Barbell Shrugged - Barbell Shrugged  — The Future of The CrossFit Games w/ Armen Hammer  — 337

Episode Date: September 12, 2018

Armen Hammer is a content creator and host and founder of The WODcast Podcast, Scale As Needed Podcast, 4Ears Podcast, and Armen Hammer TV vlog. Armen is a former Senior Editor at FloElite, who covers the CrossFit Games, weightlifting, strongman, and fitness. In this episode, we talk about the 2019 CrossFit Games season, new regionals events, how do you qualify for the 2019 Games, Greg Glassman’s view of CrossFit health vs. the sport of fitness, what is Dave Castro’s role in the new changes, and more. Enjoy- Doug and Anders ---------------------------------------------------------- Show notes at: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/bbs_hammer ---------------------------------------------------------- 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 ► 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

Shark family, we're back. We've got a super radical interview today with Armin Hammer from Armin Hammer TV. He had a conversation with Greg Glassman on Saturday of this week, and we were lucky enough to be at the same event, the Granite Games, with him. Sat down for about an hour and a half and got the lowdown on everything you need to know about the upcoming upcoming crossfit game season all the changes all the things you can look out for and what the future of crossfit looks like specifically the crossfit games we had a very cool conversation i've been a fan of armin all the way back since the Naked CrossFitter. And if you remember that blog,

you're a super OG CrossFitter. I've been on a guest in the WODcast podcast many years ago. It was actually the first podcast I was ever on and just been a huge fan of Armin. And it's pretty cool because we've all kind of grown up in this Southern California CrossFit scene together. And man, it's super cool that I get to bring him on Shrugged. And he can be a guest on our show. And just been a big fan of him, I would say, of each other for a long time. So very cool show coming your way. I also want to thank the Granite Games.

John Swanson, you have put on a phenomenal event. St. Cloud, you are a phenomenal town. We had such an amazing experience. Everybody there is top-notch. I can't believe that they put 2,000 athletes, a couple thousand fans in the stands. Everybody's cheering. Everybody's got just such a good vibe out there.

And they were announced as the second official, I guess, regional stop for people on the way to punching their ticket to the game. So very cool weekend to be out there kind of where we're at the forefront of this new side to the CrossFit season and the future changes. And it's all the buzz. Everyone's talking about it. And I don't think that there is an event better or more well-suited for these changes with the ability to grow.

And I couldn't have been more impressed from the roundtables, the number of athletes, coaches and podcasters. That's Doug and I at the roundtables on Thursday night. And then just how flawless and how many good things people had to say about the competition. Just had a blast. I can't wait to go back. I can't wait to grow with these people. This event and John Adam Smith, you guys are phenomenal humans, and thank you so much for taking care of us this weekend. I want to take a moment to thank our sponsors for today's episode, Four Sigmatic, which is my lifesaver at the moment. You guys have heard

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and get 15% off their entire site. That is F-O-U-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C.com slash shrugged to take advantage of this offer. FourSigmatic.com slash shrugged to get 15% off now. See you guys at the break. Here to talk about competitive fitness. Someone has to. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner. Hanging out with Doug Larson.

We're at the Granite Games. The Kill Cliff Granite Games. We've got to get the sponsor promo in there. Dude, today we're hanging out with the voice of fitness. The voice of elite fitness. Arm and Hammer. That's me. Doug asked what your real last name was and I said, I have no idea.

I think I know it, but i don't want to well i have the most uh i have probably one of the most armenian names ever first of all first name armin if that's not a dead giveaway i don't know what is right second last name my actual last name is amirian i was close i had armerian and it it sounds like Armenian. So I grew up being called Armin Armenian, which doesn't bother me because, you know, it's accurate. And, like, why would I be ashamed of that? But I figured Hammer just flows a lot better. And I got that as a nickname. It was, like, my first real nickname I got in the gym. I was like, fuck yeah, I'll take that.

Wasn't it? It was Wellborn that gave it to you, right? It was Kelly at Wellborn's gym. Gotcha. Yeah. Wasn't it Wellborn that gave it to you, right? It was Kelly at Wellborn's gym. Gotcha. But basically between John and Kelly and that crew out there, Max and G, it was like they're like, who is this pudgy Armenian kid that just showed up? It's way cooler. He spends all day here.

Your name is like real marketing for your show now. Yeah, I'll take it. I love it. It's fantastic. Dude, you're on this new thing. Yeah. Your whole – my favorite's the Naked CrossFitter. But then the WODcast podcast, Flow Elite,

and now you've got your own gig where you're literally covering the sport. You found, like, the voice of the people, and nobody's really covering the sport the way it needs to be covered yeah um how did uh i guess i have seen it but the people that have not been following your career um why what what has drawn you to actually wanting to be kind of the voice of the people for the sport that's a really good question um you know i think i think one of the biggest things to know about me is that i don't know or particularly care very much about any sports. Like, this is the only thing other than, you know, like, it's like CrossFit, weightlifting, strongman.

These things are interesting and exciting to me. I love talking. I love thinking about them. I love doing them. But I don't really care about, like, baseball or football or basketball. You know, there's occasional moments in which you know mainstream sports excite me and those are few and far in between like if i get a chance to go to a hockey game those are usually really fun in person or like you know if i grew up in the super bowl

i do watch the super bowl that's the only that's the only one i'm watching i watched the super bowl uh i only ever started watching the football because ever started watching football because I started doing fantasy football, and I started doing fantasy football because I'm a nerd. I love video games. I love stats, and this is like a video game I get to play with stats. It had nothing to do with football. It had nothing to do with football. I was like, wow, that's a really impressive physical not being interested in those sports in any real way, I love sports talk radio. It's like the thing that got me through all my commutes. I was driving, you know, 120, 130 miles a day in college because I was living in L.A. and going to Irvine, which is about a 60-mile one-way trip. And on top of that, I would go to multiple gyms.

Like one gym was in Costa Mesa. One gym was in Santa Monica. And it was like this crazy route that I was taking. And so I would listen to L.A. sports talk radio. And it was just so entertaining to me. Like it was just so entertaining. And like the height of it when Kobe is lighting LA. You're talking like 10, 15 years ago when people were like,

there's just so much going on. The Dodgers, they're getting sold. And Kobe might be retiring. And all this stuff is going. Pau Gasol is like, is he going to stick around? Who knows? All of this stuff is going on. And I found Sports Talk Radio to be super entertaining.

At the same time, CrossFit launches CrossFit Radio, and I was like, guys, this sucks. It's terrible. I am bought in 100%. Sorry, Justin Jenkins. Yeah, I was like, I'm bought in 100% to this CrossFit thing, and I want to consume as much as you're willing to give me, and this sucks. Yeah, it was bad. So I guess it wasn't really a conscious thing. I was just kind of like, well, I want to talk about this stuff,

and I want to be able to provide some sort of insight, and I just happened to be able to step into a role where I got to know a lot of people. CrossFit was much smaller back then, and between Naked CrossFitter and the WODcast, I got to meet a ton of people. The games were in L.A., so I could just go and talk to everyone. So by the time 2013, 2014 rolls around and I have a Rolodex, every game's athlete, every game's coach, you name it, I've talked to them essentially.

It just kind of naturally happened that, hey, maybe I can actually do this for a living. Maybe I can actually talk about this for a living. Yeah, I joke all the time that this podcast thing is like the new age am radio and i my dad used to sit there and listen to like sports talk radio all the time constantly and you would like listen to it and you'd be like dad this is so annoying and then i meet people at like the granite games and the parents are like uh yeah when we're on vacation we like binge listen to barbell shrug and i can just imagine like the kids in the back like can you turn anders off he sucks that guy's so annoying but yeah it's basically the new age am radio it's

awesome um you talk about the rolex of like athletes that you've had do you build a lot of trust with those people they love the way you tell the story of the sport like it's really coming from like a fan point of view and not the voice of headquarters where they clearly have like a a real large business that they have to protect in in telling the stories i hope so yeah it's awesome though i i think that that's like why people are drawn to i mean you just launched YouTube channel, and it's taken off pretty well. It's doing really well, thank goodness. Knock on wood.

You get to go and do all these cool things with people. Like you were just down hanging out with the cowboy. Yeah, Sean Sweeney. Yeah, you get to go do all this awesome stuff with these people. How the relationship with the athletes, they're not the easiest group of people to open up. No. In fact, I have some horror stories of trying to make these relationships happen and just being completely shut down or, like, making one small mistake

and just losing every little bit that I'd gained with them. And, you know, there's some relationships like that that it literally is still in the process of years-long repairing a mistake. Whether it was intentional or some misunderstanding or even had any sort of negative impacts, that's a very, very balancing act to make those relationships work. And I am not the best at relationships so like the one thing that i can bring is this like enthusiasm of a fan like i am honestly excited about all of this stuff this

stuff actually pumps me up like i am a huge fan of this sport at one point probably not anymore but at one point i bar none like literally nobody including dave castro including anyone that worked at crossfit i knew more about the crossfit games and the history of the athletes than anyone on the planet yeah at i don't know if that's accurate anymore there's probably someone younger than me who has who has like that same drive who's like been living that same dream but now through sort of what i've been doing i get get to contribute to that, which is so cool. Like, I get to be the source of some of that knowledge. Totally.

Which is awesome. So how is that that you would have more knowledge than the people that are, like, all the way on the inside, like, putting on the games, planning the games? I think, yeah, I think a big part of what happened there was the fact that I was able to essentially say, okay, as an outsider, as a fan, what do I want to know? How do I learn it? And then what are they telling me? So I'm able to like look at, okay, here's all the media that CrossFit puts out. So for a few years in college, again, when I had a lot of time on my hands. I'm right with you.

