Barbell Shrugged - Chatting with Tommy Hackenbruck — Real Chalk #78

Episode Date: June 4, 2019

Tommy Hackenbruck happened to be the owner of the first CrossFit gym I ever stepped foot in. At the time, I didn’t even know what the CrossFit Games were or who Tommy really was. He was always a super humble guy who never even made it a point to tell me that he got 2nd place at the CrossFit Games. He later became the Broken Skulk Ranch Champion, an owner of multiple gym locations (which was rare at the time), and worked out alone most of the time at a place called “Gym Jones” which has always been a famous training spot that requires an invitation to walk through the door. I wasn’t invited for a few years...   Anyway, while I was out in Columbus, Ohio I happened to walk by Tommy as he was getting ready for the “Legends” competition at the Rogue Invitational. I haven’t talked to him in years and wanted to catch up and see what he’s been up to. He had a few things to say about his career and business life. Things he’d do different and things that helped him succeed. It’s always good to hear anything from someone who’s been in the game this long. I hope to enjoy it! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc-tommyh ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @Hylete- Hylete.com - RC15 for 15%   ► 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

What's up, everybody? Welcome to episode number 78. My 78th episode on The Shrug Collective. I can't believe how many episodes have gone by. It is absolutely insane. What do you talk about after 78 episodes? Well, you meet a bunch of new people, and things just happen, and conversations just happen.

And it actually doesn't really get boring. I like it. So currently, i am in hunter mcintyre's bedroom and he's not here if you follow me on instagram i made a bunch of hilarious photos of me on his car wearing a speedo and basically making fun of him because he's not here right now which he would absolutely 100 do if he was at my house so i thought that was the only appropriate thing to do also um so currently I'm in Boulder, Colorado. But this podcast that you guys are about to listen to with Tommy Hackenbrook is actually in Columbus, Ohio.

And I was at the Rogue Invitational just hanging out, trying to gather up some podcasts from some people that I really wanted to have on the show. And Tommy Hackenbrook walked by. And I was like, oh Oh my God, like I haven't talked to this guy in years. And I really wanted to have him on the show and just, and just kind of have a chat with them. And I'm, I think it's cool because we didn't really talk too much before the show. So I just got on the show and just like kind of just went straight into it and we hit a little bit of everything. So for those of you guys who don't know, Tommy was the first CrossFit gym that I had ever walked in in Salt Lake City, Utah. He owned a gym called Ute CrossFit, U-T-E. He played football at University of Utah, and I think it just made sense for him to call it the Utes because it's the football Utes over there at Salt Lake.

But when I met him, he had just gotten second place at the CrossFit Games. His business was booming, and he was gotten second place at the CrossFit Games. His business was like booming and he was a big face in the industry and he still always will be. I feel like he's one of those guys who is like one of the originals. And when you think about all the OGs in CrossFit, he's like one of the first names that kind of pop up in your mind. Him, Jason Kalipa, Chris Spieler, all those old school names. Matt Chan, he was there as well. And actually Tommy was there at the Rogue Invitational competing in the Legends Division. So I think the legends division actually suits him perfectly well. So having him on the show, we talked a little bit about, cause he, he wound up

having multiple gyms and he was kind of saying, you know, what the pluses and minuses were of having multiple gyms and what he might do differently. Talk about kind of like what he's got going on in his life right now. He lived in Utah for as long as I've known him, and now he lives in Arizona. Or Nevada. I think it's Nevada. So now his life's changed quite a bit. He has a couple new kids and a little bit different priorities. So I just think it's cool to get a legend on here, have him tell his story a little bit.

And for those of you who've been following CrossFit for a long time, I just think it's cool to get a legend on here, have him tell his story a little bit. And for those of you who've been following CrossFit for a long time, I just think it's cool to get a little something out of Tommy because he's kind of a quiet guy and you don't hear too much about him all the time. Even though he was like on Broken Skull Ranch as like one of the most badass dudes on TV, just winning all these crazy prizes and stuff with Stone Cold Steve Austin. And yeah, now you just like, you don't hear too, too much. So I think I was really excited to have him on the show. So before we get into the show, I want to talk about some of our sponsors, Whoop. You guys know Whoop? W-H-O-O-P. They're the guys that basically are sponsoring a ton of the athletes out there with the wristband. It's kind of like an Apple

Watch, but it tells you about all of your sleep and it tells you about your recovery and things you can do to actually increase your work capacity. So I'm a big fan of it. If you guys have been following me on Instagram for quite a long time, which you probably have, if you're listening to this show, I pretty much always have mine on. And by far my favorite feature of the whole thing is just that it tells you the quality of your sleep because I don't always sleep all that great. So it's something that I've been like trying to really, really work on. And there's different apps and stuff out there now that you can kind of help put you into a deeper REM sleep. So I've been trying to play with that and see how it plays out on the Whoop and see like what it actually did.

