Barbell Shrugged - Changing the Definition of CrossFit and Why Expectations Are The Cockblocker of Happiness with Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Alex Maclin, and Kurt Mullican — Barbell Shrugged #382

Episode Date: March 16, 2019

Saturday Bro Show of Barbell Shrugged coming in hot! Today is a special episode where Doug, Anders, Alex, and Kurt sit down and talk training, nutrition and radnom bro stuff. At the end of the day, this is the thing that unites us all: a love for the barbell and a desire to be better humans.  In this episode of Barbell Shrugged, we talk about Doug’s life when he lived out of a gym, the definition of Crossfit, contact sports, making intensity relative, why expectations are the cockblocker of happiness, the importance of telling your clients the cold hard truth, and much more.   Enjoy! - Anders and Doug   Episode Breakdown   ⚡️0-10: Professional wrestling, real estate agents, Doug’s life living out of his gym, how Alex and Kurt met Doug, and where Kurt and Alex are now ⚡️11-20: The definition of Crossfit and how we can improve it, how their fitness has evolved over time, and why new people love high intensity ⚡️21-30: The need for a new approach to fitness, making intensity relative, the psychological “holy shit” moment of a workout, and the sweet spot of intensity ⚡️31-40: Kenny Kane’s method to implementing intensity, 100% effort on the airdyne, shutting your eyes during a workout, and the fun of training once you’re no longer trying to compete ⚡️ 41-50: Jiu Jitsu, MMA, fitness in fighting, how our goals change, and asking yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing ⚡️51-60: We’re all better people if we can get an hour in the gym, why expectations are the cockblocker of happiness, and committing to the fundamentals ⚡️61-70: Selling people what they want to hear, the importance of telling your clients the cold hard truth, and programming “fun” for your clients ⚡️71-80: Globo gyms, developing character in the gym, pushing people outside their comfort zone, and the fitness program that works for the majority of people ⚡️81-90: How a cable machine can benefit your training, why getting injured can be a good thing, how Alex balances nutrition, and delicious carbs ⚡️91-100: Gainzzz, stabilizing your weight, the highest day strain Anders Whoop Band has recorded, and playing with numbers ⚡️101-114: When to stop tracking your nutrition, at the end of a day it’s just a number, the value of intuition, and what happens when you learn what’s going on with nutrition   ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes at: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/bbs-kurtandalex ----------------------------------------------------------------------- @vuori - www.vuoriclothing.com “SHRUGGED25” to save 25% storewide @PerfectKeto - perfectketo.com/shrugged for 20% off   ► 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

Shrugged family, we're back. Another Saturday edition of Shrugged. It's been a while since we had a Saturday show. As you can see, we had some things in the background of the business that we needed to take care of. Sometimes business wins over sitting on the microphones and talking strength all the time. So we haven't been recording as much. Got a lot of things in the pipeline that we're working on and we're super stoked to be releasing to you guys want to thank everybody that reached out this week on instagram comments emails dms everything so much love in the shrug community and i am just so amped about life right now and where we're going as a company and the products and things that we're building that we can get to you guys. It's going to be just an epic ride.

This show was filmed three weeks ago. I went to Memphis to hang out with Doug to set the course for the future. And Alex Macklin was hanging out. Kurt Mulliken was hanging out. And they used to host the show, so we all threw the mics on just to discuss what we're thinking about in our own training. Pretty awesome debate slash me playing devil's advocate on the definition of CrossFit, what's going on in Kurt's training because he's still in the CrossFit trenches coaching every day. Alex is into the BJJ thing hardcore right now.

He's got some interesting takes on nutrition. Some of the things that I'm playing with in my training, and then Doug's templates that he's following in his own training. So very cool conversation. And it was just super cool to get back to CrossFit Memphis to see just everything. It's like a museum in there with all the t-shirts and coffee mugs and shaker bottles and just all the swag from all the years. I am going to be speaking on the 28th at the Granite Games Speaker Summit. There's like 15 people, Kalipa, DocGenFan, tons of people that have been hosts or guests on Barbell Shrugged in the past will be speaking.

CJ Martin, I'm going to be speaking on some coaching development pieces and specifically aimed at people that are part-time coaches that are looking to take their game to the next level. A lot of the people that are doing the corporate job during the day and coaching at night or coaching in the morning and are interested in maybe pursuing fitness full-time, but don't really know what the path is to going from part-time to full- time. So head over to the Granite Games website, granitegames.com. And there is tons of, sorry, the granitegames.com. And they have links set up so you can get signed up for the summit. It is 3.28 that I will be speaking. So make sure you get over there. That's not this coming Friday.

That's the following Friday. So two Fridays. Also want to thank Fiore Clothing. Look, people, if you're not wearing Fiore Clothing and you're a male,

you're missing out. I just went through and threw all of my Lululemon stuff out. I threw it out. It's done. Lululemon's gone. It's no longer for us.

FioriClothing.com. Go there. They have the best stuff. They're smashing athleisure right now. They're smashing it for guys. All the girls get to walk around in their little Lululemon spandex. Well, guess what? Guys don't have that. Now they do because Because if you're a clothing is just, it's so good. Every time someone buys it, they send me something on Instagram saying, I love these shorts, the shorts, summer's coming. You need them. You can work out in them. You look good when you're just out in public.

They're perfect for everything. And they're so comfortable. I literally train in them every single day and I wear them every single day. I live in them. I live in them. Go to and I wear them every single day. I live in them. I live in them. Go to VioreClothing.com. Use the coupon code SHRUGGED19. That's like the year 19.

SHRUGGED19. You're going to save 25% on your order. VioreClothing.com. SHRUGGED19. And also, make sure you get over to Perfect keto.com because perfect keto is making all the things they make so much ketogenic stuff the bars the bars got smashed the uh nut butters in the to go pack smashed them the nut butters not in the in the-go packs. Smashed them. And then my mom came and visited, and she actually is on the ketogenic diet and loves it. And guess what?

She stole it all because she loves their stuff so much. She buys all of the products anyways, and she thought it was Christmas in March because for the first month, she didn't have to buy everything she buys anyways. Perfect Keto has a code specific for our listeners. You can use shrugged to save 20% off your order. Perfectketo.com, shrugged. I highly recommend the bars. I highly recommend the nut butters. My mom can't stop talking about the keto coffee and the exogenous ketones. So they have the full gamut of things over there and use coupon code SHRUGGED to save 20%. Enough out of me.

Let's talk fitness. Let's get into the show. Point. Dude, I used to power bomb my pillows and whatnot, but when I showed up, I was in eighth grade, and they started handing all this stuff out to the kids about coming into high school and asking what sports you wanted to play. And I see it, and it says wrestling.

I'm like, shit, yeah. Yeah. So I show up, and I get just fucking cut in half by this guy like the coach is like we'll get out there boys see what you got okay here i am not knowing anything this dude just slices me in half yeah i get up he peels me up off the mat and slaps me on the back and i the winds knocked down he's like you okay i was like yeah man i'm good and uh it took me a few weeks to come around, but I finally asked everybody. I was like, yo, do you like that fake stuff that's on TV? And they're like, why do you think we're here?

And I was like, me too. It's so not fake. I know. Imagine if it wasn't fake, and they were really just actually punching each other in the face all night. I know. They couldn't do it. But I feel like it's very not fake.

Those guys are so jacked up all the time yeah oh the injury rates are extremely high i walked in well i used to train with cena and he walked in one day and his nose was literally like laid over on his cheek because seth rollins like need him in the face well it's murphy's law right like out of every probably hundred fake punches you you kind of take yeah one of them is just going to crush you. And they don't feel good about it when they screw up and someone actually gets hurt. If a 300-pound dude jumps off the ropes and lands

on you, even if he's trying to pad his fall so he doesn't completely break all of your ribs, it's still going to hurt. Do you know why I think they make the best politicians? Because, you know, like Kane, he's Knox County, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they make great politicians You know, like Kane, he's what, like the, he's Knox County, right? He's like the mayor or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's from Knoxville.

Jesse Ventura. Jesse Ventura. I think they make great politicians because they're in this sport where they're all, like, you know, talking smack to each other. Yeah. They go behind, like, behind it all. They're friends. But it's jockeying for position out here, a sport, and then they're all friends backstage.

Yeah, look at our president. He just talks shit. He's just a real estate guy. Yeah, absolutely. And just talks smack. Behind it all, real estate guy. Yeah, absolutely. He just talks smack. Behind it all, they can have a beer together. He has no problem standing in front of a bunch of people and talking shit.

That's all he does. That's all he did the whole time. They were like, oh, he's confident. No, he's just talking shit. How do you not know? It's a conspiracy that pro wrestling is a breeding ground for politicians. And they're just acting all the time. Have you ever been to a live?

Yeah, a lot. I sat close enough one time that it's kind of like your biggest, goofiest friend putting on spandex and then walking around the gym and like, ah, and flexing. And you're like, but you do it professionally. Yeah, it's just Chad being Chad. That's your job. That's so strange. I've only been to a show one time.

Really? It was Midget Pro Wrestling at the Pony in Memphis. Oh, the strip club? Wow. At the Pony. I went there recently. And speaking of what you just said. Were you just going to the Pony recently?

Or were you going to a Midget strip club? Or Midget. Midget strip club. So this one was at the Electric Cowboy. It wasn't out at a strip club. Okay. But all week. That's just like a bar, right?

Yeah, well, I bought a bunch of tickets, and I got a group from the gym to go, and I was like, yeah, we're going to midget wrestling. And they were like, dude, you can't say midget. It's not cool. It's called micro wrestling. And so I was like, nah, bro, it's midget wrestling. They were like, no, you can't say that.

And so I was arguing with all these people in the gym, and we show up, and we go in the door. Our tickets are in, and the lights come down, and the music starts playing. And the first thing the DJ at this club said, he was like, who's ready to see these midgets beat the shit out of each other? I was like, I told you guys.

Fuck political correctness. And I asked the dude at the merch booth. Turns out they just call it that because they're filming a TV show. So they had to change it to micro wrestling. Yeah. They're like,

oh, hell no, we're bitches. It's tight. Kurt Mulliken. Me. You're back. Alex Macklin. What's up?

Dude, hanging out. This is twice this year already. Yeah, I know. Doug Larson in the house. Yeah, yeah. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner.

Dude, we're going to do find out where all of our friends. Dude, I haven't met you before. No. Talking to Kurt. I'm looking at him, but I said you asugged. I'm Anders Varner. Dude, we're going to do find out where all of our friends. Dude, I haven't met you before. No. Talking to Kurt. I'm looking at him,

but I said you as if everybody knows I'm looking at you. Yeah. It's the first time, one, getting to Faction CrossFit Memphis. This is like the

mothership here. It's pretty fantastic. I feel like I'm officially like a part of Shrugged now. Like I made it home. Gorgeous gym. It's pretty awesome.

There's a big ass fan from the Big Ass Fan Company. They didn't pay for that ad. There's a big-ass fan from the Big-Ass Fan Company. They didn't pay for that ad. There's actually a gigantic fan in the middle. Shout out, because that thing saves us. four million degrees

inside this place in the summer. It's totally necessary. It's hot and sticky in the summertime. That fan, like, creates wind in the entire enormous facility.

Yeah. It's dope. Well, you know, yeah, shout out to Big-Ass Fans for that, because we moved buildings and the contractor came in and he looked at it and the other building and he's like, yeah, I'm not. Well, you know, yeah, shout out to big-ass fans for that because we moved buildings, and the contractor came in. He looked at it, and the other building was like,

yeah, I'm not moving that for you guys. So we went a week without it. People were pissed. Yeah. We went to the original. They didn't let us in. So there's, like, a real estate company at the old, like, we pulled in, parked.

Some guy came out. On the summer, he's talking about. Oh, okay. To the original faction, whatever. And some guy came out and was like, you got to go out to the original faction, whatever. Some guy came out and was like, you gotta go talk to the real estate agent that owns that building. So we went over there. Doug was like, I used to sleep in that

building right there. I had a business. She was like, why do you want to look in there? He's like, well, I feel like I've kind of progressed from there. I just want to take a photo of where my bed was. You want to do that TBT, man? That's it, man.

TBT post. What is that? Throwback Thursday. Instagram post. That was my bed a decade ago. Probably, what, 12, 15 years ago. Yeah, that was 10 years ago. No longer than that.

When did you guys open in 06, 07? I slept in that building from 09 to like middle of 010 for like 18 months. Gotcha. Yeah. 18 months. Yeah, so I didn't live in there when the gym first started, but I moved into that space after we'd been open like a year, year and a half. Beautiful.

That's when I started going around 2010. So, yeah. That sounds about right. I think you had just moved out of the upstairs into an actual apartment. That's right. You started beginning in 2010 and moved out like summer of 2010. When did you show up?

When did I start? I was shrugged. Were you training here? I started as an online client. I was in the very first online program here before? You did Muscle Gain Challenge? I did Muscle Gain Challenge. I started as an online client out there. I was in the very first online program that they launched, the Muscle Gain Challenge. I coached him. Yeah, Alex was my coach.

