Barbell Shrugged - Barbell Shrugged  — Building a Badass w/ Christmas Abbott  — 333

Episode Date: August 25, 2018

    Christmas Abbott (@christmasabbott) is a professional athlete, a CrossFit Games competitor, an olympic weightlifter, and NASCAR Pit Crew. She is also a branding advisor, working with individuals and teams to craft their own unique brand, helping them to put their best foot forward and share their passion with others.   Christmas is also a transformational guru, creator of Christmas Abbott Nutrition, Oxygen Magazine Trainer Challenge Head Trainer, Badass Body Diet Creator, online fitness coach, motivational speaker, keynote speaker and national bestselling author.   Flash news! Christmas is launching her very own podcast, Building a Badass, on the Shrugged Collective next week! Look out for the first episode on Friday!   In this episode, we talk to Christmas about coming to the Shrugged Collective, training for Nascar, competing in CrossFit, rebuilding through life’s struggles, Big Brother fame and injury, and more.   Enjoy! - Doug and Anders   Show notes at: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/bbs_buildingabadass ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please support our partners! @organifi - www.organifi.com/shrugged to save 20% @thrivemarket - www.thrivemarket.com/shrugged for a free 30 days trial and $60 in free groceries @OMAX - www.tryomax.com/shrugged and get a box FREE with your first purchase @Onnit - www.onnit.com/shrugged for a free 14 pill bottle of the leading nootropic Alpha Brain and 10% savings on all purchases. @foursigmatic - www.foursigmatic.com/shrugged  to save 15% on your first purchase @mikesalemi- www.mikesalemi.io/shrugged for 15% off everything ► 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

Shrug family, we're back on another Saturday. God, I'm getting so good at this, right? Twice a week in your ears. We've got Christmas Abbott hanging out today, which is really cool, because Christmas Abbott is coming to the Shrug Collective. She's going to be our next seasonal show on Fridays, just after the Strong Coach, which is a huge success.

Christmas is bringing just, yo, Christmas is such a savage, um, from being a NASCAR pit crew, uh, person, which we discuss in here and how she trained for that, which is just so out of my world and seems so intense. It's everything that I didn't know was going on behind the scenes of a NASCAR race. Her life as a CrossFitter, being on Big Brother, now she's pregnant, she's going to be a mom, she's doing this podcast at a very vulnerable time in life. I just had my first child, so I'm not a female. I don't understand like all the pregnancy things, but in watching my wife go through it for the first time, it's just this crazy transformation in life where you,

man, your whole perspective is changing and you're growing this human inside you and it's just really crazy. So we're catching her at like the perfect time of self-reflection and kind of understanding where she's at in the future of her life. So it's a very cool time to just get this like really deep dive into all the things that have made, well, as the show is called, into building a badass with Christmas Abbott.

Make sure if you're going to be over at the Granite Games, we're super stoked to be hanging out at the Granite Games. We're going stoked to be hanging out at the Granite Games. We're going to be there in early September. Come by, say hello, take a pic. I'll put you on the Shrug Collective Instagram story because, I don't know, I like hanging out with everybody. I like meeting all the people. We're going to be at the Granite Games. We're going to get there Thursday. We're going to be hanging out. They've got some cool fitness festival stuff going on. They're going to be donating a ton of stuff to charity, so we're going to get there Thursday. We're going to be hanging out. They've got some cool fitness festival stuff going on. They're going to be donating a ton of stuff to charity, so we're going to be putting some stuff in the raffle.

They're looking to do upwards of $50,000 in donations this year, which is going to be very, very cool. Also, at the end of September, we're going to be at the Spartan World Championships in Tahoe at the Podfest. And we're going to be hanging out with all the cool kids, most importantly, the cool kids at FitAid. And, man, I had so much fun at the CrossFit Games with FitAid. We're doing it again. Spartan World Championships in Tahoe.

I believe it's 29th and 30th of September. So make sure if you're going to be at any of those events, come find Doug and I. We'll be wearing barbell shrug shirts. and we'll probably be really loud on microphones, hopefully on speakers doing live shows. So come by, say hello, and let's get into Christmas Abbott. Building a badass. Between him and Colton. Yeah, Colton.

Our videographer. Have you met Colton? He's one of our newer videographers in Carlsbad. He's a newer. Dude, he's living the life right now he all he does is just like do photo shoots with instagram models and go surfing and that's his life he's killing it yeah how old is he i asked him 24 27 27 20 something i asked him i asked him like what it would take for him to find an actual girlfriend that he would want to be with.

And he was like, you know, I'm kind of thinking about it. He's like, I really just need a girl that's really good at taking pictures. And is really cool just only hanging out at the beach during certain times of the day. I was like, you're not ready to have a girlfriend then. I was like, she's not going to do that. It's not possible. Here's your roadmap to be a girlfriend then. I was like, she's not going to do that. It's not possible. Here's your roadmap to be my girlfriend. Your sliver.

And she has to be a type O positive. Your sliver of qualifications is not going to. You just keep doing your thing. God, all these people are giants now. So wild Pregnancy, fitness You want to talk about that? Sure

We'll leave with that Yeah Let this thing roll I got a lot of questions Get out of Where is that thing right now? His head He likes to headbutt my uterus wall

He's all head down right now It hurts, yeah Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner. What a transition. Doug Larson, Christmas Abbott. Is this like the FitAid fan experience?

We don't want to launch the name yet. I have a short list. I have a good idea. I'm a firm believer that you have to meet him before you know. So, like, I'm going to have A or B. How did you become a firm believer in something without really experiencing it? That's how my family is operated.

And I hear tons of stories about, oh, we were going to name him Oliver, Oliver, Oliver, Oliver. And then when he was born, they were like, mm-mm, he was a John. You know, like it was just, I don't know. Where did Christmas come from? Same story. So my mom had Jessica Brooke picked out, right? Okay. And she did.

Christmas is way cooler than Jessica Brooke. That's why I'm saying it's good to wait. Yeah. So she had Jessica Brooke picked out. She had a really hard pregnancy with me. And then when I was born, she was like, oh, that's Christmas joy. That's my baby. And we were parents like kind of hippie ish.

Like Christmas joy is like a, I wish I could show you pictures of my family. Like I will send some. My mom had this to her butt long beautiful brown hair she was a little bit of hippie my dad was a biker he had long hair but it was a mohawk like shaved mohawk and they hung out with biker gangs and they were living in new orleans and my uncle and my aunt were living with my parents and like all the friends i mean it was just kind of like a little bit like a flop house you know just everybody kind of came and went yeah and yeah that was my family so it was like this like that's that's an interesting way to grow up

yeah well i mean they the dad got rid of the bikes after i can't remember shortly after i was born um and then you know they they kind of started to build their family foundation after they've had two kids. They're like, oh, we can't put the kids on the back of the bike anymore. Getting too big. It seems to be the common shift that most people go through is they have kids and they also become a lot more conservative. Like, do you feel like that's happening to you at any level right now?

Like, you used to be a little more wild, and now you're getting way more conservative i mean it was wild for a little while no no the short answer uh so i was super wild i still have a few tendencies, you know. I have my quirks. That's a whole other podcast. And for me, you know, I don't know yet because he's not here. Right. So I can't really speculate on something that I really have never been exposed to.

But, you know, I don't think I'm super wild now. In comparison. In comparison. Man, I'm an angel. Compared to wild now. In comparison. In comparison. Man, I'm an angel. Compared to the past? Yeah. Compared to the past. You know, 10 years ago, for sure.