And then also, you know, like when you work out like really, really hard and like some days you're just like not feeling it. And maybe it's not a rest day, but you feel like you should take a rest day. The whoop will actually tell you like what your body's level of recovery is at. So it might say like, dude, you should take a rest day. And it's like confirmation that you should probably take a rest day. Or, you know, some days you kind of think you should take a rest day or you don't really want to take a rest day. And the whoop says you are good. so then you just, you work out an extra day, and then maybe take the next day off, which you normally wouldn't do, but then that next day, maybe you're toast, so it's a really cool thing to add into your repertoire

of all this fitness stuff, it's fairly inexpensive, and it kind of looks cool, I like it, and I like to see how tan I can get, and just keep that just pale line across my wrist. And that's kind of like my badge of honor of how much I've worn it. So if you guys go to whoop.com, W-H-O-O-P.com, they have the new 3.0 just came out. It's super cool. It's way better than the old one. And you guys can use code FISH, F S C H, all capital letters and get yourself a whoop. Try it out. Pretty sure they have a money back guarantee. Uh, don't quote me on that, but

if you don't like it, I'm pretty sure you can send it back. No big deal. And then the second thing is, uh, my carb cycling challenge has been taken over the world. So it's pretty amazing. It wasn't something I expected to happen, but it is, it is like a massive thing on social media right now. So if you guys want to hop on the next one, it's June 24th and you can go on jimryan.com, which is G Y M R Y A N.com. And you guys can sign up for the next carb cycling challenge. And the winner gets to fly out to California and hang out with me at chalk. We get to work out together, get to do all the fun things in Newport, like paddle boarding and biking and all sorts of stuff. And, or you can turn that down and just win a bunch of cash.

So all the details on that are on Jim Ryan.com. And I hope to see you guys soon on the next episode of real chalk. And yeah, let's get into this episode. Let's talk to Tommy and let's just have a dope conversation and just kind of see what he's up to. All right, ladies and gentlemen, still out here, the Ohio invitational standing here, to Tommy and let's just have a dope conversation and just kind of see what he's up to all right ladies and gentlemen still out here the Ohio Invitational standing here not sitting with

Mr. Tommy Hackenbrook which is actually well actually first off he's a legend and he's in the legend division wearing a shirt that says I am a fucking legend legendary and um truth be told he was actually the first gym i ever worked out at you're actually the first coach that i ever met too you did my on-ramp class and i did a workout with you called baseline which was 500 meter row 40 air squats 30 sit-ups 20 push-ups 10 pull-ups and i remember being done and you were just looking at me like i think this kid's gonna be good but you didn't want to tell me i was gonna to be good. It was just a very, very casual little smirk. And then you're like, you should come work out at a specific time where there's no classes. Yeah.

But you get to work out with me because I need someone to work out with. And I was like, oh. And then I found out that he got, like, second place at the CrossFit Games the year before, which I had no idea. Yeah, you were just, I think you were just leaning out a little bit. I was a big boy at the time. Because you were a pudgy little weightlifter. Yeah. And then you were just, I think you were just leaning out a little bit. I was a big boy at the time. Because you were a pudgy little weightlifter. Yeah.

And then you were doing the skeleton. But you showed me a picture, I think, of like a year before you came in the gym. And you were just, I mean, you looked like I did when I was playing linebacker in college and just trying to gain weight at all costs. I was 208 and I was 5'5". And now I'm 180. And probably just as strong as you were then a little bit stronger now but i remember um when i first met you the biggest thing was like you need like more conditioning and i remember you introduced me to the um the airdyne which

wasn't even big in crossfit yet it was like a jim jones thing and you worked out over there and it was a brutal thing and i remember just, you would get on it and smash a hundred calories. And like, so like a third, like so, so much faster than I could do it. I remember like every number that you threw down was like, I was so jealous. I was like, how is that even possible? And then you're like, well, this is what you need to do for the next month. And I actually still have the program at my house where I was doing like 90, nine or 90 minute max calories an hour max calories and there was a guy in your gym i forget his name but he was an army ranger and i used to do him with him yeah he was just mentally really strong and at the time you had two gyms steve no it wasn't steve but steve paguaga or johnny

johnny primo at the time you had two spaces but the second space was just for you to work out in. Do you remember that? Yeah, we were expanding, and I thought, business-wise, I've made every mistake known to man. But, yeah, we were in the process of kind of getting that second gym going, and I was trying to get more stuff going over there, but no one really. The weird thing about CrossFit class is, like, everybody likes what's comfortable. And I was trying to get more stuff going over there. But no one really. The weird thing about CrossFit class is, like, everybody likes what's comfortable. Yeah.

And so, and I was like, oh, this will be awesome. My clients will have an open gym. None of them want to do an open gym. They want to come in and have someone tell them what to do. So, yeah, essentially we had, like, an extra 2,000 square feet with not that much equipment in it. And it was all black and dark. Oh, yeah. And that was where you worked out. And I didn't understand that at the time black and dark. And that was where you worked out.

And I didn't understand that at the time. But now that. That was where you worked out. You were literally doing more workouts than I was. Yeah. As a games athlete. Because I had two kids at home. And stuff going on.

And I just. I've never been. I joke with everybody. I'm like. I've just never been that disciplined. And I don't know if it's discipline. Or if I've just been too busy. But you were throwing down.

I mean brother. You were. You were working out twice. twice as hard as I was. I was working out quite a bit. You had a lot of ground to make up, though. I did. I didn't know anything. No aerobic, or maybe you had the aerobic base, but you lost it.

Because you were telling me, I mean, we go way back with you, you know, your distance running days. It's like you went from being a pure endurance athlete to then a pure meathead weightlifter. And I'm sure both of those have helped you. You know, once you finally decided to go to kind of general GPP fitness and be good at everything, that's probably what helped you get there. Because I think if you didn't have your distance running background and you had just had the weightlifting stuff, it would have been really rough for you. You wouldn't have gotten really rough for you. You wouldn't have gotten as good as you got as quickly as you did. Well, I wanted to go in the military, remember? And then you were like, you're going to be a CrossFitter. And I was like,

I don't know, man, I'm not even really that good. And you're like, you're better than you think you are. And then it just kind of like escalated where I started like kind of, I think I went to regionals and I did so much worse than I wanted to. You would have gone to the games if you had any kind of experience. Like if you had a body of it, athletically and fitness-wise, you were there. But experience-wise, you were miles away. I couldn't even do kipping toes-to-bar. Yeah. My muscle-ups was like too unbroken maybe.