I was in grad school at this time. Yeah. I was in grad school at this time. Yeah. I was literally downloading. As you guys remember, CrossFit.com, they would put up every video. .mov or. – what was the video? WMV. WMV. Windows Media Player.

So I had a MacBook, and I would download every single video at.mov. Who was your favorite? Remember when Savan and Allison NYC got real creepy in a hotel room? Yeah, there's some really weird ones in there. There's some real. Actually, I was just reminding somebody of Allison NYC yesterday. I was like, do you remember this girl exists? There's a whole lot of people listening right now who probably don't know.

Tell me you haven't been to her Instagram account like at least once a year. And you're like, whoa, still going on, huh? Still going strong. Yeah, I forget that she exists. And then it pops up it like pops up and i'm like oh you're still doing you know split jerks in the bikini top i get it i see your brand i really see your brand like she got pregnant so it her everything doubled yeah you know she was maybe i would say she was maybe like eight years too early it sucks like she had the perfect brand she knew exactly what she was doing and she had the audience for it and it just she was just a few years too early. It sucks. Like she had the perfect brand. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she had the audience for it, and she was just a few years too early.

She was very aware when the camera was around. Yes, she was. You can see some background footage in Every Second Counts where she didn't know the camera was around. It's really interesting. The game changed a little bit. Even back then you could tell that CrossFit's media was being focused on the people they just wanted

to talk to instead of the people who might necessarily have the most. It's like, why did we have so much Allison NYC CrossFit media? I know two good reasons. I can't believe at this point there hasn't been like a CrossFit sex tape leaked. Seriously. I totally thought that was going to happen. Like five years ago, ten years ago, we were always talking about like it's going to happen someday and it still hasn't happened. I can't believe leaked. Seriously. I totally thought that was going to happen. Like five years ago, ten years ago, we were always talking about,

like, it's going to happen someday. And it still hasn't happened. I can't believe it. Yeah. I mean, someone's got to come out with the tell-all book of what happened in that private jet. Dude. Right?

Someone should. That would be probably the most interesting anonymous report, if these walls could talk. Right? So I think the biggest thing going on in the world right now in the world of crossfit is all the big changes with regionals and whatnot and you you happen to have a behind the scenes look at at all that and and seemingly have more information than almost anyone else we've talked to so what the hell's going on right now dude i wish i wish

i knew i wish i knew how any of this happened like literally 24 hours ago it's Sunday morning right now it's almost 11 a.m 24 hours ago I was sitting alone in a car in the parking lot of the Granite Games hyping myself up for a phone call with Greg Glassman and I never ever expected to be able to do that because I've met him a bunch of times. I've been around for a long time. But if I was to say that my relationship 10 years ago with CrossFit was maybe a little. You could tell the story. Yeah. So basically, you know, I wasn't on the best terms with CrossFit.

Like I was super critical when I launched Naked CrossFitter. It was both like this funny thing and also this really critical thing. It essentially came to a head at the 2012 games when I got removed by Justin Berg. The general manager of the games took time out of his schedule to find me

and ask me, are you Armand Hammer? And I was like, first of all, you don't know my real name. That's hilarious. That was really funny. No, that's my alter ego. Second of all, yeah, man, like, what do you need? And he's like, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. And then he personally escorted me out of Carson.

And I was like, okay, this sucks. It's not like you were causing trouble or, like, you were fighting with somebody, like, right there in the moment. I was just there. I had a ticket. I was in one of the suites with a friend of ours we were about to record an episode of the wide cast we had just finished recording an episode of the wide cast and they found out that i was there and it was like you gotta go and so uh going from that to six years later what was the excuse that that was used there uh so back then, there was like a lead up.

Like the six months leading up to that was essentially the Open happened. And if you guys remember the 2012 Open, I still feel like it was probably like the first two weeks were the worst programmed weeks of the Open ever. It was like seven minutes of burpees into this like 10-minute snatch workout. And the biggest problem with that is that you get 100,000 people doing seven minutes of burpees. You're going to get 93,000 people, 96,000 people whose scores are within 40 reps of each other. And that is the worst possible way to sort of like start a competition. Now, if you only care about the podium, which they do, I know that for a fact, then it doesn't fucking matter because the win.

Am I allowed to say that? No. All right. Then it doesn't fucking matter because at the end of the day, the winner is going to win, right? So that to me, I was like, hey, man, I want to be able to do well at this. This isn't something I'm good at. I also think that this is a bad idea.

And so I was really critical about those two workouts. And then they sued Fight Gone Bad and shut down fight on bad which was this big community event a huge fundraiser and they really just shut them down because they were using the words fight gone bad and then they launched their own version of fight gone bad called crossfit for hope and their marketing materials around crossfit for hope was this poster of like these oh i remember that so just if you google i remember that too. The slutty nurses. The dead kid in the wagon. I totally remember that.

They mailed them out to everyone. They mailed them out to every affiliate. And my brother and I had an affiliate. And we're sitting there and we opened this thing and I was like, this is a travesty. There was not a single affiliate owner in the world that unrolled that thing and was like, what the fuck? Am I supposed to put this up? No one was like what the fuck yeah no one's supposed to put this up no one was like i'm gonna use this to market this event like they sent this poster to everyone and i called them out on it and made the big fuss about it and then they sent me a

cease and desist and like you know they threatened to fight me if they ever saw me like you know let's sell this like men and i was like fuck you guys you're like a multi-billion dollar international corporation i'm one dude who just got out of college. Like, you don't need to worry about me. And so my whole perspective on things was like, you need people like me. Like, I drink the Kool-Aid. Like, I love CrossFit. I think CrossFit does great things.

I think great things are happening in affiliates. I enjoy the games. I'm just critical when you guys do stupid shit sometimes. And so they disagreed, and that turned into your persona non grata. Now, luckily for me, right after, like within four months of that happening, Lauren and Greg got a divorce, and Lauren was like, I'm going to sell my share to Anthos. And immediately CrossFit realized as an entity that there are much, much bigger sharks out there. Sharks that will literally destroy everything that CrossFit is built on.

Like the entire philosophy of this free market of affiliates cream rising to the top. For better or worse, this is what it's built on. It's like libertarian idea and they realize like hey man this one guy critiquing us from a place of like hey i love what you guys do but sometimes you mess it up is not the issue like this guy actually brings something to the table as opposed to these outside vc who are going to come in and like the plan is require at like require every crossfit gym to sell one type of t-shirt and take a cut of that t-shirt you know require crossfit gyms to sell crossfit branded supplements like open up new revenue streams for crossfit incorporated which greg glassman's like i don't

give a fuck about revenue streams like how much money could i want yeah i have all of it like what does it matter so you know i think i think they realized in short order that there are bigger problems out there. And I think over time they saw that there's value in what I do. Now, it's taken six years. And the reason it's taken six years for me to get on a call with Greg and actually have, like, a call with greg and actually have like a discussion with them and actually be given information to disseminate as like a as like an outside media person is because and you guys know this just as well as i do and anyone listening to this can probably like think and and and really see this happening over the past five or six years is like man crossfit has had a stranglehold on media yeah they and the same thing with events like how

many events can you think of that popped up over the past 10 years and died and they popped up and died because there was there was demand for them but everyone was forced to care about open regionals games open regionals games anything that was not in that season was like you know it's only events like this granite games or wadapalooza that have survived that because they're able to kind of extend their value to the community in a way that other, other events can. Same thing happened with the media. Like so much of the media coming out of CrossFit was this propaganda and it was almost repetitive. Like the stuff that I was doing,

they were redoing the stuff that you guys would do on podcasts. They would redo on podcasts. Like I've lost count of how many of my guests off the WODcast have gone on to be guests on the CrossFit podcast. Because they listen to us and they're like, that's really cool, but we can't push these guys. We have to do it ourselves. So now I think the reason why you're seeing Greg Glassman go on to shows and talk to outside media and like, like, quote unquote, leak this information, although I'm not sure it's really a leak when it's the founder and chairman. Who's going to tell the story? Nobody else is there.

Nobody else. Fire everybody. So I think the reason why you're seeing that is because I think philosophically, the way the CrossFit games were being run and the way the rest of CrossFit was being run were at odds. Right. And now that stranglehold is no longer going to be in place. the crossfit games were being run and the way the rest of crossfit was being run were at odds right and now that stranglehold is no longer going to be in place like they want to embrace all these outside events they want to embrace outside media they can't just be a propaganda media machine right so there needs to be that outside communication like the interesting thing about all that sports talk radio isn't that those guys are paid by the nfl or paid they're paid by a entertainment

company to make entertaining things about this sport and i think that is the real key like you have to have those outside voices you just said a second ago that everyone got fired like what what's the story do you have any idea like what behind the scenes is there there's there's been a big restructuring for for the athletes and the events and whatnot but then within the company there's been a restructuring as well yeah a lot of this started um like two weeks after the games greg glassman essentially in order to like so uh i don't i mean i'm not privy to any of the internal details of what exactly happens right i i've heard from former employees i've heard from other people who've had conversations with former employees like i've heard always secondhand and uh my

understanding is that uh greg glassman has had this concept in his mind of like changing the games for at least five years and that he's essentially just been saying like okay let's see if my prediction is correct let's see if these problems that I'm thinking are going to happen are going to happen, and they're happening. And so I think even before. What are the problems? I think the biggest thing that he had, the biggest issue that he had was that the games was a representation of CrossFit

that wasn't accurate as a representation of CrossFit. You know, it was entirely. Like general population CrossFit. It's not just that, but like in the globalization of what CrossFit has become, with the fact that there are more CrossFit affiliates outside the U.S. than there are inside the U.S., and the fact that those affiliates are growing at a faster rate, a significantly faster rate than CrossFit's affiliates in the U.S. are growing,

you have to be able to embrace those parts of your business. And I think the games as they were, weren't doing that. Well, I think you were one of the very first people, too, because you love analyzing all the stuff, the workouts and all that. I had no idea until I was listening to your show that Europe was this gigantic region, and they had one event for the entire thing, yet we had like eight regionals in our country.

