinced this guy by sitting him down and having a logical conversation so he's like so we infiltrated the establishment and tricked them yeah yeah but the idea i mean it was so i guess who was putting up the fight with you?

Because were you in a CrossFit gym or were you doing it at school? So after I graduated, went back to Monterey, and a friend of mine, two friends of mine, had opened CrossFit Monterey. So I was working out of there most of the time. Jacob Sipkin, he's Sean Sweeney's coach. Oh, I know Sipkin, yeah. Yeah. I was like, I know that name. Guy named Ryan.

And as I was saying, it was a contentious time. Two of the biggest issues back then were nutrition, you know, the whole Rob Wolf situation, and strength-biased training. Black box. Yeah. And on the nutrition side, it's kind of funny to think back to it because, you know, CrossFit back then was really, still is, but back then was really big on the zone and not so much just like the

magical 40-30-30 ratio, but just the idea that, hey, you know, macronutrients matter and you should be paying attention to them and tracking them at least some of the time. And I don't know if you guys remember, but this was like considered crazy talk back then. And people were saying, no, you just need to eat paleo or, you know, eat really low carb. And that's the ideal diet for performance. And, and I would just be like, that doesn't make any sense. Like numbers matter. Like the number of car, a number of grams of carbs you eat a day, the number of grams of protein, these things matter. You know, if you are truly serious about your health and performance, you should be paying attention to it.

And, you know, guys like Rob Wolf and others saw things a little different way. You know, it's funny because obviously Rob and I butted heads back then. But, you know, we talk from time to time now. Everything's, that was a long time ago. Everybody grows up. But in a similar vein, like with the strength bias thing, the assumption was back then, do you guys remember like, oh, you just need to get really strong and conditioning comes easily and you can just do like a three or six month quick, you know, like Metcon cycle and you'll get really fit fit but it's the strength training that you pretty much need to do full-time and only for several years yeah

and i was like yeah nobody's disputing that strength's really important obviously but i just never bought the idea that if you really cared about conditioning that it was easy to build. Because I'd done track, I'd done swimming and cross-country growing up and wrestling. And those are sports where you spend a lot of time pretty much just building conditioning. And let me tell you, it's not freaking easy, right? And, you know, yeah, if you have low standards, you know, if you just want to get a six-minute mile, yeah, that might be quick and easy. But if you legitimately, like, if you look at what some of the athletes are doing at the games now in terms of like rowing 5K in like low 17 minutes, pulling 2K in like 615, 620,

you can't just do a lot of deadlift training and then do about a month of Metcons and then think you're going to get there. So that was the perspective I was taking on that. And how much is, like, Glassman and the vibe of CrossFit, like, they were looking for a fight. Glassman wasn't standing on stage with his middle fingers up just because. That was, like, the marketing push, and he attracted all those people. Like, Rob Wolf is very aggressive.

Yes. And he brings Rob Wolf in until they get to a breaking point where they're in this, like, final 1% of the conversation. Or Josh Everett, when it's coming to Olympic lifting and, like, arguing about the starting position and how CrossFit's teaching it. Greg Everett. Greg Everett. Josh Everett. Sorry about that. Important distinction.

Yeah. Very different. But, like, those, it attracted all those people that were, like, very headstrong looking for a fight of why they were right. Yes. And then it got to a point where everybody just kind of has to split apart. Like, is that still kind of, like like where Glassman's head's at? And, like, it is kind of the vibe of CrossFit in a way.

Like, that's what it built itself off of. Yeah, great question. I can guarantee you that Greg doesn't think of it as marketing. The way he thinks of business is he wants to find an unpopular but true position and defend it vehemently. And the byproduct of that is you're going to get some people who get a little offended and, you know, get upset about it. But the goal isn't to offend people. The goal is to find an unpopular but true position and defend it.

And, you know, I think that's what he was doing in fitness certainly you know like if even outside of crossfit so many things that are done that were unusual in crossfit 15 years ago now are just commonplace in the fitness industry from you know again tracking your macros having gymnastics rings in the gym having a rower olympic weightlifting timing your workouts you know so many things that were considered crazy or unusual 15 years ago are now pretty much a status quo in the fitness industry. Um, and I think a similar thing's going on right now with what he's talking about, um, in terms of health, you know, he's, a lot of people are getting, you know, pretty upset about what he's saying about healthcare, you know, fundamentally just addressing the symptoms of disease

but not addressing the root causes. And it's not so much that he's just trying to find ways to offend people because there are actually easier ways to do that, believe it or not, if you just start talking about politics. But he's looking for areas where the mainstream view is very far departed from the reality. Yeah. I know Peter Thiel, who's a very famous billionaire investor, one of the first investors in Facebook and on and on.

A CrossFitter, too, by the way. Oh, does he? Ooh, look at that. Look at that. Good work there. I knew he trained, but I didn't know he CrossFitted. But I know he actually teaches that to young entrepreneurs, that they need to take the contrarian position, something that's not popular but you believe is true, and then just adamantly defend that position. Yeah.

Greg does that beautifully. Yeah. We met Peter a few years ago, and he had no trouble believing anything Greg had to say because he was like yeah you know you're speaking my language you know it's not hard for for someone like that to understand that yes it is possible for an industry to have existed for 50 years and yet you know be getting everything or most things wrong how much do you think was actually I mean obviously CrossFit has made a massive impact but when you start to view a lot of people that have been in the crossfit space so you look at guys like marcus philly yeah they're doing this functional bodybuilding thing which is it kind of seems like it's getting back to a lot of like bodybuilding roots and a lot of

people go through this crossfit phase and then they're kind of slowing things down a little bit once they get to a more health and longevity approach after the come the competitive years or whatever it is having a more a longer approach to understanding high intensity fitness or just general health and wellness is that still in the crossfit space or do you view people that have kind of grown out of it or have gone on and marketed their own thing or created their own system is that still part of the crossfit um bubble because i feel like a lot of these a lot of the athletes yeah or not even the athletes but the the coaches kind of go and create their own space in the industry like call it functional bodybuilding yeah um ryan fisher's like high

intensity bodybuilding stuff um and it goes back almost to a lot of what people were doing before they started doing the crossfit thing yeah i i mean i find these terms kind of funny because again i was working out 20 years ago and we just you know accessory work functional bodybuilding we just call that stuff working out yeah like i was just doing L pull-ups and one-arm presses. Like, I was training like that 15 years ago. It's not because I saw some Instagram program, because Instagram didn't exist back then. Yeah, right.

It's just that's the way you worked out. But, no, I don't consider that CrossFit. I mean, CrossFit is a trademark, right? Yeah. You know, if we don't, if CrossFit Inc. doesn't license you to use the term CrossFit, you can't call it CrossFit.

Yeah. And like, literally, if any of those people you mentioned were to start marketing or describing their programs as CrossFit, they would pretty quickly receive a cease and desist from CrossFit. So, now, that doesn't necessarily mean

that what they're doing doesn't work. Yeah. I'm not saying that. But it does seem to me like some people are trying to reinvent the wheel a little bit in the sense that, you know, people are almost trying to say you can get really good at CrossFit without doing CrossFit. And it's like, well, that doesn't work in any other sport. I mean, like, what's the first thing they teach you in exercise, right? Like specific adaptation and imposed demands, you know,

like if, or as Greg says, you fail at the margins of your experience, you know, if you think doing heavy thrusters with long rest periods and doing like a bunch of weighted pull-ups and then doing assault bike intervals and only training like that segmented and never putting it all together in a varied or high intensity format is going to yield you the same results as doing it together. I mean, that's just not true. You know, we've seen people try to do that before. It's never worked.

