Barbell Shrugged - Chris Hinshaw: The Man, Mind, and Coach for Mat Fraser, Rich Froning, Tia Clair Toomey, and Team Mayhem — Barbell Shrugged #379

Starting point is 00:00:00 The most pressing question circulating the fitnesses. What is going on with the 2019 CrossFit Open? Numbers are down, people are freaking out because the coverage isn't as good. Settle down CrossFitters, settle down. It's all going to be okay. Look, we've got three big pieces of this thing that we've got to worry about, right? CrossFit Games 2019 has to go off and it's got to look good. They've got a big operation that they got to run. That is piece number one. Make sure the 2019 CrossFit

Starting point is 00:00:32 Games has the right people at the games and it looks pretty. They're going to do that. They're going to crush it. It's going to be fantastic. Number two, get the media right. When the media is right, then we can get to number three, which is get the people involved. That's going to boost the attendance at the CrossFit Open. When we start to open source the media and bring the best talent in, all of a sudden we create zillions of access points, right? Just Barbell Shrug could be an access point to getting people interested in CrossFit.

Starting point is 00:01:08 When CrossFit owned all of the media, there was only one real access point and it'd be as if the NFL was the only person allowed to talk about the NFL. It seems ridiculous when you say it like that because every sports outlet in the world covers the NFL. They need it to be like that for CrossFit. If you would like to see this thing explode into maybe one of the big five sports,

Starting point is 00:01:34 this is hands down the biggest, best move that they could make is eliminate their own media team, even though it hurts cutting 100 plus people, and bringing in outside sources to let the cream rise to the top, which you have heard many times in the affiliate model. This is part of Glassman's kind of belief system and how things should be. Open source it. Let the best talent win. Let them tell the story. And that will attract all the people to the open, which will then increase the numbers. And now we have the opportunity to let this thing grow forever. If there's anything that I have learned over the last decade five of understanding how this whole thing is going to shake out.

Starting point is 00:02:30 In two years, we will have the opportunity to see potentially the greatest CrossFit Open, the greatest media, and the globe into one location, having national champions where we can have a grassroots system for getting people interested in countries that may not be under or may not be so important in the CrossFit landscape right now. Right now, this is a massively North American sport. If we want it to be global, the thing we need to do is get rid of CrossFit HQ owning all the media. We need to open source the media. We need to have national championships or national champions so that we can grow these interests in athletes from the ground up in countries that are underserved right now.

Starting point is 00:03:26 And that way, we'll make sure we have the best athletes from around the world. We'll have the best media covering it, telling the best stories, and then we'll have the best CrossFit Open that is possible. Chris Henshaw on the show this week, and it is a killer show. Chris Henshaw is an absolute master. He has trained people named Matt Frazier, Rich Froning, Team Mayhem, Jason Kalipa. He turned Jason Kalipa into a breather. How strange is that?

Starting point is 00:04:00 Jason Kalipa's bicep-tricep combination has got to be 40 inches. How do you get somebody with arms that size to learn how to breathe? And what you'll learn on this one is that Chris Henshaw is not afraid to mix it up with those guys and talk a little smack. And anybody that likes to talk smack to Matt Frazier and Rich Froning and Jason Kalipa and Tia Claire Toomey and Catherine David's daughter is cool in my book. Friends, this show kills. It's from Guadalupalooza. We had a blast in Miami hanging out with the FitAid crew. Everything that we do, I just want FitAid involved.

Starting point is 00:04:38 I hope you enjoy the show. I'm going to catch you with the mid-roll. We're going to talk about the people that are sponsoring this show Because we love our products We love the people that are helping us get stronger And remember, as always Pursue strength That's a week, or like one class a day At my local box You're like, no, no, no, you're a freak

Starting point is 00:04:58 They're just normal people walking around Well, the cool thing about it is Is that everybody's walking around with this incredible Stoke, like they're just pumped They're so fired up to be here, right? Yeah, the cool thing about it is that everybody's walking around with this incredible stoke. They're just pumped. They're jacked. So fired up to be here, right? Yeah, the vibe is good.

Starting point is 00:05:09 Oh, you're pulling me away. I'm too loud? Pulling you a little bit further away just to make sure we're all roughly the same. You got a lot of stoke on board. That's why. You're fired up. I get so excited.

Starting point is 00:05:19 I'll get you a little closer. There we go. This is Christmas when we get to do this. What's great about this job is everybody thinks that this is just the job. Totally. There we go. This is Christmas when we get to do this. What's great about this job is everybody thinks that this is just the job. Totally. They're like, oh, you work like an hour a week? And you just talk to people?

Starting point is 00:05:37 Well, I was telling Sam that I did a podcast with Mayhem teams after the games. Yeah. And I had to take a nap afterwards. It was four people, and it was crushing. I'd never done a podcast like directed yeah the side answering questions and yeah it's really not that easy yeah it's not because as i'm creating an answer you have a question that you want to ask but your answer your next question is dictated by what i'm saying so your question's evolving yeah and what if you think i'm going to answer a question with a long response and I go, yes.