And I wish I knew the numbers off the top of my head. You probably do. But I had no idea that it was so skewed and poorly sectioned off and that there was a ton of problems just in how they were selecting to find the top 45 athletes. Yeah, that's one of the things, you know, not to sort of like jump way ahead, but that's one of the things we see. People complain so much or like people are so scared. I'm hesitant to say complain because like it comes from a place of fear and not knowing like who knows what's going to happen. Right. There's there's a lot of uncertainty right now and i think people are mostly worried

what happens when there's this type of massive sea change to the architecture of the crossfit games and i think the reason why they're they're worried is because they see oh there was a clear progression open regionals games but there wasn't always this clear progression, and regionals were always fluid. We went from 17 regionals to 8 regionals, and then from 8 regionals to 9 regionals, and then back to 8 regionals, and we combined and changed. Like, this fluidity has been part of the game. So now it's like, instead of it being fluid in a way

where you just have no idea what region you're competing in, it's fluid in a different way. It's fluid in giving you where you just have no idea what region you're competing in it's fluid in a different way it's fluid in giving you more opportunities to compete if it all works right it gives you more opportunities to compete but the as far as like the big like firing uh goes for the media it's like if you look at it from a business perspective which i think you have to and you have to kind of try to put yourself in Greg Glassman's shoes. He has this giant media arm whose only job is to cover the only part of his business that's losing money. And where you can say, yes, the CrossFit Games have been a huge marketing tool for CrossFit as a whole,

I think at this point you need to be able to say, all right, we're going to trust outside media. We're going to trust that now the market is there. We know that the community is there. We know that people care. Now we can actually trust that there's going to be outside media that can do this as well as, if not better than we do. That doesn't mean that CrossFit won't put out any media. It just means that now the media that they're going to be putting out isn't going to be like just an inconsumable mountain of junk yeah around this stuff right well i was that was one of their like uh things they owned all the media like it when espn first came in i was like very surprised almost because they were letting somebody in,

even though they still owned all the content. It was like, oh, there's another voice in the conversation. That was like one of the things that made CrossFit a really weird organization is that there was nobody saying, hey, maybe this isn't right. It was always Glassman and this over-the-top message coming through that was usually, like, way aggressive. And it's going to be very interesting going forward just how that trust is built. Yeah.

Because he's never at any point opened it up. I mean, we've all been on the other side of that where we have an opinion, and then, I mean, you see how aggressive they would come after people back in the day. Well, what is the structure? Do you, what, like, there's 14, 16 regional events now? Yeah, so it works something like this. So here's the new, it's going to be really weird to explain it because essentially we're talking about two new things.

We're talking about the new games for the 2019 season, which is going to look a little bit weird. And then starting from that point on, starting with the 2020 season, it's going to be set in a different way. So, 2019 season looks something like this. The first qualifier for the CrossFit Games

is the Dubai CrossFit Championships, which is in December of 2018. So, if you can win that event, if you win as a male, if you win as a female, or you win as a team, then you get your ticket to the 2019 CrossFit Games. Cool. In February, the Open starts. And it's the same Open that we've all participated in in the past.

It's the same deal. Except this time, instead of it using the regions as a qualifier to regionals, regions don't matter anymore. All that matters is the country that you're participating in. Cool. In terms of the games. I think they still will be able to tell you other stuff about your performance relative to other people, but just in terms of the games,

all that really matters is the country you're in. As long as your country has one affiliate, one licensed affiliate is the minimum. The fittest person in that country, the best CrossFit in that country, gets an invite to the CrossFit Games. We're going to start our affiliate. Fuck yeah. Let's go. Like Papa New Guinea

CrossFit. Do it. Careful, man. And I feel like there's probably one there. I was about to say, that's a very fit population. That's a very aggressively fit population. We'll get on the map and find one. We're going to Antarctica. I'm going to Armenia.

Summertime. Is there one there? No. Armenia. We did the math. It's going to be roughly $5,000 just for you to go get the Reebok package, work out twice, and go home. There you go.

Easy peasy. Lots of Instagram photos, though. It's going to be so good. And you're writing your bio. You don't need to do the workout. You just fake a hamstring tear and you're out of there. There you go. All photos, though. It's going to be so good. CrossFit Games athlete. You don't need to do the workout. You just fake a hamstring tear and you're out of there. There you go. Yeah, so now during the Open, there's going to be those national champions.

And they're referring to them as national champions because they are. And the story that Greg told me yesterday was he's like, I went to Brazil during regionals. And I asked everyone I met whether they were a crossfitter a gym owner or on my staff who's the best crossfitter in brazil who won the open here and he said no one could answer him because no one knew off the top of his head and he's like shouldn't that matter like shouldn't that be important like the open is a good test right we can use this data to tell us who the best is like what do we even need this for? And so.

He's trying to grow it worldwide as well. So, like. 100%. Giving every country a star. Like, this is our guy. Now every country has their guy that they're rooting for. 100%. And that's huge.

Yeah. And so that is the main, like, 90% of games qualifiers are going to come out of that. The remaining dozen or 15 or 16 qualifiers are going to be coming out of what they call the sanctioned events, which I refer to as the circuit. And essentially it's going to run basically between Dubai being the first one through June being the end of it. I think the Granite Games, which were just announced as one of these sanctioned events is the is the last chance qualifier in the us so it's like the last uh us-based qualifier before the games right and those events it's a you win you're in right you take your team or you take yourself if you you win you're into the games i think i think the big

question people have around the circuit is after the granite games in wadapalooza and dubai like what other big competitions are there really that's a good question there's supposed to be 16 of them there's supposed to be 16 of them and so i think a big reason why we can't think of 16 of them is because a lot of the big ones that used to exist ecc they're gone yeah oc throwdown hung themselves, like, then just blew it up, right? They broke a bunch of backs and hung themselves. It's like, okay, like, you got to chill. So the problem is that this change.

I appreciate that. A lot of hard work back there. Left a good ten years of my life in there. Yeah, sorry, dude. Yeah, it's all good. Listen, now old the one big positive thing i can tell you about the osu throwdown is because i am the reigning intermediate crossfit champion of the world so that is something that cannot change no you will always

have that trophy but but you know the fact the fact is all these events that we used to think about are gone for one reason or another. And I think the biggest thing that people are focusing on is that where is all this event going to come from? Because this isn't easy to put on. It's not cheap to do something like the Granite Games or Wadapalooza, which Wadapalooza hasn't signed the dotted line yet. They're just like at the one yard line. Okay. I thought they were done. If you ask Glassman, they're done. Oh, Wadapalooza hasn't signed the dotted line yet. They're just, like, at the one-yard line. Okay. I don't know. I thought they were done.

If you ask Glassman, they're done. Oh, sorry, sorry. I thought you were talking about selling the company. No, no, no. They already did that piece. They already did that piece. They haven't signed with CrossFit to be a sanctioned event. Got it.

But that doesn't mean that events cannot pop up. Not every event has to look like the Granite games or waterpalooza or dubai right so when i was talking to greg yesterday the uh information he gave me wasn't the names of competitions but the places where competitions have already either signed up or on are on the verge of signing up and it was like china australia iceland cape town dubai ohio del mar China, Australia, Iceland, Cape Town, Dubai, Ohio, Del Mar, Miami, Granite Games, Amsterdam. I was like, that's a crazy, that's a legit international situation. That's like 10. Totally.

And he said there's, of the 16 that they're planning, 13 of them are basically already locked. So whether it's events that already exist or whether it's events that are, like, within the known consciousness, my guess originally was we're going to see maybe, like, four in the U.S., two or three in Europe, two or so in Australia, one in Asia, one in Africa, and then just kind of a smattering around the rest of the world. Maybe one in South America. You're going to see these events essentially be where regionals were, but wherever there's more populations, there's going to be more of them. And I think that's how that process is going to have to play out. I feel like we thought this was going to happen like five years ago.

Win the throwdown, the ECC, Guadalupe, like our country was kind of sectioned off in a very, it was like this kind of looks like something like Red Bull would build or like Spartan would build. Like the events are there. It makes sense that we make them legit, but CrossFit had that wall up that we were never talking about anything outside of CrossFit. And now it's like, wow, it's really expensive to own all this crap

and have to maintain all of this crap. Let's let everybody else do it for us. Go ahead, Doug. I was going to say, I think one of the other big questions or concerns people have is if you have a national champion from 160 different countries or wherever, there still may be a very big spectrum of talent within that population where we're going to get to the games and someone's not going to be able to do a muscle-up do 100 like and there's gonna be you

know 500 other people within the united states and and other larger countries that are like i could totally smash that guy like why am i not at the games right i i asked greg that i actually asked him i was like what do you say to people who say this isn't fair like why why is it fair that a country with eight or ten affiliates gets as many qualifiers as a country with 5 000 affiliates and he had like a long pause and his response was basically like yeah it's not but i don't care yeah he's like my my he's like listen i started the crossfit games because i wanted to know who was basically like, yeah, it's not. But I don't care. He's like, listen, I started the CrossFit Games because I wanted to know who the fittest is. This isn't going to change that.