And I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I felt bad because they hosted a weightlifting media faction, and I couldn't be there. I had to earn some money because I had just quit my job. I was going to do one last thing, get some money. And I felt bad for not being there. And I was like, I really feel like I my job and I was like going to do like one last thing and I felt bad for not being there and I was like I really feel like

I let my online team down so I was like I'm going to enter a weightlifting meet turns out there was one like 40 minutes from my house I show up

and Alex is there and I just like I have no clue what I'm doing I walk up to this dude and I'm like yo you know me I know you

and he's like oh yeah yeah yeah and he's like what's your openers and I was like what are you talking about and he goes who's your coach and I was like what what are you talking about? He goes, who's your coach? He was like, what are you doing?

Are you busy right now? Yeah. He's like, who's your coach? I was like, uh. You. Yeah. Anyone. Then I smashed everyone that was tight.

Did you really? Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. Kirk crushed it. Did you have any weightlifting background? Or you just came in and you were already stronger than people? No. It was just like through the muscle gain challenge. I basically went from.

Oh, gotcha. So he was your coach online. Yeah, yeah. And then you just happened to run into him in person. Yeah. Well, I came in kind of like at the tail end of Kurt's cohort in that program. Gotcha. Yeah, so like I didn't really know Kurt.

But and then I saw him in the group. And then I went to that meet. And then I saw him there. So, like, I didn't really know Kurt, but – and then I saw him in the group, and then I went to that meet, and then I saw him there. So, yeah. But then after that, like, that's when you came on board. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. When did you start coaching here? It was, like, 2013-ish.

Yeah, and then I moved here to about two years ago on the dot. From? From the Nashville area. Oh, sweet. From Tennessee, Yeah, yeah. I kind of sold my affiliate. Did you go from Muscle Gang Challenge straight into kind of, I mean, you've been literally working out since I got here.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I owned an affiliate. Oh, really? Yeah. Sweet. In Nashville? Yeah, yeah. It's still going?

It is. It's not mine anymore. Sold it? Yeah, yeah. That's pretty fun. And so I was just like working from home, you know, shr and they're like yo what are you doing come on out coming to memphis threw a bunch of shit in my jeep moved in with alex yep and we uh we made a flight uh flight flight school program there you go we did that there's still a lot of people on that yeah

yeah it's pretty great some people some people come up to me and they're like yeah i did a flight program like i'm like oh cool man yeah i talk to vault athletes on a daily basis and like people Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty great. Some people come up to me and they're like, yeah, do the flight program. I'm like, oh, cool, man. Yeah. I talk to vault athletes on a daily basis, and people mention flight school all the time about how much they learn from that program. It's a dope weightlifting technique program. If you haven't seen that, it's in the vault. You can go check it out.

Yeah, they really do. Actually, there's tons of people that are posting videos all the time. It's funny because when I used to listen to the show and you hear the mid-roll intro, like, go download our 54 pages. It's always Doug. I get to talk to people that are on it all the time. From the commercial to the coach. Pretty sweet. You literally have been working out since I got here.

I think before I even showed up yesterday at 9 o'clock in the morning, you already had a 10K on the Assault bike. But yeah, for this show, we want to just kind of... Man, there's what, 80 years of working out in here and everyone's kind of... I feel like you're still hitting it really hard and I think us three have kind of

transitioned away from hitting it as hard as what I have seen you doing over the past. So yeah, what are kind of the goals and where and what's training look like for you these days? Well, I think everything, you know, comes in waves of inspiration, whether you're training modalities or changing or just your interests. But, you know, I came in as a weightlifter, and I have a huge – I'm scared of decrepitude. Yeah.

Or even the ego side of me, you know, like not being able to snatch what I used to snatch or clean and jerk what I used to cleanpitude. Yeah. Or even the ego side of me, you know, like not being able to snatch what I used to snatch or clean and jerk what I used to clean and jerk. Yeah. And, you know, it's hard. And then as a weightlifter, maybe you start identifying with what you're lifting all the time. Mm-hmm.

And just over the last couple years. Know about that. Yeah, yeah. As you start to age, and I'm sure, you know, you guys might know what I'm talking about, but as you start to get a little bit older, you start to have to be okay with where you're headed yeah and I kind of looked back I took another L1 and we host them probably on average every two three months here nice so I

get to sit in a lot of you know CrossFit level ones and and it the more I explore the fundamentals of anything uh the more I realize that I've still got work to do yeah you. You know, and so I've kind of taken it back to really committing myself to, like, relearning fundamentals of CrossFit and delivering that to these people as well. Yeah. Because it's easy to just say, okay, guys, 10 air squats in the warm-up, and they do them with no expectation, like, of technique or anything. Like, we can throw all that back, and you can really, really get better

just focusing on those things. The level one is interesting. I went back and did my – I think I had my five- five year re-up i'm probably up for another one pretty soon maybe you'll get my money probably not um but what what are your thoughts on the level one these days i think it's evolved a little bit i think it's still phenomenal um i come away with i call it a church camp high you know when you're a kid and you go to some kind of camp. You come out and you're like, Jesus is awesome. Two weeks later, you're smoking a bowl in your basement.

Sometimes you smoke a bowl and go to that camp. That's when you actually meet Jesus. Depends on what drugs you take. You come out of that on that high and then then you kind of damper off but if you i think again you commit to to just like commit to the excellent basics and i don't think anybody's ever better than that i think day one from when i took it two or three years ago day one was really still a phenomenal day one of explaining fitness yeah i thought it was like a really in just great overview of what we

should all be kind of striving for in a lifetime of fitness day two got a little hit or miss like pvc pipes still for olympic lifting and things like that i was like come on are we still still doing well you know my first one they didn't even cover the Olympic lifts. Really? Yeah, they just – Yeah, the med ball clean still kind of gets me. Not that I actually have done med ball cleans in a workout that I programmed for myself over the last year. I have to admit that. But as like a foundational movement, there's some things that I'm like,

I don't know, CrossFit. Like, can we change out of that? But day one and the opening opening what is crossfit i was like man this is legit like these people well have a great definition it's i think it's pretty bulletproof but besides like we can all criticize maybe the sumo to the high pole or something like that but the fact that they fucking stuck to it through like you know whatever destroyed well yeah I mean, what changes are coming down the pipeline, though? Well, hold on. I want to talk about the definition, actually.

That would be a phenomenal thing because you see it in here. Do you have, actually, conversations with the level one staff? Yeah. Do you ever come up to them and have, like, a differing of opinions and ask them about their kind of opinions on these things? I ask them a lot of questions. Yeah. Yeah. Do you ever say things like,

maybe we should change the definition to just constantly varied functional movements and leave out the high intensity piece of this? I think they could probably add to when that's appropriate a little bit more maybe yeah because they tell you technique consistency intensity go through this progression but that's like a it's fast you know it probably misses most people it misses everybody and then we especially when you show up to a gym right right and then you you really have to kind of like pull back on that and and it's hard to say. How do you have technique, consistency, then intensity

if in the definition before that is just high intensity? It's relative. Ah, well, yeah, I guess, yeah. It's an interesting piece. High intensity just sells too well. Yeah. Like you could say constantly varied functional move is performed at many intensities,

and that's probably more accurate of what people often are doing. you run that 10k air dine the other day it's like i mean there's a lot of effort but as far as like actual intensity it's pretty low but people do a variety of intense intensities all the time in crossfit gyms but they talk about it being high intensity all the time because that's just like the coolest thing to talk about yeah well the piece that is interesting to me and i'll i'll jump in and start talking about my training is that um my goal in training now when i think about what i'm trying to do is um the intensity piece to me often screams like i'm going into this like wild sympathetic piece of like i'm freaking out to

lift more weight and be more intense and more crazy than everyone else so that i can be faster and lift more weights and now a large piece of my training is how close to my one rep max can i lift and perform and do things really well but do it in the most calm way possible? And how can I do it without even having to think about, like, can I just walk over to an 80 pound dumbbell and just do some bent over rows like perfectly? Or can I walk up to a 225 pound squat or 315 squat and just go squat how why do i need to warm up for 10 minutes hit 135 hit 225 hit 275 hit 315 and then be ready can i train my body to really get to those numbers without that big warm-up period and just always be prepared and have a functioning body that

doesn't need this gigantic ramp up period to be able to actually perform something. I love that. I think a truly strong person is always strong regardless of the conditions. Yeah. It's a really interesting process because I noticed that there's a lot of things that I can't do. And I think Olympic lifting is one of them where I've really just written it off because

there's like such a process to the technicalities and yeah i feel like i mean we were at contrarious this place the other day i snatched 185 i did i went like 135 185 but as soon as i did it i was like that was so stupid yeah like why did i do that and it was with like a power lifting bar that was super fat. Probably didn't spin. The camera was there. I had to do something dumb. So some of those numbers are there, but going down that path over the last three years

when I kind of like left the competition scene, it was very much like, what do I have to do to just kind of like what you were talking about? I never wanted to not be able to snatch two and a quarter. So what do I need to do to just kind of like what you were talking about? I never wanted to not be able to snatch two and a quarter. So what do I need to do to ensure that I never do that? Well, I stopped snatching all the time because I realized that more snatching was not going to allow me to be able to snatch that because I was getting little nicks and dings all the time.

So I just started trying to do it on a quarterly basis. Can I get to 225 by doing it every three months? And I very rarely miss. And then like, can I clean 300 and not have to clean five times a week and like be on these super intense programs. So I've never really missed, I've never really not been able to do that,

even though I'm not focusing on any of those things. And it started to get into this mindset of like well shouldn't i just be able to walk up and perform if i'm doing it every three months why can't i do this every single day but do it in a manner that is like more bodybuilding style movements but can i hit 80 of whatever my lifts are snatching clean and jerk probably are not the ones you want to be doing. Can I hit 80% and just always be ready to go in and lift that weight? There's never a time where I shouldn't be able to do it. And can I do it maybe seven days a week and not be sore the next day? Cheetahs don't fucking warm up.

Yeah, they just take off. They're not like, oh, let me get some joint rotations in. That'd be rad, though. National Geographic was like, watch this cheetah. Joint rotations. You see the figure eights that he's doing over there? He's very ready to pounce. Warming up his little cheetah hamstrings.

Yeah, right? Look at this new maneuver. That's awesome. Yeah, but that's that that that conversation in my brain has really led like the last probably year of of what i'm i feel like i'm learning how to i really like training seven days a week the more i'm in the gym the better my body feels the fact that i'm not chasing this high of this intensity thing, even though my training is still relatively intense, I feel like I'm not sore. I'm able to show up every day, but I'm just not.

I feel like if I can raise that level of the parasympathetic side of things and always be calm and under control, I don't wake up the next day with crazy leg soreness. Because I just didn't like i didn't take it overboard yeah and and that really has like changed a lot of how it's it's really the piece that i'm learning and it's changed a lot of how i kind of view like maybe we should be having that conversation with people of can we just kind of like gracefully be in the gym and yeah move weights around forever but not have to lose our minds because as soon as you say high intensity to somebody they think but i think i think that comes with uh i think it comes with a little bit of maturity and experience like you've been

training a long time so you know kind of like what that threshold is i think with like new people and i think that's what crossfit too it's like high intensity yes relative but it's easy to understand like go as hard as you possibly can without you know break breaking yourself right so like and if you got really really sore you did a really good job yeah like i mean it makes sense how do you know you did a good job unless you're really sore? I can understand that, again, from a new person's perspective. How do you tell somebody, okay, I want you to go

kind of hard, but not really. They don't know what that is. I think maybe the conversation is like, hey, let's just pick something up today. Can we just come in? Boyle's whole thing was like, tomorrow morning I want you to get out of bed and kind of feel like you worked out. Like, can we just come in? Like, Boyle's whole thing was like, tomorrow morning I want you to get out of bed and kind of feel like you worked out.

Like, okay, what does that feel like? Well, just, you know, like you did something. You didn't sit on your couch. You just kind of did some stuff. Okay, like I can buy into that. Yeah. Especially if you're a new person. But it actually is a really awesome thing because you're very new to jiu-jitsu.

So you're kind of in that very beginner space right now speaking of staying calm so how in the world did you kind of the interesting thing i would love to hear just the process that you've gone through over the last how long you've been doing it very consistent like jiu-jitsu yeah uh i guess what june so nine months early june nine months nine months? Early June, yeah. Nine months. So, nine months? Yeah. So, you would be, if you were walking into the CrossFit space, in nine months, you would have already done Fran, like, twice. You've already done, like, all these, like, you've probably tried to max out your back squat. Is there any of that feeling that you have going into Jets

where you, like, feel obligated to, like, I need some intensity? After I did my first tournament tournament that's when i started to how long did that take from day one to that was in december so about six months so so everything else was pretty mechanical though like in the first six months yeah i mean i would say like just learning basic technique i mean with jiu-jitsu you don't really know what you're doing like when you first start oh you think in the weight room people know what they're doing? And the thing is, like, you're just at the first few months, like it's purely survival mode.

Which I think they should be in here too. Yeah. So you're learning, like, basic things. And it wasn't until, like, I got my ass whooped at my first tournament that I was like, yeah, I really need some intensity here. Because I wasn't training as much as I felt like I needed to in order to progress the way I wanted to progress. Did you feel like you were, like, out of shape going into them? Oh, yeah.