Starting point is 00:06:06 Oh, that's brutal. Don't ever do that, please. Yeah. That's the, so we actually just under the idea that now that we're going so long with our shows and doing the two hour pieces, we, it's just conversation. So there may not even be a question. You should just jump in and start talking. I like that. In the same manner that we would do it if we were just hanging out and having a beer together. We're just free-flowing conversation about things we like to talk about.

Starting point is 00:06:31 Nice. And on top of that, you can guide this thing wherever you want. We're curious about pretty much everything. So if there's something specific that you would. Oh, the way he just said that. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I wasn't expecting that response. Whatever're thinking now not that not that one well i mean that is the tricky part is that here we're looking at two hours and there's no prep work there's no idea

Starting point is 00:06:54 what the questions are yeah i have no idea what your passions are well this is this is what's so good about it right your passions for the for the record yeah but we're here for you today so whatever your passions are, wherever you want to go with it. Well, that makes it easier. Everybody wants to talk about themselves. Totally. Well, I was telling you that that last time I did a podcast with you guys,

Starting point is 00:07:14 so that was, I don't even know how long ago. That was probably two years ago. The amount of feedback, even today, from that podcast, and I had no idea what I spoke about afterwards. It was 45 minutes. I actually went back and watched. I'm going back and finding a bunch of just the really cool segments, like the little pieces of each, the real deep dives.

Starting point is 00:07:35 And I came across yours, and I was like, they only did 45 minutes with that guy? What happened to the other hour and 15 minutes of things we want to know? So that's what's so cool about the longer shows. It's like we can talk about your whole life. We've got enough time to do anything you want. It's like the cornerstone content. I don't need to talk to you for another, like, two years

Starting point is 00:07:53 until you have the whole new stage of your life. Oh, boy. So that said, we do a little, like, mishmash before the show actually officially starts, which he'll do a quick intro and all that. But we'll take a break in the middle if you remember from last time so about an hour take a break and we'll do another hour but i do like to have a general direction okay so we can we can go anywhere but like a north star so to speak just like a general topic is very very helpful i don't want to just be a total free-for-all so as far as like one main topic

Starting point is 00:08:24 you might even be stating the obvious here but what far as like one main topic you might even be stating the obvious here but what's like the one main topic you'd like to stick to I think if you guys are sticking to topics that are the things that I'm currently working on the things that excite me where's you know like a lot of things that I started back doing in 2013 like pacing yeah there's a big buzz on pacing but it's common knowledge and so what's the forefront and what I'm working on and what are the things that I'm experimenting on with the elite level CrossFitters today like where's the direction going like obviously pacing changed the sport and what things now are coming on board as the sport evolves. I also think that talking about the shift with CrossFit HQ,

Starting point is 00:09:12 that's something that resonates as far as I have a very positive opinion about that, which is against a lot of people's approach, but I'm looking at it more of the community. So that's something that is worthwhile as well. Beautiful. Yeah, I think that, yeah, the changes in the sport, yeah, I think that would be good. Cool.

Starting point is 00:09:36 Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner. Thank you. Dropped it in there. We're starting the show. I'm hanging out with Doug Larson, yeah chris henshaw we're at the fit aid booth at wata palooza this is the first time i've ever been to wata palooza my whole life so exciting so warm out here it's beautiful we got off the plane we had the red eye last night

Starting point is 00:09:56 what time we get in last night's at 4 44 in the morning i know it's 4 44 because i hit the little instagram story i was like oh my god you never actually want to get in early when you have a red eye. Getting in early on a cross-country flight, an hour early is so awesome. When it's like noon, you're like, oh, my God, now it's 11, and I get to hang out with people for an extra hour. No. When you're doing the red eye, that means you get at 4.44 in the morning and no one's awake, and now you're just stranded in Miami at Denny's

Starting point is 00:10:22 eating the freaking Grand Slam breakfast. You sound really happy about your decision. It was beautiful. I loved it. Sam and I were floating around Miami. We had an Uber driver drop us off at a coffee shop that was not the coffee shop we really wanted to be at. It was not a good coffee shop. And then he saw us lost on the street and then picked us up again and gave us a free ride to a real coffee or to the Denny's.

Starting point is 00:10:47 And then we smashed sausage. I think it was sausage. It came in the shape of a sausage. That's what happens when you take a red-eye to Miami, come and hang a waterpalooza. Welcome to the show. That was my three-minute rant on what happened in the last 24 hours. I'm sure you have a similar story.

Starting point is 00:11:05 So we were actually at the Nashville airport. Very peaceful. Froning. 4 p.m. departure, and next thing you know, a delay, a delay, a delay. One of those. We got in here. I finally got to my place a little after midnight. Yeah, it's kind of fascinating watching the Mayhem team

Starting point is 00:11:24 and where things are outside of their control and how do they handle it. And Rich is also, you know, he's always this individual that people look to, and when he gets wound up, there's gradual increase in tension. But things like that, they don't faze him at all. He's just chilling and going along with it. I know Ben Bertrand is really big on focusing on things that you can control and just letting everything else kind of slide away.