Right. Because I remember the first episode we ever did with you, three or four or five years ago, and I was a while back. I remember your back story was pretty crazy, and then you kind of came out of that and established the new Christmas habit, so to speak. And then we went to the wrong we did for you for your birthday that was my gift to you yeah that was a great you're lucky a great night by the way first time they're in my house i'm just like cool and then mike said something he was like so we should do

a strip club and i was like yeah there's a great one right down the road. We can go in the back door. Is that a dull meaning? So the short answer is that I feel like I've been taking leaps and bounds towards responsibilities. And I own it. I love security in leaps and bounds towards responsibilities. And, like, I own it. You know, I love security in my life. I love consistency. I like that kind of boring day-to-day stuff.

But occasionally I do need to wall out. So I'm finding a good balance. I really just have no idea what's going to happen when this little man comes. Yeah. Well, what even about right now? Balance has to change a little bit when you just go through this. Doug and I, we're seasoned veterans. Doug's got a doctorate in having children.

But you're on the other side. I know, but yeah. We are. Yeah. Just recently for both of us with my last kid and your first kid. Yeah, I'm five weeks in. You're 10 months into this pregnancy? He would be born right now.

10 months! 8 months. 13 months into this pregnancy? He would be born right now. 10 months! 8 months. You're 13 months into your pregnancy? 10 weeks to go. You're 30 weeks, right? Yeah, 30 weeks. We're not delivering this thing right here on this podcast. No, but you know what?

You guys listening out there, if you see a pregnant woman, just tell her she's beautiful. Don't tell her she's getting ready to pop because that shit pisses you off. And I'll tell you, I don't know how. That was a really key piece of advice I just heard right there. We just threw that out there like attitude. Even if they don't, if they're haggard, they got bags underneath their eyes, they're wobbling around in this weird way, just tell them they're beautiful. That's what all the women say.

As soon as every text I got from a female, like when we were going through, they were like, as soon as the baby's born, just look at her and tell her she looks beautiful for the picture. I was like, I didn't think of that. Thank you. And then there was like six text messages that came through with that exact message. And I was like, that's important. Tell them they look good for the picture. Here's the thing.

I'm a huge believer in honesty. Just some filtering around a very hormonal pregnant woman is smart. That's strategic. And you're not lying. She looks beautiful. Just you don't have to be brutally honest about, oh, you look like you're getting ready to pop. No, it's low. And you're like, you're not my OB.

Get out of my vagina. Stay away. We got there already. Before we even get so far into this. This point of no return. Yeah. I mean, we're going to get there, so who cares? But we should at least let the people that are not 100% sure who this crazy lady is on the microphone.

Where did you come from and find this fitness thing? And why are you here running the FitAid fan experience pregnancy thing? Why am I chugging this FitAid deliciousness with you? It's so good. Right? I fucking love FitAid. Adult soda, delicious. No, I call it a liquid multivitamin.

Do you? Yeah, because it has everything you need in your multivitamin yeah wake up drink it you're good to go doug said there's a focus one that i need to try doug's right well per usual you think of the fan experience i can't have the focus right now because of my pregnancy but it's in the focus it's that strong the first time i drank a focus i drank like half of it and was like whoa i need to put this down and build up my tolerance is this over the counter the there's um one it's it's an upper i mean you can have a certain amount of caffeine per day but there's i believe it has an ingredient called taurine taurine in it which for adults is fucking awesome because it's a focus actually that's i put that in my pre-work uh in my pre-workout for my my born supplements but

taurine is a focus enhancer so that is not good for the baby development baby brain development specifically so i've looked at like when when go through, you have a whole list, and everybody tells you what you should and shouldn't do when you're pregnant. And you're like, thanks, I will take that under advisement. And you just sound like a broken record after a while. And as a human being, a pregnant human being, I think that we have this responsibility to do our due diligence and our own research and not just blindly accept what, one doctor or to a stranger tells you.

I told my doctor about what my lifestyle was and he was like, you're fine to keep doing that. Just be, if it feels weird, change it up. But with, with the do's and don'ts of what you should consume or not consume being pregnant,

do your homework, find out why and find out the origin of what caused that rule and then you can make an educated decision on whether or not applies to you so a lot of them i kind of like threw out the window because i was like well that's just that's a dumb origin reason and not really a real reason that i care about but other ones like this like the affecting the the fetus and the development of the baby um or growth, those are, I take very seriously. Do you have any examples of things that people told you that you shouldn't take or shouldn't do that you were just like, ah, come on, get out of here with that?

Well, I'm going to start with the notorious, as a pregnant woman, you should not lift over 20 pounds. I laughed in my nurse's face. How's that possible? What happens if I had a toddler at home? You know, like this is also called life. You have to live life. Right. What happens if you had a toddler at home you know like this is also called life you have to live life right um what happens if you want to stand up i mean our groceries weigh more than 20

pounds yeah yeah and you know with that it's a lot of the times the the average american isn't necessarily fit yeah and you should not start a workout program once you've become pregnant. But if you've already been in a workout program once you've become pregnant, it is good to maintain it. It would be much more devastating to me and my body for me to stop working out than it is for me to continue it at some capacity. And, you know, first trimester I did just a little bit. I wasn't super intense. And then second trimester i felt like i was fucking superwoman like you have that prego strength you know that scene of a movie where the woman's ripping the door off the wall yeah you feel that way you're just like i'm ready to do all of it marcy prs all of her lifts when she's pregnant yeah oh yeah

it's crazy it's it's the prego strength for sure it's a real thing so set up your nursery during this time don't procrastinate don't worry about it in the first trimester um i'm learning my lesson well i wasn't in my house yet and then um you know i talked to my doctor and i was like hey if this is your philosophy we're gonna have a problem and he was like no we have to say that for whatever reason and well they're not talking to you specifically. They're talking to all of the people. Right. And so a blanketed statement.

20 pounds. Yeah. What does that mean? So if you're pregnant out there and your doctor tells you you can't lift 20 pounds and you've been deadlifting 250 for years, maybe you should just let them know what you've been doing consistently so they can say, hey, look, you're an exception. When you're talking about the supplements and things that you take, a really fun night in the house was my wife went to tea. And it was the first time she'd had caffeine. And you know that everything you eat becomes food for the baby.

So if you drink a lot of caffeine, that baby's getting caffeine. I have never seen the effects of caffeine so much as when she was drinking, like really, she went to a tea date or something like that. All the caffeine goes in, and that night, the kid was freaking out inside her. Just hopped up on. It was like the first time you give a little tiny thing this adult dose of caffeine, and it was going crazy. And I was like, I live my life like that. That's how I am.

Oh, yeah. It was so crazy. One glass of wine, too, and the kid got hammered. The kid came out fine, guys. Don't worry. While she was pregnant. Yeah. You're not just, like, giving your actual kid.

No, we're not bottle feeding her wine. Here's a funnel. She would, yeah. Drink it. She would. She's had, like, half a glass of wine one night at the end of the third trimester. And, like, that night we were just like, oh, my God, the kid's hammered right now. Yeah.

Like, this is so weird. Don't worry, Child Protective Services. Everything's cool. We're good parents. Same thing happens when I work out. You know, they start in the third trimester, the baby starts kind of getting into his nap cycle, as he will probably represent in real life when he comes out, right? So he, this guy, likes to be active at 7 a.m.

and then around 10 p.m. for sure. That is his most active unless I'm working out during the day. When I'm working out, when I was running Murph... You did Murph? Yeah. Get it, girl.

Damn! When? Memorial Day weekend. I had gained 15 pounds. That was my vest. I feel gained 15 pounds, so I considered that – that was my vest. So I feel like I did it all right. The weight vest you can't take off. Yeah.

I'm counting that, man. Totally. So as I was running, I could just feel him just kicking low, and I was like, this hurts. But as soon as I get in an assault bike or start moving around, he's moving around with me. So he works out when I work out. Total change of topic, but whatever happened to the NASCAR thing? I retired.