Or, I mean, everything. Doug rolled me for 20 minutes. I mean, you rolled. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, like. I was fighting him. I was fighting myself. Mostly yourself, everything. Doug rolled me for 20 minutes. I mean, you rolled, yeah, exactly. I was fighting him. I was fighting myself.

Mostly yourself, probably. It's like, I'm good. So tight everywhere. The conditioning aspect, not just, like, cardiovascular, but even just body conditioning just wasn't there. And I think, again, like, back to the high-intensity thing, like, I mean, yes, going high-intensity all the time is probably not the best route. But if you're talking about trying to make consistent progress and build fitness, I think you do need level. Like, I go to two gyms, and the one gym that I started at, super intense.

Like, the people roll very hard. There's a lot of talented jiu-jitsu players in there. I go to another gym, it's not as challenging. And when I roll with people from other gyms, they're like, damn, like what the fuck? Like because just the level of intensity, the skill, the level of intensity at that gym that I train at is so much higher and it transfers. Do you think that they sort of mitigate the intensity that you're training at because in a way there's a defender? Like for in here, when we go into the gym, so I think all of the things that you're talking about can be correlated to like the way that we approach crossfit in a way of like one gym is much more intense one gym isn't there's this six month learning process that you're kind of going through the mechanical side of things and then once you went to a competition you're like okay now i need to turn it up a little bit yeah but that six month process in the gym

almost because there isn't a defender or somebody else in a physical battle with you like we just say it's okay to go and do fran and like we've introduced people to fran they used to do it at the level one for people that supposedly have never done fitness before and now all of a sudden go do fran this is good for day two like like, I feel like other sports, if there's a defender, in here there isn't. So you feel like you can't get hurt. But you don't realize that, to me, I feel like maybe there should be a six-month process, but nobody really wants to do that until you're in a martial art, and now all of a sudden it's. But I think with CrossFit still, still i mean being able to scale um and again i think where people i think where people mess it up is that well one like

i mean you have if you have bad coaches they don't let you know again like that's that's always going to be a factor um but then like egos and things like that like or just poor education about like what is intensity right like i mean if you're doing if you're doing Fran with a 35 pound barbell you're not doing with 95 pounds that could still be very intense depending on you know your skill level just like if I was like when I would roll um and early you know in in my I'm still early but like even though I was rolling as hard as I can I mean I I would roll I could roll only for like a few rolls I wouldn't be able to do like four, five, six rolls because I would just be out by that time.

So, I mean, I think you can always make it relative, just like CrossFit and Kurt was saying. I feel like we kind of got on this kick of we're like demonizing high intensity, which I don't think any of us truly think is that good of an idea. Having the variety of intensities, I think, is really important. Even at CrossFitfit even if it's like your first day you can still get a lot of intensity and do it in a very safe manner where you walk away getting that that psychological piece covered where you're like damn that was

really hard like how can i not get in shape if i do that every day like that's that's why fran works so well to a new person they do you know however long it takes them sub 10 minutes or whatever it is like they get really really tired and they go man i've never been this tired before i want to fuck i'm going to keep doing that and i'll be in really good shape yeah i presume uh but for new people i don't think it's the best idea to just smash them with fran type met cons going at 100 effort with poor technique and lack of you know shoulder stability whatever else it is uh on day one but you can put them through through you know a bunch of functional movements done in a very controlled intensity. And then they do prowler sprints or airdyne sprints or whatever at the end of the workout.

The row 500, you could fuck that up too. But you could do something where the intensity is very high and the safety is also very high at the same time. Where they can be in a safe environment. They're not going to hurt themselves. And they get that heavy breathing. They get that psychological holy shit moment where they're like damn i gotta keep doing this yeah i think too like even just thinking about high intensity not in terms of like okay how hard am i breathing but like how focused you are like you can you know like in a weight like weightlifting

if you're super hyper focused on technique you can make a technical a very technical session high intensity because you are focused and you are really trying to hone in on this movement pattern i i think sometimes like again we think like high intensity always has to be like okay how fucking hard can i go i'm definitely playing a bit of devil's advocate and i think that there is a sweet spot to understanding intensity and like how it's the message is going out and we're talking about the level one and day one being a great day of understanding like a high level understanding of what CrossFit is and kind of in a way what everyone's goal should be. I, it's the, I, I feel like there, I just wish people

were more aware and I, whether it's on the coach's side or the people's side or whatever it is of like what you're talking about like okay what is intensity to me and how do we kind of relay that message to a group of people or intro classes or whatever it is so that you don't have a bunch of people in here going nuts because my training has really led me away from that and trying to not do that and now it's actually a really challenging question when we talk about or when i try to talk to people about what i do for and now it's actually a really challenging question when we talk about or when i try to talk to people about what i do for training because it seems in a way or at least in my brain i feel like i'm doing something that is very different than what would be expected

like what is like what's like a typical day like just uh a very typical day when i'm by myself and not doing like the which is is training seven days a week. I mean, so I do train seven days a week and I, I show up and let's do, we'll just call it an hour. The first five minutes, I literally just sit there and try and get my breath dialed in um i do a lot of like the max shank flowing movement piece for mobility

and just kind of like body weight movement type stuff very slow um as far as the and then moving into the workout, it's always started with somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes of, I would call it, 75% conditioning. Like something monostructural. And then I'll just walk over to the weights and start picking things up. And it's usually a combination of push-pull, vertical-horizontal. I'll do some sort of squatting like it's always a full body thing with an idea that i'm going to try to move at least one of those things heavy and everything else is going to be done just well and then i'll go back five to twenty minutes of conditioning do

that three times so there's always a conditioning piece there's always a heavy piece i don't know what it's going to be usually it's it's kind of like the idea we're talking about it was earlier today like this idea of like biofeedback really just listening to what the hell i'm trying to do um and that that really leads it's hard because i don't have a plan ever going in. Some days, like the movement mobility piece will be half an hour long. If I'm feeling beat up, I think that there's just a mindfulness piece that I've tried to incorporate

into understanding how my body feels that day. And moving slow, but moving really heavy weights is something that's kind of cool to me at this stage in the game like can i keep my muscle mass can i still stay strong like you're talking about but not but dude the gym is my dojo that's where i hang out it's where i want it to be fun so i want to go there seven days a week and have this like time that i get to do it but if i go nuts like i i can't show up the next day this sounds very like a primal type fitness to me where you feel it out and you pick up some heavy stuff

yeah and i mean that's really a lot of the goal because i can't do the same thing every day um i can't really tell people that don't know what that it like i could talk about with you guys because it makes sense to go do these things and it works. But telling somebody that doesn't have like a really deep understanding of like, oh, just make it up on the fly. They're like, no program? No. Beginners tend to want like the exact exercises, the exact sets and reps. Yeah.

As you get a little more advanced, you want more like a structure or like a template where things can be interchanged, like sweeps in and out depending on what's hurting or how you feel that day or whatever else is going on. That's kind of where I sit usually is where I'm just following a general template where it's like, I know I'm going to do some type of vertical torso squatting today. And if, you know, if I go to jiu-jitsu and like my knees bother me or something like that, then like I can replace that with something that has similar benefits. But I don't have to say like I'm front squatting specifically i can say well i'm gonna front squat or i could high bar back squat or i could do you know close stance split squats or like something similar where i'm going to get similar muscle groups and the general goal is

accomplished but it's it's not set in stone like i tend to always think in templates the i think one of the pieces that i really enjoy about my training now is that since there is no template say i'm just doing like front rack kettlebell lunges across the the turf or whatever it is um instead of just doing the lunges and they're always in the front rack trying to progress that movement with each kind of round that i'm doing so front rack for the first time overhead the second round and then maybe like lunging with pressing at the same time in the third round so there's never anything there's no like three sets of eight front rack lunges it's just we're gonna lunge yeah and see where it goes you're actually speaking of templates you guys know

kenny kane's mastery method intensity template that he follows? No, I do not. I know the mastery method, him talking about it, but I don't have the template. That's probably not the verbiage that he would use around it. But basically the idea is that if you say you have ten workouts, like six of them are going to be like practice workouts, like training workouts. Like three of them are competition workouts, and one of them is a mental toughness workout,

which is basically like, you know, six easier workouts, three really tough workouts where you're trying to win, and then one workout where you're just like, you're not even trying to get a good score necessarily. You're just trying to beat yourself into the fucking ground to see how much you can tolerate. And so you're not doing six. Say you're doing five workouts a week for two weeks in a row. That's ten workouts. You're not doing like six of the medium and then three, or sorry of the low three of the medium and then one heavy you might mix it up where you're doing like two easy one hard two easy one medium you know like where you're breaking it up like that where you know that throughout the week you're going to get that mental toughness workout where

it doesn't even matter what's programmed like you could do the same workout under these three different sets of conditions and they could be radically different or you're on a 500 meter row every four minute on the four minute well you could do that really casually and be rowing your 145s or whatever you could do it you know where you're trying to go really hard and then you could go where you're not even trying to get a good score you're just trying to like make yourself throw up can i make myself throw up today like it's a totally different mindset yeah all those mindsets have value in my opinion um one thing that we we used to do especially with mma fires would be like go on the airdyne 100 full speed until you just fucking can't you till you just give up that's that's an

awesome sprint to be involved in because in mma you have no idea like how hard you're gonna have to go and then someone's going to not get knocked out and now you're just as tired as you've ever been and you're still in the fight, still going. Smack my cord. That type of intensity is what goes in the mental toughness day. Can you just

hang on to an airdyne sprint until you just mentally break? Even if you're going slow so you're just still hanging on those days i don't ever do that i have no interest in finding that level anymore yeah um but you don't have anything to yeah exactly there's no need i i wouldn't show up the next day and i'd have to take a day off and i would totally suck because then i wouldn't have my hour and change to go do my thing. One of the things I really like doing is in order to continue having fun, I feel like I've had to change just the outlook of what it is to me.

And so much we talk about like, will I be able to snatch whatever it is of my one RM for the rest of my life or clean or squat or just can I remain strong? Like those are very external things. And now I've turned a lot of the conversation into like an internal conversation of what does it feel like if I'm rowing a 150? Yeah. So I'll go and row a 1K and whatever that 1K time is, and then I'll close my eyes and row another 1K. And can i just listen to the wheel spin and know where i'm at in that or can i maintain that without watching the actual ticker go and keeping like a 500 pace by having that thing so um i do a lot of movements with my

eyes closed i train a lot with my eyes closed it's really strange um well it was strange at first and now i've gotten very comfortable with it's having the body awareness like can i do a set of lunges and keep a straight line so like i'll be the guy that's like veered off on like on on this weird path doing lunges in the gym but i want to know can i walk in a straight line with my eyes closed and do and have hold an overhead squat or have the weights overhead um squatting can you squat 315 with your eyes closed can you do all of these movements that we can do relatively easily 225 back squats for however many reps relatively easy by watching ourselves in the mirror or being comfortable with your surroundings and then close your eyes and now you got to feel all the the little pieces to it and that

is something that i'm super not comfortable telling most people to go try because it's terrifying have you ever done jiu-jitsu blindfolded that's a thing i can't even do an n jiu-jitsu blindfold or awesome just close your eyes what was the story you were telling me about desana's kids or desana yeah i was uh i don't remember exactly how they were related or how Joe knew these people, but it was a guy who his dad, for him and his brothers, always used to make them wrestle in the dark, and they turned out to be national champion wrestlers or something like that once they got to college or whatever it was. And something happened where their house got broken into,

and it was like it's dark in the house. They got all the lights turned off, and they had gotten captured or something like that. They actually got like tied up. And they got the guy to turn off the lights. And then they like bum rushed him while tied up and beat the shit out of the guy. That is insane. In the dark somehow. I mean, so that's like a massive, odd, strange thing that I've really started doing a lot of.

I don't want to put a percentage to how often I do that. But every workout that I do is started doing a lot of. I don't want to put a percentage to how often I do that, but every workout that I do is a large chunk of it. I've trained in a globo gym that's actually pretty legit, but I'm like the guy with the hat down low because I don't want anybody to know that I'm not watching where I'm going. Yeah, people are like, what the fuck is wrong with this guy?

But like split squats. A lot of that stuff is just stuff you do once you're truly just training for fun. Yeah, I would never, if I was interested in going to the games, I would never walk into the Frasier and be like, dude once you're truly just training for fun. Yeah, I would never, if I was interested in going to the games, I would never walk to the Frasier and be like, dude, you're missing out.

You don't know what you're doing. You have no clue. Your eyes are open. Well, we were speaking to Fran. We did Fran the other day, actually,

and I know we were talking about intensity. I actually made everybody show me their hands. I was like, who here has done Fran? Most people raised their hands. And I've only been here

a couple years. A lot of people have been in this gym longer than me and I was like, who here has done Fran? Most people raise their hands. And I've only been here a couple of years. A lot of people have been in this gym longer than me. And I was like, who here has sub four minute Fran? And nobody raised their hands. And I was like, here lies the problem. And I was like, we're going to find your intensity today and we're going to do it in a way that you're going to feel what it's supposed to feel like. But, uh, when I do Fran, I don't open my eyes. I shut my eyes and I just guess. Yeah. Nice. I shut my eyes and I just guess. Yeah, I shut my eyes. I open them to grab the pull-up bar because that's pretty scary. You've got to do that.