Starting point is 00:11:52 Is that a big focus in the coaching over Mayhem? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think that things that are outside of your control that get wrapped around the axle on something like that, it's an unnecessary use of emotion. And, yeah, it doesn't even occupy Rich's head. And people learn from that. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:12:09 So is he the one specifically pushing that? Or is that something that you focus on a lot? Or is it just kind of a general part of the culture? Well, I mean, I do a lot of things like testing athletes. Like I love like riding workouts. Like we're in the swimming pool and I'll program it to be 3,950 meters. And all they have to do is another 50 meters, and they got four. And I'm just curious on whether or not, like, is that important to them?

Starting point is 00:12:29 Are they even going to notice? Is the workout done? And what's interesting is that Matt Frazier, because he comes from a weightlifting background, workouts done, I'm not chasing numbers because in weightlifting, there's always another number you're chasing. Rich Froning, he would never sit at a workout and be at 39 50 yeah it's very interesting the dynamics between athletes and just their behavior and certain things yeah but it

Starting point is 00:12:51 comes from their background you're dropping some serious names just in casual conversation in the first five minutes of the show here you've kind of become or are the coach for really these like the highest level of athletes and from kalipa froning tia matt frazier i don't think there's four bigger names in the last decade of elite fitness and you're kind of the only guy that has really stuck around in these groups is there what what kind of led to really being attracted or these these high level athletes being attracted to the message you're putting out? And how does that relationship start? So part of it is that you need an opportunity.

Starting point is 00:13:33 And, I mean, that's the beautiful thing about this community is that there's plenty of opportunity everywhere. And once you get that opportunity, you have to deliver. And it's results-oriented. And I spend a lot of time, a lot of time, like just take Frazier. you get that opportunity, you have to deliver. And it's results-oriented. And I spend a lot of time, a lot of time, like just take Frazier. Could I, you know, and I've spent time with Belner and Fikowski, and would I have an opportunity to help them? I think I would, of course. But Frazier occupies so much of my time because the easy stuff is gone.

Starting point is 00:14:06 And so part of it is doing an assessment of him and finding where is that highest value is time. You know, a good example of that is that the games in 20... I don't even know what year we are. When was the run swim run? 16? I don't know. I'll roll with that.

Starting point is 00:14:21 I used to be able to remember all the workouts, and then after now there's 20 workouts a weekend, and we're 10 years into this thing, I can't. It's too much. I know, it's too much. Too many thrusters. We can't mix it up. I have no idea.

Starting point is 00:14:36 I think it was two years ago, and during the Run Swim Run, one of the things that I trained Frazier and just the people, the elites that were there was when you are running and then you go into a swim, because you're going from a vertical position to a horizontal position, you can push your intensity in that transition from one movement to the next because you're going into a horizontal position. And it's much easier to recover horizontally. Wow. And so knowing that, the recommendation on Frazier was is that, you know, I really think in 1.5 miles you could hold somewhere around 530 mile pace, maybe 520. That's a lot for a guy that cleans 400 pounds. I mean, that's the beauty of this sport, right?

Starting point is 00:15:21 We're seeing anomalies occur where people are at both ends of a spectrum in terms of the endurance athlete and a strength athlete that were mutually exclusive and now we're seeing athletes like fraser that are dipping at both ends of that spectrum and that's the coolest part about crossfit is creating a sport for the athlete that wouldn't have been successful at either one of those ends. But by doing protocols of CrossFit, we're finding that the level of fitness being created is, it's never been seen in the history of sport. Because these athletes were considered, you know,

Starting point is 00:15:58 not good enough to really continue in their existing sport, like Frasier, weightlifting. Eventually, he had to let it go. And, yeah, I find that part fascinating. But so he, I figure, you know, here's a weightlifter, and he's been working on his running, and let's face it, Matt's a good runner, and that 1.5-mile opener run, 530 maybe faster, and knowing he could hit it at top speed and recover in the water.

Starting point is 00:16:24 And we practiced it to just prove it. And he hits the water. He goes out to the first buoy. The swim was 500 meters. He hits the first buoy, which was probably 150 meters, and then he's heading to the second buoy. And he retained his lead through the first buoy. And then Pekowski, who is a good swimmer, caught him.

Starting point is 00:16:43 And like any competitive athlete, when someone catches you, what do you do? You don't let them go. He's got to jump on them. Yeah. And so that's what he does. Well, shortly after, because Fikowski's so fast, Frazier pops. And if it's anything else, if you're on a bike and you pop, what happens? You just slow down.

Starting point is 00:17:01 Yeah. And you let them go. Can't slow down on the water. You'll drown. And that's what happened. No't slow down in the water. You'll drown. And that's what happened. No doggy paddle. So he almost drowned that day. No way.

Starting point is 00:17:10 Oh, yeah. Oh. He went under. Ooh. And he passes out in the water. Oh. Oh, yeah. He bobbed.