Well, the best was a thruster ladder. It was a thruster ladder off the ground, and most people were doing just a clean right into a thruster. And I was doing them out of the rack. I was doing power clean, and then I'd just squat and do a thruster. You were doing a squat clean, standing up, and then doing a thruster. So you're doing two squats for every rep. But I did a 300-pound thruster like that at the time.

I know. Which was more than anyone even did at regionals, and I couldn't do it at regionals. I just, like, totally shit the bed. Yeah. Well, you did twice as many squats as everybody. Yeah, that was. And it was, like, every 30 seconds, right? You had, like, 20 seconds on the mat, 10-second transition,

and I was like, fuck, I'm getting tired. It was basically a Metcon for you. Yeah. Because with all the extra squats you were doing, there was, like, no rest. That was pretty hilarious. That was a good learning curve for me. That was Pat Burr. I think Matt Chan had, like, an automatic qualifier that year year i'm not sure if they did automatic maybe they didn't but pat

burr dominated that yeah matt chan was there matt qualified there and i remember the deadlift box jump event was where you like made up some ground yeah that was a big that was a big deal that was when i could still do rebounding box jumps and then I did that workout a few years later and got in a lot of trouble. Literally, it was the same workout. Yeah, regionals. We were lucky. We were out on the field. I just remember it was bouncy because it was on a platform on top of a turf field. Yep.

And so the box jumps felt like it was almost like jumping on a tiny bit of a trampoline and then the deadlifts I was bouncing it as much as I fucking could I remember with straight arms if you bend your elbows you get called for I think that's what happened to you I didn't bend my elbows though

you guys can go back I saw some bad shit yesterday out here I saw those bars hitting the ground pretty hard I actually got a bunch of text messages from friends they're like dude you got fucked. I was like, can we please forget about this moment? Yeah. There's been moments like that witnessing other people and even with myself where I've had it happen a couple times where I just get a really strict judge.

They give me a couple no reps right off the bat off stuff. I'm like, what? Like, I didn't do anything different like that was the same as every other rep and i get a no rep and i just i mean as an athlete if there's any athletes listening like you just have to adapt to your judge because if you if you let it get in your head and you're like that's you know no that's not right like if you say if you try and second guess your judge it's only downhill from there yeah it's only and then they just only want to call more of them i I learned that. Best thing to do is just

turn to them and say, is this better? You know, be like, like act like they're your coach or something. And then that kind of gives them, Oh, this person's like actually respects me, you know? And then they're, I think they actually ease up on you if you do that. Yeah. It's definitely like, Hey, how can I do this better? But going back to the gym that you had next door, that was all dark and dungeness and stuff. I remember, you know, when you used to go work out somewhere else and it always bothered me. I was like, why is he going to work out over there? You know what I mean? And like, why is he doing this?

Why is he doing that? And then I opened my own gym, like, you know, way down the road. And I was like, fuck, like, I'm turning into Tommy right now. Like, I don't want to be in my gym and work out. I don't want to, you know, do this. I don't want to listen to this or I don't want to listen to that or whatever. And I remember I actually still think about this to this day. When I'm working out, I remember you saying, like, dude, sometimes when I work out,

I'm just seeing things that I don't want to see or people doing something I don't want to do, and it really bothers my workout. And I'm like, that can't really be that bad. But, like, now I'll be working out and, like out and like I'll just like some dumbbells are out of place or like I'll see a coach coaching a class like you know less than the effort that I think is appropriate yeah and then I'll just like I'm just like I literally there's no point even me working out anymore I'm like I just got to stop I probably have to work out later now because like I'm just like so bothered or whatever and now I like fully understand that and that's something that I still remember like still to this day yeah it's a curse of a

gym owner and it's not a bad thing as a gym owner to just get a membership somewhere else. You know, if you have the time or you're able to do it, like, work out at someone else's box. If you're having a hard time doing workouts because it's twofold. I mean, one is you're not going to get your workouts in very well. And, you know, so your training is going to take a hit but also the psychological hit you take i think because everyone who owns a gym likes working out i mean i don't think anyone's ever opened a gym who didn't enjoy working out and it wasn't you know wasn't fitness minded and a big part of that psychological it's not just about feeling healthy and getting stronger

but the mental health is just as important and um this last fall i was working out about one day a week uh you know we had a our baby wasn't sleeping through the night yet and ali and i were getting up quite a bit and you know work was pretty hectic um there's just a lot of reasons not to and also i'm not training for anything specific so i didn't have that but i always see you're doing stuff in your garage now, right? Always in my garage, yeah. But I was like a little bit, I wasn't depressed, but I finally, leading up to this Rogue thing,

for about the last probably two and a half months, I just committed. I'm going to work out five days a week, about one hour a day. And I'm so much happier on days I work out. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, if you're missing workouts or if your workout is getting interrupted constantly because as a gym owner you need to greet that person. That could be a client. So you can say, okay, this is my workout time.