What do you mean? What happened to it? Well, you were doing pit crew stuff for a long time, right? Yeah. That was like one of my first perceptions of you years and years and years ago. And then I haven't heard anything about it in a long time i was just wondering what whatever happened that you just decided you want to do anymore and move on to the next thing or what with with nascar the way that it works is it is a year-round sport and we would train we would start training in february officially but if you wanted to no we would kick it off in February we start training

in January so we had about two weeks off during the holidays of like real off time otherwise you're outside training um five days a week four days a week sometimes two I would have two a days and then I would do my train like my CrossFit and weightlifting training separately. That's why when that picture with me holding the pistol and I'm just phenomenally jacked, that was because I was literally doing almost three training sessions a day. Like between NASCAR and then training for regionals or whatever you're doing at the time? Yeah, and weightlifting. And I was doing nothing but food prepping, sleeping, eating, training. I was a full-time legitimate athlete.

And I loved it. It was so amazing. So you work. You train Monday through Thursday. You travel or do three of the circuits, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. You come back, you pretty much don't have a day off. And that is 11 months out of the year. So there is no way for me to incorporate

crossfit competitions weightlifting competitions or anything else that i would want to do now had i found nascar 10 years before because i was coming i went in at 30 and that was when a lot of people in my position retire because it's so hard on your body and uh so i just did it for a year i i loved it had a good time with it so thanks for the experience i was just i literally just went to do it to try it because i fell in love with the practice of it and um leaving it allowed me to be able to do more activities crossfit how do you even get into it i actually this is the first time i've ever like fully interviewed you how did you even get into nascar it's not like i mean it's not the normal path but you haven't walked much of a normal path ever i'm like oh it's just you know

life uh my friend called and said do you want to come play NASCAR? So we did a pit crew challenge. Yeah. I mean, who says no to playing NASCAR? Where are those? Where's the pit car challenge, and can I try it? Charlotte, North Carolina. Yes. Okay.

At the Charlotte Motor Speedway? No. We went to one of the race teams. Cool. Where we would actually practice. And then I beat the boys in hitting lug nuts. Smashed them. And the guy called me me so to give you an

example there's three tiers of nascar kind of like there's three tiers of the crossfit games um truck series is the open uh nationwide is regionals sprint cup is the games so at the games i mean at the uh the sprint cup level highest level, the hand speed for hitting five lug nuts with an air wrench as a tire changer is on average 1.2 seconds. So 1.2 seconds to hit five lug nuts. Oh, shit. To hit all five of them. Yeah, all five of them.

You don't get one second each. You would be so fired. Done. Boop. Boop. Dude, you see those cars come in. They stop and they take right back off. It's like, holy shit.

All the tires. You're just hitting it. Yeah. That's fast. You hit it. So the first day that I did it, the third attempt that I did, I was at five lug nuts at 1.7 seconds. So I was half a second at the highest level.

So basically, I could have been very proficient at nationwide. So that's like somebody walking into the gym, doing Fran for the first time, never doing CrossFit before in their life, doing Fran. And our ex will say a girl, a female, at three minutes. And the coach is going, okay, let's go. A couple tweaks. We're going to the games this year.

And we're going to the games and doing well. Yeah. So that was my experience. And I did that well because of my CrossFit history, you know, the power, the agility, the determination, my baby monster, and competition. And they recruited me. I initially said no, and they called back again. I was like, you know what, I love this so much that i have to say

yes because i hadn't found anything that ignited me like that since i found crossfit so i was like well crossfit's been such an influence on my literally changed my life that i need to see what this is about i did it i loved it um but i didn't love it as much as CrossFit and weightlifting. So I had to choose either or. There was no way I could do all three. What does the training program look like? For, oh, man. So I had a hub in my house. So you practice hitting lug nuts, like a billion lug nuts.

You say you're doing like three workouts a day. Yeah. Is a lot of that just... No. Over and over. Yeah, I mean, you have to practice just you do finding yeah i don't even use air a lot of the time so you have the air wrench and then you get down i mean your butt so your feet are flipped out and your butt's touching the ground and you're crouched down because you want to be eye level with the hub and you hit there and you hit you tap one two three four five one two three four five and you hit there and you hit, you tap one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five.

And you make sure that that, that cadence doesn't alter. Cause if you go one, two, three, four, five, then it messes you up. Yeah. So you have to be, I mean, it's, it's bizarrely accurate. And so I would wake up, I would hit some lug nuts in my house. I would go to training and we would do drills. So we'd be lying flat on the ground. We'd get up, I would hit some lug nuts in my house, I would go to training, and we would do drills. So we'd be lying flat on the ground, we'd get up, sprint, hit lug nuts, because you need to be, because you're coming off the wall. You're running out in front of a car going 55 miles,

let me break this down for you. Yeah, this is real. Do it in a way that potentially somebody on this podcast right now that's potentially talking probably can't change his own oil and has no idea how to do anything i'm gonna i'm so pathetic when it comes to things like this easy to understand it's a waltz okay so there's lots of layers as the car comes in you see it coming in and you can't leave the wall your foot can't touch the ground unless the nose of the car is in the box so oh that's like that's like a rule rule right yeah

you get penalized so now you're dancing with timing of the car the car's coming in at 55 miles an hour right if they're going the the limit they don't go the limit yeah so you literally i'm on the edge of the um wall as the car comes in i'm leaping in front of a moving car in front of a moving car absolutely before that car nose touches that line because as soon as it touches that line my foot can touch so you're i mean the timiness you want to talk about nanoseconds? So, as it comes in, now I'm on the opposite side. I'm opposite of the driver. I'm on the passenger side. I'm looking at the front tire, and hopefully the driver is locking up.

So, they lock the brakes, and then the wheel stops. So, I can get what I call front sight focus. I can find what the top. Where it's at. The top. Oh, my God. Lug nut. The nut.

Where you hit the lug nuts. Spoke. Spoke. Come in, and I come down, and as it's stopping, I'm sliding in. The second it stops. Oh, you're on it before they're stopped almost? Almost. You're tracking it parallel?

I'm tracking it, and as the split second it stops, I'm hitting that first lug nut. And you go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Pull the tire. Roll it. As I pull the tire. No, you just throw it out there. We can toss it. As I pull the tire, because somebody is there to catch it,

my tire carrier is pushing a tire onto the the spokes so as soon as you hear a jam they jam that tire on i'm coming in and i'm hitting the five lug nuts back on we glue them onto the hub you get up you you swing the tire the that's the cool part. That's the really cool part. Everybody thumbs up. And you go into a heated sprint around the front of the car, and you slide into position. Literally, you come down, slide into position, and you do the same thing. Five lug nuts, pull, five lug nuts, and then you look away. You don't look at the car as it drives away because the lug nuts, they spin out,

and the lug nuts will hit your face. Oh. I've had busted eyes, bloody nose, busted lips. Thank God I had mouth guards because I was going to get my teeth popped out. And then you go and you check it. So you're not done. I've done my job you go and you look and there's um they have measurements on how much air uh how tight the lug nut was for each spoke can't breathe

pregnancy and from there they can look and see if everything's tight or if you've missed one one is okay not good but okay if you have one that's missing and then or like loose and then you have another one that's loose they have to bring the car back in so now you're responsible for another pit stop this is way more than i learned watching days of thunder a hundred times yeah so that's just my lane yeah that's just my lane there's four of those there's a carrier there's a jack man there's a gas man there's a back a rear tire changer rear tire carrier um and then you know hopefully everybody does their job wait so let's back up just for a second what was the deal with the lug nuts flying off and hitting you in the face that that that's a mistake or that that's common? What was that all about? Oh, that's so common.