Now, if you were to say, hey, if we do both the segmented and the you know synthesized versions and train them together you know that can work yeah yeah that can work but no one's ever said that couldn't work yeah you said the word cease and desist and my brain instantly went to like the current state of crossfit they're letting people in like we've got yeah a new media whole experience going on here. There's press passes. I got a press pass. Hold on. We're doing the one-ton challenge at the CrossFit Games?

So what is the one-ton challenge? Oh, my gosh. This is so exciting. We could tell you the whole story. So here you go. At its most basic form, six lifts, snatch clean jerk, squat dead bench, add them all up, find a one-arm for the day. Add them all up. Find a one-ton total.

The goal is to pass 2,000 pounds for men, 1,200 for women. And our super awesome sponsors and sponsors of CrossFit Games, FitAid, worked it out with you guys. So we get to go to the FitAid lounge tonight or tomorrow night. And Christine Cole. I was just looking for her. And Jared Stevens. Wes Kitts is coming to hang out.

We've got just total monsters coming to lift weights. And we're going to see how Wes Kitts clean and jerk 477 pounds two days ago. And now he's coming here. How many? 477. That's a lot. Oh, it is a lot. I'm not an expert. Hold on. How many? 477. That's a lot. Oh, it is a lot. I'm not an expert.

Hold on. Here's my favorite part. He clean and jerks 477, and then the next day he puts an ab selfie on Instagram. And I was just like, wait, dude, you do that and you have abs? Like you're supposed to be this big, fat Russian dude with a hairy back. Those are the only people that are supposed to do that. I don't know if you know this, but I know in America Olympic weightlifters only do squat,

clean and jerk, and snatch. But in other countries, they actually have to be legitimate all-around athletes. And they train gymnastics and they run and jump. Maybe that's why they're kicking our asses all the time. We're making a push. America's coming back. They've cracked down on the drugs

a little bit. But not too much. Yeah. I mean, Wes won gold at Pan Ams. Oh, no shit. Yeah. 477 was the gold medal winning lift. We had a bunch of people medal. Yeah, we have like eight people going to Worlds. Travis Mash himself has

like eight athletes going to Worlds. Well, seems like my information's old then. It's alright. It just happened this week. I'm glad you mentioned that about media because that is a huge change this year. It's everything because the fact that you guys are letting Barbell Shrugged come in, throw a competition

on your big stage. One, thank you. Very friendly of you. I appreciate it. Don't feel too special. There's like 397 other people there. Well, no. Well, thank you. Oh. Very friendly of you. I appreciate it. Well, don't feel too special. There's like 397 other people there. Well, no. Well, not throwing a big event at the, I mean, after hours, keeping the beer tent open. Like, it's really awesome.

Yeah. But there's like an entirely new culture of actually accepting the outside people coming in instead of what used to be, as soon as you showed up, cease and desist. Like you would get yelled at instantly. This might not be a perfect number, but the number I heard was we had 50 people with press passes like media last year, and we have about 400 this year.

So eight times as many. And while we're on numbers, we had one feed last year in one language. I don't know how many total feeds we have this year, but it's in 11 different languages. And we have four times as many countries represented. Four times as many. 130 or something, give or take.

Yeah. One thing I love about CrossFit is I always, any something happens and I know Greg Glassman's involved, everyone freaks out. And all I do, just because I've been here like 15 years now, is I just go, oh, he's totally doing something right. Like that guy seems to never miss. And this one, although this year's been really, really weird and we're going to have two opens in one year and that's freaking people out and whatever's going on. Exactly what you said. It's genius to just, sorry, CrossFit old media, but to fire all those people and bring everyone else in to tell their story. A lot of those guys are my friends. Yeah. I mean, they're great people and they're all here doing their thing. They got hired by great companies to come and tell the story of CrossFit and there's nobody better to do it because they're all here doing their thing. They got hired by great companies to come and tell the story of CrossFit,

and there's nobody better to do it because they've been a part of it. They love it. It's just it needed to open up, and they needed to be able to tell their own version of it. I've been asking people this question. Name a major sport that dominates or entirely controls its own media. Yeah. Imagine if the NFL only had the NFL network,

like one station that they, AM radio wouldn't exist. You know what I find funny though is you know, I can't help myself but go online to Reddit and stuff and read the critics. And the people who hate CrossFit HQ the most and distrust us the most also are mad at us for not taking more

control. In other words, they want us to dominate all the media and have the largest media department. They want us to tell the affiliates what to do and increase standards on them. But they also don't think we know what we're doing and they think we're all assholes. Yeah. Right. They're just mad about everything.

How can you both not trust us and think we're incompetent but also think that our problem is that we're not interventionist enough? That doesn't make much sense that makes sense for reddit though and youtube comments don't read the youtube comments i can't help myself though they're there what do you want me to do i want to be angry today what should i do reddit perfect how do you see the brand of crossfit though if you have a bunch of people coming in telling their own story you kind of lose the message a little bit of what you guys want HQ's I guess like global positioning to look like because you're going to get a whole bunch of people that you can't control telling the story

I think the messaging is stronger at least in an implicit versus explicit way. Like, it says more about CrossFit being a global sport and something significant and important if 400 outside people come to cover it versus 50. Yeah. Right? If we have over 100 countries represented versus 30. You know, those are messages, even if not stated outright, to the outside world.

Yeah. So I'm not concerned about that at all. Now, recognizing for sure there's going to be more negative coverage than there would be if we were still paying all the announcers. I see that as a good thing because, again, if you look at any other significant sport, the announcers, the people who cover it are free to criticize and to the extent that you repress that you actually are repressing the legitimacy of your sport and the way it's

being covered yeah uh when in this process did you become part of the russells like when did you and russell burger uh yes kind of just so everybody knows you and I have talked about this before on the phone, but I think it's a really important conversation because I interviewed him the day after he got fired, and just personally, it was a really, really awkward conversation for me. I had just become the host of Barbell Shrugged and really, whew, it was really touch and go there for a little while. Yeah. I didn't fully have a confident voice in what I was doing,

and I don't even know how I feel about that interview. But you guys have a very long relationship and was very aggressive and forward-facing to, I guess, all of the stakeholders in CrossFit. 2012, I believe. So I'd been working for CrossFit for about two years at that point, mostly in the CrossFit Games side of the house, but also some social media. I actually, it's funny to think of it now,

but I created the first CrossFit Games Facebook page, which no longer exists. You know, I was the first fax guy on the update show. You guys remember the update show? Update show was great. I brought Tommy Marquez in. See, that's the stuff that's got to, they have to keep that stuff going.

I brought Tommy Marquez. Without him, without me, he's nothing. No. You know, Rory McKernan was like my first manager. He did my L1. Yeah. But, you know, about 2012, I think the first issue that Russell and I worked on together was the fight gone bad situation. You guys remember that?

Definitely do. Yeah, Scott Zagarino was claiming he had trademarked the term fight gone bad, which is kind of strange because Greg Glassman invented that term. But he was sending seasoned assists to affiliates that were using Fight Gone Bad to raise money for charity. We were like, that's not going to fly. So I don't remember a whole lot of the details, but Russell and I started talking about that online pretty aggressively. And the very next thing after that was the Anthos situation.

And there, Greg's ex-wife, Lauren, was trying to sell her part of the company to Anthos Capital, which is a venture capital firm. And we were very concerned that sharing any control of CrossFit HQ would mean bringing in people who didn't necessarily see the CrossFit community the way Greg did and would want to, instead of seeing it as a community that should just be basically governed in a way to ensure its long-term viability. Instead, the concern was that investors would come in and just try to make as much money as possible in a short time frame and then sell it. Because that's what they do. So what would that look like? Maybe insisting that all the affiliates buy their apparel from a single location,

insisting that they all buy their equipment from a single location, basically trying to take more centralized control of the affiliates. And we really wanted to prevent that from happening because bringing in investors is not always a bad idea, but it is a bad idea if they have diametrically opposed views yeah of what the future should look like yeah so uh that was the biggest issue that russell and i worked on together and then literally um we were the judge in that case that lawsuit gave us two weeks to come up with uh about 16 million dollars which I don't know if you guys have ever done that before. I haven't, but I would love to know the business plan.