But if someone walks in the door or something's going on in your gym, you're wired to deal with that. You're still really on the clock. So as long as you're within the confines of your gym, you're kind of at work. Yeah. Um, and it's a great job and it's, and you love what you do. Don't get me wrong, but it's the, the workout time is, is, you know, people meditate, people do yoga. Um, it is very sacred, uh, for a lot of people. It's, it's probably the most sacred thing they do. It's like active meditation. Yeah. Absolutely. So at this point, you've done, I remember, how many locations did you have at one point?

Three, four? Three. Three. And I remember having a conversation with you like one time, like a couple years, I hadn't even seen you or even talked to you or anything. And I remember you were asking me something about Snapchat or something. You're like, dude, your Snapchat's always so funny or whatever. Like, what do you do? Yeah.

And then. My manager was like like was bringing it up yeah yeah my manager was a huge fan of yours so we were going back and forth and then um i think i think i was just like hey like what's going on i just like asking you like regular questions and then you were telling about the gym situation and i was like i was thinking about maybe opening another one and you're like dude don't do it like it's a lot harder than you think to pull off, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I remember just being like, I don't know. And then I kind of got into the online space. And a lot of people even still are like, are you going to open another gym?

Are you going to do more? And I'm like, I don't think I want to. It is very hard to own a gym and do it well and have that gym be successful and be everything that you want it to be and then be able to replicate that again. I don't think it's possible. I've told a lot of people, I said, take a year off, and if your gym's doing just as good as it was when you left, then you can probably do it.

You can open a second gym. That's a good piece of advice. It will double your problems. So any issue that you have to deal with any time you get called in or a coach goes on a vacation and you have to cover extra classes, all that doubles. And the upside, a lot of gym owners, there's so much. I had an amazing conversation with Jason Kalipa yesterday about this. He was telling me about one of his.

Because I kind of, I was basically like, yeah, you have all your corporate stuff. You don't pay rent. So the profit margins potential is much bigger there when you're just coaching and just training people. Obviously, maybe you can't charge as much per person, but the brick and mortar is a tough business. And most gym owners, it takes all their effort to make it work and to be successful. And so, you know, his takeaway was, you know, fix my house before doing something. He's like, until all my gyms, he's like, one of them is not quite where we need to be. And he's like, until that one's where it needs to be, why open another one?

You know, and pretty much every gym owner out there who's thinking of opening a second location or thinking that maybe that way of expansion is the way to go, have you maximized your nutrition coaching? Have you maximized your current membership? Are you as busy as you can possibly be with the space you currently have? And then from there, you evaluate, is it worth just going to a bigger space or is it worth trying to roll out a new program you know before you double your problems i think that's a really good philosophy for sure

yeah you'll have two lease payments you'll have twice as many staff members that could potentially sleep with one of your clients you'll have twice as many that will happen managers that could uh go open a gym across the street from you you know there's just a lot of risk that yeah there is a lot and and if. And if you're owning and operating one facility, those are the best boxes that I've seen. I've talked to so many gym owners who have done the same thing as me, and almost maybe all but one have said, like, you know, even the ones who still have multiple locations are like, I was doing just as good with one. Yep. You know? I hear that a lot. So that's a best case scenario. Yeah. And, like, you know, even the ones who still have multiple locations are like, I was doing just as good with one.

Yep. You know. I hear that a lot. So that's a best case scenario. Yeah. And then the worst case is I wish I never would have opened in more gyms. I don't think I've ever heard anyone that's, like, super stoked on having multiple locations. Yeah. Really ever.

So I think that's really important to, like, get out there. I always tell people that your gym is, like, the dress in the window. Like, you're window shopping. You see a really dope dress in the window. But there's, like, 100,000 other dresses in the store. Yeah. So, like, that's the window, like your window shopping. You see a really dope dress in the window, but there's like 100,000 other dresses in the store. Yeah. So, like, that's the way that your business should be. Like, you should have a whole bunch of other things in the back end.

Like, I have challenges, online program, this, that, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, you've completely branched out. But everybody kind of, at least I get them in the store a little bit, whether it's in person or maybe it's online, where they're like, oh, what are they doing there you know what i mean like i remember having that curiosity about jim jones it was like what were they doing in there you know i mean like what are they you know what what are they doing and like and then they were in men's health and then they had an online program training like three hours a day is what they were doing like like five people yeah which was crazy but their online program i remember at the time i think they were the first ones to ever have an online program,

even before Invictus and all these people, even though they weren't even CrossFit. But it was the first time I had heard of someone having an online program. They had a huge following, very cult-like following. And I remember the Bobby Maximus dude being like, yeah, we have 1,000 people on the online program, and it was $500 a year. There was no monthly option. And I was like, holy fuck, they fuck they're making 500 grand a year on that who cares what happens in the gym and that's why he was the guy mark twight was like never really there right he's always out like climbing or riding bikes or doing something right yeah and

then um and i never forgot that like that was like something that like drilled in my head and it was like a big thing that i just like never forgot like every little piece of every part of my journey was like something i never forgot i always like I learned a shit ton of stuff from you. I learned a shit ton of stuff from Ronnie Teasdale, even though he's fucking crazy. But I learned stuff from him. And then and then so and so on and so forth. And everybody I've ever met, everybody I've ever talked to on the show. I purposely will never do like a Skype interview.

I'll never do anything that's not in person. I love to talk to people in person. I love to like understand like what's going on on like why they are good at what they do yeah and it's a huge thing that i mean the whole reason i have a podcast is i want to learn as much as i can yeah chris spieler um at one point i was looking to open a second gym he and he never did but i mean he just kept expanding yeah and imagine and he's gonna he just bought a piece of land. He's going to build his own building now to move his facility into, which is awesome. It'll be great for him. And, you know, look at all the stuff he has.