That's it. Eyes closed the entire time. Yeah. I bet you smash, Fran. 229. That's baller. At RX? Yeah.

That's pretty legit. I know. I don't know how people do it in like one something, though. Oh, I saw. I watched Fisher do a 152, I think. I'll tell know how people do it in like one something, though. Oh, I saw it. I watched Fisher do a 152, I think. And I'll tell you how you do it. You're 5'5", and you squat 525. Yeah.

So 95 pounds is basically like doing. I've got the 5'5 thing. It's doing like basically like pushing against air at 95 pounds. Absolutely. Being way too jacked. Yeah. Alex, what's your training look like these days? Like, you have jiu-jitsu as, like, a big priority,

and you're trying to also do a lot of strength training still. Like, how do you piece it all together? I wouldn't even say I do a lot of strength training anymore. Strength training now has become supplemental. One of the first things I remember when I first started rolling, everybody was like, you're so strong, but you have no technique. So, um, strength training has definitely taken a back burner. Um, mostly that is just to try to keep whatever strength I have. So I'll do like, you know, deadlift squats and things like that, but I'm only going like maybe

at best twice a week on the strength training. Majority of my time is spent on the mat. Because, again, like it's just like there's a lot of similarities between jiu-jitsu, the jiu-jitsu journey that I'm seeing and weightlifting. You know, like barbell time, mat time, like that is how you're going to progress in that sport. Yeah. Well, there's like a structural just integrity piece that you need to lift weights for, and the rest of it is you're already stronger than everyone else. Well, and the thing is it's like jiu-jitsu is very much so technique.

I mean, you can be strong and athletic and fast, just like you can be strong, athletic, and fast in weightlifting. But if you don't have good technique, you're not going to be at your maximum potential. And with jiu-jitsu, you're going against people like yeah it's a combative sport so like you know it's extremely humbling when 125 125 pound girl like scissors sweeps you it's like and then she's like tapping you out because you know she chokes you out but like but that's the thing like you have to have some technique in there. And the only way that you can get technique is just by mat time. And we're thinking about intensity.

That's what I consider intensity. How much mat time can I accumulate? How long did it take before you started to recognize patterns on the mat? Just the learning process of, oh, I've been here. Now I have one option option now i have two options man um are you even there yet i'm never any process yeah it's like well i mean your goal is to kind of have endless like to be in a position and have countless opportunity or like thoughts of ways you could do it right well that that's that's one perspective. My experience is, yes. Doug has it, Doug. He's been doing it a lot longer than I have.

You'll never run out of moves to learn and to improve on because there's so many moves. I mean, there are thousands of moves in jiu-jitsu. Easy. Especially gi jiu-jitsu. There's so many options. Really, the guys that do really well, they have a handful of moves that they're incredibly good at,

and that's really what they get by on. You do many moves, but, like, everyone kind of of has like their their bread and butter go-to moves so you don't have to know all the moves you just have to be really good at a handful that just fit your your skills and abilities your you know your body type your limb lengths your your speed your flexibility whatever happens to be you got a big part of jiu-jitsu is figuring out what moves are going to work for you yeah because you're going to learn some moves and be like god it's just so i can't how do i put my foot over there i can't reach it it's too too far away i feel like it's there's too much slack like whatever it is and then you're going to do another move you're gonna be like oh

yeah this everything just fits it's all so perfect and i can i can see that now i've been doing jiu-jitsu and wrestling for 20 years like i can watch the ufc and see somebody do something kind of unique and be like, oh, yeah, fuck you. I'm totally doing that on Monday. You know what I mean? Like, I can just see it and know that it's going to work for me. And then someone will teach a move and I'll just be like, you know, I'll practice it just to play ball and say that I did. But, like, I know that I'm not going to do that. It's not going to be a part of my game.

I can practice it for fun, just learn new stuff. And it's good to know how to defend against it because someone might do it to you. But I generally know if something's going to be a part of my game. I can practice it for fun, just learn new stuff. It's good to know how to defend against it. Someone might do it to you. I generally know if something's going to work for me or not. I'm so amateur at all of it. Just yesterday, I've done it four times, two of which were going with friends and just wrestling. Like, hey, try this when you get here.

Then they would get me in a position where i could recognize where i was yeah um and then i've done two regular intro classes and the first thing i noticed yesterday rolling with doug i was like oh you're smart you're stronger than all of the other people i've been in this position with like that must be such an advantage at well isn't it advantage yeah being strong in athletics, always an advantage. When skill is equal, strength wins. Yeah, we figured that out in the UFC a long time ago. People came in with jiu-jitsu.

Royce Grace is the most famous. He kind of made jiu-jitsu a thing in the MMA world. He pioneered all this stuff. But then once everyone else knew jiu-jitsu, and they were like college wrestlers and super athletic and really strong and whatever else, then it was like, oh, okay. Now all the jiu-jitsu guys got were like college wrestlers and super athletic and really strong and whatever else then it was like oh okay now all the jiu-jitsu guys gotta not just rely on technique they got to be athletes too and everyone's kind of converging on this one archetype of of knowing all of you

know the boxing kickboxing wrestling jiu-jitsu and strength conditioning at that that five piece combination is really where it's at yeah how do they train like there seems like too many things that you have to do to be good at MMA. It's just like CrossFit. I mean, CrossFit is mixed fitness, and UFC is mixed martial arts. But then you have to go fight, too. Like, they do the mixed fitness thing. It's a lot.

And then they have to go do the mixed fighting thing. Sure. I mean, it's definitely a lot. Again, it's just like CrossFit. CrossFit is a lot. You've got to be good at a lot of stuff, and you've got to train all fucking day long and somehow not burn yourself all the way into the ground where you're injured and you can't compete. But you've got to find that balance.

But, yeah, there's a lot to learn. I kind of had the same, like, thing at Alex when I started jiu-jitsu. I'd been wrestling for a long time, but I was strong. I was way stronger than all the dudes I was going up against. But, you know, just getting trashed after the fact. They might try to throw me. They couldn't. But they would definitely tap me out.

And, like, I'd say if that were my focus my training would definitely shift much like alex has had maybe away from strength i would i would probably want to be able to do a set of like 20 slow and controlled glute ham raises or something if i was just grappling and yeah and it's funny like that how you know we shift with time your goals change he was saying yeah i don't do a lot of strength training i looked i was looking at him was like what happened to us yeah no but i see i i feel like that's uh that's a another great part of the conversation though like my training right now it's not that i'm not interested in performance it's just me beating myself into the ground every day is not going to help any performance metrics at all i actually did fran like two year and a half ago,

maybe 18 months ago. And it was like 320. I was like, that's I'm in better shape now than when I was at 25. And I don't even come close to doing CrossFit super high intensity stuff every day. So how long can you keep it in the savings bank? Well,

it's just like kind of what you were saying. Like you don't ever go to like that, you know, make yourself puke point. Like it gets to the point where it's like I don't know – I don't have a reason to – Yeah, you really have to have that warrior mentality. I don't have a reason to squat 400 pounds anymore. Like I don't have a reason. So like I'm not –

You have two knees that will tell you not to do that. And that's one of the big reasons I got into jiu-jitsu because my right knee was just messing up. So like, yeah, I mean, I think, like, it's, again, like, back to, like, goals too. Like, what's your reason for doing it? You know, I'll spend more time doing jiu-jitsu because now I have a reason because I'm trying to learn as much as possible about the sport. Is this the first Open you aren't doing?

I haven't even asked you, are you doing it? I assume you're not. I'm probably – I might cherry pick and jump in a while like if it doesn't have like thrusters or wall balls but like we're like a time domain or like making me do it you know like yeah i mean i'm curious because i haven't done crossfit in several months but uh i'm curious though but yeah i don't i don't have it. I completely quit on the Open. It was not this past year, but the year before. I wanted

to know if I could make it to regionals as a female. I cannot. Not even close. I have a couple female friends that have been to regionals like eight, nine times, whatever it is. They're there all the time. I was like, I wonder if I could beat them using their weights not even close.

Like, it was, I mean, especially once you get your heart rate jacked up and you're like, I bet I'm way stronger. It's like, you're way stronger but not nearly as stronger as you would think. Like, they still move some heavy-ass weights around. But, yeah, I don't know. I might do, do like three of them this year just to see what it looks like you were talking earlier about doing seven day a week training total body every day like i've tried that before and it just for me it like doesn't

work for me at all um i tend to i tend to get run down i tend to get a lot of joint pain even if i'm not going super intense every day just like just like the everyday thing just yeah it's too too too much for me like you were talking about doing two days a week alex doing jujits like when i was doing mma and i was you know i was doing jujits i was doing kickboxing i was doing boxing i was doing mma like and then you know putting it all together i don't know how many sessions a week that was i don't remember the exact number but at one point we were doing a study at the university of Memphis and I, and I put down that I was, uh,

I was training 21 hours a week. So it's like, I was doing like, you know, two or three sessions a day, you know, six days a week using a train on Sundays. Um,

and that just beat the shit out of me over time. Like I was, I was, I was young. I was like, I was in graduate school. Like it was fine for a while. And then it was like, God, my me over time. Like, I was young. I was in graduate school. Like, it was fine for a while.

And then it was like, God, my fucking shoulders hurt. It was like, my neck hurts. My elbows hurt. It was like, everything started hurting. And then it was like, trying to pull myself out of that hole but still be competitive was really tough. Because I was competing in weightlifting and MMA and jiu-jitsu all together. Different weight classes since those were all weight class sports. And so I constantly like adjusting my body weight still trying to train all these things just because i like training but it's like fuck the joint pain is like yeah stacking up and i and i

it was very difficult to pull myself out of that eventually i converged on okay i've been doing strength training for a long time i'm always bigger and stronger than the people that i'm competing against in in martial arts so maybe it's not like the focus that I really need since I already kind of got that box checked to some extent. I can still keep my conditioning high, not to worry about keeping on quite as much muscle mass. I'm great at weight cutting, so I'm always bigger than the other person. But two days a week ended up being like the sweet spot for me for strength training. I do twice a week total body strength training with almost no conditioning. And I got almost all my

conditioning you know hitting pads and wrestling and doing everything else and then occasionally you know like once a week i would do some like you know super high intensity hill sprints or like prowler pushes or whatever it was maybe like leading up to the fight i might ramp up my conditioning and just a little bit depending on where i felt my conditioning was yeah but i was i was almost never never i don't think I ever was, in my opinion, less conditioned than the other guy. So two days a week worked great for me with the amount of martial arts I was doing.

Yeah, seven days a week. I mean, anyone that's listening to this should know that I'm really just trying to learn what happens if you do, like this is just a stage. Are these one hour sessions? Yeah, hour, hour and 15 minutes it really is like the sessions can vary so much that there is no real template like some days it's go row for

20 minutes and then when you get done with that um you know go push a sled and then go row for 20 minutes and go push a sled and then it's done but it's some sort of way of like really trying to connect with my body and just feel it out and a lot of it came from i i went on like a big yoga kick for where i was doing strength training three days a week decent intensity still very cross-fitty type stuff and then of course like the high intensity bodybuilding thing kind of hits or the the high-intensity bodybuilding thing kind of hits or the bodybuilding thing that's going on kind of has hit and getting into that. But the yoga piece, I could see what they were doing.

And I wasn't going to like your normal vinyasa classes. I was going to these like yin classes where we sat. And there was maybe you would sit for and hold poses for six minutes so it was super um like breath heavy meditative heavy and the classes were really cool and it was so the opposite end of the spectrum and my brain just started to go well how do i take crossfit at one end this yin yoga thing on the complete opposite end if you were to ask both of them what they're trying to do it's oh we're trying to make people healthier and more mindful and create better stronger people like they're that's they're both of their goals so how do i

combine this thing that i love strength training with this other thing that i really like which is this yin yoga and and restorative way to create health and wellness and combine both of them into under creating like i don't want to say it's my own methodology but something that's right for me right that i my biggest goal is i want to go to the gym yeah if i just get to do that everything in my life is better. Like I'm a better husband, dad, all the things. Like just give me my hour to go and like do the thing that I am really happy doing. But I can't do it in a manner where I'm just going and banging weights for seven days. Yeah, I think that's the thing.

That's the kick. Like you're self-regulating a lot. Like you're staying within like you may not know it, but you're staying within your recoverable body. I quit workouts if they get carried away. Like I, something that kind of started hitting the internet was like the double press or whatever it is that they're doing over in Dubai, right? And like the burpee and then the dumbbell snatch kind of kettlebell swing looking thing. And I started doing that, but it's like clean and jerk style and i was so smoked that i just literally set them down i was like we have gone too far there's a moment in sometimes it at least once or twice a week where i'm like got there cool i'm out

i don't need to finish the workout i finished because i realized that i was my hands were on my knees and i was tired and i needed to go home um dude something some of this worked really really well for me lately i've been doing a lot of and really enjoy it like every time i go back to a like a four day a week upper lower split like kind of west sidey type type uh template for as far as the week goes i always feel better i always feel strong my joint pain is always minimized. I'm always like super excited to go to the gym the next day. It's like the perfect amount of volume for me, especially right now in this moment.