It's not easy. If you have that safe, I'll give you $1 million if I can carry it out. I'm just going to say, once you hear the interest rates, you might not be so interested. But we did. Well, I shouldn't say we. I wasn't even involved in that side of it.

You didn't personally guarantee that one? No. It's like, Dad. Well, when you guys were doing the Anthos thing, how much was Anthos and CrossFit actually communicating? Because as an affiliate owner at that time, all I heard was CrossFit's side of what was going on. And I'd be lying if at some points I didn't think,

oh, that would be cool if we had like a centralized thing. We had general standards for what an affiliate should look like because at the time we're getting 15 affiliates popping up in every one-mile radius of your gym, and it was madness. So all we ever saw was the CrossFit side of things, that story. If they're going to come in, they're going to wreck everything. It's going to be so crazy. Do saw was the crossfit side of things that story if they're gonna come in they're gonna wreck everything like it's gonna be so crazy do you remember the video maybe kind of vaguely

yeah brian kelly and i remember right yeah and lauren uh talking about their plans but yeah you're right you know it was mostly our side of the story you know getting expressed and that was our goal, obviously. You didn't want to – Fair and balanced. But, you know, Russell Berger and I would at times interact with Brian Kelly on Facebook until he realized that was a bad idea and started blocking us. But I hope he's listening.

I still hate them. I mean, he's got to be worth a lot of money i'm sure he's not too upset about it but um like literally within a month or two of that ending then um this study was published the infamous study that claimed a um 16 entry rate in crossFit. And really quickly it was picked up by outside media. The Outside Magazine headline was literally, Is CrossFit Destroying the World? I kid you not. Like, front page, Outside Magazine,

Is CrossFit Destroying the World? Based on a single study. And, you know, I found the study. Russell Berger talked to the gym owners, talked to some of the subjects, and everyone, like, without exception, said, no, that's just bullshit. You know, that didn't happen. You know, those people were not injured. Not just that, they couldn't have even communicated that to the researchers in the study because they didn't have, like, their emails.

They weren't in contact. So if they didn't show up to the lab for the test-out period, the researchers would have no way of finding why they were not there. So Russell then contacted a couple of the authors of the study, and they were completely unable and then unwilling to explain why it had this claim that everyone we talked to said was false and um that was really the biggest issue that russell burger and i worked on together that really you know that's what what really was the core of our effort you know at least up until last year well that was a big piece but you guys were also very vocal just in the community with the affiliates and to say that it was all pleasant is far from the truth whether is i guess that side

of kind of you guys's relationship is that a lot more him are you both involved in that kind of like aggressive in a way well we should be using the past tense here because we're talking about like 2013 yeah yeah i mean it was a it was, yeah, call it 2013 to 16, something in those ranges. But you guys were the big loud voice together online. And any time complaints would come up, I mean, it was pretty aggressive even at affiliate owners, which is one of the two big arms of revenue that CrossFit has. Yes. Does that suit your personality?

You seem like a very friendly person. I could, like, hang out with you. I don't know where. Keep in mind. I could honestly say there was a time where I was like, those guys are dicks. Like, I don't even want to be a part of that. I mean, keep in mind, people sometimes act differently online

than they do in person. You seem so friendly right now. I'm saying I myself would ever deign to do such a thing. But I've heard it said. And also, you know, I was younger, you know. But, yeah, I'm not saying anything. Nothing comes to mind that I'm personally regretful of. But I will say this.

As we've grown up and also as I've taken on larger challenges, the things I used to get upset about seem so ridiculously trivial. Yeah. You know, it's like some affiliate somewhere doesn't like CrossFit HQ's policy on XYZ. It's like, yeah, you know, like I've been in a lawsuit for five years. I've been personally named in a lawsuit. You know, we had a bill we were fighting in Washington, D.C.

that literally was going to make the affiliate model illegal in that city. You know, like when you look, you know, we've got trainers who have been threatened with jail time for giving nutritional advice. You know, when you look at problems like that, you know, like someone saying something mean about myself or Greg or someone like that on Facebook seems relatively trivial. Yeah. And now that CrossFit, I mean, you've seen it go from a single gym that you remember at

to now you're actually in lawsuits about people going to jail and kind of that growth curve, that's insane. Yeah. You know, I mean, whenever people have concerns about the CrossFit Games, I'm like, look, 10 years ago we were at my friend's parents' house. Literally true. Yeah.

You know, so I'm not going to say. Panda Express was like the title sponsor. Yeah. They were serving General Tau's that was made two months ago. I know. To the athletes. Were you at the 2008 games? No.

But it was like the weekend I started CrossFit. I was like, what are they doing out there? Like, this is stupid. I finished 53rd that year. Hey, I hope you're on your Instagram pilots. I was like, CrossFit games times one. Hey, there was like 190 people there. 53rd fittest. Hey, I hope you're on your Instagram pile. It says like CrossFit Games times one. Hey, there was like 190 people there. 53rd fittest person in the world.

Well, I was 11th in 2007. Even better. Two times. But, I mean, in that growth, there has to be like a piece of all of CrossFit. I mean, they used to hammer, and we talked about the cease and desist, of like, if you wrote CrossFit on your schedule and you were a random gym down the street, like I was in one of those.

We had a boxing gym down the street from us that said they did CrossFit classes, and you guys were awesome. Cease and desist, the whole thing, and I was like, yes, this is so great. But is there still legal staff that's like going after people? because yeah all that's one thing we didn't cut yeah it seems to be to be to be damper down a little bit from the past though because we used to get it with barbell shrug for things we would just what random comments we would say on the show we would

get cease and desist like you can't you can't use those words that that phrasing we found his right time to come in now tell him how you feel about it no no no like we know actually actually whenever we reached back out and like had the conversation it was always very friendly and it was great um but we would probably get some every six months yeah and between like 12 13 14 and then then kind of just it tapered off after a while And we haven't gotten anything in a year or two, three, more. Something like that. For us, at least, it's dampened down. I think part of that is people learning the rules. Right.

You know, you make an example of a few people, and then everyone else looks around and says, yep, we're just not going to use that phrase anymore. Well, isn't there a gray area, though? Like, you invite the media in so they can do whatever they want. Yeah. But you also have a legal staff that says, no, you can't do whatever you want. Well, you can't call your podcast the CrossFit podcast. Can Craig Ritchie say that he has a CrossFit YouTube channel?

No. Does he? I don't know. Shit, I hope I didn't get him in trouble. No, he's a CrossFitter that has a YouTube channel. And it's very popular. He just can't say, I am the CrossFit YouTube channel. Like, that's not what he does.

God, sorry, Craig. God, I hope you're not listening. Shit. That was a hypothetical example. You just got so serious. I see that you are not so friendly anymore. No, I mean, so I'm not a lawyer. Yeah.