He has his Icon Athlete programming, and he does this event called the Mountain Meltdown, and now they're actually expanding. They're going to host it at, like, four or five different locations and have, you know, some events. It's kind of a unique event. It's more like a hybrid 5K with mini wads mixed in. So pretty, you know, as opposed to doing like a two-day competition with tons of judges. Like a Spartan race but more CrossFit oriented? Yeah, you can pack it in like three or four hours.

It's a good experience. So, I mean, Chris has all this stuff. It's like why would you you he can affect so many people impact so many people and he has uh you know he's impacted so many people why would you open a second location you know just to have all that extra risk so um yeah it's a it's it's tough i mean some people are really good just managers and they're cut out for that and there's a few people who have done it well um But most of us coaches are coaches. And for people listening, you know, you don't have to be Ryan Fisher.

Like, you don't have to have as big a following as you do. You don't have to have a following of these top games athletes to do stuff online. I know plenty of gym owners. I know a gym manager in Salt Lake City who's just managing a facility, but he has about 20 remote clients that he's just built over the years of being a coach. And they just really love him. And he probably, you know, if he had to, could live off of just that remote programming income. You know, I don't think it's like a huge amount, but it's a supplemental income.

And it's not a ton of extra work for him. Definitely not as much work as running two facilities. Even my gym, as successful as it is, it's such a small fraction of money that comes in. It's a very, very small fraction. To open another gym doesn't even remotely get me super excited, like money-wise. Yeah, and at this point, it wouldn't make any sense. But even if you had none of the online stuff, which is where a lot of people are at, get out there and try it.

It's very low risk. I call it the Amazon age. So Amazon kills it because they're online, and then everybody else is trying to be like Amazon. So if you look at the history right now of like rent for like for commercial buildings and stuff it's so far down because everyone's having like humongous warehouses and doing online sales and then industrial is way up yep so then you have the fitness realm that's why max effort closed in vegas zach forest closes jam i actually didn't know that yeah he couldn't find a facility

to rent a combination of a warehouse just going way up and then also the weed industry in Nevada. Since they legalized weed about two years ago, a lot of dispensaries and whatnot. But he has no gym anymore? No, he's got everything in storage. Whoa, that is crazy. And he said he's still looking if he can find the right location and find something to make it work. Did they kick him out because they were going to raise rent or something?

Yeah, his lease was up, and it would have been too expensive to stay. They could get 50%, 70% more than what he was paying. He was paying a lot. He had a huge location. I've been there. It's massive. That's the biggest I've ever been to, I'm pretty sure. Yeah.

If you're going to do that, if he reopens, I think he needs to have more of a hybrid model and have more volume of locals because he had quite a few. I don't know his exact numbers. I don't think he had an astronomical amount of memberships. But he'd have, on average, probably 80 drop-ins a day. I was going to say, yeah. He had a lot of drop-ins. Yeah.

Probably half his day-to-day clientele, at least, was drop-ins a day. I was going to say, yeah. He had a lot of drop-ins. Yeah. Probably half his day-to-day clientele at least was drop-ins. And my friend Dave Driscoll out in Bali, he has the same deal kind of going on. He has like literally like 70 members but has like 100 drop-ins a day. Wow. Just everyone on vacation? Yeah. Fit people like Bali, huh? Have you ever seen CrossFit Wanderlust?

It's in Bali? Mm-hmm. Yeah. This guy Dave Driscoll, you can look him up on instagram i've heard of him yeah yeah so he has uh he's like the only one that's like it's a huge gym and it's pretty pretty pimp for out there yeah so um yeah he's living the dream just kills it on drop-ins and it's crazy and he charges american dollars which is out in bali which is crazy money yeah i mean yeah i mean he's probably got a corner on the market out there who else is going

to do that but um i think it's interesting right now because you're here for the legends division crossfit's got a wild card division and you used to be the broken skull ranch winner and now actually one of my he's my good friend now uh hunter mcintyre he is the reigning champ now for broken skull and i just heard that they're going to give him the wild card spot for the games. Yeah, I haven't seen anything official, but my last conversation with him, it sounded like it was pretty promising. I think that's a great thing. I've talked to a couple people.

It got brought up randomly. Someone was like, I just think that's bullshit you know nothing against it wasn't a personal thing against hunter yeah they didn't even know him um if they did know him they know what an idiot he was because i know him really well i can tell you he's a complete tool bag i'm just kidding he like is and isn't you know what i mean like he's hunter knows i love him he legit is a fucking amazing athlete. Oh, yeah. Just in a different way. Insane. No, he's, I mean, a testament to him, not just his success in Spartan races. I'm very close with a lot of the seal fit coaches.

You know, and Hunter did the seal fit twice, like myself. I think, I don't know anyone else who has. Not that people couldn't do it if they want to. Just most people aren't that masochistic they said he's hands down the most probably the most gifted athlete that's come through his engine is just stupid he just doesn't stop

he did get broken by them in the cold water and was sobbing like a baby I heard I can see that they still found they still found the weakness and uh and it made him a stronger stronger minded person after that but um yeah so i think it's a great thing i think uh crossfit's always wanted to prove you know this is this is the world's fittest and so it's i i've always been an impression that great glassman was

all about that from day one they've just never done it i i i've always been an impression that great glassman was all about that from day one they've just never done it i think he's always wanted to have some top dog in some other walk of life um he used to talk about having nfl players do fran yeah and like having a terrible time right yeah yeah he loves it and so um hunter is you know not just a phenomenal athlete but he's also been doing CrossFit for quite a while. I was his first video for his – he has like a launch right now where he's traveling all over to compete with different people. Yeah, to get Hunter to the games. Yep, and I was episode one, so I went up to Malibu and worked out with him and talked about a bunch of stuff. And I've helped coach him a lot.