So when you're actually hitting the lug nuts off, they fly off. Oh, when you're taking them off. Yes. Gotcha, gotcha. If you hit the spoke lug nut and you stay on the back of the rim too long, it'll stay, as they call it, a catch. It catches there. But if you don't go all the if

you don't hit all the way through it won't come all the way off so you have to hit it with the same accuracy every single the same power every single time right and it should pop off like popcorn we paint them yellow so we can see them yellow or pink and it comes off like popcorn and they come off really and they're heavy man yeah um i saw my one from my first race and a lot of times they just they'll hit your face and then when the car is taking off the tires spin and so if you're looking watching the car take off and it spins you'll get hit too it's a very dangerous way more than i ever knew like i never knew that happened yeah i mean it's so funny sometimes when i'm like eating at a restaurant and you can see

the kitchen and you see the way the cooks are like moving around each other but you can die doing this one and there's a car coming at you at 60 miles an hour yeah and you have to jump out in front of it i mean yeah the drivers will run you over. Is there like an intro class to jumping out in front of a 60-mile-an-hour car? Not really. You just go. Yeah. The intro class is, are you willing to do it?

I remember my coach the first time, Sean P., we were on the edge of the wall, and I think that he didn't think I was going to do it. And I was sitting there with my gun. All I had to do was go across and then position, right. Building fundamentals. And so you go, I came in and I was on the wall and you gotta be like on the wall, almost tipping over. It's kind of like a diver, you know, for swimmers and I'm over there tipping over and I leap and I come over and he was like, all right, she's willing to jump in front of a car. I was like, this was the hard part.

We're good. Let's, uh, let's back up to the other topic conversation real quick. I'm curious if, if your doctor tells you you can't lift 20 pounds, but you think that's, that's ridiculous. And you're still going to train and all that your training probably still does shift and change throughout the pregnancy right 100 so what changes have you had to make okay not just training walking it's so the first trimester was i I was just terrified I was going to lose it. And that, you know, I was very. Lose it in what way?

Lose the baby. Oh, really? I was just worried. You know, and I think that that's a general, a very common concern. Yeah. Because it's. They didn't tell you anything. You were just.

No. Just concerned because that's a normal thing to think about. Miscarriage happens a lot. Totally. I was about 10% body fat. You know, just a lot of variables. You just don't know what's going to happen. Does that mean you were so lean that that could have caused a problem?

Is that why you said that? It doesn't. Actually, your body fat, one, it may influence getting pregnant a little bit, but ultimately it influences the mother's ability to carry. It doesn't influence the baby's development. Does that make sense? Especially afterwards for like breastfeeding and comfort and delivery. So as soon as I found out I was pregnant, I was like, operation weight gain.

I needed to get a little bit more weight on me just for comfort, for my comfort. So I actually didn't, one, I wasn't able to go as hard as I was before because I was exhausted, and two, in the back of your mind, you're like, well, if I can't horseback ride or do impact sports and stuff like that, then I probably shouldn't be testing the threshold of my capability and my fitness every day. But that was just me. I turned it down a little bit. Not completely, but I'd go in, I'd do a workout, kind of like a level three effort out of five.

You know, one out of five, put a little effort in there, get a nice sweat, and then go home and recover. Yeah, sorry. If I just stop talking, it's just my brain shut down. How has the process been? One of the things that I really noticed with my wife is you're trying, it's almost like you're trying to guess the next step of what's going to happen, having no clue what's actually going to happen. And what I kind of started to like just observe from the

outside in is like your body is kind of giving you exactly what it needs to keep this little thing moving from the first trimester all of the sleep that you need like why am I so tired am I ever gonna be able to go work out again okay it's like well you have this very vulnerable ball of cells that needs to grow into a human being so the best thing you can do is probably relax and sleep and then all of a sudden it becomes like a oh it's a viable human now yeah now let's go let's teach it how to live um how is the process of like staying present and connecting with your body? Um, has that, have you struggled with that at all? And kind of what's that process been? No, you know,

it's funny because as soon as I found out I was pregnant, I was like, okay, I am his vessel. Like this is no longer my rodeo. And so I had to not be selfish with my training, with, you know, anything that I was doing. I was like, I am no longer my body. I am his safety vessel and his incubator. And I'm going to figure out what he needs and do what is best for him. And, you know, as I've gone through, you know, each trimester has brought its own challenges and blessings. And with that, you know, it's, it's, I haven't even tried to anticipate what was going to happen because I knew that my body was going to tell me like, he's going to let me know. And of course I read my

books, you know, I go along and it's funny because those books are accurate. They're like, this is going to happen. I'm like, Hmm, I wonder if that's going gonna apply to me because i'm the exception i am not the exception and human baby making yeah you know humans have been down this road before yeah once or twice yeah so it's been really amazing to you know and people are like aren't you scared i'm like i have cellulite i'm probably gonna have stretch marks. I am very uncomfortable. But I love being pregnant because this is a magical time. And, yeah, when you're sleeping, your body. So fun fact is that the growth within the first trimester, specifically the first few weeks, it's so rapid that if it maintained that rapid growth to delivery, we would be birthing one ton babies baby elephants right

so do that i guess doubling in size every two days type of thing it is wild like the it is wild to read that and then also you don't look pregnant you haven't it's still very new you're not really you're not like i'm pregnant like i am now um and so the first trimester man i don't know i'm still in the middle of my third but the first time i was like give a lady some help like let her sleep bring her food what i had mine was pasta and lemonade that's all i could eat and i would eat two i want to get pregnant totally it was kind of amazing but you feel can i get some extra pasta sauce please let's get some protein add meat that would be awesome but it was it was wild because i mean

you're just like this has never been a characteristic of me before and this is i have to have this but you're extremely fatigued in the first trimester so like if if somebody tells you that they're they just found out they're pregnant carry their bags rub their back get them some pasta and lemonade and tell them they're beautiful yeah guys just get comfortable with your wife sleeping on the couch because that was me i would come home and i'd be like hello and then she'd be asleep and i'd be like are we are we ever gonna hang out again i'd like to maybe have a conversation about this baby that we're having second trimester yeah and then i was like do you want to go to sleep maybe change this back a month i slept on the couch a lot too well this is two of eight really awesome stories that we will be uncovering.

Christmas Abbott is coming to the Shrug Collective. And we are going to be putting an eight-week season together of your life from NASCAR to pregnancy. We're going to take a quick break and then dig into a little bit of this project we've been working on. It's going to be fun. Shrug fam, I told you. Building a badass. It's coming. Coming to a Shrug Collective Friday near you.

I don't really know. If you are interested in getting in a lot better shape, which if you're listening to this, my guess is you're interested in getting in a lot better shape, get into shrug collective.com backslash vault we've got 12 strength conditioning programs in there um anything for mass gain the muscle gain challenge some crossfitty stuff with the shrugged strength challenge i'll never get that right um and make sure you're checking out some of the accessories. Oh, we've also got, what is it,

Strug Strength, Muscle Gain Challenge, and Flight Weightlifting for Olympic lifting-specific programming. Those are long-term programs, 18-plus months, and then we've got nine other accessory programs from Strongman, Mobility, Nutrition, Meal Prep, getting your first pull-up, getting you from competition to prep, getting you through the open or open prep for CrossFit.

All kinds of really, really cool stuff in there from accessory programs to full-length 18-plus months. ShruggedCollective.com forward slash, I got the forward slash right, ShruggedCollective.com forward slash vault. $47 a month, 12 programs. It's going to be gangster. We are stoked on it.

Love hanging out with everybody that is a part of it and in our private Facebook group, posting videos, questions, all the good things. Back to the show. Man, it turned 12 o'clock here. And it 12 or is it one it's 12 and like a hundred people just walked into this gym crossfit big dane and i'm so we're surrounded if you can't tell we're all kind of just like looking around because there's so many fit people that just randomly showed up in here that were just kind of taking it all in and some of them chartered a plane from iceland there's like 15 of them this is a killer gym by the way it's like 15 000 square feet it's huge they just moved in here brand new looks amazing

open gym we've got a group class going on with some kipping pull-up fundamentals yeah totally and thank you to barrett and samantha having us over here, by the way. I know. They've been super great to us. I love them. So, Christmas, you're coming to the Shrug Collective. I know. Thanks for it.