This is not legal advice. But, you know, with trademarks, it's not like you can't ever say the term CrossFit. It's that you can't use it in a way that you're, like, deliberately using it or even non-deliberately to give the impression that your product or service is associated with that trademark. Yeah. Right? Like the CrossFit store, the CrossFit podcast. But if you wanted to say, like, maybe in fine print somewhere that, you know, one of the subjects that we will discuss on this episode is the 2019 CrossFit Games,

that would be okay. You just can't call it the CrossFit Games podcast unless you're explicitly licensed to do so by CrossFit. Yeah, we went through some of the exact same things. Like in our iTunes description, it said the word CrossFit, but it wasn't really laid out. And so we had to say interviewing professional athletes, CrossFit athletes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So they said that was okay, but we couldn't say we were a CrossFit podcast. And I actually even think just from a common sense perspective that kind of makes sense because a lot of the times that people try to slap

crossfit on things it's things that you know existed for a long time before crossfit you know like greg didn't invent squats i don't know if you know that or not but ready you know but like people people see anyone doing like functional training of any kind and they're like oh that's crossfit it's like well you know yeah is it at an affiliate is the trainer in l1 are they calling it a group yeah you know it's like it was always hard for me to just to tell people when someone just i'd be at the airport they'd be like you do cross it and be like well i should just say yes because that's – I kind of do. But depending on how you look at it, I've either never done it ever

or I've done it my entire life depending on what you think CrossFit is because it's hard to nail down the exact definition from just a how do you train standpoint, not from a trademarked company standpoint. So there are some things that I think are distinctive about it because I think sometimes people hear an argument like that and they take it too far and be like, oh, yeah, CrossFit just took everything that people were doing before and just marketed it really well and got rich. And the question I always ask then is, all right, find me an example of anyone before CrossFit doing thrusters and pull-ups back-to-back for time trying to compete. Right. Or cleans and dips.

Or deadlifts and handstand push-ups. Or running swings and pull-ups. You know, like, you can't. There is literally no example of anyone combining these movements and competing in them before. Some people did these movements in a segmented manner. They were not competing in them. But, you know, it used to cost hundreds of dollars just to buy gymnastics rings. You know, like you would have to drive across state borders to get a, you know, a weightlifting platform or bumper plates.

Like there has been an explosion because of CrossFit and not just the actual specific type of programming of CrossFit, but everything associated with it. And until someone points to me an example of someone doing thrusters and pull-ups for time before CrossFit.com or any of those other movements that I talked about before, I'm going to continue thinking that there is something original and distinctive about it. Right. I do think that's the differentiating factor. To try to keep it super simple,

CrossFit to me is competing in Metcons for time. That's like one of the big differentiating pieces. It's more than that, but that's like the one sentence that I can say that makes me think CrossFit specifically as opposed to just strength conditioning or functional fitness. Yeah, I could probably name five other things

that are also distinctive, but that is definitely a distinctive element. I also think there aren't many other fitness programs, definitely not starting in 2002, you know, that we're talking about tracking macronutrients or, you know, severely getting rid of added sugar and refined carbohydrates, you know, back then, you know, and saying that fitness is fundamental to your fitness program. Because there are a lot of fitness programs that either ignore nutrition entirely, or especially back then were really pushing low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets. I think that was a distinguishing factor.

I also think the group class format, where it's a group class, but everyone's getting some sort of specific instruction and specific scaling. I don't know many examples. Yeah, they had boot camps before, but essentially everyone was doing the same thing, and people weren't getting specific instruction and specific scaling. So that, to me, seems distinctive. Also the business model. When we go to Harvard Business School and Greg talks, there is no analogy that they use.

They can't say, oh, CrossFit's just like XYZ in whatever industry. Like, you know, where you have a trademark being licensed to affiliates, but they're not franchises. They're not centrally controlled in that manner. But that was basically a long way of agreeing with you. That is, you know, like just superficially, if you just ask yourself, what's different here? One of the biggest things is combining these functional movements in varied ways and competing in them. From a business model marketing or market standpoint, I totally agree with you.

Having the group classes where it's not a boot camp, you're actually really learning how to lift weights for real. You're not just having someone tell you to move around a lot boot camp you're actually really learning how to lift weights for real yes you're not just having someone tell you to move around a lot but you're not really learning how to lift weights either before that you either had to get a personal trainer you had to have your buddy show you how to do it but there was no like you could pay 200 bucks a month and get real instruction yeah that crossfit i feel is the first the first company to really come out and do that well and i think you and i understand that because we've been in the fitness and i assume you have been in the fitness industry for a long time. But a lot of people are now

like they're 22 years old and they've only ever known the CrossFit Games existing. They never saw the pre-CrossFit world so they just assume all these things have always existed. You know, you always had bumper plates in every gym and gymnastics rings whether it was a CrossFit gym or not. And you always had group classes with scaling and individualized instruction.

No. Didn't exist. Yeah. You guys should have seen what it was like out there in 2001. It was very different. Yeah. Yeah. My first gym was really gross, really dingy, really bad equipment.

Dude, I want to go back to the Russell Berger thing, though. Yeah. Because the end of that relationship with CrossFit with you guys can you kind of walk through just the pieces of that what led to the firing I don't remember the exact tweet that went out

but it was a really interesting time for which I didn't even know until all of it happened that he's kind of like this big figure in a world that is very different than crossfit that um i guess is now his like number one source of income and revenue in his in his life yeah i'm actually not 100 sure what he is doing right now i think i heard he's a pastor yeah but yeah um at least that's what he said on the show. I think the tweet in question was an Indiana affiliate.

I might be getting this wrong. It was an affiliate. Yeah, an affiliate was refusing to host a gay pride event, something like that. And I forget exactly what he said, but I think he hashtagged CrossFit, and he said something about how he thought that was a great idea. Yeah. what he said but i think he hashtag crossfit and he said something about how he thought that was a great idea yeah and um people really quickly interpreted that as reflecting the position of crossfit hq you know which you can is understandable i mean he had functioned in the role of crossfit spokesman for like five years at that point at least maybe 10 and he

hashtag crossfit and it was a crossfit issue And that became a problem for us because, you know, that community, the LGBTQ community, is a huge part of CrossFit. And, by the way, always has been. That's not new. They've always been welcome. They've always been a big part of the affiliate community, both as owners and as members. So that became a problem for CrossFit because we have people thinking that CrossFit HQ is putting forward a position

that is 180 degrees opposite of what we actually believe and have always done. And Greg and I were actually in North Carolina at the time when all this was happening. We were actually at Fort Bragg in a meeting with the U.S. Army Forces Command. So, like, literally the guy, the general in charge of all U.S. Army Forces. And we didn't have our cell phones because it's a secure facility. And all this is going on online and we have no idea. And then I get my cell phone and walk out of security. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on?

You guys walked out and you were like, God, that was awesome. What the hell happened? And, you know, I don't want to get into too many of the behind the scenes details there but you know it's just a pretty simple case of um what russell burger was saying was being interpreted to reflect crossfit hu but it didn't and we needed to make it really clear to everyone involved that that was not our position was it was there events happening with him and headquarters leading up to that or was this like wildly just out of the blue um or was there already like a very strained relationship behind the scenes i wouldn't say there were any warning signs no i mean he worked he and i worked together not so much probably a little bit less than the years leading up to that but there was no like animosity all right because it seems very out of nowhere from my perspective he was like super insider and then all of a sudden he was gone

the whole thing with the NSCA and you guys worked side by side on that and then the next real big piece that you guys were attacking was like legislation and the licensing of personal trainers yeah he wasn't so much involved in that so you guys weren't working on that together that was mainly me because I moved to Washington DC

and we hired a lobbying firm. That was more my thing. CrossFit's got a lobbying firm? How baller is that? We need one of those. What would you lobby on? I don't know. Lift heavier. Government subsidies for podcasts?

Paying more attorney's fees is low on my list. I know. Actually, I'm super interested in where is that argument or that battle at right now

with NSCA no not NSCA we figured that one out they lied yeah we got that one handled

let me speak on that briefly not only they lied but then they lied about lying and then they covered up

like over 200,000 documents that they withheld from the court. Ooh. Proving that they lied. Mm. And then they got sanctioned for lying about lying and then covering up their lying about lying. So how come Outside Magazine hasn't come out with, NSCA is trying to kill everyone?