It's been feeling really, really good. And every time I do it, I end up feeling really, really good. And then because I feel so good, I'm like, well, I should go back and do all this other stuff. I change my mind about what I want to do. And since I feel so great and I've solved all the world's problems, I go i go beat the shit out of myself again and then i always like go back to that this four day week structure i can't seem to pull myself out of it um this is me talking myself into not doing that again and then uh but along with that little note but along with that uh i was having some upper back problems there for a while and so i was i wasn't putting heavy barbells on my back and i wasn't picking up heavy deadlifts like anything that was over like 300 pounds was

just like off limits for a little while because it was really bothering my like top of my thoracic vertebra. And so what I did instead of doing actual heavy lifts, you know, anything that was like triples or lower, I just did a lot of dynamic effort methods type stuff where I was doing 8 to 12 sets of 2 to 3 reps at like, you know, 50 to 70% depending on the movement for like super fast reps. Control dead sand squatting, control down, explode on the way up. Just do, you know, 3 reps, rest for a minute, do another 3 reps. I'm getting a lot of first reps. And every time I do that, I always feel

super athletic. I feel great walking out of the gym. I get some muscle soreness. Like I get stronger. I just feel really, really good. And so I've been doing a lot of dynamic effort stuff followed by heavy volume single leg work. So I'll do five by five on front foot elevated reversed lunges with a barbell on my back or something along those lines. So doing speed work for the bilateral stuff,

squats and deads, and then doing five by five single leg work has worked phenomenally well for me. It's fun and i feel like i'm getting stronger without having to lift super super heavy weights of course not a competitive power lifter and all that i'm not trying to like peak my deadlift i'm just trying to feel pretty strong and be healthy for doing jiu-jitsu that way alex you know doesn't beat me up at practice well i one thing you talk about that like i think that an interesting goal that we have all kind of gotten to

is we want to be able to be in the gym all the time. Like, that is the goal. So we've had to restructure it because we've been through this maybe CrossFit phase or competitive phase or weightlifting phase where you realize, I can't do it like this.

And then, so you look around and you're like, well, how many coaches are going to really know what I'm going through? Not many. So we have to go ask a lot of the questions. And my, like I keep saying, my biggest thing is I just want to go every day. Like literally some of the days it's go lay on the ground and just like stretch and move and do pushups and like ring rows. And then I'll go sit in the sauna for 20 minutes well i think so it's a purely recovery day but i still get to go to the gym

and move weights around and and do some stuff um which over an accumulation period all makes a difference yeah it's just maybe my training program is really just i want to go to the gym and play well we've all we've all kind of found ourselves in training, I think, or continuing to find ourselves and learn. But as we all get older, I think what has summed up my training over the last year is that expectation is the cock blocker of happiness. Yeah, totally. Yeah, that definitely belongs on a T-shirt somewhere.

Yeah, show up and just do what you need to do and that's no expectation well you're doing the open what are your expectations to have

I just want to have an amazing I just want to have an amazing time top 10 in the world yeah I want to have fun and you know

talk a little shit to my friends and that's it. Just enjoy it. We guys are doing some fun things in here with the whole crew, though. You've got a little in-house fun thing that you've set up. 80s knife fight style. That's the theme this year.

They open a.m. versus p.m. in an 80s knife fight. I envision kind of like – You guys do like blood sport? Yeah, we're going to dance and snap and walk after each other. I envision almost like the Ron Burgundy where they met in the parking lot. And everyone's got their, like, whatever tool it is. Think about denim vest and a switchblade is how I'm going about this. What's kind of the vibe of CrossFit right now for the normal person that wants to come in

and just be in shape? For our gym? Well, your gym, you probably have a better beat on it than I do. I only learn from one YouTube channel. I think what HQ is doing is really great. Like, kind of the games had their time in the sun, and that's awesome. And it got the attention. And now letting everyone know that they can do this stuff.

And if you're in here, if you're in CrossFit Memphis, like, again, and that's awesome. And it got the attention and now letting everyone know that they can do this stuff. Yeah. And if you're in here, if you're in CrossFit Memphis, like, again, huge commitment to the fundamentals. And when you make people do the fundamentals, they realize, like, they're not as good as they maybe think. And they're like, oh, shit, I do need to better my air squat, better my pull-up. And, again, varying intensities, always varying. We do one day a week of long slow

sustainable stuff one day a week where you get the a case of the shoe buddies you know like one really intense day one really slow day and i wanted to say andres was talking about front rack kettlebell lunges and then overhead and i was like man those will give you a case of the shoe buddies. So when you put your kettlebells down, you're like, shoe buddy. For us, it was Fran last week. That's hysterical. Something that makes you say shoe buddy. That's right. What gives you the shoe buddies these days?

No gi. Yeah, rolling with any purple belt or higher. Shoe buddies. Are you a purple belt? I'm taking that. I'm a purple belt. Awesome. Doug smashes, man.

Like, I'm grateful for Doug because he'll go easy on me. I can actually try some shit. But then we'll actually try to roll, and then I'm just like, yeah, I will just get dominated in the progression though i i still there's a piece of me that struggles one talking to people about it because i feel like there is a massive piece of people's story when they are training that they do need to go and find those crazy places just so they understand like they're extending out their level of comfort yeah and if you only came in and you were doing

what i was doing i think you would be a really you you would not be experiencing fitness in a way that matters yeah because if you came in and it was like, today got hard, I'm going to stop right now. Yeah. Like, we got to a point where I didn't feel very comfortable, so I quit and walked out. Like, that's one of the pieces that I really struggle with because I think there is a massive, kind of like the programming you're talking about,

of we have to really get people out of their comfort zones. I train in a Globo gym, and I despise some of the trainers in there. There's one of them in there that I know he has never gotten a single result for his clients ever because I watch the way he trains people, and I'm just like, you know you're a fraud. You know it. You have to know. I've never seen you have a single person pick up a single weight

ever and i just want i just want to walk up to his clients and be like um so what do you think your goals are and they'd all be like well i'd like to lose weight and lean out and probably have some muscle mass like get away from that guy then go away like go talk to the guy that's at the squat rack and ask him what he's doing. Yeah, absolutely. Because this stupid little comb game you're playing right now with four burpees, and then you're going to row a 1K, and then you're breathing heavy, so you're doing it. Oh, you want to just strangle him. It drives me nuts.

So you guys are on the opposite end of the spectrum. You know. You've been there. There's a have been. You've done that. And then you've got the guy who hasn't done that they don't know you know but yeah i think the real conversation and is is like where in your training age are you like at the beginning you should really dial in mechanics and understand like that uh mechanics intent or consistency intensity like

that if if you actually stick to that and you're coaching that way, that's fantastic. But, man, there is a piece where in that sweet spot, like you really should go and get after it. Build up a massive savings bank of fitness and then keep it forever. I like that. I think you have to. Figuring out a way to keep it. So if you're inside zero to two years, learn so much

and learn about your body and learn all these things. And then from years two to six, eight, whatever it is, get after it, especially if you're 25 to 35 years old. You need to be two, three days a week putting the gas pedal down, finding out where you're at, finding out how far you can actually take something, assuming you have the joints and no injuries. But then how do you hang on to it? And that i think where a lot of us are out of like how do i hang on to this thing because i love it

and i want to be here and i want to do it as much as possible and not just go sit on the couch where i'm just throwing away the last 20 years of my life well i think like you said you kind of have to go to that zone that that edge to find like what's the balance point i i use this analogy of like you know you'll go bowling and you have like the the gutter guards yeah yeah so like i need those if you if you you know if you hit one you know it's gonna get your ball's gonna go the other side and then bounce back and then at some point like you're gonna be able to to be in the middle point and the balance point. So I think it does involve, like, because that's what I've had to do.

I've had to, like, you know, competitive weightlifting and going hard as possible and then dialing that shit back. And now, like, okay, I understand what can I sustain. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing that annoys me about that trainer so much is I know he's not getting results because he's not even having the conversation with his clients of like, maybe we should push you outside your comfort zone a little bit.

Like, I know that they had this intake form and all of them wrote weight loss. And in their brain, he's just feeding them what they think weight loss is. And it's like, man, they need to be on the squat rack learning how to get stronger, to increase lean muscle mass, to lose body fat, and he is feeding them this, like, just straight up, like, I see him setting the cones up every day. If I see you set another cone up on this turf, I am going to just, I have to go talk to the client for you.

There's a lot of money in giving people what they want versus what they need or telling them what they want to hear. That's what it is. It's telling them what you want to hear because they don't know what they want. They don't even know. They have no idea what's going to work, so you can tell them anything. Cones. There's always a balance there with what the person wants

and what you actually think is going to help them in the long run. Maybe that person just thinks running cones is fucking super cool, and it makes them feel like a badass. was like well that's why a lot of people do crossfit we're talking about this earlier yeah a lot of people do crossfit just because they think it it makes them feel like they're fucking badass and they might be doing it all wrong and it might not be good for them in the long run it might totally destroy their shoulders or whatever you think it's going to do for that particular person depending on what their their problems are but uh that's something i've definitely learned over time with training people

is, like, there's a huge psychological component that goes into training someone, whether they're actually going to, like, think that you're doing a good job, regardless of what your actual results are showing. Like, you could give them great results, like, show them their before and after pictures, and they could still be like, well, yeah, I know, but, you know, it's not what I want. Like, okay, well, you came for fat loss and you lost 20 pounds, but you're still kind of upset about it. Like, did you, did you give them what they wanted? Kind of, you get, you got, you give them what they asked for, but apparently they're not happy about it. So, you know, what was missing there? Like maybe, maybe they just weren't having

enough fun. Maybe they just like, maybe they thought fitness was going to make them happier, but it totally didn't. Now they're still confused. You don't really know what it's going to be, but I think giving people what they want is important, but you have to be honest with them about, hey, this thing that you want to do is super fun, and it'll help with running agility drills. We'll do something. We'll do nothing, but really these other things are going to be more effective.

But if you want to run agility drills, I'm down. Agility drills are... Come to the gym and let's do some cones. Maybe you can lose some weight you want to run agility drills i'm down agility come to the gym and let's do some cones maybe you can lose some weight when it comes to agility drills because you hired alex to do your nutrition while you're at it he just chopped your calories in half and taught you how to eat some protein and vegetables i'll give you extra more food well this is i one of the things that starts to when you see people that aren't getting pushed outside their comfort zone is like the the pieces that go into the personal trainers. Like you got to expose people to what's going on, like make them go do the back squat and then feed them the cone drill or just having one piece where you're really pushing somebody outside of what they want. And, hey, we'll give you the cone drills.

We'll get you to do your burpees. We'll get you to do all these funky little band drills that have a purpose. I get it. But, oh, man, the side shuffle around the cone. Always. Yeah, like those things have a real purpose, and we can feed them what they want, but everybody needs to learn that it might not even have to be back squats,

but we should have some heavy weights, and we should know that when you say, I want to look like that person, you should be doing some of what that person's doing in order to, and I think one of the when we talk about even going back to like talking about high intensity that's awesome because at least people know that you have to push yourself past where you're comfortable and most coaches and trainers outside of crossfit gyms really struggle to do that. Or you go to a boot camp where people are like,

they're getting you out of your comfort zone, but it's in slightly in a less than optimal ways. I think that's something that in the CrossFit gym, when you come here, you know you're lifting weights. That's one of the best parts about the culture to me is you know you're going to lift weights and there's an expectation you're going to get stronger yeah which then strength is dominant when it comes to all of the goals anytime i see anything fitness going on where i can tell the context or the vibe is that we're here to burn calories and that's like that's it and i'm like are you like you just hired someone to make

you move around a lot so you could burn calories yeah okay well you may just not really know about all the other things that are available to you like like learning proper movement and how strength you know plays into this whole thing and all the other things that we normally talk about but like in situations like that like you're talking about we're stereotyping this this mythical person oh he's not mythical i know him i know him like he's there 12 hours a day clients come to you saying i want to lose weight the assumption is that they they need to in their minds often is that they need to burn some calories and if you say oh yeah i can help burn calories and like that's the end of the conversation then i'm like okay you're at some level a fucking snake oil salesman.

You need to be teaching people all these other aspects of movement so that someday they can actually take their fitness, so to speak, into their own hands and actually be able to put together a good training program for themselves and have a long life of being fit and healthy and mobile and strong, et cetera. And if you're not training a person

to get to that point, then it's almost like I don't consider you to even be like a true professional. You're not a coach at that point. Yeah. Yeah, you want to give people their independence. You're rent-a-friend. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, that rent-a-friend is a great analogy. It's kind of like how I feel about, man, this person, he gets me every time. At this point, it's almost comical for me to watch him coach people because I'm like, no, don't, please. Oh, God, I've got to go tell them. I've got to go tell them that they need to stop doing whatever they're doing with him. But it's one thing that's so awesome about CrossFit gyms. It really is that there is a culture of the expectation is you're going to get strong when you get here.