He goes, I don't care who's in 32nd. I don't care if the 23rd fittest person on earth is from the U.S. or from Italy. It doesn't matter. What matters is that the podium's accurate, and this isn't going to change that at all. And I was like, you know, you have to have that internal Glassman computer of trying to look at what he's saying. He's not trying to get the fittest 200 in the right order in the world.

He just wants the number one. He's like, listen, if you look at the CrossFit Games, he's like, I don't know or really care if the 30th place is fitter than 32nd. But I know for a fact that Matt Fraser is fitter than anyone else there. By a lot. And that is what his than 32nd. But I know for a fact that Matt Fraser is fitter than anyone else there. By a lot. And that is what his entire goal is. I mean, he doesn't mean to be, like, callous. At some point you have to. He just has to.

He's like, listen, this is my focus. My focus is we got to make it entertaining, and we have to find the best. Everything else is essentially just a bonus. And the way that he addressed it actually was interesting because he talked about... We all just got distracted. The way that he kind of...

That was an attractive human being that just walked by. I missed it. Fair enough. You saw both of us like... Yeah, I saw you guys just completely blank out for a second. I was like, oh, what did I do? I debated going on break. We'll be back in a minute. Oh, man.

But, yeah, it's right. It's not fair. It's absolutely not fair. But fair isn't what this is about, right? And I think, you know, I don't want to put words in CrossFit's mouth. I don't want to speak out of line here. I don't want to say words in CrossFit's mouth. I don't want to speak out of line here. I don't want to say something that isn't official. But my read of this situation is very simple.

The point of the games is to find number one. Did it just get really loud in here? It got way louder in here. Okay. The point of the games is to find number one. Yeah. And this will accomplish that. It might look different, but it doesn't really matter.

Yeah. It doesn't really matter. Yeah. It doesn't really matter. Does Glassman really care about the games with the new CrossFit health thing going on and this, like, what seems to be massive push for all the diabetes talk and the Coca-Cola talk and everything else that's going on? I think he clearly cares about something. Yeah. You know, he cares about something.

He told me the story about at the CrossFit Games. He was like, I'm watching the teams. And he's like, I'm basically the only one watching the teams. It's like there are 40 teams. And he's like, why? Why do only one watching the teams. It's like, there are 40 teams. And he's like, why? Why do we have 40 teams at the games? What does it matter? And then he goes, when I was thinking about it,

the reason why there are that many teams is because they needed to prop up regionals. So they'd created this huge, expensive event in the middle of the season. And they needed to put butts in the seats. How do you put event in the middle of the season yeah and they needed to put butts in the seats how do you put butts in the seats you give all the affiliates who tried to get there a reason to get there yeah so you suddenly have 40 affiliates at each uh at each regionals and then you have 40 affiliates at each each games it's like at some point that becomes completely untenable yeah why do we need that many affiliates so now the only way to send a team to the games is you put together a team and you win one of these sanctioned events

there's no other way of qualifying and i believe i heard you say on a video you posted on your your new very awesome youtube channel which is called what by the way arm and hammer tv go check that out yeah you post like two three videos a week and they're all gangster at least yeah these past few weeks it's been like like sometimes two or three videos a week and they're all gangster. At least. These past few weeks it's been sometimes two or three videos a day. It's been kind of crazy. I looked at it and I was like man, he is smashing these videos. It's really crazy. But I believe I heard you say on one of those videos that the way

that you structure your team doesn't matter at all. It's like just anyone you can find, doesn't matter where they live, etc. If you can get them to agree to do it with you, you're good. The teams are still male, male, female, female. It's still the four-person format that we saw this past year. But there's no more of this strange geographic game of like, oh, we are still the affiliate cup.

And it's like, listen, dude, mayhem has never been the affiliate cup. It's rich recruiting athletes. And he'd be the first person to tell you, yeah, I invite athletes who I think could win with me. And they move here, and now we're in the same affiliate. Right. Which is what you're supposed to. That's what every other sports team does.

It's all about recruiting. Right. The affiliate marketing, the affiliate cup was marketing for the affiliates. But it doesn't need to be that anymore. Because now, instead of worrying about the 6,000 or 7, seven thousand affiliates in the u.s or however many it is he can worry about the eight or nine thousand affiliates outside of the u.s and be like hey guys if you want to put together a team cool but you don't need to worry about it because each one of you is going to get someone at the crossfit game so how's that for excitement right so like all the affiliates all the affiliates

now care yeah so there's there's this idea of, like, the team competition at the games should be really exciting. And instead, and I told, I was like, this has been a shit show, man. I want a day when the team thing matters because I want, like, a section of mayhem and I want, like, a section of Invictus and I don't want them to like each other. Yeah. I want them talking shit.

Yeah. Like, fuck you, Froning. And a whole stadium of boo. One Red Max snatch event and you've got thousands of people booing you. Right. Drop it on your head. Fuck the community. I think. I want a whole stadium

just a green people yeah red people yeah just fucking nfl style get after it i am i would fucking love that to happen i think i think that's the idea of like listen how do you how do you how do you get anyone excited about the affiliate cup as it is how do you get anyone excited no one given people from your gym are showing up right nobody cares no one cares and it's a billion degrees outside yeah no one's watching you know how you make the affiliate cup matter you get like four teams yeah every member of that team is someone who's famous yeah and really fucking good yeah and then you make them do crazy shenanigans that you weren't able to do when you had 40 teams

that's how you make the affiliate cup matter way cooler and so that's the entire philosophy he told me again he told me the story he was like I was watching the games and I was bored he's like I've never really cared like everyone knows like Glassman's thing hasn't been the games he kind of started

it and he was like run run with it, Dave. Do your thing. And Dave was like, fuck yeah, the Dave Castro games are going wild. And everyone else was like, okay, Dave, ease up, man. Hope you guys are enjoying the show. Had a blast hanging out with Armin. Want to talk about the program Vault. This thing's been killing.

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there for the shrugged stack, the sunrise to sunset bundle. Your green juice, your red juice, your gold juice, all at 20% off Organifi.com. Backslash Shrugged, use the coupon code, or forward slash Shrugged, use the coupon code. Shrugged, save 20%, and back to the show. So now Dave's like, listen, I didn't see a lot of the action of the games, but what I saw was, like, not interesting, like, not entertaining.

Like, why are we there for 14 hours a day? Why are the age groups sequestered somewhere where no one can see them? There's a 17-year-old girl that jerks 235. Why doesn't anybody know? I found out about that last week. Why doesn't anybody know? I found out about that last week. Why doesn't anybody know that? Why doesn't anyone know that? She's the future.

She needs marketing behind her. Right. Someone get her a sponsorship so she doesn't have to go to school anymore. Exactly. Drop out of school, honey. You're going to do great. Clean and jerks matter. And so I think the fact is, like, Greg Glassman is able to see these problems, and because he is a sole owner for CrossFit,

he can diagnose and fix them, and no one can say anything against him. Does anybody in the world know that Greg Glassman owns 100% of CrossFit better than Dave Castro right now? No. No. I have heard through the grapevine that glassman more or less put his feet up on a table and said fuck you buddy let's dance yeah uh i mean listen if that wasn't the exact conversation i imagine it felt something like that because uh again like this is not this stuff like

i hear constantly that a lot of people may hear through a rumor bill. Being at an event like this with all of the people around, everyone's at least three people away from the source on the telephone. And that makes for awesome banter. Lots of rumors. Lots of rumors. And that has been one that has come up a couple times from some pretty credible sources. And I'm like, wow. I wish I was there.

Here's a fact. Justin Berg was on vacation when Greg Glassman called the meeting and fired his entire media department and said we're changing the games. And Dave Castro was caught off guard. He had no idea what was going to happen. Yes. That's part of what we heard as well. What happened to Justin Berg and his beautiful role at CrossFit Games headquarters? You know, Justin.

He's your boy. You can have Adam right now. You know, actually, I might get a chance to have a face-to-face with him sooner rather than later. So that would be really interesting. I wonder if he remembers me. Oh, Jesus. Are you kidding me? Yeah. So here's. These people remember all these interesting. I wonder if he remembers me. Oh, Jesus. Are you kidding me? Yeah.

So here's – These people remember all these things. I hope so. The reason they got to the top of all of it is because they know. They're the most dedicated to all of the things. He didn't walk into that room because he was like, I heard this guy Armin. No, he's like, I'm going to kill that guy, and then Glassman's going to love me. I would be lying.

I would be lying if I told you that I do not remember that moment very fucking clearly. Yeah, scary as shit. And, you know, I think— I think like a 21-year-old getting a cease and desist from a lawyer, like, do I have to hire a lawyer to just read this thing? Yeah. What does this mean? Yeah.

Cease and desist. Wow, were you there? That's exactly what it was like. No, but I was on I owned a gym Every time I fucking did something Or every time Teasdale put a picture Of a homeless guy

Breaking into his gym It was like Oh man They're gonna take his affiliate away That was like a thing It was like Oh if I screw up If I color outside the lines too much

They'll just take my affiliate Yeah It was terrifying Back in the day Do you remember Speaking of taking your affiliate away Do you remember the most of taking your affiliate away, do you remember the most perfect example of that,

which was back when CrossFit.com had forums, someone complained about something, and Greg Glassman, on his account, came onto the forums, an account that had not been used for years, came onto the forum and said, that's fine, you're no longer an affiliate. I don't remember that. And people were like, what the fuck just happened? Like, how did you just do this?