Well, there's an Outside Magazine reporter at the games right now. Ooh, let's go find him. He needs to be on Barbell Strug. Who's actually trying to kill everyone, Mr. Outside reporter? But that is, I mean, it's a legitimate question. You know, like some of what CrossFit's done, not just with NSCA, but, you know, with the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health,

some of what CrossFit's done has been really important work. And there hasn't been as much coverage of it as I would have expected. Just you saying that, I knew that we were in a battle, I say we, the functional fitnessers, with the NSCA about them lying. But I didn't know that they were covering up the lie with a lie on top of another lie plus $200,000. The judge said they committed perjury. So what happens to them? Why isn't that a massive story, and why isn't it as aggressive? Why is CrossFit specifically so controversial that when the NSCA publishes a report

and says 16% of the people are going to get injured, guaranteed, there's no doubt about it. And that's probably like... It wasn't even a prediction. It was a claim about they said that it happened. Yeah. So if that's the lie, and everybody knows that. And now we've got personal trainers all over the world saying like, oh, that's dangerous. They proved it.

But now we've got, you know, 200,000 documents plus perjury plus lies on lies. Like, why isn't that the big story? I'm going to say I'm not exactly sure, but I'm going to say two things. First, you know, it's a lot easier actually to spread a lie than to correct misinformation. Like once a lie's already gotten out, people already have that in the back of their heads. It's almost impossible, you know, to change their minds. It's going to take a long time and a lot of money. But beyond that, you know,

I also think it's because the lawsuit still is ongoing. It's been five years now. And, you know, I think a lot of people look at it like it's just he said, she said, and until there's actually like a definitive judgment. Now, that being said, you know, we've had a lot of rulings from the judge that said, yeah, hey, as a matter of fact, this was false information. You know, like the judge just said, we don't even have to discuss this anymore. That was false. Yeah. But, you know, I think people are looking for, you know, they want to see the headline in the paper.

You know, just hypothetically, you know, judge rules CrossFit right, NSCA wrong, NSCA ordered to pay, I don't know, $30 million. Something like that. I think people are waiting for that moment. And maybe this is hopelessly optimistic, but I think that when that happens, You've been a part of the legal system long enough to know that's another five years out, right? Yeah. When that happens, a long road. There's going to be more press about it, I would think.

How could there not be? Yeah. But then again, I've been wrong before. Yeah. Is the new, I guess the the NSCA thing still going on, but is the new big battle with legislature on kind of the licensing and I guess whatever government-imposed qualifications you need for becoming a personal trainer or coaching fitness?

Yeah. So these things are all kind of interrelated. NSCA was one of several organizations lobbying for licensure, you know, and you can see why they would want to spread this idea that there's a bunch of people getting hurt because it makes it easier for them to say that we need to regulate this field more. Right?

We shut that down in D.C. You know, Wall Street Journal said that that was only something like one time in one of eight times in the past 40 years that anything like that had ever happened. Usually when an occupational licensure bill is passed, it's just there. There's nothing you can do about it. But we stopped it from being implemented in DC and they were so shocked by what we were able to do in DC. And again, by the way, thanks to CrossFit Affiliates. Like it's not just that CrossFit HQ met with them. It's that they got

thousands of emails from CrossFit Affates and CrossFit affiliate customers saying, this is a bad idea and you need to think about it. And as soon as those emails came in, all the politicians we talked to who had blown us off before were like, what do we need to do to get the emails to stop, basically? And we were like, well, you could reconsider this law. It's a motivated bunch. I don't know if you guys have met anyone who does CrossFit before, but they're kind of intense people.

They stare at you a lot. It's weird. They show up in their broad chests, big traps. This is a digression, but there was literally a moment where I was in a meeting with, like, D.C. bureaucrats, and I was like, what is your evidence base? Like why do you think this is a good idea? It's never been tried before.

Why do you think that mandating a four year degree for all fitness trainers plus some certifications but not others is going to make anyone fitter, healthier, safer? It kind of seems like you're just going to really shrink the supply of trainers. You know what they told me?

We're taking it on faith. That's a direct quote. That should work. But since then, thank you. It's not that insane of an idea, though. Like, hairdressers have to have, like, a license. I mean, it's not like fitness is so overly special that we want to, like, you have, like, no, we need to keep them separate. Like there's a lot of people that need some sort of licensing type thing to be able to become that profession.

It's definitely true that a lot of fields require occupational licensure now. They didn't used to. The figure that comes to mind is like it used to be about 5%. Now it's 25% of total jobs in the United States that require some sort of license. It's a really good revenue stream for the government. You want to be a trainer? Yes. It costs you $5,000 a year and you have to go pay this thing. I'll say this. I've looked into it for

at least four years now trying to find what are they basing this off of? Not just in fitness, but in any field. Is there any evidence at all that this makes things safer or more effective? I've never found anything. And I wanted to because I want to know what their arguments are going to be against me so that I can rebut them.

And I couldn't find anything at all. Especially having gone through the academic system, doing bachelor's and master's in exercise physiology, exercise sports science, I know a lot of people that have gone through those six years, not even just the four years, but the six years, that have no idea how to train. they don't know what they're doing like any practical um like in the actual weight room methodology they they don't know because they haven't actually trained people you would learn way more coaching for six years than you would going through college and and graduate school to get a master's degree exactly and

there are a lot of skills you could never learn in a classroom like i'm a perfect example that i was a horrible trainer. I was, like, the worst trainer ever because I was an asshole. You know, I knew where your Terry's major and minor were, but, like, I couldn't get a group of people to keep coming back to work out with me at 5 p.m. every day. They didn't stick around for six years and then become buddies with you? No. You know, there are things.

But this is what Greg did. Everyone hated him. He's rich now. Actually, a lot Everyone hated him. He's rich now. Actually, a lot of people like. He's my coach. A lot of people. Don't get me wrong. A lot of people like Greg and got along with him.

I'm just saying I was not necessarily one of them in the beginning. So who taught you how to be an asshole? Greg Glassman. Yeah. I think that was more an innate ability for me and actually that said having gone through like i said like going all the way through getting a master's degree in exercise physiology talking about how to how to control a room like how to be how to be a leader how to get people to like you this this kind of the sales and marketing component of it and and anything

that was like psychology based with the exception of like like one dedicated psychology psychology class that was like not that applicable they don't even talk about that stuff like they they talk about the physiology and anatomy and yeah and the very basics of how to move but how to get someone to actually want to come back to class they don't talk about that stuff yeah you know you might have a really deep understanding of you know like glycolysis but that doesn't mean you know how to teach someone how to squad you you know, obviously, right? That seems pretty, but yeah. I mean, and you know, what's funny about that too is I don't know there's any university

program anywhere or any certification program that could teach you all of the things you need to learn as a trainer. It's more of an art. It's something you need to learn by doing. Now, there are certain prerequisites and certain educational programs that you can go through that will better prepare you for that experience. But nobody's a really good trainer on day one, hour one.

There's like a coaching age that you have to learn how to do and communicate. The state of the CrossFit business, there's a lot of just rumors, and I would imagine being an affiliate owner and talking to a lot of affiliate owners of kind of the domestic side of CrossFit and how there's been a bit of a decline in the total number of affiliates domestically. Is that correct? I'm actually not 100% sure on that, but it could be true. Yeah.

And we had the massive surge. You can't get away from the 2012 to 2016. Just a crazy increase of gyms opening. And now we've kind of hit this interesting plateau. And it seems like the international side, especially what's going on at the games with the national champions, we've got this great idea of expanding it into new markets or kind of existing markets, but that have much more potential.

Some of them are pretty damn new. Some of them have like one affiliate. So that's pretty damn new. See, that's how I was going to go to the games, so I could write it in my Instagram profile. But what does the state of the business kind of, I guess, what does it look like? I mean, I feel like it had this massive ramp. We hit like this plateau.