Starting point is 00:17:17 And that's the thing is like, and then when that happened, it was like, wow. Like, how on earth as a coach, and that's my job is to now back in. What happened in that? Yeah. And, and because we can never allow that to happen again. So he actually, he, Fikowski saw and they kind of talked and then he kind of treaded to the next buoy and then in, and then gradually recovered on the run. And I think he finished sixth in that event. But for me as a coach, part is that those situations on the most elite end of the sport are occurring, and it's a puzzle. And so when I came in to try and figure that out, I mean, collectively, both Matt and I did,

Starting point is 00:18:00 we looked at him and we said, you know, so what really happened there? And he doesn't have a good memory of it, but I know what happened. His upper body, when it made the move, he had to accelerate the rate of turnover, but more importantly, he had to accelerate his kick. And when that occurred, he sucked out all of his available oxygen, went above lactate threshold, and got into trouble, just like all of us when we work too hard in a CrossFit workout. And he popped.

Starting point is 00:18:25 And I realized, and I never thought about it because I come from a swimming background, many athletes cannot swim slow enough and recover because, like you said, they'll drown. And so they can't swim slow enough and recover, so what do they do? Well, that's a problem. It's also like the swimming piece, when you were talking, one of the things I want to know, like if Frazier's out there running 530s, and I don't know how many 530 miles he can run in a row, but. 1.5.

Starting point is 00:18:53 Is the swimming side something that we really are still lacking? Are CrossFit athletes still really slow in the pool, or is that piece catching up as well? It's not going to catch up as fast as we think it's going to so if we look at like the triathlon community swimming although it's it's a small portion of a total event like in the ironman in hawaii it's an hour of a total of nine hours right for elite level athletes an hour of it's not very it's not very much but when i was doing the sport of triathlons

Starting point is 00:19:26 i was swimming 25 000 meters a week you want to know what an elite crossfitter swims per week 2000 that's it yeah and so part of the rep thing right yeah if you don't put in that time then your efficiencies are never going to adapt as fast as you would like them to do one of the things that i also when you were were talking about him kind of popping and then almost drowning, is there a nervous system piece to that too? Because if we're just running and we feel ourselves go overboard, now it's like, okay, I'll just slow down, calm my breath down. I can re-get back into my body and focus and then go out.

Starting point is 00:19:58 If you're in the water, there's no doggy paddle, catch my breath. I'm going to take a couple slow breaths out here because you're in the middle of the ocean well so that always happens like in the beginning portions of uh events where the swim is so for example i saw at the crossfit games when they had the beach events a lot of athletes they are not familiar with how to attack the water to attack the ocean and especially in a hypoxic state and so that uncertainty causes them to pause at the water's edge and wait until and it's all about confidence wait until they're confident that they're not gonna drown yeah and and so in in large events like the Ironman Hawaii it's 1,500 people when

Starting point is 00:20:40 the gun goes off that's terrifying yeah because if you're in front and you go under, you're going to be under. And so there's two different things. And I noticed in CrossFit, it's that hypoxia when you are are beyond your lactate threshold and you know, you're beyond your sustainable pace and you hit that water. That fear is real. And I test this a lot with elite CrossFitters because I come to them and, like you guys, can you guys hold your breath for a minute? Yeah, probably. Yeah, haven't tried in a long time, but probably, yeah. Right.

Starting point is 00:21:11 And I do that too. And so I say, okay, and I pull out a watch, you know, and I said, okay, so let's on dry land do a one-minute long breath hold. And they all make it. Every crossfitter can hold it for a minute. And then, and that's on the pool deck. And what I do then is I take these crossfitters

Starting point is 00:21:25 and I sit them at the edge of a 25 meter pool or 25 yard pool with their feet in the water. I tell them what I want you to do is I want you to slide into the pool, down towards the bottom of the pool, push off, and I want you to swim underwater the length of the pool. I do this workout. God, I feel so smart right now.

Starting point is 00:21:43 Do you? I do this workout. I have a 25 yard pool i do 20 laps under water and i time my rest periods and i try to good i try to do 500 yards underwater without freaking out that is awesome so do you time i feel so smart right now so do you time your total duration yeah my best is like 1730. That is awesome. Yeah, it's pretty solid. So let me ask you something.

Starting point is 00:22:08 Do you want to know why I did this though? Yeah, why? So I started, I've been up to Laird Hamilton's house twice and they're lifting weights underwater and the whole thing just, when you start lifting weights in weird planes of movement that you can't do on land and you're doing it in water and you're adding the breath hold component and you can feel yourself dying because the water's there but one of the one of

Starting point is 00:22:28 the most transformative experiences is Gabby Reese she's like just such a stud like she is stud she is man if you think Laird's awesome you don't want to meet Gabby because she's way cooler than Laird sorry Laird I'm sure you're listening but she's a badass right like she's way cooler than Laird. Sorry, Laird. I'm sure you're listening. But she's a badass, right? Like, she's not just super high performer, but she's just, like, all the feminine energy, and she's a gangster. And for a long, long, long time. Yes. So she runs all the pool workouts,

Starting point is 00:22:56 and she hands me a 35-pound dumbbell. She's like, I want you to swim across. Then we're going to, like, bear crawl back, and you're going to swim across again. We're doing all these things, these drills, right? And I get to the end and I feel like I've got no more air left. I'm freaking out. I get to the surface and I throw my mask off and she just looks at me and she's like, what are you doing? I was like, well, I was about to die. Like I had to come up and she's like, oh really? You think you think you were out of air?