Listen, guys, I've been harassing you guys to get me on here for since the first podcast. I was like, oh, you guys need a girl. Yeah. You guys need a girl. We need that female voice. Now, is it true that I'm the first female in the collective? Sure. As a podcast host?

As a podcast host, yeah. As a podcast host. We have had a show lately with another female, but you will be crushing it. YouTube only for that show. You'll be the softest voiced coming through. It's not that soft of a voice. The softest, but not that soft.

Well, what are we going to be talking about? We had one of my, it was actually like my favorite conversation because, you know, when you're in this world and people they try and think we're doing something so incredible, which we are. We're doing something very incredible just talking. But when we put these little seasons

together we've got eight episodes and I could see in your brain you were trying to figure out who all these people you were going to bring on to the show to make it so special, and all we had to do was say, Christmas, why don't you just go tell your story, because your story is enough, and it was like radio silence on the other side of the phone, and we were like, where'd

you go? We thought the connection broke up, and you had already written down all eight episodes and you were writing your outline and next thing you know we had a season of christmas what are we calling it i don't know there's a couple names uh there's a couple names we're playing yeah i can't remember there was one that i put on there i put it on the outline that i sent you yeah i'm trying to remember it i can't remember. There was one that I put on there. I put it on the outline that I sent you. Yeah, I'm trying to remember it. I can't remember. But we have eight shows coming on Fridays after The Strong Coach is finished with Mike Bledsoe. And we're going to walk through your life because your life is not.

If you've been listening to this so far, we have a NASCAR pit crew, CrossFit competitor, gym owner. We haven't even talked about Big Brother yet. No. And all of those stories come with a whole ton of being a badass. The badass body is going to be in there. Oh, wait. Building a badass. Building a badass.

That was the name. Yes. Building a badass. The book is going to be in there. Kind of walk us through just maybe the beginning progressions. Yeah, I think I can give you guys kind of like a highlight of each episode, and then we can figure it out from there. So basically each of these subjects I'm expanding on,

and I'm going to tell you my experience and also what I took from it, the lesson learned or the mentality going into it and then the mentality going out. Because I think I get a lot of questions about that. They're like, how are you so badass? How are you so this? I'm like, it takes time. But also it's not like getting on a diet regimen. It's a little bit different.

You have to be aware of how you talk to yourself first and foremost. And then awareness is so magical it can be rude to yourself to you like you know awareness of who we are self-reflection a lot of those conversations suck yeah but those hard conversations and being aware of who you are what you do versus who you think you are what you think you, that makes all the change, right? And how we talk to ourselves in our mind makes all the change because it creates this awareness and real authentic truth with yourself. So now that I've kind of gotten on my little preaching,

we're rewinding to even like Little Baby Christmas where, and I didn't put this on there. I didn't talk about my mom's hard pregnancy. She had a really hard pregnancy. She almost miscarried me a couple times. She was on bed rest for a long time. They didn't have money, so she couldn't work, so she had to go work anyway. And the first episode is about my mother, watching my mother.

I was 11 years old or so. Watching my mother actually stick up for me because I wanted to play baseball, and I didn't know that it was a boys' or girls' league. You know, if I was a girl, I had to play on the pony league. And just watching her at the kitchen table defend me in an honorable way, you know, not get too huffy-puffy, not say cuss words and everything, but ultimately asking me what i wanted to do and why and she was like okay and then she she went to bat for me no pun intended there oh

hey baseball i see what you did there that was a mom joke you're there you have arrived you guys should count the cuss words in this podcast because this is definitely the least amount of effort. This has been very calm. This is the new Christmas Advent we're introducing to the world here. The tamed version. Who knew that that was there? If badass is the worst we do, then... I think I dropped an F-bomb earlier.

But normally it's like every other word. Go back and listen to the earlier podcast um so the first one's just about watching my mom in in the right way stand up for me and in what i believed in and then we move on to the car accident the car accident was what threw me off my rails and allowed me to have that bad behavior. You know, it was a crutch for me. And then the next one will be my story in Iraq and how going into a war zone saved my life.

And in Iraq, I discovered CrossFit, which ultimately means that I discovered, oh, man, that one's going to be a nice long episode just because there's so much that I discovered, oh man, there's that one. That one's going to be a nice long episode just because there's so much that I took away. And, you know, people go to college or they, you know, get street smart. I went to a war zone and I learned everything that I needed in business from that experience, everything that I needed for personal development from that experience and who I was, who I did, didn't want to be and who I wanted to be. And then also like all of the core beliefs that, you know, my moral compass, my core beliefs

that I have now, I learned within that four years serving in Iraq, as I say, sir, I mean, like helping the military as a contractor. And, you know, that was hugely significant. And then I go into competing for the first time at the games. And then I progress into NASCAR. And then I progress into writing my first book. It being a national bestseller. You know, so, like, I had this hugely successful year, uh, professionally, but on the other side, my mother was going through a very aggressive

chemo treatment. I was on the road 100% of the time for my tour that I had booked. And, you know, I couldn't, I couldn't cancel because I, you know, you commit to what you do, you say. And then also I was going through a pretty, uh, hard breakup, you know, and commit to what you do, you say. And then also I was going through a pretty hard breakup, you know, and how I got through that. And then rolling into, I think from there we go into, I don't want to say we skip all the way to pregnancy.

What's the next one? Big Brother? Big Brother, yeah. My experience on Big Brother, breaking my foot, coming out of there, being isolated, merging myself back into society. That took some time. And then it, like, overlapped with being pregnant and a whole new chapter. So that's, like, I mean, all of that within eight episodes.

Yeah. We should have given you 12. It's actually better this way. If we can condense it to eight, it's better. Yeah. We should have given you 12. It's actually better this way. If we can condense it to eight, it's better. Yeah. I'm good. I can do that. I can do this.

One of the things that I found super interesting, especially in our first talk when we were kind of laying this thing out, is I always in my life have been lucky enough. You can have this coffee. I know. Just shaking coffees. Spit back in it, too. I'm sleepy. I'm pregnant.

Give me your coffee. this coffee i've always been very lucky to have mentors or people around me to kind of help guide me through tough places and when i brought that up to you when we were talking about potential guests that you would want to have on i was like oh you could just invite your mentors so they could like reenact some of the old conversations. And you were kind of, you basically, like, no, I did all of this myself. That makes the process significantly harder and a lot more soul-searching kind of going into this alone and having to rebuild over and over and over again. Jeez, story of my life. And when I say, you know, I never had a mentor.

And I advocate for mentors. There's actually a chapter in my book. And when I say I never had a mentor and I advocate for mentors. It's actually a chapter in my book is find a mentor. Yeah. And it's because I didn't. And there's, you know, my mentor was probably like my mom. But even then, I was in such weird depths of life that she hadn't been exposed to. She was like, well, I don't I don don't, you know, I don't know, but she would always give a great perspective. Uh, but yeah,

when you said that, I was like, Oh, mentors, huh? What's, let me think about that. And it was, uh, I, I do that now. I try and reach out to mentors now, but for the most part of my life, I've just figured it out myself. And yeah, out to mentors now, but for the most part of my life, I've just, you know, figured it out myself. And yeah, it has, it,

it makes the, the decision making more difficult, but when you decide something, you commit to it. You know, like once I decide something, it's done. There's,

there's no, there's no changing that. Where, um, where kind of, you don't have a normal life. We can just, it's been, it's been a bit of a ride.

That's funny. That's what my mom and my sister told me when I was 16. They were like, you're just not normal. I'm like, what do you mean? I'm totally normal. They're like, no, you're weird. Hi, little puppies. And I was like, I don't get it.