And then things got weird. And now we've got an old guy sitting and married with children picking up the water bottle. Yeah, I've heard that narrative. I'll just remind people that when CrossFit.com first came out in 2001, it was an ugly website. There were no photos. I liked it better than the current one, by the way. All right, well, we can debate that later.

People were like, what is a thruster? And then it would be like front squat to push press well that doesn't help me either who knows what a front squat to push press is if you weren't downloading the dot MOV movies

yeah I was all of them actually WMV I think was my formative choice but but

you know Greg took on the entire fitness industry everyone thought he was crazy and it turned out he was right yeah he's i don't want to say he's trying to take on the entirety of health care because that would be a sisyphean task but what he is doing is saying that the current public understanding of how to be healthy and and yeah the current public understanding of how to be healthy is deeply flawed and he's seeing that that's even a bigger opportunity for CrossFit Inc but also for its affiliates than the fitness industry being deeply flawed was because

look if you're saying hey my demographic for this affiliate is relatively young people who already work out and are reasonably wealthy and have an hour to a day to work out every single day i mean what percentage of the population is that it's a very small percentage of the population so it doesn't surprise me that in some cities you know people are like oh you know dc for example where i live some people say, said that DC has saturated for CrossFit. And I'm like, well, there's 600,000 people here, give or take, they all need to squat. They all need to restrict the amount of added sugar or refined carbohydrates that they eat. You know, they all need to do some sort of, you sort of cardiovascular training. These are basic

human needs. If we expand the ideal client from that young, rich person who already works out to the entirety of humanity, that's a much larger

market and that's a business opportunity, but it's also the right thing to do and i think people need to understand you know like when we're talking about um health this isn't some fringe thing like you go to the early crossfit journal articles they all talk about you know the sickness wellness fitness continuum you know at the original crossfit gym there were grandmas doing pull-ups. And so it's been part of that from day one. And people need to understand, you know, this is the practical business-oriented thing to do.

You want to get more people in your gym. You want larger demographics. That's how you're going to succeed, not just finding all the 25-year-olds who, you know, really think for some reason that they have a shot at regionals next year. Right? How dare you put me in that box. Hey, I've been that guy too. I've been that guy too.

I'm not, you know. But, and that's, you know, the affiliates, most of their clients are normal people. They're not training for any competition anytime soon. And that's what pays for everything. The CrossFit Games are just a party we put on every year. That's not a business. It's never even remotely been a business. not training for any competition anytime soon and that's what pays for everything the crossfit games are just a party we put on every year that's not a business it's never even remotely been a business and i'm going to use these numbers because greg's used them publicly but you know we were spending

when it finally came down to it about half of the company's budget on something that was only bringing in a quarter of the revenue so all the people complaining you know about the changes i would like anyone to explain to me why it would have been a good idea to keep doing that. And then we come here to the games, and everyone's like, oh, the games are shrunk this year. They're less exciting. I'm like, well, actually, we got eight times as many media.

We got 11 times as many languages. And we got four times as many nations represented so if anything it's gotten bigger yeah it's gotten bigger um but at in a maybe not at the expense but um there's a there's a larger reach to new populations and new countries and more media coming in. But I would also argue that you guys being the central hub and so professional at it and making it look like the, I mean, dude, you guys were so good at telling the documentaries and all that stuff. Does it take such a hit because you guys had built that media staff and that message and the expertise and just made it look so nice over the years and so professional that we just went back like 10 years and the

quality of the production and the ability for the sport to grow i feel like are you sure that because i was watching some of the streams and they well that's so your stream specifically but there's no facebook there's no instagram there's no Facebook, there's no Instagram. The way that it's covered is through these, like, yeah, I have to go find Arm & Hammer. I have to go find Craig Ritchie. It's not as, I guess, it's not as well done as the professionals, which was you guys. And how great it was for the first decade. Yeah, I mean, I hear what you're saying,

and there's no question, look, it's year one, right? I agree with you, by the way. I'm playing with Devil's Ad. We've talked about this. I agree with you that in the future. I think it's actually gone very smoothly this year, given how revolutionary the changes were. I think it's going to be better next year and even better the year after that.

And I think having outsiders covering the sport gives it an authenticity and honesty that were less present before. That being said, yeah, you know, is it, you know, might it be harder to find CrossFit on Facebook now? Yeah. Yeah, possibly. Anywhere on Facebook. But, you know, everyone's talking about, you know, you guys were talking before about like

raising standards on affiliates and how that was a contentious issue before. And I was just thinking to myself, you know, I don't know how you would actually effectively raise standards on affiliates, but I think one way, probably the best way to see if someone had what it takes to be a good affiliate owner would be to show them a video of a woman who's 150 pounds overweight doing her first squat or show them a video of a guy who's 75 years old you know doing deadlifts with a bag of cat food, you know, like what's your first response to that? If it's, you know, to make fun of the person, you're almost certainly not ready to be a trainer. If you're just bored by it and want to go watch a video of Matt Frazier working

out, you know, maybe one day you'll be a good trainer, but you're probably not mature enough for it right now. But if you see content like that, and that inspires you to go make a difference in regular people's lives, you know, you can get the technical knowledge. It's out there. But teaching someone how to care and care about improving people's lives, that's harder to do. It's interesting, though, because you look at the numbers of that,

and you see the picking up the water bottle and the cat food. Yes. And that's got 500 views. Matt Fraser eating breakfast. All of a sudden, we've got millions. Yeah. Well, you know, you're talking about something that's been around for 12 years versus something that just started. Yeah.

But, you know, there's no question that it, you know, it can be hard sometimes to get people to actually care about other people's health. Yeah. But if you really look at what's going on in affiliates, it is what we're talking about. You know, like again, you know, like you look at the average member of a CrossFit affiliate, they're a lot closer to, you know, grandpa doing squats than they are to Matt Frazier. They might not realize it, but you know, they actually are like, like most people who come into a gym don't have that great of a squat. Yeah. They don't have that many dead hang pull-ups of any, you know, they don't know how to do these movements. They're a lot closer to those YouTube videos than they are to, you know, Sarah Sigmund's daughter. And I'll also say this,

you know, a lot of people say, well, CrossFit, the CrossFit games really improved the awareness of CrossFit and brought people into affiliates. And I'm sure that actually happened. You know, I've heard people say that they started CrossFit because of of CrossFit and brought people into affiliates. And I'm sure that actually happened. You know, I've heard people say that they started CrossFit because of the CrossFit games, and that's fantastic. But I've also heard a lot of people say, or affiliate owners say, that that makes their job harder in some ways. Because people walk in the gym, or they meet people on the street,

and they say, you know, I'm a CrossFit trainer, I own a CrossFit affiliate, and they think, oh, that's a thing I saw on CBS or ESPN. That couldn't possibly be for me. I could never do that. And so I guess the question would be, was it bringing in more people than it was keeping out? I think that the face of CrossFit and what it is actually has changed significantly um and we've talked about a little bit on the phone but um 2012 it was all super jacked 25 year olds that were ready to go continue whatever college sport they either did or didn't play yep that found the glory days and they just needed a place instead of playing kickball, which is like recreational drinking dating league, to like, oh, these people are serious.

I'm going to go to a CrossFit gym, and I've been lifting weights for the last decade. I feel like now when I walk into a CrossFit gym, it does not have that vibe. I don't feel like it's as healthy or like as people living the life that it once did. Do you feel like that? One, do you feel like that statement's true?