If you're not, you're not doing it right. We're going to push you outside your comfort zone. And the Metcon piece, you have to go and increase people's intensity and they will become comfortable experiencing where their end limit is. And if anything in that definition of constantly varied functional movements

done at high intensity, hidden in there is we're going to see where your end limit is we're going to push you past it it's going to suck yeah but you will develop a character that is much stronger and i think one of the things that annoys me so much watching that guy trains train people is that he by in a way protecting his clients and giving them what they want, he never is able to really develop the character traits that go into pushing intensity or saying, no, you have to get stronger. It's that like, well, I'm kind of scared to go over to the squat rack.

Don't worry, I'm your personal trainer. You don't have to. No, they have to go to the squat rack. They should be going there by themselves and kind of like we all used to do when we were in the Globo gym. We didn't really know, so we would mosey over

and like, is anybody working in here? Okay, well, I'll wait. Okay, I'll wait. Like, you do yours and then if it's empty, then I'll come in and I'll squat less than you. But hopefully nobody will see me. Like, those moments, you don't realize that you're building confidence to be able to go do that.

So, I mean, do you train in Globo gyms at all ever? Yeah. You're in them every once in a while? Yeah. I love going in them. Are you in here most of the time do you ever go to the global gym I never go to the global gym my favorite thing to do is when I see

I got the family membership I got three kids going into the daycare I got two hours with my wife all to myself to train and do whatever I want that's the move one of my favorite things to do now that I'm in the global gym is when I see like a 17 year old kid and I can see that look in his eye where he's like kind of like slowly creeping over and he's clearly awkward as hell he doesn't really know and I just look at him like

keep going like you're doing good just keep going and they they don't know that like maybe the muscles aren't there maybe they're seeing some results you never know where they're at it could be their first week but like the fact that I just want somebody through training, through lifting weights, to develop the character, to have the resiliency, to be confident in walking over to the squat rack and asking if you can work in with somebody. It's terrifying when you're 17, 18, 25, 35 years old, and you've never been in the gym. In here, with the community, with the group class, it's very expected.

Like, oh, we're on a barbell together we're at the same weight the people down in the back there they that's that's where the strong people hang out i can't wait to to push myself back to further squat racks in the globo gym like going and seeing those little kids in there i'm like keep your elbows in you're doing great whatever you do stop flaring them out you look ridiculous this is cooler just do that more often i'll catch in two weeks we'll give you another tip um but that that personal trainer role in the in like the globo gym and i know there's great globo gym coaches but specifically the ones that just protect their clients from the thing that they're scared of and they never say like oh well we can go to the squat

rack just even if you don't have me at least we've been over there together and we know what the the people that have are reaching their goals are doing and now we can just be comfortable in the area maybe you overhear a conversation of two people squatting together so when you try to do it now you can at least fake it oh this is the conversation like oh you want to put 45 on cool well i'm gonna put 10s on because i can't do that like at least fake it. Oh, this is the conversation. Like, oh, you want to put 45 on? Cool. Well, I'm going to put 10s on because I can't do that. Like, at least you have an understanding that, like, this is how the conversation is played. You're in the area.

Yeah, like, nobody just shows up squatting 225. But, man, you've got to learn how to have that conversation. You've got to be in the room. I think what you're saying, too, and like the whole the whole point of like coaching i think um you know is empowering the individual yeah yeah like building give them enough knowledge the confidence you know so that they can take their eventually at some point take their own fitness into their own hands and and make it work for them. Yeah. And you can't do that if you don't challenge someone. Yeah. Yeah.

I see. I get so stoked on the people that, like, in CrossFit gyms, we have this, there's, like, a general kind of makeup. Like, people are excited to go get stronger here. So going to places like a Globo gym where not everybody is, like, stoked on strength, and you see, like, an old person, like, like stoked on strength and you see like an old person like pushing a sled and i'm like you fucking get it like i am so stoked when i see somebody that doesn't fit the bill yeah kind of like in here most of the people fit the bill or they're on

their way you can see them progressing when you go to a globo gym you might not see that like that's where all the people hang out in here is a little bubble and when i go to a Globo gym, you might not see that. That's where all the people hang out. In here is a little bubble. When I go to the Globo gym, I get so stoked. There's like grandma. She's smashing the sled. I just want to walk up to her and be like, you got to be fired up today. You should. You should walk up to her. The little kids, that's what I tell them.

I'm like, look, dude. Raise your vibration, bro. You're moving. You're doing it. You're moving the vibration up. You made it better I was at Lifetime the other day and I saw this this older lady

she's probably like 55 and she's real overweight and she had battle ropes in her hands and there was a personal trainer next to her that's like you know like a model

personal trainer he's like 6'2 and fucking 210 he's lean you know what I mean and she's like just like slowly slogging

these things from side to side like all bent over and hunched over and then she'd pause and then she'd like slowly slogging these things from side to side, all bent over and hunched over. And then she'd pause, and then she'd slowly slog them to the other side. And you could see him. He's taking deep breaths. He's staring at the ceiling. Like, whew, I can't believe this is my job.

Holy fuck. All right, keep going. I'm going to kill myself. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You could just see he was so distraught with, like, how am I going to make it through this boring hour? More power to that woman for doing her thing but like that guy like when he thought i'm

gonna be personal trainer like that was this was not what he signed up for it i was just looking at him like man i'm glad i like somehow skated away from having to be like a global gym personal trainer because like i didn't have something cooler to do if you like went to his instagram it's a bunch of like model pics and then his story, it's like, me with grandma doing the battle ropes. That's not matching. Not as exciting as I think you wanted it to be.

Kurt, earlier, before we started talking about shoe buddies, or was that what you called it? Shoe buddy. You said that there was one day a week where you were doing

kind of long duration, low intensity type stuff and then you had some high intensity stuff. Explain the rest of your thoughts on the structure of the program for here at Faction right now. Okay, yes.

I think aerobic capacity is largely misunderstood. People think if they just attack this five rounds per time or Fran or whatever it is super intensely that they'll get better aerobically. You will. There's a window to that. But people often need to slow down in order to speed up. That's with weightlifting. Slow down to understand the movement so you get faster.

Get stronger so you get faster. But that goes with conditioning too. So, you know, we'll do days where we just have, today's pretty slow. It's supposed to be. Me and Jess kind of smashed it. But, you know, three 10-minute efforts at a high sustainable pace. That's 30 minutes of moving.

But there are movements that you can't do that fast. We'll have one day that's just modern structural activity, maybe 30 to 45 minutes of just aerobic stuff. And then another day that's, you know, interval work, high-intensity interval work. And then one finally day that we're shoe buddy. That's the day you beat the piss out of yourself. Yeah, yeah.

But it's always super fucking short. You know, it might just be assault bike sprints after we do the back squats or something like that. Right, right. I like that. We were talking with James Fitzgerald, and we were at Guadalupalooza in Miami here just recently. And I hadn't really followed his stuff super closely over the last five years

or however long. And what he was saying was that he, for regular people, had, you know, I hope i'm stating this all accurately but had really gotten back to almost doing like bodybuilder ish work in the sense that it's mostly just pure strength training and then there's other times where you're just doing long durations low intensity cardio which is kind of what bodybuilders do they lift weights and then they do low intensity cardio, which is kind of what bodybuilders do. They lift weights and then they do low intensity cardio. And for regular people, he was like, that's, it works fantastic. They get healthy.

They don't get too fucked beat up. And, uh, you know, the, the Met cons and whatnot, regardless of intensity and whatnot, he, he had really gotten away from for regular people that aren't competing in CrossFit. Yeah, for sure. I think the, you know, the people the people here, they really love the – they're starting to learn that, oh, I can repeat efforts better and quicker with an aerobic base. I feel better.

I'm not hurting, including myself. Me three years ago, you would never catch me doing a 10K on the assault bike like I did the other day. Yeah. I wouldn't do that now. Not when you could go tap and go power cleans at 75%. I would have been out there snatching. Also, because when I hear 10K on an assault bike,

I think I'm racing a 10K like my life depends on it. Yeah, not at all. And it's really going to hurt. Not just like I'm doing a casual 10K and it's just a part of my week. Yeah. It's much better. How scheduling it out in a week, are you really focused on, like, mixing the modalities up of the longer

duration stuff too? Oh, yeah. Yeah, some days we'll just do monostructural stuff, but we'll always mix it up. Does the 5K run still exist in here? Hell, yeah. I love that. Yeah.

That means you just, you know what, nah, no one's going to come in today. We're right across from Shelby Farms. But I've shifted the culture in this gym. Yeah. Now people show up on those long days. When I started coming here, they were just doing, like, endurance days on Wednesday or, like, slow crap. And the constantly varied model has changed that. People, they like to show up now because it's always different.

But they're going to get their 5Ks. Hell, me and my other coach, Zach, we ran 10 miles with Doug. I didn't train for that. 10 miles? Yeah, we did a 10-mile race in Shelby Farms here in Memphis. Dang. I didn't know about that. Yeah, I had no idea.

You're holding out on all that breathing you're doing. We ran Spartan World Championships together. I know. But you didn't tell me you were training for next year's already. I run once a year, whether I need it or not. There you go. Totally not accurate, but I actually really like to go for trail runs. I think that a lot of the basis for what I'm doing training

is based off a lot of what you're talking about because I really love the long-duration stuff now. But I only get an hour. I don't have time to go just do that. I've got to go go lift the weights too so it's really trying to look at my entire training session as this long aerobic piece to keep all the things healthy and i also got to figure out a way to lift the weights in the middle of it and that's i think that that aerobic piece is something i really really missed when it was like we're always doing touch-and-go Olympic lifting. We're always trying to test 1RMs.

And I love that the conversation like that in here has changed drastically from those days because it's so much healthier for people. You could throw together something real quick, you know, like we did today, 30 minutes, 30 calorie row, 20 kettlebell swings, 6 strict chest-to-bars. You know, you could take that to like an axle overhead carry or something like that. Just throw that in the middle. Do you guys do a bunch of carries in here?

Yeah, a lot of overhead carries and farmer's carries. That stuff totally got disrespected. So those are things that I'm doing all the time. I want everyone in this gym to have, to me, I have some unpopular opinions, and one of those unpopular opinions is that a strict pull-up is a basic human function. Yeah, I agree with that.

People don't enjoy hearing that, and that's okay. I think everybody should be able to perform, you know, 10 great squats, do a pull-up. That's human function. Yeah. So I want everyone in here to have a really jacked upper back. And we have a day, because a lot of times, females especially, they struggle with upper body pulling. We have one day a week where we just focus on that.

Sweet. Upper body pulling day. And it's a bro sesh too for the dudes we get a huge fucking pump everybody loves it the girls are getting stronger it's good to see yeah i see i see rogue now has some some different type of cable attachments and whatnot that they sell like i actually think that's really good because you know there's something to said for jumping pull-ups and banded pull-ups and all that. But a lot of people really just really could benefit from doing cable pull-downs. You can select whatever weight you want for whatever rep range you want. And you're working the same movement pattern in the same muscle groups. It's just really convenient to have something like a cable machine where you can do pull-downs. Oh, yeah.

That's part of the reason I like going to either like non-crossfit strength gyms, like powerlifting gyms oftentimes have a bunch of machines, like in addition to all the regular barbells and kettlebells and whatever else, or just going to every once in a while going to a global gym, and they have all the machines of all the types, mostly cable machines, is what I tend to gravitate towards. I would love to have a cable machine. When my arm was healing my shoulder, cable pulldowns were the only upper body pulling or vertical pulling that I could do.

So it was at an angle there. Partially tore my bicep. Sucked. Doug was at my house out in California. He was visiting. We had a bunch of meetings. I was just dead. Couldn't sleep.

Dying. It sucks. It was the worst. So painful. Recovering from that stuff. Gah. good felt like such a pansy too i feel so bad there's a chance to do aerobic everything yeah well i mean that's right that's well that's it hear that optimism i know well that's twitching up and that's one thing like what i think people say in martial arts like getting injured is a good thing because then you can't go to your go-to moves anymore.

So you got to like learn other stuff. So it's a blessing in disguise. It was really strange because we talk about how I'm trying to like have the perfect amount of like intensity on my day. You can't escape it. You're going to – something's going to happen. I had no clue that I was going to end up hurting myself. You know what I did? I went and did one burpee

and dumbbell thruster workout. First burpee. Snap. Snap city. I had less time. Didn't do a full warm up. Thought, eh, some burpees, some light thrusters, no big deal. Burpee number one.

I wasn't even kipping. I was like, I wonder why a burpee is so hard. And then it was like, oh, because you just dropped 200 pounds onto cold shoulders and didn't warm up and defying gravity or resisting gravity. That's hard. Plus your body weight. It was like, there we go. Now we've got a big problem.

Then Ben Bruno. Ben Bruno just pissed everybody in CrossFit off. Did you see that? What did he say? I didn't see it. He took out an infographic and said the top ten reasons why burpees are the stupidest thing you can do. Oh, yeah. I don't know if that's exactly how it's said, but he pissed off so many CrossFit people.

He had so many comments. I know so many friends that just reposted, Ben Bruno's an idiot. It's like, well, go ask Chelsea Handler. Go ask Justin Timberlake. I love burpees. I do. I wouldn't. I'm so secure in that, though, that I think the burpee's an effective exercise.