Yeah. Yeah, he sought out good coaching, so he's not there, I don't think. And I don't know if he'll – I mean, it would be a tough road for him, but the games is a perfect place to test that and see. You know, he's about my size. I've always showed up to the games when I was competing with the mindset that as long as there's not too much cross it, I have a good chance of winning. At the cross the games.

I've never done well in the open. Look at Brett Fikowski. You know, he done well in the open uh look at brett fukowski you know he said flat out the opens probably the worst way for him to qualify for the crossfit games uh it's it's just not the the open is more about the guys who have a really quick cycle time um you know good on on like your your typical couplets 21 15 9 when you're an outlier you know you look at the bell curve of the size of CrossFit athletes when you're Josh Bridges and Chris Beeler on one end of the bell curve on the extreme small side or you're myself or Fikowski or Hunter McIntyre on the extreme large end you have a unique advantage in certain events and so if it's an event that will favor somebody

with longer legs or taller longer limbs you know maybe a dummy drag or a sled push, the stuff that I've always enjoyed, that's where you'll see Fikowski make big jumps on the leaderboard. If you have these handstand push-up workouts, muscle-up biathlon, that's where you'll see Josh Bridges and Chris Spieler make huge jumps. And typically the people who win are right in the middle of that bell curve, you know, Froning and obviously Matt Frazier, Patrick Vellner, those guys are the more average build and just better than everybody else, you know, a little bit better than everybody else, but average build, so they don't struggle on the ends. But Hunter is absolutely somebody who could show up, and if he did all the games events, he could show up and he could have a few firsts yeah absolutely he should because he is on the fringe end of of the spectrum uh in many ways

dude he is such a character i love him so much yeah he's he's uh he's full of energy and um a really genuinely good dude i mean i uh i've gotten to know him well as well. You know, he very, very greatly values his friendships and is a very true and loyal friend. Yeah, he's fucking solid. Absolutely. If you want to hear the funniest episode of podcasts in your entire life, him and I have one from a couple weeks ago. It is absolutely hysterical. I'll throw it on on the flight home. We talk about losing our virginities like in the middle of the show and you have to listen to him talk about it is unbelievable.

It's so, so funny. But anyway. Oh man, we're not going to go there. Dude, it's so funny. Anyway. You won't get me there. No, no, no, no, no. We're not going to go there. So, you know, you opened, you had all these gyms you uh broken skull ranch winner you obviously did really well in crossfit for a long time anybody who's listening to this who knows you they probably have like quite a bit of knowledge on this stuff but like what are you doing right now like what's everyone i mean people are probably like what's what's he doing right now he doesn't live in utah anymore do you still own your gyms yeah um so about a year now well let's let's rewind about about three years ago um i ran a marketing program my gym that was i was referred to by a friend of mine um out of phoenix august uh

august schmidt pretty sure owns uh owns a gym in phoenix arizona and um so he's like hey tommy you know there's this guy who does this marketing stuff it's incredible um you know he's gonna he turns on these ads and gets all these people you know that want to sign up for your gym and it doesn't cost you anything i'm like bs you know there's like no way and um and so i met him and i tried at my gym and like literally he you know james ener, the guy who started the company, last thing he said to me, he's like, all right, we're good to go. Buckle up. It's like, all right, whatever that means. Two days later, I had like 300 leads, you know, in this, like

on this software he created, you know, leads that he generated with ads that he paid for. And then it was my job to meet with these people they scheduled appointments to come talk about sign up for my gym and got like 60 people to sign up and pay 250 to join my gym for six weeks and then i i just gave a cut of that back to james so i was like no risk it didn't cost me any money and so that was like the original business model was basically he was so confident and so good at what he did he could just walk into a a gym and say, hey, I'll get you, you know, I can get you basically as many clients as you want. Like obviously you don't want to get 1,000 leads and then you can't even manage it

and people have a horrible experience. You want to, you know, you want to slow it down so you can offer the value. The whole end game as a gym owner is what? Retention. Like there's no point doing this unless you're going to keep people around so anyway that was the infancy of that business and after i ran the challenge um you know i was i was texting with james and giving him feedback like hey is it okay if i text people ahead of time you know just confirm appointments he's like yeah of course like please do that you know that's smart i should have everyone do that um so you know as he was

growing this thing was like blew up. Like he's just, he's, he has a unique skillset for internet marketing. Very, very good at it. Um, so basically people are insane. Yeah. Over the last three years, I, my wife and I went from kind of working for him as sales reps, where our job was to, to network with CrossFit gyms and get more gyms using the program. Um, a lot of time working with gyms overseas where I had to, I was like, hey, maybe we can do this overseas. So I went and got all of our stuff translated, like paid a translation company so we could have, like, different, you know, webpages in German and Swedish.

Oh, wow, that's really cool. French, yeah. Like, just to, you know, I was kind of business development. So basically, and he gave me free reign. So basically I was just like, cool, what can I do with this? You know, how big could I make this? And I just had full creative control over like whatever I wanted to try. You know, so then we tried a master's program.