Starting point is 00:23:21 That's why you got out of the water and had so much energy that you could just dramatically throw your mask across the pool and i was like i'm sorry gabby i am so sorry so i i wanted to every like at least once a week get to a pool and just specifically that workout of like can i do 500 yards underwater how long does it take me how long can i shorten these rest periods and what i really noticed is that there really isn't an there is an amount of time that i can't hold my breath but if you give me that window and i know i can get there you can push the pace on it and you still have the air yes you just have to get comfortable with that last three four seconds and it's almost a piece as if maybe it's a 30 yard

Starting point is 00:24:06 pull and nobody ever told me i could get there yeah i could still do it yeah um wait so why specifically were you having them do that though well so part of it is is that the reason why it's difficult for a lot of athletes is because the adrenaline rush it's the same thing athletes it's like i have no idea what happened in that event at the games it's like well you just walked out onto the stadium floor and there's 25 000 people and that adrenaline rush is real and it's like I have no idea what happened in that event at the games. It's like, well, you just walked out onto the stadium floor and there's 25,000 people. And that adrenaline rush is real. And it's going to fatigue you.

Starting point is 00:24:30 And so that unknown element when I have people drop in and that have never done the length across a pool before, and I tell them, it's not going to take you any more than 30 seconds to reach that end. And you just showed me you could hold for a minute. And what happens is 90% of these people come up in the middle of the pool and it's like, wow, good. That was seven seconds. And part of it is, is that it's the adrenaline rush. But the other part is recognizing the brain's involvement in this is that the brain doesn't know when that

Starting point is 00:24:59 next breath is coming. And if it doesn't know when that breath is coming, how can it ever cellular muscles? So that's interesting, right? That if the brain is involved in these decisions, then what we need to do is we need to convince the brain that that next dose of energy, let's say oxygen, is predictable. When is it coming? And if the brain knows when it's predictable, then I could settle my muscles because the energy, the oxygen is coming. And that's what I want them to learn. I want them to recognize is that adrenaline fear is real. And also that uncertainty when you're underwater. The reason why it is also a challenge is because the brain doesn't know when that breath is coming. Yeah. And so it protects you. You can also, one of the things under the water especially doing that

Starting point is 00:25:45 specific workout um you if you're walking around out here or you're in the stadium and all this noise is coming in but underwater you can there's a very mindful piece to being underwater if you can calm down where you're legitimately watching your brain tell you hey you're gonna drown and you're like no i, I'm not. I can do this. And it's so quiet under there that there's some interesting pieces of forcing the down regulation, knowing that you can get to the other side, but literally telling your brain to stop talking. Well, so I like that you said that.

Starting point is 00:26:19 So when I watched the teams at the games when they would attack the water in these events and they would pause, I saw that and it was like, wow. And for me, coming from my background, I don't feel that way. I respect the ocean. I am afraid of the ocean. But I know how to manage my own abilities within the ocean. I have a lot of experience in the ocean. And when I saw CrossFit athletes pausing at the water's edge in Los Angeles, it was like, I have to fix that. And so one of the times I was with Rich Froning and the Mayhem team and Angelo DiCicco, who was team champion, and Nick Palladino was there and two-time team champion,

Starting point is 00:27:00 and Frazier did the workout and he was there and I created this workout that was called the fear of drowning and what it was was is I'm going to do five rounds of a workout and I'm going to put them into a fatigued plus hypoxic state and then my idea was we were at Rich's dad's house and he has a pond that's probably 50 meters, maybe 60 meters across. We've all seen it. It looks so cool. Yeah, so I had... I went out there one time. Slow-mo running into the pond.

Starting point is 00:27:31 So what I did was I said, okay, so part of it, I'm going to put them in this fatigued and hypoxic state, but then I have to create this element of fear that they're going to... and not a game, right? I need to simulate that. And so I tethered the guys

Starting point is 00:27:46 that were good swimmers to a 25 pound dumbbell and said you're going to swim across that pond in that state with the dumbbell and if you drop it it's tethered and you're gonna it's gonna pull you now the thing was we made it long enough so they could drag it on the bottom and the ones that couldn't swim very well they had 10 pound plates so there was a good 10 of us that did this workout and frazier comes up to me in the beginning he's all dude it's impossible there's no there's no way that you can go across this pond with a 25 pound dumbbell and i'm like and part of it is is that as a swimmer and swimming and and being able to float is all about levering your lungs. And my lungs, they have an abnormally large capacity. And so when you exhale, you never exhale all your air.

Starting point is 00:28:35 So I'm all, give me the 25. And I sat at the edge of the pond with my back facing the water, and I pushed off with the 25-pound dumbbell on my chest. And all you do is you just pivot around the weight. That's all you do. And I swam across, floating, and then back again. And he's looking, and he's like, what the heck? And so he grabs just a 10-pound plate, and he's sitting at the edge of the pond with his back to the water, and he kicks off the edge of the pond.