Your dog just got a shout out on Barbell Shrugs. That's what happens when you're super cute. It just works. Until he said that everyone thought you had Tourette's. That came out of nowhere. That's what my mom says. Hi, puppies. I know.

Yeah, being weird, being different, that's okay with me. It's more fun that way. We were talking about it before the show. If your life is just straight up normal and you're just around all the normal people, life's pretty boring. And that's okay for all you normal people out there. Yeah, you're allowed. But if you are quirky, let it shine. Do it. Just let it go.

When did people start to, like, really take notice of this journey of yours? Like, the social media thing kind of happens. And when did you start getting comfortable telling your story? So, my friend – so, I was on facebook when it was kind of getting popular my friend told me all the things that i've done have been suggestions from other people uh you guys remember uh fitness lonnie yeah oh my god so fitness he's actually not a douche. Like, really? He filmed himself? It's funny that you say that because that wasn't the first thing I thought. It was the second. Oh.

Where is Fitness Lonnie? I have no idea. Someone find Fitness Lonnie, please. We should do a campaign. Yeah. Where is Fitness Lonnie? Where is Fitness Lonnie? He suggested that I have a fan page, and I was like, who's going to be my fan?

Was he the first vlogger in CrossFit? I think so. Just making fun of people? Yeah. People used to get in a lot of trouble making fun of CrossFit. I think they still do. Do they? I think so.

I don't know. I don't know. Maybe not as much. I remember thinking that guy was pretty funny. Yeah. He had good jokes. Oh, Fitness Lonnie was hilarious. Oh, yeah.

I loved his stuff. Didn't he streak at the games one year or something? Like ran around? He did some stuff. I think maybe he had a Speedo or something. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that.

And he was going around flexing. He had a gift. That was his alter ego. But him in real life. Well, if you lived like that your whole day, that would be wild. I mean, if he's doing his own thing still, then sorry for blowing your spot. But, like, personally, him, not his alter ego, he's a very quiet guy, a little shy, you know. So he was really wild.

He's just like a performer. Super, super sensitive, just really empathetic. Yeah. Nice guy. Super nice guy. So when did you find him? He found me. Yeah. And he came down and was doing this video did you find him? He found me. Yeah.

And he came down and was doing this video. And I was like, cool, I'll be in your video. And it's at my gym, my first location. And we did this video together. And he was like, hey, you should have a fan page. And I was like, who's going to be my fan? So I did a fan page on Facebook. And now it's got, I don't know, 700-plus thousand people.

Damn. You ever think about how many people that is? Yeah. Like there's like 700,000. You have 700,000 of anything else? Instagram followers. No, I know. People following you.

All the platforms. What's the Instagram thing at? 700. Yeah, so Facebook and Instagram, 1.4 million people. Well, collectively with all the other social media, it's right at two. Yo! I got two million cells in my body. That's about it.

That's the only thing of two million that I have. If I had a dollar for each one. Yeah. That would be nice. It's nice. It would be nice. But the same thing happened with my Instagram. My friend was like, oh, you got to check out this program. I was like, so you take pictures.

And I was like, cool, that's not cool. Yeah. And a year later, he set it up for me. A year later, he comes back and he's like, Christmas, you didn't post anything. I was like, no, what do I post? He's like, post what you love. And I was like, okay, I can do that. Then I started posting stuff that I love, and people started liking it and following.

They loved it too. Why I started doing videos of me is because when I worked out, I wanted to video my form and technique for me to study. It just caught on. All those people that do technique things on the internet that people like. That's totally on Instagram right now and we're talking about him. I want to learn about Big Brother.

There's like a weird world of the reality TV thing and you're competing but you got really injured. I learned about this on the Bledsoe show when you did it. I thought it was an awesome interview. Foot slash ankle injury. You want to see it? Yeah, I do.

It's like the gnarliest way. It sounded nasty. I wish this was a video show so we could show the world your feets. I don't have a dollar for every follower, but I got a nickel on my shoe. How did you not know you had a nickel on your shoe? Listen, I'm pregnant. Everything's uncomfortable. I don't even pay attention to that shit anymore.

Oh, that's so good. The way that I heard you describe it one time, it sounded like your foot just got rolled up into a ball. If I can describe this, it looks like just the top of your foot has two, one like three-inch scar and one five-inch scar. And then another one over here. So they cut it open in three spots so you kind of folded it in half it looks like then yes that's exactly what happened so right here is your midfoot where

these are your metatarsals i didn't break my metatarsals i broke my midfoot so when i and you watch so oh look at you see the arch yeah and then if I flex my toes back, that does okay, right? Oh. Oh, dang. That's it. That's my range of motion. Have you noticed any additional injuries because of the changes in the way that you've had to walk? My left hip is so sore.

Yeah. Is the right knee? Not that I'm aware of. I've broken both of my big toes, and each time that I've broken them, it's been like a chain reaction, which is why I ask. It's gone like when I broke the right big toe, it changed the way I walked, and then the left knee got weird, and then the right hip. And then the other side, it was the same thing, like the diagonal.

I've been working with my PT, and then I got pregnant, so it's just a lot of additional pressure. So what happened? So here in the midfoot, can you explain the injury to people? Yeah. So, you know, six years, six years, three professional sports. I am, I'm like very capable. Yeah. You're a badass. We'll call it. That morning we woke up and this guy, cowboy Jason, and this, you know, if you were, oh, my God, he did it. I'm like, he didn't do it on purpose. Accidents happen.

We weren't drinking. We were just, like, having a good time. They used to play one song in the morning to wake us up. This is on the show, Big Brother. On the show, Big Brother. So they were playing Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy, which is kind of funny because he's a cowboy. We were – I get up early, a cowboy. I get up early.

I get up and get moving. So he was up. We were the only ones up. I jumped on his back because we were just, it's Big Brother. You do crazy things. You're in a house. You're performing for the camera. You're completely secluded from everything in the world.

There's no TVs. Isolation. No TVs, no journals, no music, no books, no. That's how they make the show so dramatic because you're so bored that there has to be drama. You go crazy. Yeah. You're just bored all day. You're just bored.

So when they play one song. And then you get one hour. Yeah. Not even an hour. No, one hour a week. Oh, yeah. Of that show. And they get the most interesting pieces into one hour.

Yeah. Which is, the rest is just filled with people laying on a couch, bored out of their minds. Counting things on the wall. Watching the fish tank was stimulating. That's incredible. It was good stuff. Yeah.

So I jumped on his back. We're running around. He slips on the turf, and we fall. Foot fell, went in half. It folded the wrong way. Like your toes touched the bottom of your heel type of thing? It was this way. Yeah.

Toes going towards the heel. The only thing that didn't break was my big toe, but these all broke multiple times in the plate. Like there was where the joint is. They had to use a cadaver bone. Because it was so – he said it looked like somebody just smashed it with a hammer, and it was dust. They dusted it. It got dusted.

And I rolled over. I said, I broke my foot. He's like, no, you just sprained your ankle. I was like, I felt it. Get production. He's like, no, no, no. I was like, get fucking said, I broke my foot. He's like, no, you just sprained your ankle. I was like, I felt it. Get production. He's like, no, no, no. I was like, get fucking production. Yeah.

I broke my foot. And then, yeah. And then my doctor was like, I've seen a lot. It was a less frank fracture. Ten bones. I severed a tendon. The tendon going across your foot to keep it together. And then I also severed the main nerve.