We're like, hey, let's try and just market towards people over 50 and get a bunch of people over 50 all in the program at the same time so they're a little more comfortable. They're kind of working out with their peers, and that worked great. And so we run that all the time. So basically as this company has grown, it's kind of evolved. And the good and the bad, right? The good is like on the Internet you can blow stuff up.

The bad is it's really easy to copy. So if Ryan Fisher puts out some good programming, I guarantee there's people out there who just copy your program. Someone pays for it, and then they copy and send it to their friend. I've actually had that happen already. Someone messaged me on Instagram. And someone's probably trying to sell your programming as their own. Yes, exactly.

Yeah. Someone took one of my books and put it in Spanish, changed the colors, this whole thing. But it left the workout to the same. Like didn't even change one workout. And someone messaged me from Mexico and they're like, dude, i just want you to know this is happening it's amazing and i sent the guy a video on instagram like a personal video me to him and i was like dude if you like you have on your instagram where you work out i will fucking show up there like tomorrow if i have to if you don't stop this shit like right away and he was like i'll come he was like holy shit like

freaked out but yeah it's unfortunate. So it's easy to copy. And the bad thing is like in the world of the internet and stuff, you know, in order to like pay lawyers and go through the litigation process, it's usually not worth it to try and fight those battles. So the difficult thing about our company is there's really nothing that's stopped people from copying us, which has happened all over the place. At first, I used to lose sleep at night. I was livid. I was like probably how you were. James, my boss, is just like because he had a background in Internet marketing in different areas before the CrossFit.

At one point, he owned a CrossFit gym with a buddy who was a trainer, and James basically came up with this program just out of necessity for their gym just trying to trying to attract people to get clients in the door but he's like dude it's not worth losing sleep over he's like at the end of the day there's no way we can stop that the only thing we can do is just be better so it just came down to to basically life lesson you know focus on what you can control yeah um so lots of there there's been people even like who I was personal friends with who ripped off the whole business model and copied it and pawned it off as their own. Personal friends, that's fucked.

Yeah. I won't name names. I'm not like that. It does happen though. Those types of people would probably name names. So, yeah, so it was – I mean it was a person i went to bat for and helped them they had 13 clients they were managing a gym and i introduced them to james and he ran his program they signed up 70 people and then two months later they were running around telling all these gyms

that they invented this program i feel like i know who it is now it was sick um you probably do so um basically we focus on what we can control. It's gotten oversaturated. There's other programs that are different but similar. But it sounds like you guys are still doing better than ever. We're doing better than ever. The margins are smaller because there's more people bidding up prices and everything. There's more people doing it.

At the end of the day, it's just getting more people in gyms, which makes me extremely happy. I was going to say, I think if you personally went to every gym like yourself and talked you would crush yeah it's just i got like who doesn't want to listen to lake and two kids in las vegas and travel is a bitch so i've actually talked to my wife quite a bit uh we we've we've had very serious conversations about renting an rv and just doing the U.S. gym tour. That would be awesome. And just literally traveling around RV, stopping in at gyms, and then my two older kids who I have one weekend a month, and then I have them half of the summer, half the winter.

They can fly out and meet you wherever you're at. Yeah. That would be so fun. As a kid, I would love that. Yeah. Yeah, because I've never missed any dads out there. No matter what was going on in my life, you know, since the divorce, like I've never, ever missed a single day of parenting. And, you know, that's like, that's the one thing. And there's been pretty good relationship between my ex and I at times.

And then there's other times where it wasn't, but I never let that get in the way of it. And I've, you know, I've had some stuff happen that really I thought sucked, and I just want to take this opportunity for all the men out there. I feel like you just have to hang in there. And there's honestly some really effed up situations on both sides. I've heard some horror stories of moms you know who have really had a bad deal but there's people forget like i i think people just don't like to bring up the subject there's some horror stories of on the men's side where like they've been alienated and

pushed away like so hard that they like at a certain point you just feel like you're so helpless and you know the family law system in america is not friendly towards men not at all and it's probably you know probably right it's it's like that for a reason you know i'm sure it's like that for a reason but um yeah that no matter what's happened like that's always been the priority so there's a lot of stuff i would have loved to have done business-wise um i'm sure you too like you have to get good at saying no to things unfortunately but yeah what makes me happy is is going into gyms and working with gym owners and if if i have a

positive impact and help their business that makes me thrilled and um you know i've been able to use this not just you know use this program to help other gym owners but like i live in vegas and i still own my gym in salt lake so um that's kind of a gym owner's dream is to be able to literally own your gym remotely and have everything still runs well. So between the software that we've developed and running the marketing, it's a turnkey process. I can just almost snap my fingers and New You Challenge runs the marketing for us. We get 20, 25 new people through the door.

And then my managers there i just tell them like your job is to retain people your job is to build the community and to retain people and if they can do that i've got a good business model you know so as long as the gym owners can retain people or the gym managers whoever is going to be that face and that that person every gym needs at least one you know you got to have that that i'm struggling with that right now because everything else for me is getting to the point where it's taking up a lot more of my time. It's hard. My time at the gym right now is I'm not there nearly as much as I used to be.

And it's super hard for me. But I take really good care of my trainers. Like, I give them bonuses all the time. Like, I'll buy them gifts. Like, I let them know that I really, really care about them and appreciate them, especially when I'm gone. And the person who runs my desk at certain times, he just does such an amazing job. I bought him a new computer last week. He needed a new computer.