Did you just de-affiliate this guy over the internet in front of everybody? Like, is this the medieval ages? Did we see someone get drawn and quartered? Like, I wasn't ready for this. I didn't want to see all this blood and guts. Like, what? Where did this come from so good uh i don't think that actually i think that got resolved offline on an actual conversation thousands of comments later we found a common agreement just like every internet argument yeah uh so you know i'm not i'm not saying that

everything crossfit does works in fact there's a whole lot of ways that this can fall apart. Like, success is not guaranteed. The only way all of this works is, like, if the pieces line up. If everyone, if we can sort of just chill enough to make it through the weird 2019 season, I think we're going to see a lot of positive results. Because 2020, it's totally different again. The Open moves from February to October. So we have another Open in October of 2019.

Yeah. And that Open is for the 2020 games. And then that's when the real circuit is going to kick off. It's going to run from, like, November to June. And you're going to have all that time to, like, either train or qualify for the game. Wait, the Open is moving to a different part of the year? Or there's now two Opens per year game so wait the open is moving to a different part of the year or there's now two opens no it's just moving to a different part of the year so

there there will be two opens in 2019 but that's just that's just because they have to at some point move the open right gotcha gotcha okay let's take a break real quick i like that right back Welcome back to Barbell Shrugged. We're hanging out with Armand Hammer TV. Yep. Doug Larson in the house. We're at the Granite Games. Man, we're taking a deep dive. But there's some things that some of the details of this, I think,

are going to be very interesting. We had more people test positive for steroids this year than ever before. I think this is an arm and hand. Sometimes you're like Joe Rogan where I use you as a news source, yet I don't know if you're news, but you are. I don't know if I'm news either. You're my most trusted source, but that doesn't mean that you're like CNN. Well, that's probably not a trusted source either.

But I would call you the news now. Fair enough. Fitness news with Arm and Hammer. More people tested positive this year at regionals than all of the years combined of the regional and the games combined. Yeah, basically. If it wasn't more, it was equivalent, which is still crazy. Yeah.

I'm actually out of the loop there in some respects. Like, obviously, we did a show with Emily, but, like, who else tested positive? Just a bunch of people. I mean, there was only three qualifiers that tested positive. Some girl in Arizona tested positive for, like, everything. Oh. It was fucking awesome.

And she said it was, like, her bicep. And she said it was like her bicep. Oh, my, my bicep hurt. So I took fucking D ball and grew back hair. Dude. She was like, uh,

she, what did she say? She said, I hurt my bicep and my doctor prescribed me Anovar. And I was like, okay, like sure, sure.

Your doctor prescribed you like the drug of choice for the fucking sprinters and, like, athletes, female athletes who are trying to, like, keep muscle and not get fat or puffy. Got it. Cool. So good. How is CrossFit, though, going to go to all of these events and, like, really uphold a lot of the standards?

There's endless ways to upholding this standard from drug testing, judging, just scoring. Yeah, because all of these events do things different now. Let's stick to the drug testing side of things. Is CrossFit coming into these events and kind of providing the funding? Because those tests are no joke. They're expensive, yeah. So, you know, CrossFit's testing methodology is a little strange. It's not as good as it could be, but it certainly seems to be getting better.

Kind of like when the director of the games is out riding motorcycles and shooting guns with the winners. Right, exactly. It's kind of like when you start seeing some of these strange, you know, weird maybe possible biases showing up in things, right? Potentially. But their doping control is, I think now, not necessarily any more complicated than it's been in the past. It seems more complicated.

Yeah. Because we're talking about 160 plus countries of people. Where you can just drive down to Mexico and go buy whatever you want at the local pharmacy. Or if you're in Eastern Europe, this is just part of being a sportsman. You take your vitamins and you take your supplements. The master of sport. Oh, you know all of the drugs. That's right that's right and so uh uh i'm sorry that just thinking master sport reminded me

of a couple of russian weightlifters that i'm sure that we have all had on our podcasts and i'm sure the same stipulations that we had to talking to them were implied on yours as well so uh the anyway so my my point is that i think the doping looks more complicated than it actually is and the reason why i say that is this. Have you guys been to Wadapalooza? I have not. I have, but not for a few years. So last year, last two years at Wadapalooza,

Wadapalooza has been the single largest testing weekend in CrossFit season. Oh, wow. Including the games. Everyone's there. Because everyone is there. And the way they did this and i witnessed this firsthand is i i was i'd like sit inside the lobby of one of those hotels like the big hotel that's like right next to the park i'd sit in the lobby because there's a

there's a starbucks there they have better internet and that's where i was doing all my work so i'd like have some coffee and i would just watch like athlete after athlete after athlete get pulled from the lobby to a room, back down, sign papers and walk away all day long. So what they did was essentially said, here's the list of qualified athletes at Guadalupalooza. Here's all the athletes on the teams. Here are the 50 names that we care about. Test them. And they just notified every single one of those athletes, we need you between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Saturday.

We need you between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Sunday, whatever it is. They rented a room at the hotel, and they just brought them into the hotel, conducted all the tests they needed, signed off all the papers they needed, and were like, see you later. If you don't hear from us that's really good news right and so athletes who all converge in one place actually makes their job way easier if you look at the countries and you worry about the big logistical problem that is testing all those athletes try not to because that's not that's going to be a wash that's not going to matter the the fact is we have now a dozen or so sanctioned competitions

where you're going to get the top athletes showing up and now it's just going to be way way easier they're going to be like all right uh we just need to send someone to Australia to this sanctioned qualifier, test the top five. It makes it so much easier to cheat. Yeah, it definitely does because whoever wins Dubai gets seven months of uninterrupted training between Dubai and the games. Now, it puts them on their radar, but, again, that shit's expensive. So, like, is CrossFit going to spend the money? I hope so.

I hope they're going to spend the money to test the athletes. Like, that's one of the things that their testing protocols right now don't do a good job at is there's no transparency. It's a very opaque system. It really is like a black box. Athletes show up, there's a black box, and if you hear about a positive test, you're like, was that the only one?

Was that what they actually tested for? Like, what happened? Was that the first time? Is that the last time? Was that what they actually tested for? Like, what happened? Was that the first time? Is that the last time? Like, what the fuck's going on? And so compare that to something like USADA. USADA has its own issues. It has a very, you know, very, very interesting, like, mafioso kind of feel to it.

But it kind of has to because of how it functions. But the one thing that it does way better than anyone else is that you can go onto USADA's website. That's U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. You can go onto USADA's website and you can see the history of every single test that they have done on every single athlete. You can go in there and look at Kendrick Ferris, who's been weightlifting for as long as USADA has existed. And you're like, oh, that motherfucker gets tested 13 times a year? Oh, wow. Like, in Olympic years, he's getting tested 13 times

a year, basically every three and a half weeks. No wonder we never win. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. It's like, oh, there's no doubt in my mind that that guy is clean, because there's no way he's running like a micro-cycle in the two weeks between his tests you can't even eat a big mac without having costing him an olympic trial exactly

that sucks that's right it's like don't eat those mexican big macs you don't know what's in that mexican beef man so like i've never been offered steroids so many times in my life is when i went to tijuana with blood so like four like one or not now like eight years ago. Hell yeah. Every corner we ran around, somebody was like, oh, steroids, you guys, you lift weights? Go, come, follow me, follow me. We're just like, fine, I'll do it. Thank you. Fine.

Even if I wanted them, I wouldn't buy them from you. It would be awesome if, like, Castro met Frazier in Tijuana. What are they doing down there? Dude. What happens with all the judging? I mean, are we ever going to see a day in which there is a paid judge that has gone to a course to actually become a judge that can travel around in a sanctioned way

that's funded by the source of people that are trying to find the fittest people in the world so that everyone at least has a better chance of not getting totally fucked over when they've sent spent all their money to go to Dubai for this one chance and now you get a bad judge and the whole thing

seems to be screwed over. This is one of those things that this is one of those questions that needs to be answered, can only be answered by Justin Berg and Dave Castro and is going to be like a canary in the coal mine if this thing is working or not working.

It's going to be your light in the darkness and it's going to tell you something. If everything falls into place if, like don't think about next year 2019 is going to be wacky yeah don't think about 2020 don't think about 2021 think like four or five years from now if all of this works if this pans out if there are eyeballs on the sport if it's exciting if the circuit makes sense if sponsors are on board if there's the broadcasting deals yeah for

all of it to actually be consumed if there's media around the storylines who's in the lead who is actually having a chance oh we just heard like matt fraser is showing up to dubai and suddenly 90 of the pro division on the men's side doesn't show up like if those storylines are being told and the audience is there the spectators there the advertisers there the sponsors are there then the sport can actually professionalize something like judging right because then you can have an actual like players union playing whatever the sport is called yeah and you can actually have a judge's union you can have a referee's union right it's like the nfl pa and they have the nfl rpa or

whatever the fuck it's called right so it's like you you have these different organizations they only exist if the health of the sport is there now i'm not i'm not uh like politically it's kind of it's kind of a weird place like i don't know how to feel about unions i think there's a lot of positivity that comes in from unions i think there's also a lot of potential for negatives that come from unions. So it's like politically I don't think I'm really. Oh, CJ wants on. CJ wants. You want on this show bad right now.

CJ Martin just walked by. I've never had CJ just stopping his tracks. You want on this show right now. We got one more mic. Dude, pull up a headset. Get in here. The problem is more athletes. They're always so busy.