Starting point is 00:29:00 And I didn't look at him for a second and I turned and he's vanished. He's gone. There's no bubbles. There's nothing. I'm like, where did he go? Like it was like he just – there was no weight, nothing. I killed Matt. And then like a couple seconds later, he like comes up and his whole back,

Starting point is 00:29:20 he was covered in mud. It's like he slid the slope all the way down. Like he just had no idea. In this workout, so you want me to tell you, so this workout actually led to the first fight that I had with Rich. You want to hear that part? I totally want to hear that part. Anytime I hear a story about Rich Ferner losing his mind, I'm like, yeah, totally,

Starting point is 00:29:41 because he looks so calm all the time. Well, this was a pivotal moment between Matt and Rich. You said that happens all the time. How many stories have you heard? No, that's what I'm saying. They don't exist. He's always so calm and collected. Oh, no, he was calm.

Starting point is 00:29:54 I lost my mind. Oh, gotcha. No, I lost my mind. He seems like he's always got it together. Yeah, not always. Not always. We were in the swimming pool three days ago, and I beat him in a kicking set. You know, we did a synchro kick set, teams of four.

Starting point is 00:30:12 And he couldn't get his team organized, and he got smashed. And, boy, that didn't go over, especially three days before coming here. So the deal was is that we were going to do is a thousand meter run. And then we did some ballistic jumping split lunges into hill sprints. And then they had to go across the pond. And on the last one, instead of the short way across the pond, I made them go the long way across the pond because the pond's an oval shape. And so I moved all the weights as they were doing their thousand meter run. And I told them, I all, you're going here. Well, Frazier is slightly

Starting point is 00:30:47 ahead of Froning in this last round and it's not like a competition. It was a workout. Frazier grabs the 30, just like I told, or 25 pound dumbbell, just like he was supposed to and he takes off and he goes in the water and he's bringing it across the long way of the pond. Froning comes up and Froning grabs the 10

Starting point is 00:31:03 and I'm like, I told you, I said, Rich, the 25, grab the pond. Froning comes up, and Froning grabs the 10. And I'm like, I told you. I said, Rich, the 25. Grab the 25. And he looks at me and just dives right in. Well, Rich, with the 25-pound, it's like a big hand paddle to him. He's a good swimmer, and you can swim with it. It's nothing. I'm losing my mind, right?

Starting point is 00:31:20 Because part of the thing is I spend a lot of time with these athletes. I never charge anything. As a matter of fact if i go into cookville last year seven times and i cover all of my costs there's not one games athletes ever paid me a penny because i use them to learn yeah and when that he wasn't paying attention it was like that's it for me so i'm following him around the pond but i'm yelling well frazier hears me yelling he pops his head up and he's like, that's it for me. So I'm following him around the pond, but I'm yelling. Well, Frazier hears me yelling. He pops his head up and he's like, what the heck? He sees Froning with the 10-pound plate, swims in, grabs a 10.

Starting point is 00:31:53 And the thing is, Frazier I know is sitting there thinking he grabbed the wrong plate. He's coming in. That's what I'm thinking, right? And so I'm yelling at Rich and I come around and I'm like, man, I'm saying to myself, I'm like, okay, is this worth it? And I'm like, to myself, yeah, this is it. And so when he finishes, I'm like, dude, did you not hear me? Did you not? And I'm starting in on him. And next thing you know, Rich just turns his back to me, and he goes and dives back into the pond.

Starting point is 00:32:25 The workout was over. And I'm like, wow, like that was the rudest thing I've ever seen. Well, he starts swimming out, and little did I know, because Matt and Rich took the 10-pound plates, there was only 25s that were sitting there. Well, you know who got those? Nick and Angelo. And Nick and Angelo are not very good swimmers. So the story is that Angelo went out first, carries the 25,

Starting point is 00:32:50 and it's tethered to him. And so he's now halfway out in the pond. Palladino is coming up behind him and realizes, I'm in trouble. Angelo yells at Nick, I need help, I'm drowning. And Nick's all broke, so am I, and swims in. Well, Rich sees this whole thing and goes in and rescues Angelo

Starting point is 00:33:09 and if it wasn't for Rich, Angelo would have never won the games twice, so that's the way the story went but afterwards I go to Rich and I'm like, that's just completely so because of what Rich did here's what we're going to do, we're going to do an hour of relays across the pond and Rich just turned to me and he's all, guys, it was my bad.

Starting point is 00:33:27 Just like that. I know the reason why Rich did it, though. I mean, he says that it was because he was supposed to use and alternate and take that last round, the 10-pound. That's what he says. I think he did it because he wanted to beat Frazier in the workout. Wouldn't surprise me. Either way.