And do you feel like that is almost like a hit to the branding of what CrossFit is? It used to be Greg Amundsen and this is what we can create. And now if you walk in, maybe there is like middle-aged mom and dad, but they don't look like they're really living the life of the strength and conditioning athlete or somebody that's really dedicated to a lifestyle of health and fitness. Yeah. Well, I'll say this. I'm not satisfied with my own fitness level i'm not

satisfied you look with anyone how dare you just because it's a radio show but i'm not disappointed with anyone who's showing up in the gym every day yeah and i'm what you're saying to me is actually great that they're you know i don't think what's happened is that people who do crossfit have gotten less fit i think what's happened is that affiliates have figured out how to get people who are starting further away from fit and then moving them closer towards it, but they still got a ways to go. Personally, I think that's what's going on. And that is good because, again, there's only so many rich, active 25 to 35 year olds in your town. Yeah. And, you know, the other, you know, the honest truth is those people, CrossFit doesn't mean as much to those people. You know,

they were already probably not going to get type two diabetes. You know, they were already working out, you know, whereas the person who can't even do a full squat or is 150 pounds overweight, CrossFit can literally save that person's life. Yeah. With the sport side of it, now we've got Live and Loud coming in. They're probably the biggest player. They are the biggest player in where the sport is headed. I think they've got the West Coast Classic, Guadalupe,

the Granite Games now, an event in Mexico, I think Spain, something like that. Maybe I named them all, maybe not. There's a lot of them, though. Yeah. So we're kind of, in a way, moving towards this big conglomerate event company. How much control do they have over the the the sport of crossfit and that relationship i can just see in three years glassman being like you know what i don't really like this and now we've got yeah you know extreme chaos with the sport well i'm going to preface this by saying you know this isn't the

department that i work in most of the time so i I can't speak definitively on a lot of these matters. But, you know, in addition to my government relations job, I also work with Greg and the executive team. So I have a high-level understanding, but not a detail level understanding. I mean, they still, how many sanctioned events do they have? Four or five. Yeah, out of 30? 25? 24, I think, they still, how many sanctioned events do they have? Four or five. Yeah, out of 30? 25?

24, I think, this year. Yeah, so they're not a hegemon. But they're the big ones. They're the only ones that anyone knows about. Dubai CrossFit Championship is a pretty big one. That's a massive one. I'll give you that. Waterpalooza is probably, Waterpalooza, Dubai,

West Coast Classics is going to be huge because that was a SoCal regional. Granite Games is a lot of fun. We go there every year. And that's going to be live now, right? Yeah. Yeah, I can say that. Okay. Yeah, last week.

Yeah. We released the show yesterday. Well, so, I mean, it's funny because I said I have nothing to do with this. My wife is actually the person, Noor. Yeah. I don't know if you guys know her, but she was tasked by Greg to make the sanctionals happen. Ooh.

What's she up to this weekend? She's got a sanctionals booth. Let's do it. Yeah. I can make that happen. She'd probably be a better. Do you have her number? Yes.

I can guarantee you she would be a more interesting interviewer than that. She's been pretty good so far. I would love to talk to her though sorry what was the question oh where's it going to see Greg this morning he literally shook hands with every single national champion

from the entire world and said where are you from what gym do you train at? I mean, he couldn't have been happier at how that turned out. So I don't know what's going to happen in five years, but he's really happy with the way the changes have gone so far this year. So we'll see where it goes. Yeah.

Are you involved with the Crossfit health stuff at all somewhat yes where's that heading these days yeah i think i heard a lot about it last year and then i haven't really heard that much about in the last six months i don't know if that's just me me being out of the loop or or if it's died down or where's that they did the crossfit health conference this year at the games again i didn't have the opportunity to attend most of it, but I know what happened. There were some pretty big-name speakers, and I think some of that content is going to be online.

To my understanding, the main effort there is the MDL1s, you know, CrossFit Level 1 courses for doctors, and then also the adjunct D uh, DDC, the derelict doctors club, which is sort of like a continuing education program for those people. So there'll be, you know, experts in medicine or nutrition coming in to lecture. And that'll be a parallel event for doctors who have already gone to the MDL one and want to do something else. And that's still going on. And, you know, Greg's idea there was really, you know, hey, we know there's a bunch of doctors who do CrossFit, but, you know,

they're relatively isolated. They, most of them don't know each other. They go to a particular box, but they don't know the doctors at the box down the street. And it would be a good thing, you know, given that we believe that CrossFit has well CrossFit currently is transforming millions of people's lives and improving their health and has potential to do a lot more given that we believe that to be true it would be a good idea for these doctors to start meeting each other and becoming becoming a movement, a community, a network, not just these isolated nodes. Are we still fighting Coca-Cola?

That was one of my next questions. Yeah. We had like a huge year and a half of Coca-Cola hatred, and then I don't hear much about them anymore. I had a Diet Coke on the plane the other day. It was the first one I had in like 10 years. I'm walking out right now. I'm just having a big confessional right now.

Why? Because it was actually interesting. I was just sitting there, and someone ordered one. I was like, you know what? It's been like three years since I've had a Coke, and I'm going to have one. And you know what happens when you have a Coke after three years? You instantly want another one of them yeah it's unbelievable how badly you want the next one if i drink a coca-cola in public

i would think everyone was fucking staring at me like what are you doing it was so interesting it's not like smoking yeah right you know people still accept it i had the diet one because i thought that that was healthier than actually chugging sugar. But, yeah. You instantly want to know. You finish it, and you just want to hit the button on the, like, get the attendant over. Like, stewardess, I need another Coke now, please. It's unbelievably addictive.

They got really great scientists. They're not studying nutrition. They're studying how to make those brain pathways light up in a way that maximizes your pleasure and addictive. When you're aware of it, you're like, whoa, that is wild. I need another one instantly. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I love dessert. Yeah.

But I haven't had dessert in three years because I love it so much. Yeah. Because I just can't stop eating. I have an addictive personality. And it was easier for me to just not have any than to try to have a reasonable cheat meal. Us really disciplined people, we have to be disciplined or it just goes fucking crazy. And people are like, that's so hard. The whole thing of ice cream is going down.

People think that sounds really hard. But, like, dude, it's way easier for me to never have dessert than it is to, you know, have one cookie. Having one cookie takes a lot of discipline. Having zero cookies actually doesn't take much discipline. Yeah, you eliminate options. You're like, oh, now I've had one. I've pretty much wrecked the day. But let me make a confession. It was

my wife and my ninth anniversary yesterday. Congratulations. And we were walking by on the street. You took her to beautiful Madison, Wisconsin. Congratulations. Go watch fitness. Great timing, right? I've been to every single CrossFit Games except the one year I got married. Hey, Greg, can we change the date? I got some plans.

So we're walking by this ice cream shop, and I'm like, you know what? It's our anniversary. We can make this a thing. We'll just have ice cream on our anniversary. We can go back to the diet tomorrow. And she's like, you know very well that if we have ice cream now, we're not going to wait until next year to have it again. a good point dear that is a lot of this but you know to answer your question about coca-cola um our problem with coca-cola was mainly oriented around their and and by the way

it wasn't just coke it was coke and pepsi because pe. Because remember, Pepsi owns Gatorade, and a lot of what we were doing was about Gatorade. But our problem with the soda companies was mainly originated in and oriented around their involvement in health and fitness. And they have less of an involvement today, but still a pretty significant one in terms of sponsoring health and fitness organizations, paying for nutrition research, obesity research in a not always so transparent manner. And they were also funding our adversaries. You know, Pepsi is one of the I think it's the top sponsor of the NSCA. You know, the NSCA was, still is, lying about CrossFit and lobbying for laws that would have made our business model illegal. You know, so, you know, Greg, being a strategic thinker, you know, was like, hey, you know, let's not just go after the pond. You know, like, let's follow the money.