It was like a guillotine blade I mean that would actually have been better than it would have been easier yeah um how many bones are there in your feet you know what in our feet and I don't know how accurate this is I think it's close to accurate because I came from my PT is that almost a third of your bones are in your feet yeah a third of your bone your body's bones are in your feet i was like awesome and i broke 10 of them and they're not like it's kind of like this intricate system in your feet too the bones kind of all like move and shape and breaking something like this is going to alter your life for a very long time it's not like this is snapping your arm in half and then it kind

of just grows back because there's two bones in there. These things have to move and work like this crazy system. It's a clock. It's kind of like a grandfather clock. If something is off, then it's all off. And this is a year out. I just had my one year anniversary.

And when I wake up and I put my feet down, I have to assess yeah every morning every morning almost every time i get up if i've been sitting for a while and i stand up i'm like is it okay today um some days are worse some days are okay but it's not it's finally gotten to a point just recently where it doesn't hurt all day yeah what um what does like a workout look like now i i followed you in the open and kind of like watched the i was so tired that first trimester was yeah gnarly we were going through all the stuff and you're recovering from

injury you're inside a year of snapping your foot in 10 places um what is like how What does a workout look like for you? And are you, like, mentally, where does the, what are you expecting out of yourself? A workout is pretty normal. If I need to modify, you know, I do more modifications now for the belly. But before, during the Open, I hadn't done double unders until the Open, i hadn't ran until murph okay so just i have to be cognizant of not doing too

much and having that mentality of just because i can i should that's not true that's true for pregnancy and true for my foot so i'm curious you. I don't think that I'm really in the recovery zone yet. I'm not on that. I'm slowly as much as I can right now. But ultimately, I have two more months of pregnancy. I have a few months of infant, right? Newborn stage. You're going to sleep so much.

You'll just be perfectly rested. The kid won't cry. It's going to be great. Yeah. I'm'm gonna have a night nurse why do you think doug and i scheduled this trip so we could go sleep last night was fantastic first night here two two full-sized men and a full bed and we were perfect yeah he's so happy so quiet in here right now. I'm ask earplugs. No one tells you that the baby.

I'm dead to the world. Yeah, when the baby sleeps, it's constantly like, meh. You're like, what? Meh, meh, meh. Why? Why can't you just be quiet? Oh, man. I know.

I'm trying to sleep as much now as I can. Yeah. But it's uncomfortable. Sleeping is uncomfortable. I wake up in pain. Right. We totally sidetracked you and got back to pregnancy. But I know.

Well, the recovery, I believe, is going to come shortly after the birth. That's, like, where my journey of recovery begins. And that's going to be – and I'm doing PT and stuff now, but that's when I really get to have a routine workout schedule or a workout program. And, you know, it's cool because I'll be able to recover from the pregnancy and my foot, and I think in a year I'll be, you know, I'm not going to put an unrealistic timeline on it.

Like I said, my body is a vessel for this guy. I'm not the boss right now. Yeah. Not sure I'm ever going to be the boss again. She's not crying. again to relinquish that control hardest thing ever but you're not in control listen do you know I'm Christmas Abbott well okay so I'm gonna sidetrack for a minute and that is something that I am really excited for is for not necessarily me, but like for this kid to grow up and me be able to share what his mom's done.

And also, you know, his dad has a pretty interesting, you know, who's military. So he has a pretty interesting past too. So I can't wait to just tell him stories. And somebody, oh, man, you talk about people unfiltered on social media. This lady, I put a picture from a workout magazine the other day. And it's, you know, it's not outside of Christmas. You know, it's booty, a little provocative, but also classy. I think about, wouldn't my grandmother like to see this?

Yeah. And I'm proud of my body. I'm proud of my accomplishments. I'm proud of my journey. And I'm proud of the shit that I've had to go through. So when I post something, it's because I fucking want to. Yeah. There it is.

And I've earned it. We got the F-bomb out. I'm so proud. Appropriately placed. I agree. 100%. And so somebody was like, oh, what is your son going to think of this in five or six years? We've earned it. We got the F-bomb out. I'm so proud. Appropriately placed. I agree. A hundred percent. And so somebody was like, oh, what is your son going to think of this in five or six years when he sees it? I'm like, he's going to think that he's damn proud of his mom for keeping her shit together, going through such hard times,

always coming on the other end, staying positive, and always just taking a chance on herself. And I was like, I have been able to always been proud of my work and I will never be ashamed of anything that I've ever done and if he's ashamed of it then I've raised him improperly you know and and that's that's the thing is like I want I want him to be proud of the legacy that I'm building I want him to build his own if he chooses you know I don't know who this guy's gonna be he's gonna explore that and find that out for himself. But my job is to give him avenues for him to be able to do that. There's very few people that enter into the world thinking that they can

create their own story. Yeah. And they grow up in families where people, like, will go just live this normal path. Let life happen to you. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that if that's what you choose. But just the exposure from a very young age, from birth, and being around people that are choosing their own story

and creating their own opportunities. Just think about the ability to grow up in an environment like that. I mean, you kind of did, but I didn't really. And that's something that I think about in, like, that. I mean, you kind of did, but I didn't really. Um, and it's, it's, that's something that I think about it, like exposing your kids to like, it's like we can develop the skills so that you can create your own life.

Yeah. And you don't have to do what people tell you to do. Like if you tell me I have to do something, I'm going to come up with so many reasons why I don't have to do that. And I can do it my way. And I don't think that's your mentality now yeah and it wasn't always that no definitely not and it has to through you know failure and through struggle and through all the things you realize it's like why i'll just figure this thing out myself but so many people don't grow up in that environment and they get beat down and it's very cool to have the mentality and to be able to have

the story and tell your kids like hey you can figure it out yeah you can do whatever the fuck you want to do i'll just give you the tools so you can like maybe learn where you'd like to go yeah i'm i'm excited about that and i just you know for a long time i just thought that my life was what it like i would never be more than what I was in that moment you know so for example we just didn't have a lot of finances growing up so I just always thought that I was going to be a lower income lower kind of I don't want to say anything to offend my parents but you know like a a lower class person yeah and you know secretly i wanted certain things but i just thought that that would just that's just not

in the cards for me that's not who i am and as soon as you know going to iraq and stuff like that that helped me shake that mentality uh it started it and then i had to nurture that and grow that mentality to where like hey man I deserve more I want more and be willing to admit to myself that I wanted more and that if I wanted more I had to do more for myself and not believe people when they told me that I couldn't coach that I couldn't be an athlete that I couldn't get a sponsorship because I wasn't a high school or collegiate athlete and you know start assuming that people nobody knows your true capability you don't even usually know your true capability until you start pressing those thresholds and I'm hoping that I that I can in a positive way and not too overbearing or controlling because I can understand who I am um is is teach my son

that yeah you know and and that he gets to he gets to choose his story and he doesn't have to let life happen to him and I think most people let life happen to themselves yeah I'm super stoked for you to come and do this season because I feel like. I have followed you for a long time. And it's always very impressive. And cool. And your message is great. There's so few opportunities I think. Where we get to share this big story.

At a certain point in your life. And one thing that I love. About what we do. Is yes we get to talk about strength and conditioning. But we get to very publicly. Share our thoughts about things. And this is like where I'm at in my life right now. And the conversation that I would like to have and share it with people. And you get to take this eight week thing and tell these really big pieces of your life. And that one day you will be able to sit down with your kid and be like yo check this

out like you don't have to have all the answers but here's all the things that i've been through and how i grew out of maybe not grew out of them but how they forged this life of that i live that hopefully you find to be pretty impressive and um i'm stoked to listen i am i mean can you imagine if your mom had something like that? Yeah. She was like, Anders, here you go. Doug, here you go. When you just need a little perspective.