So, like, you know, I mean, politically, I'm not trying to make a statement on unions, but I certainly see that unions are very valuable in sports like this. Like, without the NFLPA, NFL players would be getting fucked. Without the NBA Players Union, you wouldn't be seeing someone like LeBron making a billion dollars over his career because those guaranteed contracts wouldn't be there, right? So it's like it brings positives in that it tells you, hey,

this sport has a healthy professional development in it. How about health insurance? Let's just start there. That alone is useful, right? It's like without a player's union, you'll never have unified health insurance for the athletes. We've been talking about just we as in people that really care about the sport, like getting a player's union just for basic, like these people.

What do you think the average, I made the joke a couple times at the game if you were to like bar graph out total uh money made in crossfit it would be like eight dollars nine dollars ten dollars twelve dollars twenty five 1.6 million yeah there's three people that have ever made a any amount of money to go to the grocery store and actually buy more than a sandwich. Right. Killing themselves 24 hours a day, changing everything about their life, setting everything up.

The person they date has to be good at cooking perfectly balanced macro meals or you're unacceptable to be in my world. And you make $8 a year doing this stupid sport that's 100 fact i mean i think i think people they see crossfit games athletes and they're like wow professional athletes and it's like no really good hobbyists yeah because at the end of the day it depends on how you define professional but i don't know about you guys but you're not a professional unless you're actually making a living doing this thing, right? You can be really fucking good at it, but if you're not making a living, if you're not paying some of your bills by what you're spending all your time doing,

it's a hobby. And we've seen the turnover in athletes because of that, right? And I think here's a wacky example of how CrossFit thinks, right? Here's how CrossFit tried to solve that problem. And stop me if this doesn't sound familiar. Ten years ago, when you made the CrossFit Games, the very next thing that happened was you were on the Level 1 seminar staff. Yes.

Guess what the point of that was? To pay you. To pay you so that you could keep being good at CrossFit and have some health insurance. You were just suddenly employed by CrossFit HQ. pay you so that you could keep being good at crossfit and have some health insurance you're just suddenly employed by crossfit hq the first time we saw a big purge at crossfit hq guess what they fucking did they took everyone off the level one seminar staff they said you guys are now all contractors see ya and most of the games athletes were like why the fuck would i want to spend a

weekend doing this yeah and they stopped doing it so it's like they've tried to solve this problem. They just tried to solve it in the most ass-backwards way possible. Why don't we just hire everyone that makes the CrossFit Games? It's like, no, no, that's not a solution. Let's increase our cost a hundredfold. That's not a solution, right? We have so much money right now. Who cares?

The only way it works, the only way there's a healthy situation there for the athletes, the only way there's a safe environment for them to develop and train is if the sport itself is healthy. And I think that if you look at the way the Open Regionals games format worked, it was slowly but surely killing the potential of having professional athletes. I think that James Fitzgerald, he's always got his kind of, he's poking the bear all the time. Constantly. He talked about a lot of this stuff a long time ago, but he's kind of like taking his own thing.

He wants to get in the Olympics. Yeah, he does. The IF3, man. Do you think Glassman pays attention to what that guy says? And he's like, you know what? Fuck the Olympics. That's create my own that's probably the most common question someone has people have asked me like people constantly ask me like do you think that this is a ploy to either get in the olympics or to stop i'm like i don't think it matters i don't think it crosses his

mind at all like greg and james fitzgerald probably don't talk to each other on a regular basis but they probably have a lot more in common than people think like it's not accidental that opt won the first crossfit games yeah and it's not accidental that his training partner invented butterfly pull-ups aft these things aren't accidents like these guys were the best in the world and therefore were on the radar like maybe they had a falling out at some point but guess who that falling out was with it wasn't james and greg it was james and dave yeah so when you look at it that way it's like man they probably have a lot more in common so do i think that greg glassman is making these changes because the if3 is on his

radar i don't think so i don't think he's thinking about it that way i think he really i think he's being 100 transparent in terms of what his idea is i need to globalize the games the games should reflect it it's not going to change the top but it's going to make everything much more exciting like oh cool like oh you explained it pretty well to me that makes sense to me like yeah he's going to make more money but who cares he doesn't care about making more money. Like, that's not what this is about. And I think that both can exist. Yeah.

Oh, totally. I mean, these people are going to do this no matter what. Yeah. Nobody's here making – there's thousands of – one thing that's so cool about going to these events, and it's so obvious, but you've got to talk about it, is, like, every single person here does the Cross fits yes they're crazy correct they all travel here there's 2 000 plus athletes literally doing toes to bar over here and it's madness like there's plenty of space for the functional fitness thing dude you know how you make it you know how you marry the two you make like i don't know fucking

icelandic nationals one of the fucking qualifying events yeah you make the u.s nationals one of the qualifying events right or you make the if3 world championships one of the qualifying events suddenly it's like oh now now i have not just one pathway to qualify like i have the the open national champions or the sanctioned events but i can also just be like in this sanctioned competition through the if3 and still be the best crossfitter there the best fitnesser there and qualify for the crossfit games yeah and then who who the fuck needs the olympics in fact uh i think specifically greg glassman does not want to be in the Olympics. I would think that.

For him, that is an absolute nightmare. The guy is a libertarian to the fucking bone. Yeah. Imagine him trying to deal with the bureaucracy and the politics of – can you imagine him? He would be more likely to say, you know what, I'll just go create my own Olympics because I don't want to deal with your BS. Yeah, and guess what his favorite part about the Olympics is? His favorite thing about the Olympics is that you get a whole fuck ton of countries, whether they should or not be there,

who show up and have a good-natured competition with one another. Because that, at least, is some sort of like a level playing field of like, hey, guys, you have the opportunity to be here. Aren't we all on the same side that's like the big thing that he likes about the olympics and guess what the new games are going to look like a huge level opportunity for everyone from every country to show up and say hey guys we're on the same side i think i also heard you say something around the top 20 people from the open worldwide are also going to be going to the games? Correct, yeah.

So that's one of the things that's like a weird sort of, because of how strange this 2019 season is going to be, and they understand it, is they have to be able to say, all right, just in case, in case the circuit misses somebody, in case the national champions miss somebody, we need to be able to say we're still casting at the widest net possible. And through the ability of, like, just doing, like, regression analysis, right, they can take the new rules, apply it to old data sets, and see what happens. They basically determined, like, they really only need to invite the top 10 or so out of the worldwide open

to make sure they crossed all their T's and dotted all their I's. And so for the first year, they're going to invite the top 10 or so out of the worldwide open to make sure they cross all their t's and dotted all their i's and so for the first year they're going to invite the top 20 so if you're not a national champion and you haven't won one of the sanctioned events and you're in the top 20 in the world you're going to get uh invited to the crossfit games or if you're one of the top 20 who hasn't yet done those things right um so that means that we'll get a few more Americans. That means we'll get a few more Icelandic athletes. We'll get a few more Europeans. We're going to see the same names show up to the games,

and that's how they're going to ensure that. And then maybe in 2020, it'll be like the top 10. And maybe from that point on, they'll keep doing the top 10. Or maybe from that point on, they're like, fuck it. This system works. We don't have to touch it. All those little details are like, we're very fluid fluid we're trying to figure it out stick with us at the end of the day matt frazier and t are still gonna fucking win like it's cool like just chill

yeah it's all set up it's all set on the other on the other side of that wasn't i believe i heard you say there was some way to make some cuts to the bottom percentage of people. Yeah, so that's one of the craziest things about the games now is imagine, like, right now there are 160-plus countries with one affiliate in it at least. In 10 years, there's going to be 225 or 250, which means you're going to get, like, 300 male and female competitors each showing up for the games. Yeah.

Right. Which means you can't. What was the number in the past? It's, like, 50 or 60 or something like that? 40 for the games. Yeah. Right. Which means you can't... What was the number in the past? It's like 50 or 60 or something like that? 40. Top 40. Yeah, 40. And top 40 were like the first three heats

are already boring to watch. Like, it's going to be a nightmare. So the way that they're trying to resolve this is essentially say like, okay, we have the full week of the CrossFit Games. The first few days, we're going to run like like, an elimination bracket. Like, whether it's some, like, tournament or whether it's just, like, big workouts where

they, like, cut it in half every time. Like, just whatever, like, just purge-style, like, system. We can do cool stuff like that. We can do cool stuff like that. Like, just imagine someone, I posted my video on Reddit this morning, and someone was like, wouldn't it be cool if the elimination workouts were just, like, the CrossFit benchmarks? I'm like, that would be really fucking cool. Like, hey, guys, we're going to do five CrossFit benchmarks.

At the end of each one, we're going to cut the bottom 15%. Yeah. I hope someone shows up with, like, an eight-minute frame time. Of course someone is. Of course it's going to happen. But, like, you know. I'm out, guys. Thanks for hanging out.

Yeah, I had a great time. Thank you very much, everybody. Doing a strict follow-up. But the way they're going to try and resolve this idea of, like, listen, at the end of the day, the games are entertaining, and they should be entertaining. So maybe we should try and find a way that instead of it being top 40 all the time, you know, the CrossFit Games used to have cuts.