Starting point is 00:33:45 So let me ask you something. When you go across the pool, do you take a deep breath in and then go? Or do you exhale? So this is actually the exact question I wanted to ask you. When you started talking about your lung positioning, so this is something I think about all the time when I'm doing the workout,

Starting point is 00:34:02 is how much air is in my lungs and in my belly to maintain the buoyancy that i want to be at specifically to be in the right place of the water if you let out too much air so i always take a big breath in down push and go and then somewhere in there i realize i've got too much air after the speed runs off and i start floating to the top it's like i've got too much air or it's burning too much energy keeping me down. So it's like how much air am I letting out with the speed and the energy that I have to continue going forward?

Starting point is 00:34:33 And that's one of the, when you started moving your chest up, that was a really interesting thing because I've never really thought about that in the water. So that's how I think about air when I'm underneath there. When you're under there, you get to think about these things. Like it's really quiet and you start to notice these things. And my buoyancy and the speed at which I can get across is a really interesting thing. So I don't know if this is part of the workout that you do, but it's like I try and get as much as possible off the first kick,

Starting point is 00:35:03 and then I end up having to go into a freestyle. I can't go 25 yards just on one kick and underwater paddling, whatever it is. So I end up getting to the top. But the first probably half I'm able to do off the first kick, and then it's really just maintaining the right level of buoyancy, and I can go as far as I really need until it's freestyle time or I'm just out of gas or out of energy. So this is where I would come in and ask, what's the purpose in what you're doing? And what is the purpose in the direction that you're asking

Starting point is 00:35:36 these questions? And part of it is, is that if you're going to do a workout, it has to have value for your time. And if there's no targeted adaptation, then in my opinion, why are we here? And so I always look at every single thing and it has to have value. And I always want athletes to ask me, you know, so what is the purpose of this? And so I do like the idea of using your lungs and the air in your lungs and training athletes to control that as a pivot point. See, one of the things that is the weakness for a non-swimmer, especially non-swimmers in CrossFit because they swim so little, is their legs. And one, they have a very inefficient kick.

Starting point is 00:36:22 Their form in their kick is poor, meaning they think that they have to kick from the knees. And when the knee drops below the streamline of the chest, it's going to slow you down. And it's really a kick is from the hip flexor and the high hamstring. Almost picture like if you're at a deep pool and you're almost hugging the wall and your feet are straight down below you.

Starting point is 00:36:43 Imagine trying to kick while holding onto the gutter. Your knees should never hit the pool, right? They should never. Because if that happens, that means that the knees are going below your slipstream. Yep. And that's incredibly inefficient. So how do we train athletes to keep the hips up?

Starting point is 00:37:02 You want to keep the hips up so the feet are in line. And what it is, it's a pivot around the lung. I always think about the movement-specific piece of everything comes from the glute. So if you can stabilize your glute and your abs and the belly with your breath. Dude, you're so good. Well, I have to figure out. I don't have a swim coach.

Starting point is 00:37:20 I've never had a swim coach in my life, so I just spend time underwater. You want to know what the purpose of it is. It's literally like me exploring something that I've never done. Wow. And I just go out and do this stuff because I actually prefer not having a coach. I get to go experiment, and then you show up in my life, and I get to learn all the things about specifically what I've been processing underwater because any time I start to get tired, I'll notice that my right side's a lot stronger

Starting point is 00:37:47 and then that kick, that's probably the less of the... But it's a puzzle. Yeah. It's a puzzle and you're figuring out what your puzzle is. When I squeeze my butt and I'm underwater and I have my ribs down

Starting point is 00:38:00 and just really good neutral spine position and everything's tight there, I notice that the kick changes a lot and it's exactly what you're talking about of like that kick now comes from the hip versus me just flailing my feet behind me which is what so do you i've always probably done do you kick with fins ever no i've never done anything with any tools at all so fins is a good idea for someone that's trying to get the feel. So part, like doing a muscle-up. A muscle-up, the first time you do it, it's like, what the heck happened?

Starting point is 00:38:30 It feels like a magic trick. It's like, but as you get more experience, it slows down. It's like a car crash, right? And you could break it down. Like I talked to Dave Durante, and I'm like, Dave, you know, Olympian gymnast and head of Power Monkey. And he's like, I asked him, I said, how many different phases do you see when you watch someone do a muscle-up? And he says something like 17.

Starting point is 00:38:51 Whoa. And I'm like, wow. And I said, so at the finished product, and he jumps and he's like, yeah, I know exactly based upon the finished product, a failure, where that failure started and so part of it is is that with experience where Dave is in a muscle up but me in the movement of swimming if you have a new swimmer part of it is is we recognize the value the kick like you're like just like you were saying and logically you get it but how do you if you don't have the experience how can you get a feel for what a proper kick feels like? And that's where fins come in. Okay, awesome.

Starting point is 00:39:29 One of the things that I noticed as well, and I will definitely try the fin thing out. I also wanted to... So two things. The first one was when I am kicking properly, my hips and my buoyancy in the water changes. Yep. And I'm much more efficient.

Starting point is 00:39:46 I feel the efficiency significantly better. Like, squeeze your butt, your hips get into a better position, and now you float better. So everything's in a much more streamlined process. Is that correct? It feels that way. I don't know if that's, like, biomechanically what's happening. Just so you know, I don't squeeze my butt at all when I swim.