Yeah. You know, and it's been a pretty successful so far. We just published a post on CrossFit.com about how I found an academic or academic in quotes, air quotes, who literally is a full-time PepsiCo employee who's publishing articles in the NSCA's journal and elsewhere as if he's a university professor. But we called the university and we're like, does this guy still teach here? And then we found all his, like, profiles and everything online confirmed that he hasn't

taught there in six years. But he's still identified as, like, University of Montevallo professor. And all his newest, like, 2019 research hasn't taught there since 2013 he's a full-time employee at pepsi so how much of that is also going on i'm sure a lot you know i at this point i've seen so much corruption and so much lying in the field and hiding where the money's coming from that i really have no hope that anything I haven't looked into is healthy or honest. How interesting is it that there's just gangsters at every level? Yes.

Like you play a gangster at like against the U.S. government. There's like gangsters in the government saying we're going to sanction this because the NSCA is talking to them and you got your own little crew of gangsters trying to make it right. Well, are you calling me a gangster i mean i mean i i'm taking it as a compliment yeah totally i mean it like in a way like it's just there's there's somebody that's the big person right now in sea they've got their lobbyists they've got their government people and they're trying to impose sanctions on you they're trying to hold on to their block sorry yeah it's like 50 cent the 50th

loss my favorite book yeah i mean it it's starting to look like it's it's and classman does a great job like you guys do a great job you pick the big fish and you go after them because they're doing stuff that doesn't line up with your values and you go at them enough yeah and uh sooner or later they have to pay attention to you and then we start to find the truth. We find the place that is not in a, you know, not just I guess their message. I don't think we're ever going to get to the point where we fix all these problems.

No. To be honest with you. But at least people need to know not to trust the authorities. They have to be able to make a choice. Yeah. They need to have the full amount of information. You know, just for instance, a lot of people think that our federal agencies are entirely funded by taxpayers. But the CDC and the NIH each have foundations where they raise hundreds of millions of dollars from outsiders, including private corporations. And they're told by Congress, hey, make a report every year of what money you're getting from whom and what the restrictions are.

And we found that they haven't been doing, neither the NIH Foundation nor the CDC Foundation has been doing that for like as long, as far back as we can tell. So we took that to Congress. Congress was like, wait, they're not following the law? And we're like, nope, they're not following the law. And we were like, no, they're not following the law. Check, ask them. And guess what? They weren't following the law.

And that was 2018. And Congress put in its funding for, in its bill funding the CDC and NIH that year, you know, language saying, hey, actually follow the law this year and report where all the corporate money is coming from. And the CDC and NIH gave a pretty strong indication at the time that they weren't going to take it seriously. And sure as can be, they released their annual reports recently for last year, and they're still not following the law. so we caught them, Congress reprimanded them, and they're changing none of their behavior. And keep in mind, this is during a period where

we're having like one of the biggest health crises that we've had in 100 years. You know, life expectancy in the United States has declined three years in a row. Last time that happened was during the Spanish flu epidemic and World War I, like 100 years ago literally and to find out that at the same time that life expectancy is falling three years in a row you know the agencies that are supposed to be protecting us from all these diseases you know from opioids from type 2 diabetes these agencies are actually partnered with the very companies responsible i mean that's that's crazy i i feel like a crazy conspiracy theorist, but I keep being right at the same time. It's like cognitive dissonance.

What I'm saying and thinking sounds crazy, but it's also substantiated. It's a strange feeling. So there was never any consequence looming for having not followed the law for many years? Yeah. Well, you might not believe this, but there's a lot of corruption in D.C. So there's a fairly high bar. How dare you? There's a fairly high bar for getting,

especially now, for getting anyone's attention. And there's so many laws, too, by the way. People are always violating laws. I mean, at some level, the NIH is a really big business. It's going to be hard to get them to, like, budge. There's no one bigger than them. Yeah. It's like, who are they going to lose business to?

Nobody. CrossFit, are they going to make a lab? CrossFit lab in the middle of Santa Cruz. Dude, this has been phenomenal. The deep dive into CrossFit and the business and the history, I'm super, super stoked that you reached out to me a couple months ago. I never thought that I would be hanging out with you on microphones talking very deeply about the business and the fitness side of CrossFit

and the future of it. It's been an absolute pleasure. And you're the source for one of my favorite quotes. I got to say this. Yeah, this is exciting. I know. You can only be 25 one of my favorite quotes. I got to say this. This is exciting. I know. You can only be 25 for five or so years. That's you, right?

Yeah. I'm 32 now, so I'm like, I'm feeling that. Yeah. I totally made that up. I feel so good about that right now. That one did really well on Instagram, I think. It's very true. I was 25 for about seven years.

Until about 32, and then I became 35 real quick. Right on. Well, where can people find you? Actually, are you guys, because you do a lot of writing, where are you writing and publishing? Yes.

I publish from time to time to CrossFit.com. It doesn't always have my name on it. If you want to see archives of stuff I've written, it would be KeepFitnessLegal.CrossFit.com. We're going to come up with a different website for that one. Yeah. It's long. I'll admit that.

But keep in mind, I'm also the Director of Government Relations and Research, so brevity is not my strong suit. Hold on. Say that one again. Keepfitnesslegal.crossfit.com. Gotcha. No one's going to remember that. It's all right.

Twitter is green plus an E or at green plus an E. Right on. Greg Pitts. What's going on in the leaderboard these days at the One Ton Challenge? About to launch the live event tomorrow. Yeah, it's pretty exciting stuff. People show up, see everyone, all their scores, updated live. Yeah.

And you get to talk about it with CT Fletcher. CT Fletcher is going to be pretty exciting. Wait, he's going to be there. Oh, he's the MC with us. Holy shit. Right? I got to meet him. Yeah, come hang out.

He's going to do strict press or strict curl. Is that the one where you put your legs on the wall? Yeah, you've got to have the back against the wall. It's not really full range of motion if you do it with your back against the wall and the elbows stay on the wall. Because you can't. But it's still harder, though, right? This is harder. It's way harder.

Greg, you need like a little tick box for every time CT Fletcher says motherfucker. And it goes, ta-ding, ta-ding, ta-ding, ta-ding, ta-ding. There's like a notification in the corner, push notifications. I command you to ding, to ding, to ding, to ding. There's like show up a notification in the corner, push notifications. I command you to grow mother. Yeah. It'll be wild. I'm excited about it.

It's really, really cool. Instagram. Where can people tell, find you? You find me at, you can't tell me how to live. Instagram.

See, that's the, that's what you guys like that. I like that. Right. I feel like you will. We need to talk about wearable technology when the show's over. Let's do it. That's where I used to work. Yeah. That's right feel like you would. We need to talk about wearable technology when the show's over. Let's do it.

That's where I used to work. Yeah. That's right. Doug Larson. You bet. Find me on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson. Get over to OneTonChallenge.com. Enter your squat, dead, bench, snatch, clean, jerk.

Add them all up. Find your one-ton total. Goals 2,000 for men, 1,200 for you ladies. We're testing the lifelong pursuit of strength Super exciting stuff Live events And you can do it right in your home gym Which is super super cool

We're stealing CrossFit's model Imagine that Imagine that That's my whole business school right there Screw my MBA Well remember what I said about season to sis You know OnceOnChallenge.com

I'm Anders Varner At Anders Varner We're the Shrug Collective At the Shrug Collective Six shows a week Jason Cleveland on Monday Tuesday With Ryan Fisher I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We're the Shrug Collective at the Shrug Collective. Six shows a week. Jason Kaliba on Monday. Tuesday with Ryan Fisher.

Barbell Shrug Wednesdays. Thursdays, Ashley Van Houten. Friday, Dr. Sean Pastuch and Travis Mash on Sundays. We will see you guys next Wednesday. That's a wrap, friends. Remember, One Ton Challenge. You got two days, 48 hours. Better go get in there.

OneTonChallenge.com forward slash join. You got a year of programming coming your way. Coaching from me. Badass programming from Coach Travis Mash. And we all get to learn squat, bench, deadlift, snatch clean jerk. All the big lifts. The big six. It's going to be phenomenal.

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