In fact, in 2013, when the finales were, like, it was, I think it was Elizabeth, Isabel, Fran. They cut, they had every athlete on the floor. They did the workouts, and they were like, you're in the bottom 10, bye. And they just cut literally on the floor. So, like, what they're going to do is find a way to, like, take that giant base, like those, like, 200 athletes this year and, like, you know, 300 athletes 10 years from now, and just cut them down

until there's 15 or 20 or 10 or whatever the number is i think it also gives you a really good opportunity to even the individual competition the way that the sport looks if you didn't know what was going on if you didn't know what was going on and you walked into an nfl game it's really fucking easy there's a there's an end zone down there right that guy's trying to go there get it understand when you're walking across it's like fucking easy. There's an end zone down there. That guy's trying to go there. Get it. Understand. When you're walking across it, it's like, how do I know if they're on rep 12 or 50? Right.

I don't know. Who's in first? Even the guy that's leading might not be in first. He might be standing away from everyone. No one knows. Right. Like, they've done a significantly better job, but, like, head-to-head competitions. There's so many different ways that they can lay this thing out that make it way cooler to watch.

Imagine, like, okay, a lot of people listening to this are both fans of the sport as well as either coaches or gym owners. So imagine if you had to program for 200 people to do a workout and you had, like, all day to run 200 people through your workout, you could maximum run like i don't know 20 at a time yeah you're like okay fuck like here's my toolkit it's pretty fucking small yeah we're doing a lot of burpees we might be doing some pull-ups if i get a giant rig imagine your worst day on event one of the crossfit open when your whole gym shows when your whole gym

shows up right now now now here's the here's the other side of that imagine you had the 10 best crossfitters in the world and you had two days and unlimited budget to test them however you see fit how much fucking cooler is that competition going to be and that's the end result like that's what it's gonna end up being being. It's going to end up being like, okay, instead of having 13 hours of competition and a thousand athletes, half of which are like sequestered in a barn that no one watches, what we're going to end up seeing is we're going to see a dozen athletes. Every heat is going to be the heat of one of these people is going to fucking win. And every event is going to be an exciting race

so suddenly you're like oh fuck like wow i get to watch like six events or seven events over the course of two days where these athletes are are being tested in a way that i've never seen them tested before and it's exciting every single time because these are the contenders these are the people i care about it's not the bottom 10 doing this workout and struggling. It's the top 10 who finish every workout. Yeah, the diversity of events can change significantly too because barbells are very easy to program for 50 people when you've got 12, 15 people in each heat in a limited space.

We knocked that number down to 10 total over multiple days. We're going to have two heats of of five and all of a sudden lots of different implements, lots of different just modalities, just the flexibility that you can have with a fewer number of people makes things a lot cooler. Agreed. 100% agreed. I think overall, like I bought into the hype that this is going to be a positive, a net positive. Like, to me, the more I think about it, the more potential this has to positively change everything about the CrossFit Games.

But it's going to have some growing pains. Anytime anyone has asked me, like, what do I think? And they expect some, like, genius answer. I'm like, let's see. Some personal trainer built this billion dollar thing who am i to say he's gonna screw it up like a guy had the guy started with zero clients in a fucking gold's gym or something got kicked out of five gyms and now this now the three of us are sitting in the middle of like 2,500 people who have been doing toast bar all day people walk by

i think we ain't fucking know what we're talking about. No, I don't know. Glenn Glassman, he decides what the future looks like. And because he's done it for the last 50 years, he fucking gets it. He knows. He knows that this is going to be a global thing. You're going to look back in 10 years and be like, oh, that guy was really smart. Yeah, he built CrossFit.

He knows. He knows how to do these things. Like, eh, this thing's not working. It's boring as shit right now. We all know it's boring. I've been here three days. I've seen four thrusters. I'm not watching that crap.

What the hell do I? Nothing's worse than when you sit in the freaking stands at regionals like, Josh is in the Kiki D. They're going to do 150 wall balls. They're going to do 100 burpee box jumps. I heard you say that nine times already. Stop. Kiki, run us through this workout.

All right, they're going to start with a 3K row and 300 double unders, and then we're all going to kill ourselves because they're going to be standing on a treadmill for the next 35 minutes. Can we make this better? I think so. I think that we're headed in the right direction. Do not be scared of change, folks. Don't be scared of change.

Well, change freaks people out. Sectional City Open, man, that freaked everyone out so bad. Oh, my God. They're all going to be cheating. Well, they were, but they also cheated and finished in 500. Who cares? And we also, through all of that, we got the beauty that was Trevor Bachmeier this past couple years.

Right. Just not only cheating, but trying to basically do like a Looney Tunes cheat. Like he was like, I'm going to do one round of this workout. Is he your favorite cheater? He is 100% my favorite cheater. I love that. Because, I mean, I don't know this guy. Oh, but he cheats in everything.

But he cheats in everything. YouTube. YouTube. If you watch him on Instagram, I just love watching his shit on Instagram. Occasionally, I don't follow him anymore, but occasionally someone will send me videos, and it's like, dude, you look like you're using fake plates, and the workouts you're describing are fucking impossible. He's like, I'll do 50-40, 30-20-10 of power cleans, hang squat cleans, thrusters, push press, and bench press with 225.

And it's like that bar isn't even bending. That looks like a bar with fake plates on it. Dude, and you're reverse curling it constantly. You did 150 reps of all of this shit with 185. What is wrong with you? Who believes this? You have 280,000 followers on Instagram or whatever, and your videos are getting, like, 15,000 views. That's not the right ratio, bro.

No. That means that either people followed you and, like, blocked you somehow, or guess what? Followers aren't watching your shit. What does that tell you? I'm crying. This is too good. Either way.

Every time a YouTube video of his pops up, I look at it. It's like 1 trillion views or something like that. I'm like, what are you doing? You didn't invent the lacrosse ball on the glute. How did you get all the views? Yeah. So it's not surprising to me that that type of thing exists. And I wouldn't be surprised if there are more people who do that sort of thing.

More of it. Because for sure it's happening. Yeah. But just please make it obvious so I can be entertained by it. Like, if you think that the top crossfaders in the world are cheating, all right. I mean, like, I guess some people believe in conspiracy theories too, but, like, chances are the cheating portion of this all is happening in the

lower ranks, and it's happening in Trevor Bachmeier-ish ways. As a defending champion of the intermediate division of the OC Throwdown, do you feel like you could podium at the games because Gerrard also is an intermediate second place finisher at the OC Throwdown? Really? A little bit of juice. You could get there. I think I could. I think so.

I think that's what that tells me. The last year of the OC Throwdown. Well, first off, the first time I met Benny Girard, his brother, I remember walking by that guy and just being like, I didn't know they made humans like that. Wait a second. That guy is different. And his brother was like 165 pounds in the intermediate division.

I think he finished second. Dude, you're telling me that at the same competition, maybe a couple years removed, I beat Ricky Garrard? You did. I didn't know that! I'm adding that to my resume. I am, in fact, the reigning intermediate CrossFit champion of the world, according

to Anders and myself. Yes. And according to the videos on YouTube of me exercising, which I should probably dredge up and put on my new channel. Ring handstand push-ups in 2013 were real life. That 2013 version of the OC Throwdown almost killed me. You have all the information. Fucking OC Throwdown.

We'll have a full show that never gets aired about the OC Throwdown. Seriously. You know all the things about the CrossFit Games. Do you know anything about kind of this CrossFit Health Initiative and where this is going? You know, that's an interesting question because I hopefully will know more about it. Greg invited me to come out to one of their MDL1s in October.

So hopefully I'll be able to take advantage of that. Into what? So they have level one seminars that are specifically for MDs. And they just call it the MDL1. So that's where this whole health initiative is like the start of it is. It's like this idea of Glassman's concept of the doctors are fucking up, so we need to fix the doctors first. And so I have no idea.

I don't know much about this thing. It makes sense to me. Like, it makes sense that maybe we should get the medical community on our side, but I don't know if we aren't on their side already or they're not on our side already. Like, I don't know if that's the case. So this is, like, this is such a weird thing to me. Like, when Greg Glassman first came out, remember the Coca-Cola?

They did the diabetes, that thing? I was like, oh, fuck. He's really shooting at the big leagues. What is going on here? He's done a really good job of the marketing plan where you just yell at the biggest player hell yeah as much as you can until they finally pay attention and you're like thanks now coke's doing our marketing for us this is great well uh and then and then all those conspiracy theories turned out to be true it turned out that the nsca was faking the injury data it turned out that they were taking money from coca-cola it

turned out that they were being involved in fake science it turned out that all of health sciences was being funded by people who had an interest in health sciences selling their products i was like holy shit yeah he was right like this conspiracy this was like legit like charlie from that's always sunny in philadelphia in front of a wall of newspapers with like yarn in between things you're like he's like it's fucking happening and like it was it was fucking happening and and so i guess i don't know like his track record is pretty fucking good so i don't when he yells you should listen i have no idea what's his fuck but you should listen i have no idea what to think so i guess i'll find out more about this whole thing uh down the road but i i imagine, at the end of the day,

if more people are doing exercise and eating smarter, we're only going to be better as human beings. So, you know, perhaps wanting that to happen isn't the worst thing in the world. Where does the CrossFit Games stuff go bad? Oh, man. Is there really going to be a couple ways in which I really feel like this thing's going to be incredibly successful,

but there's definitely ways in which it's going to explode if some things happen. Yeah. You know, success is definitely not guaranteed. And I think that failure isn't necessarily probable, but it's certainly possible. And I've been trying to wrap my brain around exactly what could be the biggest issues here and to me it comes down to a couple things one is if somehow the community loses confidence in this thing if that happens it's going to be very difficult to bring it back i'm looking it doesn't look like they've lost confidence i don't think

that's going to happen right people are a thousand people have walked by us since we turned these people are like oh uh the open participation is gonna drop by 90 because it doesn't matter anymore and i was like are you selling the open to your members as if they're gonna make regionals like what the fuck is wrong with you like you should close your business down and kill yourself like you've been fucking lying to you and everyone around you it's your ego that's telling you that that's not the fact the fact is 99.999 percent of us participate in the open because it's fun or whatever like or it's stressful and we want something to do i want to know if i can go to regionals as a female right i can't because whatever it is like hey here's a here's like a news flash you can do

the open workouts and see where you compare without paying any money and you've been able to do that since the fucking beginning and here's another news flash last year we had half a million people participate so that doesn't matter have you thought oh this is the year there's no way every single year all of them every single every year it's 100,000 people more. Yep. Not a small number. Some are like, ooh, 20 people more. We made an extra 500 bucks this year. No, hundreds of thousands of people more every single year. Yeah.