Yeah. Pop it into whatever vintage thing that you have and listen up, you know? Literally, our parents never had the opportunity to take eight to ten hours and just here's life. life here's here's like the biggest lessons I've got and and here I they were so important to where I am today that I wanted to share them with tens of thousands of people yeah I'm so before we hop off I just my mom's coming to help me um with the birth and she's gonna stay for about a month and I want to sit down and interview because she has these amazing stories and she's like to stay for about a month and I want to sit down and interview because

she has these amazing stories and she's like you know I need to write this down I need to write this down I was like all you have to do is tell me the story mom yeah and I'm excited uh she's real entertaining by the way you think I'm entertaining I'm a mini Barbara she may be your next co-host you're more polished i mean she is super southern but i'm excited to you know to to hear these stories so i didn't get a chance i wanted to do that with my grandparents and i didn't get a chance to and i regret that what have you learned about kind of the storytelling process in these because you're looking back on your life and the stories that you're telling probably aren't a hundred percent like per minute by minute exactly how they rolled out it's kind of like your interpretation 10 years later of that story and

how it's affected your life have you had any kind of like real breakthroughs of like oh wow i didn't really recognize that detail being so impactful from when it happened to today? You know, I think that that came, it's so common because, like, I found that when I was 10, watching my mom stand up for me like that and the way she did it, how she executed it, it really influenced me. But I didn't recognize how powerful and impacting it was for me until a couple years ago. Yeah. So, you know, you have these things that happen in your life,

and you're like, oh, well, you don't know what the lesson is. I'm trying to be cognizant of when I'm in hard times, what is the lesson it's trying to teach me? And a lot of the times, it's not teaching you the lesson right then. That lesson doesn't come for weeks, months, years, decades later. But there is a lesson if you're willing to learn. I love the movie Collateral Beauty because it harps on that so much. It's like every tragedy has something beautiful come from it.

It just doesn't always share itself or show itself right then. And, you know, I'm having a good time reflecting on these stories. It's really kind of fun for me. And, you know, connecting the dots of this is why I am the way that I am and who I am. And a little bit of it's genetics. A little bit of it is, you know, my upbringing. A little bit is situational yeah um impact yeah so i'm i'm really excited there's there hasn't been anything that's been like an

epiphany of like oh my god yet but i'm i'm we're digging yeah i love it um where can people find you besides every friday see we are started we're three weeks three weeks out from the launch. And this will probably post right before your show starts. So it will be happening soon. Next week we'll make sure that happens. For sure. This coming Friday. Which is super fun because I'm going to be giving birth when these are being aired.

Oh, yeah. That's cool. That's crazy. You can find me on christmas abbott.com you can find me on facebook or instagram at christmas abbott listen if you can't stalk me properly then you just don't have a computer or a phone you're not creepy 700,000 other people can figure it out surely you can figure it out. Or just walk into a bookstore. I'll be right there. Front and center on the bestseller list.

Working on the Badass Baby book right now. Are you really? Oh, really? Yeah. What a gangster. Badass Baby. I know. I'm going to draw little tattoos on him.

My baby will kick your ass. The Badass Legacy. Don't fuck with him. Yeah. Came out choking kids. He is aggressive with him. Came out choking kids. He is aggressive in there. That is for sure. Are you planning on doing this natural?

Listen. Whatever happens in that room. A public commitment is about to happen. If it's too much, you don't have to answer me. No, I'm okay with it. I share my life. There's not a lot that isn't intimate. I'm attempting natural. I'm doing everything that I can do to prepare for it mentally, physically, emotionally. And I think, you know, I would love to do natural.

Yeah. But I also am understanding that I have never done this before. I'm a rookie. Oh, yeah. And I don't want to say I get out of jail for free card. Hey, come on in. But I also want to be realistic about totally what i'm what i'm willing to be capable of yeah and this is like i i hashtag training for labor because it's real

my workouts are tailored for me to mentally get prepared for labor this is me training for the games this is me training for regionals this is me training for laborals. This is me training for labor. I always do this. I ask her where they can find her, and then I want to just talk for another hour. Part two. Fuck. We have closed. We have ended shows three or four or five times. I do it all the time. Or one sitting before.

Wait a second. No, I have more to talk about. And I'm a talker. Yeah. For sure. But I am. I'd like to. I want to do natural.

Yeah. But the two things. I have two things that I really, really want. And these are kind of like the non-negotiables if it's in my power. One, to keep the umbilical cord until it stops pumping blood. And then two, to immediate skin-to-skin contact. Yeah. Which is pretty standard now.

But everything else is going to be extra. Like, there are other things that I would like to happen. But I understand, like, if I get those two things, then I'm a happy mama. And I think the only way that I wouldn't get to those two things is if I have a cesarean. Right. Which, you know, I don't – who? This is a whole other thing.

I went into that room with no real expectations. My wife was a total gangster. But I always just like, you know, there's certain rooms you can prepare for. That's a room where you walk in and you one minute I was like in a shower, like trying to calm her and like coax, not coax, but like help her through each contraction and massaging and doing all the things. And the next minute I turned around, and the whole choreography of the operating, or not the operating room, but, like, the delivery room just changed. And next thing you know, the doctor was in, like, a face mask

and had, like, all the smocks on and the boots and the work. And I was like, oh oh do i get one of those like why did you get one and i um what's about to happen it was like this whole thing happened behind me i was like oh it's go time like this is about to happen you're just it's impossible like to just prepare for that room like it's just it's so crazy yeah i and i'm and i'm understanding of that so who knows but they're you're gonna crush it you know just one little side thing on being human i don't think the baby should come out of vaginas where would you like it to come out of we need a new model we need to redesign this thing where's the trap? There has to be one other than my vagina.

That's it. That's what we're going to end on. My favorite place. What happened? Hashtag save the vagina. Doug and I agree. Yes, we do. The original is the best.

The original vagina is the best vagina. Oh, my God. It'll come back. Whatever it turns into, it'll come vagina. Oh my God. It'll come back. Whatever it turns into, it'll come back. Oh man, he's kicking now. ChristmasHabit.com

at ChristmasHabit on all the things every Friday for the next eight weeks on the Shrug Collective podcast. Doug Larson. For sure. DougLarsonFitness.com

I got a bunch of cool online courses on my new site and you can follow me on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson. Find me at Anders Varner on all the things. Who cares about me? Get into the Shrug Collective.

That's the most important thing in all of this. YouTube, five podcasts a week. Pretty much six now because we're kind of going two days a week. Yeah, we've been throwing some extras up on Saturdays. We've got a lot of shows on the bank, and we're going to start putting them out just because they're sitting there and there's a lot of good information. So Monday through Friday plus up on Saturdays. We've got a lot of shows on the bank, and we're going to start putting them out just because they're sitting there and there's a lot of good information. So Monday through Friday plus a couple Saturdays. And Sundays.

We've got Technique WOD. Sundays, Technique WOD. You bet. We've got four shows on YouTube going out each week. And life is good. So good. Fucking love the Shrug Collective. Dude, all the people we're hanging out with.

Life is good. I'm stoked to be here. This was a great idea. And Christmas on Fridays. Yeah, yeah. We'll see you guys next week. Bye. Hope you enjoyed the show.

I love Christmas. She brings so much just energy, good vibes, not afraid to drop an F-bomb every once in a while. It's everything you want in a guest. Like a nice spicy F-bomb right in the middle with a little attitude, but also just a big-ass smile and a good conversation. She's so rad. Tons of experience. Just, man, what an interesting life that human has lived.

She is coming to the Shrug Collective, so make sure you're checking out Building a Badass every Friday here on the Shrug Collective. This is our third seasonal show. We had Body of Knowledge. Then we had The Strong Coach. Now we've got Christmas Abbott. Building a badass. Get over to MuscleGainChallenge.com.

Download the free e-book, How to Get Super Yoked. That's not the real name of the e-book, but it should be. I believe it's called How to Get Super Strong. MuscleGainChallenge.com. We love it. It's part of the Shrug Collective Vault. Program Vault, 12 programs. It's killing.

It's killing. Come be a part of it. Download your free e-book at MuscleGainChallenge.com. We'll see you guys on Wednesday.