I bought him a fucking $2,000 computer. And I was like... Shout out to desk guy. What's his name? His name is Herky. Shout out to Herky. It's funny he actually my manager madison i i took him down to la um just to hang out with kenny cane for a day because he's he's a big fan of kenny cane and what he does across at la i was

like cool let's go out there for a trip like lost his mind developed him as a as a owner you know got to pick kenny's brain a little bit kenny's an amazing dude. Got a lot in common with him with raising young kids and stuff like that. So it's crazy. I mean, you've got to take care of the good people that take care of you. I was going to say my struggle right now is like I almost – I'm not sure. Do you have – how much time do you have left? I've got five more minutes. Five minutes.

I'm struggling with do I hire a person like full-time at the desk who kind of takes over like a lot of the responsibility or do i hire a manager because when i when i think of a manager i don't know anyone right now because i mean it sounds like you do but anyone who like really really loves their manager like i feel like the manager is either looks down on because they don't work enough or they don't do this or they don't do that yeah but i feel, like I still manage the gym pretty solid even though I'm not there all the time. You should talk to Jason. But I delegate a lot of tasks to people while I'm gone.

Like, hey, I need you to do this. And I hook them up when I get back. Jason has managers and head coaches at NC Fit. And his is a little bigger operation. In the same facility? Or some has head coach and some has manager? No, I think both. And then he's also got like his kind of his marketing team. In the same facility? Or some has head coach and some has manager? No, I think both.

And then he's also got his marketing team. He has kind of his management team as well. He has graphic designer and whatnot. So they have economies of scale that most of us can't afford. But managers are much different skill sets. So if you just have a business manager, then maybe your coaches would be fine. You could just have great coaches. It's hard to find someone who, like I do most of the back-end stuff,

so it's hard to find someone who has that management skill set but also a coach. It's really two different skill sets. So talk to him. What I've done is I still do a lot of the back-end stuff, which works, and then my manager's husband and wife, Madison and Brittany Perkins. And so what I did with them, this is just what I've done. I'm not saying it's going to work for everybody, but it was the right move for us, and I wanted our community to have a solid foundation.

I didn't want a disaster to happen. I didn't want some falling out. So I started giving Madison and Brittany 2% of the business every month over two years. So after two years, they'll own 48% of the business, um, without having to buy in a penny. Um, so basically that was my decision. I felt like they had proven that they're valuable enough. And the only way I was going to live out of state and still have a healthy gym is to have people that cared as much as I did. And they proved that they cared before they were even owners at all, which to me was like, I mean, that's what made me feel confident in the decision. I don't know if I could have done that to someone I wasn't as confident in.

I don't think you can just pay someone and it's going to change their mind. Their heart has to be in the right place to begin with. So yeah, it's difficult. There's honestly a lot of different ways you can do it, but you absolutely need someone who's going to be where the buck stops here. So if you're not going to be able to be there all the time, you need to have somebody else who's willing to step up and take on that workload and that doesn't mean necessarily they

have to take on all of it you know you're still going to be around and you're still going to be there but you have to find somebody that will take that responsibility and take it seriously and care just as much as you do so whether that's through equity or whether that's through salary yeah you know i think equity is pretty motivating, especially when I was younger. If you were like, hey, I'll give you this percentage of the gym, I probably would have freaked out. I'd be like, hell yeah. Yeah. Well, how did Chaka – we only got like a minute.

You had an investor, right? I did, yeah. So what was the formation of your gym? You and an investor? Actually, in the beginning, it was two investors, 30% each, and then I got 40. Okay. And then at one point, one of the investors, he's just so wealthy, he was like, I don't even care, and you're working really hard. Just give me half my money back, and you can have the other 20%.

Wow. So now I own, so me and my partner just kind of bought it. Okay. So now I have 70, and he has 30. And he doesn't do anything though i do everything yeah like i literally i literally like had to learn how to do business like immediately like i had no idea what the fuck i was doing when that thing started and like so you had two money guys and then you built it from the ground up yeah but i didn't know how

to do anything like it was gnarly like he'd be like ryan you got to get a business license you got to do this. You have to get a DBA. I'm like, what is all this stuff? I would have just opened it and started going, and I would have had no idea. Yeah, that's the worst part of it is, especially in California, you've probably got all the PX restrictions. Oh, my God, the bills are insane, too. I have a 5,500-square-foot space.

The gym is, like, 35, like, actual floor space. My rent's $11,000. Yeah. Crazy. So, yeah. mine's a little lower than that salt lake's pretty friendly in that regard yeah well dude i know you gotta get back out there yeah i wish we could talk longer that was a lot of fun it's great to catch up with you for sure um i hope you guys enjoyed listening to tommy and uh for anybody who wants to find this program that you're doing where do they find it? Yeah, probably just go to newuchallenge.com. Newuchallenge.com. Yeah, we have information on that website for gym owners.

And then you can kind of see basically how the program works. And if you're a gym that needs help, you know, with a growth standpoint, needs just to attract some new clients, it's a good option for sure. You know, it's worth looking into. And they can probably shoot you a message on IG. Is it's a good option for sure. It's worth looking into. And they can probably shoot you a message on IG. Is it Tommy Hacksaw? Yeah. Yeah, Tommy Hacksaw.

I'm pretty responsive on there. Don't follow me for my pictures. I'm horrible on social media. But feel free to reach out to me, actually. I try and get back to everybody who reaches out. Cool. All right, man. Well, thank you again for having me on the show.

Yeah, thank you, bro. That was fun. Hope you guys loved it. Legend right there.