Every year I think to myself, this is the last year I'm doing the Open. Every year around December I'm like, I'm not doing the Open. Every year in February I pay that 20 bucks. I'm not joking. I did it as a female. Good. I got my fucking ass kicked. Yeah. With their weight. We stand no chance.

Just a quick tangent on that. I took my buddy Chase who just qualified for regionals with his team. You know, rest in peace regionals I guess. Qualified for regionals with his team. Very fucking fit human being. Can you make an Arm & Hammer t-shirt that says like sectionals and then crossed out

regionals? That's a good one. All the years that you were like part of the thing. These are now vintage. That's a good idea. We were actually talking about making regionals 2019 shirts. Seeing how that went away. But anyway, so Chase is a super fit

human being. I'm like sneaky fit so I'm okay. And we went and hung out with bethany shadburn crossfit games athlete super badass very awesome chick and we did a relay workout against her like she did the four rounds we did one round one round one round one round and we won by six seconds it was a five minute workout so it wasn't like we won by we we barely fucking beat her and then i went back and watched the tapes and she did more reps than us so that's how good females are in crossfit they are and we use the same weight i mean i'm trying to give you as much

details here as possible we literally did the exact same workout as her as a relay, as interval work, and barely beat her. It's the coolest sport. Yeah. I mean, MMA, we watched the fights last night, and he was like, yeah, well, UFC is the only sport where, like, I think the women are just as cool as the men. CrossFit is the exact same. For sure. It's more interesting. They actually look like they're having fun.

They're not like machines. You mean MMA or CrossFit? No, no, no, CrossFit. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm sure it's more interesting. They actually look like they're having fun. They're not like machines. You mean MMA or CrossFit? No, no, no, CrossFit. I mean, I'm sure it's the same in MMA. I just don't follow it as much. But the females in CrossFit look like they're having a blast. Sure. They're not afraid to, like, let their guard down a little bit,

have a good time. All the videos that go up that HQ puts together, the girls are way more interesting. Well, that's one of the things I really loved about Emily. Emily's like, I love Emily. Emily's so fucking cool. So cool. And this entire situation with her was like, I was like, oh, punching the gut.

But I really like you. Like, you're so cool. Like, you've been so nice to me. Did you do it? We've worked well together. Dude, I don't fucking know. All I know, you know what? The most direct of direct questions.

I'm not even going to, I don't even know the answer to that question. What I do know is that she got caught doing something. Yeah. That's all fucking know. All I know, you know what? The most direct of direct questions. I'm not even going to, I don't even know the answer to that question. What I do know is that she got caught doing something. Yeah. That's all I know. If we're trying to look at, like, you know, is it morally reprehensible? Probably not. Did she break some rules? Apparently, she broke some rules.

Was there a degree involved there of, like, responsibility? Probably. I wonder where that lawsuit's at right now while she's traveling the world. I don't know, man. This whole thing. There's no lawsuit. There's no lawsuit? You don't know man this whole thing there's no loss there's no lawsuit you don't think so i don't i don't have no clue i have no idea he's an awesome chick though i i legitimately when we were in that room hanging out with her i was like oh man like whatever happened whether you got caught and didn't think you were gonna get caught or like the the making out really was the thing like you are really beat up about this right now like Like, they were very real tears.

Yeah. Dude, you got this new thing. You're at the center of all the CrossFit game stuff, the voice of the people. Where can people find you? At Arm & Hammer TV on Instagram and YouTube, as well as Facebook. But, like, Facebook, none of us really use that thing

for that anymore. So, really, it's like Instagram and YouTube is where I'm at. That's the magic right there. Did they find all the things or is there going to be like a new social media way that we're going to be consuming all this? It looks like we've kind of found the ones. Yeah. I mean I think we've already all picked our poison.

If they introduce new poison for all of us, it's going to be a disaster. Like imagine if Reddit gets as popular for like social media as facebook or instagram it would be a shit show it'd be an absolute shit show luckily reddit is its own sort of like it has its own positives and negatives like it's it's like its own disaster zone with like a rose growing in it you know i mean like i just deleted reddit off my phone i was like i have to get the fuck out of here you're smart it sucked me in for a while i had to turn off the notifications for these posts because like people will post and it's like you know i i sometimes would take it really personally when people are like negative about it and i was like okay that's fine like

someone can be someone could be negative like you don't think i'm entertaining it's okay you don't have to think i'm entertaining like that's fine like that's okay like i had to like really talk myself down for from a lot of like those negative comments yeah and and i think at the end of the day is like why do i even have to do that like none of that even fucking matters like i'm doing this because i like to do this and it turns out a lot of other people like to watch me do this you assume that it's like me and doug commenting on your video right 100 i'm like this anonymous motherfuckers and there's this yeah the more anonymous it is the more negative the comments. Which is why YouTube and Reddit have an incredible amount of negativity associated with them.

Facebook and Instagram, sure, there's negativity there. Especially people that have private accounts, it seems. But not nearly as much because you're a real person on those things. You're not hiding behind this wall where it's just text. There's no pictures of you, no way to find out who you are on Reddit. And I've had to learn about that because when I first launched Naked CrossFitter, I was the only one between all of us who wasn't anonymous, like Drywall's anonymous, Ben Smith's dad wasn't anonymous.

I hadn't heard that in a while. Why aren't those people still around? They're still around. Ben Smith's dad. Who is Ben Smith's dad wasn't on this. I hadn't heard that in a while. Why aren't those people still around? They're still around. Ben Smith's dad. Who is Ben Smith's dad? Come on. I actually don't know. Get out of here.

I really don't. Get out of here. I know you guys had him on the show, but I really have no idea who it is. I know every single one of those guys, and you'd be shocked. Drywall used to train at my mom's gym, so I know who that one is. Oh, really? That's good. So all those guys are still around.

They're still doing shit. All except for Drywall. He doesn't give a fuck. He had testicular cancer or something crazy, right? That's good. So all those guys are still around. They're still doing shit. Oh, except for Drywall. He doesn't give a fuck. He had, like, testicular cancer or something crazy, right? He did. And he took his trolling to the next level by setting up a GoFundMe, even though he's, like, you know, he's made a good career for himself in his actual job.

Yeah. He set up a GoFundMe so he could buy, like, sweatpants and a PS4. And it fucking worked. It fucking worked. He was like, I don't need your money but I want to take it so I can buy myself a PlayStation 4. And they're like, you got it drywall. Sorry for your balls. It was great. It was really good.

Yeah, so those guys were all anonymous and I wasn't. So it was really easy for people to find me and I had to, I think I had to develop a thick skin. It was just I was really young and that was hard to do. So now hopefully I'm a little better at that. I just keep reminding myself that, hey, guys, this is Arm & Hammer with an official message from the universe.

None of this matters. Yep. We're just working out. We're just exercising. Right. Arm & Hammer TV. That's right. On all the things.

Doug Larson. Yeah, yeah. Go check that out. I was watching the videos earlier, like I was saying, and they're very, very good. DougLarsonFitness.com is my personal site you can also follow me on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson. I got technique

wads coming out every Sunday, barbell shrug every Wednesday, sometimes a barbell shrug on Saturdays when we put out bonus episodes and then of course everything shrug collective. Get into shrug collective, leave a five star review leave a comment, a nice one, that'd be cool find me at Anders Varner. Shrug Collective, six days a week.

I think I'm going to start doing a Sunday show where we tell everybody what's going on. That way we just can say daily. All the cool guests. This one will be up pretty soon. I'm pretty stoked on it. We just hit a million downloads a month. Congratulations. Fucking crazy.

That's awesome. This whole collective thing started to work. Took about four months, but now back-to-back months, over a million downloads. Baller. Killing it.

That's huge. Congratulations. For real, that's big. That's really big. You guys should be happy about that. Yeah. Astro Collective and all the places. We'll see you guys on Wednesday.

Later. Hope you guys enjoyed the show. I had a blast talking to Armin. Hope you guys are aware of all the changes now and everything that's going to be going on over the next year with CrossFit and the future of the CrossFit Games. Want to make sure you're getting into the program vault. $47 a month, 11 programs, CrossFit, mass gain, Olympic lifting, three month long programs as well. You've got eight of those to choose from, all things nutrition, mobility, strongman, you name it, it's all in there at shrugcollective.com backslash vault, 11 programs, $47 a month.

Go get big, go get strong. Go do it. Also want to thank Organifi.com. Save 20% off your first order at Organifi.com forward slash shrugged and use coupon code shrugged to save 20%. Also want to thank Four Sigmatic. Get in. Get all of the magical mixers, blends, elixirs, coffees, teas, all the things, including delicious magical mushrooms at foursigmatic.com forward slash shrugged and save 15% off your first order. We will see you guys next week.