I wouldn't let that affect me. You know, I see something. Burpees are stupid. I'm like, cool. Well, you read his rationale and you go, okay, yeah. Like, everything you said, and I love Ben. Ben's awesome. Like, everything you said is accurate for certain subsets of the population.

And it's like completely not a big deal for other subsets of the population. It's like any exercise, like there's no bad exercise specifically. It depends on who you're assigning that exercise to, what their goals are, what their capabilities are, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's like, yeah, anytime you're arguing like front squats or overhead squats or snatches or burpees or anything bad for you, it's like bad for who? Like population level? Yeah, you could probably say that there are other more conservative ways to train somebody

that's just a blanket statement that everyone does burpees and snatches. But at the same time, I mean, what are all the other fucking insane things that we do on a day-to-day basis that are like so much more dangerous than doing a burpee in a controlled environment or snatches in a controlled environment or snatches in a controlled environment like jiu-jitsu, MMA, kickboxing, football. Many other sports are way more dangerous than doing a burpee at your own pace with nobody trying to knock you over or choke you out or punch you in the face. Context is everything.

It's just like with food too. People want to say like hey this food's bad this food's good but like it context matters yeah yeah yes and no there are there are definitely some foods that are more on the on the spectrum of quality and sure sure and whatnot on the bad side versus the quote-unquote good side um but yeah you're definitely right about it for the most part did you have to change much getting into the jets thing and getting away from lifting weights as much? Did you change much in your diet? Uh, I ate a whole lot more food. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, that's interesting. Tell, I want to know why. I mean, is it,

are you really burning that much more? Did you start losing a lot of weight? Yeah. I, I, I started losing weight and I was eating around 3000 and I was like, I'm of weight? Yeah. I started losing weight, and I was eating around 3,000, and I was like, I'm losing weight. Wow. Wow. Maybe I am a 4,000-calorie person today. We rolled for like 20 minutes yesterday, and we weren't really rolling very hard at all.

It was crushed. And you got done, and you're like, whoa, dude. He's like, we win? That was more than I expected. Yeah. It was just tense for 30 straight minutes. I can't tell if jiu-jitsu is, like, metabolically more challenging than CrossFit, but it's up there.

It's different. You can do all the CrossFit in the world, step on the mat, and be dusted in eight seconds. Well, I mean, the bar does not fight back. I think there's a mat. Yeah, there's a defender. It's scary. Someone's going to kill you.

If your adrenaline is up, too. We're all playing this game, but what we're really learning is how to kill each other. It's scary. Someone's going to kill you. Your adrenaline is up too. We're all playing this game, but what we're really learning is how to kill each other. That's terrifying. Yeah, so, yeah, I mean, I mean about 3,400 calories now. Wow. And still maintaining, which is kind of crazy. What do you weigh now? 175.

Whoa. Dang. Jiu-Jitsu is very, very taxing. 3,500 calories a day, 175. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fun, man. I get to eat, like, fucking 500 grams of carbs sometimes a day. Ooh, shoe buddy.

Yeah, shoe buddy. That's a shoe buddy day right there, nutrition-wise. You can crush 500 grams of carbs. That's not easy to do if you're eating clean, of course. Like, how do you manage that? I mean, not everything is, again, like, it's on that spectrum of, like, you know, good or bad foods. I don't look at it like that.

Like, so if I want to eat, you know, fucking ice cream, I'm going to eat it, you know, and I'm going to control the quantity of it. But, yeah, most of my foods is going to be whole unprocessed foods, you know, rice, oats, things like that. That's where a lot of my carbs come from. Do you actually enjoy the carbs? Oh, yeah. Do you? enjoy the carbs? Oh, yeah. Do you?

Dude, I don't know. My stepdad does keto, and I have no fucking idea how he does it. Do you coach him through it? No, no, no. He just does it? He's been doing it. He was doing it before it was cool, and he's been doing it for years. I don't understand anything that makes you so socially difficult to be around.

I'm keto. He loves it. For you carbs people, let me just say, Trader Joe's mango sticky rice spring rolls. I have to try those. They're the balls. Absolutely. I go to Trader Joe's a lot. I try shit. Sticky rice

and mango in a spring roll. That sounds dope. That's incredible. I like mangoes and sticky rice and mango in a spring roll. Oh, yeah. That sounds dope. That's incredible. I like mangoes and sticky rice. That's a great Thai dessert right there. Oh, it's amazing. We just got these sweet little whoop bands, and I've really enjoyed it. But one of the pieces to the app on is it shows you the number of calories

that you're supposed to be burning in a day. And I'm inside like 3,500 to 4, in a day and i'm inside like 3 500 to 4 000 a day and i used to i i used to not be like that hungry i'd eat like kind of in window like noon to eight noon to nine something like that just yeah like air men of assing type yeah try not to use words but like terminology like i would just wake up and have coffee and just do my thing and then one day and then it'd just be like noon and be like okay cool i'll eat now and doug would show up he eats like 12 times a day and it's like man how do you do all that like i just don't want to think about eating and then once i started getting data back on like what they think i'm burning in a day now

now you want to now i'm just smashing food I'm hungry all the time. And it was like, well, if I'm not working out, I probably don't need that many carbs. Now I can't eat enough food. Now it just goes in all the time. Just this processing center that, like, I wonder how many calories. And then now because I have this thing, like, maybe I should be eating 4,000 calories a day. How do I get there? I don't really want to. I had that same experience when I started working with the Shrugged guys.

You know, it was coming to Memphis. And, like, my first realization, we had a meeting over at Mike's house. And I was like, these guys eat a lot. These guys eat a lot of food. Non-stop hanging out with this guy. Now I'm the non-stop. Yesterday was the first time I think ever I was like, it's been two hours. We should go eat.

When's the next meal? How do we say that? We had just eaten breakfast like at 9 o'clock, and then it was like 1130. You're like, you want to get lunch? I was like, are you fucking serious? How else do I want to get lunch? Let's go get sushi. Do you think it's because that was telling you?

Well, it changed the way that I just think about it because I've always thought that I was like a 2,500-calorie guy. How much do you weigh? Well, this is the part that's weird. I don't know how much I weigh. So I was before this thing, this watch app thing, whoop, banned. I was pretty much 195, 197, somewhere in the 16, 17% body fat. Like just that's where I pretty much since I stopped competing, that's been like the standard of my life.

And then I put this app on that's telling me I'm supposed to be eating 3,500 calories a day. And I stepped on the scale last week and it was like 202. It's like where did that seven pounds come from? Is that a good seven or a bad seven? How did we get here? So I don't know. I'm actually interested. I can always get back down if I need,

but I'm interested in going on like a three-month kind of just, all right, let's see where my weight like really stabilizes if I'm just eating all day. Like I'm going to be training. I'm going to be building muscle. I'm 35 now, so it's not like I'm building seven pounds of muscle. But I think I have four pounds of food just in me. Do you just eat when you're hungry?

I've been consciously eating more. Whether that is still, like I skipped breakfast. Like this morning I had, I don't even know what, Doug, maybe some bananas and eggs. Do you guys do that? Do you guys make banana pancakes where it's just bananas and eggs? Oh, no, never mind. I thought you were about to say. Oh, no, I've never done that.

I was like, wait, wait. Not like real pancakes? No, no, no, I don't do that. Bananas in the real pancakes. Okay, never mind. Dude, take one banana, two eggs, mash the banana, mix the eggs into it, and then make a pancake. Just put butter on a pan and make it just like a regular pancake. I think they're better than actual pancakes.

They're delicious. Bananas and eggs. That's just like your opinion, man. I'm not much for anything floury like regular pancakes. I eat a regular pancake, and I'm like, I got that flour coat on my mouth and i'm just like oh fuck i shouldn't have done that but bananas and eggs yeah made it made into a pancake are totally awesome extra carry gold butter that's where it's at gains that's right but yeah i'm just trying to eat a lot now yeah like it just feels like i'm eating significantly more one of the things that's so

great about like you train seven days a week so i mean your caloric expenditure is probably pretty high well that's what i'm wondering like where does it balance out because i don't i i don't think i've put on any like noticeable fat anything that here's here's when it when it jumps like that in like three weeks i'm like where did seven pounds of anything come from? Are you just holding on to more water? Some of that could be water. Is there just inflammation? Anything's possible, right?

So I don't know exactly where it's all coming from, but it'll be cool to see kind of where it stabilizes. I'm guessing that it'll stabilize somewhere around 205-ish. Do you step on the scale a lot? I used to every single morning, and then it became so natural that I'd be like, if I ate a big dinner, it'd be like 197. If I didn't eat a huge dinner or if I didn't snack before I went to bed, it'd be 195. So you just kind of know.

And then once I started eating a lot, I was like, well, I wonder where this thing's at. And I looked down, I was like, 202? Come on. I don't know. I'd challenge you to just not step on it and just eat and then come back like a month later and just see what it is. Well, I'm also wondering if like maybe in three months like body fat drops and

a whole bunch of things because you just start burning food all the time. You start increasing your food intake, like your energy, your body just wants to have more energy. It just starts doing more. This makes me want to get a whoop strap so you can eat more. The whoop strap is really cool. HRV at night is rad. Do you test any of that stuff?

It's actually cool because it's on your wrist and not the band. The band is super terrible. I'm not going to wear a band around my torso. I love having HRV like you just said. That's really dope to have that kind of data. And then I also really like to just, as basic as it is, just know exactly how much sleep I got each night. And I can see like my weekly average is like, you know,

seven hours and 25 minutes or whatever it is. And it tells you, I'm not sure exactly how it calculates all this stuff, but I do think it's very cool that it tells you how much sleep you got last night and how much sleep you're projected to need for this night. So it's like if I only slept for six hours last night, which is actually accurate for me at the moment, tomorrow, I haven't looked at it today, but it will probably say something like I need nine hours of sleep

as opposed to like my normal is like seven and a half to eight. It's usually around eight. Eight is kind of like the obvious standard. But if I got less sleep this night, then the next night I need more sleep. Even though that's like an intuitive thing, it's nice to see that, oh, I'm supposed to get 9 hours and 4 minutes of sleep.

Gamifies a little bit. Yeah, it just gives you a target. Cool. Most of the apps or bands, they test like your steps, things like that. It's not in here. One thing that was really cool to me that really got me hooked on it was they test day strain.

So it's checking your heart rate throughout the day. So if you're humming it 110 beats a minute. So there was a day recently that him and I were having like some very intense conversations. There was business conversations, like intense conversations. There was business conversations, life conversations. I had just literally sat at the desk all day, and it was just hard conversation on the phone after hard conversation. But I hadn't really moved anywhere except to go get water.

And I looked down, and it was like, you've had 14 out of 21. And I was like, all I've done is sit here. But the amount of stress that was like coming in and the fact that i was just like amped for eight straight hours on the phone and it recognized all that i was like okay i'm sold like this is this is pretty cool open a lot of eyes and then that night you don't sleep as well because you're going to bed with a bunch of stress. And just that piece of the day strain seems like a cool thing to me of how they're kind of testing it based on just where your heart rate's at throughout the day. If you go walk, if you're one of the most,

the highest day strain that I've had so far was playing around the golf. It's very interesting because it was like I went to the range before we went and played and i hit half an hour worth balls and looked at the app just to see if it like registered and like just going to the range and hitting 50 balls kind of puts you in this like low level cardiovascular workout that you don't you would never think that golfing is working out but as you have an elevated heart rate for an extended period of time your body is having to adapt to that so it was it was cool to play with the numbers a little i love having something like

like a seven day average like a 30 day average for sleep as an example like i just said like my weekly average say it's seven and a half hours like if i'm tired and i look back at my my monthly average for sleep and it's seven hours like it's okay well i've been like in a sleep deficit for basically a month at some level i love i well those aren't my real numbers but like but i like being able to see that like i don't want to be like oh like oh yeah on tuesday i didn't sleep very well but i slept pretty good last night so i'm probably fine it's like i don't have the on Tuesday I didn't sleep very well, but I slept pretty good last night, so I'm probably fine. It's like I don't have the ability. Maybe some people have this ability to really be that objective

about what the entire last month is in totality. We're talking about body weight. A second ago, do you weigh yourself in the morning? It's one thing to be like, okay, well, I weighed myself today, and I was 194. Yesterday I was 192, and I weighed myself three days ago, and I was 196. It's like, okay, what do I really weigh?

I seem like I'm gaining or losing weight. I feel like I am. I feel bigger, I'm leaner, whatever it is. But do you have your average monthly weight for January,

February, March, April? And if you do, you have the actual average numbers for the entire month. You should be able

to see a very steady progression or a very obvious plateau which the health app that just comes stock on your iphone will do those numbers for you so that's what i do for my body weight i weigh myself every morning and then i just i just hit you know post you know 194 enter and it time stamps it and then you can just click on you know daily weekly or monthly or, and it just gives you your averages. That's so helpful to me to have those averages to see what's really going on. That way I'm not taken too off track by the constant fluctuations in the numbers.

I think it would be really interesting if they were able to set something up with gyms for programming and stuff. The HRV thing is something I've always wanted to track, but every time someone hands me a chest strap i'm just walking away i'm not going to bed with your chest strap on but i wonder how much of that though like if you see the number and it says like you're not recovered like how much does that mess like play with your you know like your head like like if you're one of those people that loses your mind over things like that.

Yeah. Well, last night I thought I slept decently well, but because the night before, my body was just freaked out by three hours of sleep or four hours of sleep and then playing rides. I don't know why I'm thinking this, but you know in Christmas Vacation the fitness couple next door? Somewhere there's a couple that has

sex with their chest straps on. Somewhere. My wife. What's your heart rate at right now? Pump faster. It's so bad. It's you, buddy. They're probably not having sex because their HRV says,

well, you can't do any more today. I'm not recovered. This is so bad. You can't tolerate any more strain today. Whoever's under-recovered goes on bottom the whole time. My wife is definitely. I'm just going to lay here. I hope she's definitely not going to listen this deep into this show.

But we did leave it on the other day just to see if it would register. Oh, my God. And it does not register. Oh, okay. It would be awesome if there was an option. Like, we recognize one and a half minutes of elevated heart rate. What was that? Were you working out?

No. I was. One thing about having the whoop that I don't like is having sex with it on. It gets in the way on occasion. We went to go take it off, and then she was like, well, see if it registers.

Well, Anders, it's not going to register if it's only two minutes, man. It's basically like getting three emails at once. You're not working out. You just checked your email real quick. You turned on Instagram. All right. So, yeah.

But it would be cool to have like a full gym population in which you could see. Do you do much HRV stuff with your clients and nutrition? I have one client that she was tracking and we actually had her stop tracking it. Just because it was starting. That's why I asked that question because she would see the number and then it would just totally derail her. It's super cool.

I think all of us kind of like when in our coaching, get to the intuitive side of like, do I feel good? Now I can go. Part of the app is very much like you're able to take on more strain today. So it eliminates that intuitive side of it. I would think I felt pretty good today, and it's telling me chill the F. See, that's the thing.

I'm very positive about it. Like if the numbers are low, I'm like, okay, good. Now I know that I'm in a deficit and I've got to work extra hard to make sure I recover. I've got to get extra sleep tonight. And then if my numbers are good, I'm like, okay, good. Now I know that I'm in a deficit and I've got to work extra hard to make sure I recover. I've got to get extra sleep tonight. Then if my numbers are good, I'm like, okay, this is great. I can train super hard today. I'm positive whether it's down or up. It doesn't bother me too much. I know it's

just a number on a reading of a day across a lifetime of whatever I'm doing. If I go and crush it today, like, I'll just sleep, hopefully sleep better tonight. But, you know, I think, though, there is value of getting, like,

the objective data for sure is useful, but that intuition I do believe is valuable. And just, like, I mean, you, arguably what you do when you go to train is a lot of just intuitive, you're just being mindful and you know hey if i'm not feeling great like i'm not gonna i'm not gonna i'm not gonna crush it today right yeah and and i think if you have something telling you like yeah you can go harder today when in your gut you are like i don't know so this is the weird thing about eating now because i always kind of intuitively either ate more or less and

just felt kind of like i'm i'll just eat a little bit more today or like i never really thought much about it and now i'm like consciously eating more and now that intuitive side i'm like i guess i'm gonna have to refigure this out we'll see where it goes i think that there's definitely a balance like you can have both like You can look at the objective data but also learn to listen to yourself. That's why I try to teach my clients, at least with nutrition, especially people who have tracked macros and

only have tracked macros. Macro tracking is not intuitive at all. Brutal. This is how much you're supposed to eat and you're supposed to eat this regardless. I definitely instill a lot of intuition in terms of, like, okay, if it doesn't feel right, that should tell you something. At least acknowledge it and think about it.

Macros are so hard. My God. It's super educational to do it for a short period of time. But to do it for a long time, it's like – I'm so glad I learned what four ounces of chicken looked like when I was like 13. It's depressing, yeah. My God, I couldn't even imagine. Just how do people do it with their real life?

Lots of planning and preparation. I mean, again, I mean – They just call their friends in on a big text. Hey, guys, I'm never going to hang out with you. Basically. I track macros. I definitely – I track macros, and there's periods of times where i track i track macros there's i definitely had i track macros and i there's periods of times where i don't track macros but again like i think that's

there that's why there's value in learning both things like learning how to pay attention and be mindful so that when you are in situations where you cannot put your shit on the food scale like you can still understand like okay i'm definitely not hungry right now, so I probably shouldn't eat. The best part of tracking macros, I think, even just at a younger age, when I sit down and look at a meal, this probably adds the most anxiety to my life of any of the health things that I do, actually, is when I look at a meal that I know is not, like, well-balanced,

or I know it's less than, I'm like, oh, my God, there's 400 grams of carbs on this plate right now. Like, or not that many, clearly. But it's like you look at it and you're like, all we're eating is fat and carbohydrate right now. Like, oh, this is so unhealthy. But delicious. Delicious. You know it's going to be.

When you melt butter and put sugar in it, holy shit. Yeah. Like when you realize that all desserts are really just melted butter with sugar. Yeah, that's what it is. So delicious. And it forms into a cookie if you bring it back to room temperature. Add a little flour. You know, that's it.

But that part of the macro piece is really the part that when you learn what's going on, you're no longer looking at a plate of pasta. You're like, oh, 150 grams carbs. Here we go. It's going down. I don't know. I think, yeah, some people do look at it that way, but I definitely think there's different ways to look.

There's less intense ways to look at it. For me, in a way, it ruins the fun because I don't – not the fun, but I just – I look at most meals as macros even though I'm not counting them. I'm like, well, there's the protein. There's the fat. There's the carb. Here's some fiber. Cool. We're good.

Where if I look at it, all three of those things – You're making the templates again. Yeah. It is the template of that's what a meal looks like. If I'm missing one, especially the protein one, anxiety ridden. My wife's like, can someone get this kid a chicken breast? Please, just throw one at him so we can eat the rest and not have a terrible night. I think doing it like six weeks out of the year or something like that, just to get your train back on the tracks maybe is good.

For me, that's good. That recalibration phase, I do agree with you, is really important. For new people especially, if they're willing to do macros, I actually think it's one of the best things to do for a new person because rather than try to spend time educating somebody on what's in their food and how much of this to eat or that to eat, you give them that structure of 40, 30, 30, or whatever it is, and then you just kind of unleash them on the world.

Here's your app. Google anything you don't know. And then all day long, they're learning by doing. All day long, they're learning what's in their food. They're discovering it for themselves. They're not listening to a boring lecture or the monotony of someone just jawing fucking nutrition information at them that isn't relevant in that moment.

Every moment, every meal rather, they're learning about what's in that exact meal in that exact moment. And then they're, it's, it's a system where they're constantly going to be learning. And that's very tough to replicate in many other environments. If you were just like to tell them, no, just eat paleo. It's like, okay, well, they'd still be wondering all day long, like, is this actually what I'm supposed to be eating?

Am I doing a good job? Did I eat too much or too little? Like with macros, you know exactly how much to eat, but you get choice. So you get that psychological piece of like I get to actually choose what I'm eating. I have my constraints. You know, like I have a blank canvas, but like I can only paint on the canvas so to speak but i get to choose whatever i can draw whatever i want though within the boundaries that are set for me just like your your bowling analogy like i got to stay in the lane yeah i got my bumpers that i got they got that i got to stay in but within that i still

have some freedom i have choice and then i'm constantly learning and i think that's why macros work so well especially for new people. And it's also empowering, too, that aspect of, like, you're self-learning, and then also, you know, you recognize, like, I have some freedom here to do things. One of my favorite Meathead games is, like, when you eat out or you go to, like, your favorite restaurant, you get, like, your favorite cheeseburger, and you're like, let's count the calories in this thing. Dang it.

Let's see where this is going. And you can sit down, and you're like, well, that's a pound of meat. That's 100 grams of protein and 100 grams of fat. Like, whoa, we're already there. We're already at 1,000. Here we go. And then I got the fries. That's more fat, more carbs.

Oh, my God, we're at 2,000 calories. We haven't even gotten to dessert, and I'm definitely going there. It's a fun game. I love that game. It's so much fun. How much you can get in one meal? Or just, like, going through the meal and calculating what you get. Just knowing how ridiculous it is.

It's awesome. It's the best. Like, when we were at Paleo FX last year, Fisher has this place called, like, the Ark, where it's, like, if you've seen his Instagram, it comes out. There's a cheeseburger that's a pound of meat, but it's lamb and beef and pork all into one thing. It's stacked, and the only way to get it off is smash it down. He was like, I don't even know how many calories are in it.

We were like, hold on. We'll find out right now. Is there bacon in there? Okay. How much of the garnish are we working with? Okay, that's, and we kind of like went through it. We were like, that's like a 3,000 calorie cheeseburger. Like, holy crap.

Are we recording this phone call? That's awesome. Wow, it's the first time that's ever happened. I wonder if the mics are picking it up. I'm actually not sure. Yo, dude, you're on Barbell Shrug right now. That's my two-year-old. I got to go, buddy.

I've never – that's crazy. Yeah, we've never had that happen. That's wild. Oh, you know what? That is really interesting why that's never happened before. It must be if you got it on Wi-Fi and you got FaceTime. Sometimes I'll get calls on my computer. Right, but how many countless shows have I done on this computer on Wi-Fi, like, and you got FaceTime, like, sometimes I'll get calls on my computer. Right,

but how many countless shows have I done on this computer with Wi-Fi and everything else? Like, all the conditions are pretty consistent. Huh.

I don't know. You don't know what's happening on my computer. Dude, no one understands how Apple works, man. You have to,

you have to, you have to go to Apple to figure out how the fucking computer works. You know what's the greatest part about Apple? I just got, this is the first Mac

I've ever had. The best part is that your computer and your phone and the iPad and everything else, it's all the same. It's just a different size. That's great, but like, I'll admit, I love Apple products, but man, trying to figure out everything that they do, man, I'm like, I don't even. What they're doing now is creeping on Barbell Shrugged.

Yeah. Tim Cook knew. Speaking of food, I'm going to eat. I got to eat, so I'm going to dip in. It's about dinner time for us, too. We're wrapping right now. Where can people find you, dude? Go to CrossFitMemphis.com, FactionSC.com, at Kurt Merican on Instagram.

You got to follow Kurt on Instagram. You post fantastic stuff, dude. Every time I see your post, I laugh my ass off. I get a lot of memes in my DMs. Can you just rock the ShoeBuddy hashtag and own that? ShoeBuddy? I'll own that hashtag. Yeah.

I like to get a case of ShoeBuddies. Alex Macklin. You can find me at Alexlexmacklin.com. You can also find me on Instagram at alexqmacklin. Is my handle? It is. The handle. Am I old for saying handle?

I don't think most people call it the handle anymore. Damn. I also just started a YouTube, actually. Did you? Yeah, you can search for me on YouTube. I only have two videos because I'm learning. What is it, vlog style? What are you posting?

Somebody just – we did an interview about CrossFit, and then I did a CrossFit competitor coach video that was just like a one-off, me just screwing around. I'm taking improv class right now. Oh, that's right. Dude. You're going to drop that you're in improv, and we're an hour and 53 minutes into this?

That's another hour. Yeah, so I'm working on that. He's actually in character right now. This isn't Kurt at all. that you're an improv and we're an hour and 53 minutes into this? That's another hour. Yeah. So I'm working on that. He's actually in character right now. This isn't Kurt at all. You haven't even met Kurt yet. Next time. I want to learn

the language of improv. It's fun. It's the coolest little thing to watch those people. It's pretty hard, man. It's super hard. I love it.

You can't laugh. You're not supposed to laugh. I'm good at that. I just shut it off at any time. One of the principles, the yes and, is one of my favorite principles of just life and communication. Never stopping things. Just always progressing.

I like that. Doug Larson. Dig it. You can find me on everything Shrug Collective, of course. Shrugcollective.com. Also, I have my own site, DougWarsenFitness.com. And on Instagram, I'm at Douglas E. Larson. I'm Anders Varner, at Anders Varner, because I'm Anders Varner.

Get in the Shrug Collective. Every Wednesday, Barbell Shrug. Like us on iTunes. Like us on iTunes. Get into iTunes. Leave a comment. You can like it. I don't even know if you can.

Subscribe. Leave a comment. YouTube. We'll see you guys next week. That's a wrap, team. Thanks for hanging out with us on your Saturday. Hope you're having a great weekend. Make sure you get over to at Anders Varner.

Hit me up. I appreciate all the love. I appreciate you guys listening to the show. We have Gabby Reese coming up next week. She is the ultimate savage. If there was a WWE name for Gabby Reese, we would call her the ultimate savage. I just made that up right now. That's pretty sweet.

That's a good one. I think someone should take that. Coin it. Coin it. That's a freebie. Have a great weekend. Gabby Reese on Wednesday on Shrugged next week. And I'm one happy dude.

Thank you for all the support. Thank you for all the love. Thank you for all the love. So much gratitude. So much love for you guys. Thank you for tuning in. And we will see you next week.