Starting point is 00:40:03 I'm not. Right, I know. But you're just talking about getting into the biomechanics. Yeah. But so my story is, I would say, I think, get a pair of fins. Okay. And what's going to happen is, is that you're going to develop proper feel. So the fins, because of the additional surface area, are going to allow you to have a stronger kick, which is going to allow you to keep your

Starting point is 00:40:25 legs straight and kick from the hip flexor and the high hamstring. Gotcha. And so you're going to now swim with, you know, kick, do kick sets and swim sets, but you're going to develop proper feel. Then you take it off and it's like, I know what it feels like. And the problem that most people have is like, okay, I could explain it all day long, but I don't know what it feels like. I give you a pair of fins and you're immediately on board. And part is that we need to compress the amount of learning time for people. They've got to know what it feels like right away so that we can get to the next step. So for you, if I was looking at you and it was like, okay, so we have a kicking related issue.

Starting point is 00:41:03 Is it your hip flexor or is it your hamstring?string what's your weakness what's preventing your kick from being stronger because you should ultimately be able to do without things and so that's where like with Frazier when I was diagnosing him when you know in 2016 I realized his shoulders are incredibly efficient and and they got efficient through the protocols of CrossFit right he developed their aerobic capacity by doing large amounts of volume in a multitude of movements and it transferred but think about it in CrossFit is there anything that we do that mimics a kick in the pool there's's not. Right, it's not. And so that became his inefficient link, meaning that when he swam and he accelerated to stay with Pekowski, his legs,

Starting point is 00:41:54 because you have to accelerate the kick, he goes from a two-beat kick to an eight-beat kick, sucks out all the oxygen, goes over lactate threshold, and then blows. I have to make his legs more aerobically efficient. So how do I do it? I make him kick more. The more time he spends on his kick.

Starting point is 00:42:09 Pick that up a little bit. It's falling down on you. The more time he spends on his kick, the better he will be. But then I have to look at what is his limiting factor in his kick. Well, what I realized was it was his hip flexor strength. It wasn't his high hamstring. It was his hip flexor. So what did I have to do?

Starting point is 00:42:25 I had to do accessory work that strengthened this. I had to build capacity. This area. It wasn't his max lift, you know, one rep of his hip flexor. It was his ability to repeat for long duration. Like his 500 rep max. And that's what was failing. His muscular endurance of the hip flexor.

Starting point is 00:42:42 So what did we do? He called it garbage miles. We did kick workouts. And we'd finish and he's all, that was his muscular endurance of the hip flexor. So what did we do? He called it garbage miles. We did kick workouts. And we'd finish, and he's all, that was a total waste of time. And I'm like, just calm down. And we did it month after month. And you watched him in the games this year in that event, and he is now a swimmer.

Starting point is 00:42:57 And it was because he focused on kicking all year. Are you also focusing on kind of like the physical side of the fact that, I mean, you talked about Ironman, Kona, there's 1,500 people jumping in the water and you're getting kicked in the face all the time. And I can see, being from San Diego, I'm very comfortable in the ocean, big surf, whatever, it's not a big deal. But I could imagine, and I used to think about this all the time when the games were in Carson. It's like you've got someone from Nebraska, and they show up, and now all of a sudden they're staring at the Pacific Ocean, and it's like there is an entire world out there of animals that are so large, and they're all going to eat me.

Starting point is 00:43:37 And, oh, my God, that's a four-foot wave coming at me. And nobody knows how powerful a four-foot wave is because they watch, like, surfing 20 foot and they're like oh that guy that looks cool i could probably do that like oh no you have no idea how heavy a four foot wave is if you've never been touched by the ocean before yep and then all of a sudden you're getting kicked in the face yep by 20 people that are trying to reach the same buoy as you yeah there's a massive freak out piece in that. Are you focusing on just getting into the water and creating space for yourself? So I teach them. So talking about the ocean. They need a jujitsu person out there in the water.

Starting point is 00:44:13 Wrap them up. Create some space. You can work with him. I don't know where that came from. That was out of left field for me. Your jujitsu? I haven't done jujitsu for a long time. Man, I love how you guys just shoot off on different directions.

Starting point is 00:44:28 We're here, dude. We've got two hours. I'm going to learn everything I need to know about it. So let's talk about Marcus Bucceccia. Okay. Do you know him? Yeah. Oh, right on.

Starting point is 00:44:36 Yeah. So I teach my athletes how to attack the water. Like Stephanie, while we're going to go to the ocean, and part of it is she's not very confident in the ocean my job ultimately at the end of the day is make you confident and so teaching them how to attack the water how to come in i mean at what point in time should you stand coming in the water like there is a very pivotal time and it's an obvious time it's when your fingers touch without having to reach when you're swimming in it doesn't matter if the ocean a lake a pond it doesn't matter when your fingertips touch without having to reach when you're swimming in. It doesn't matter if the ocean, a lake, a pond.

Starting point is 00:45:05 It doesn't matter. When your fingertips touch, that's when you stand. Any deeper than that, you're unfortunately too deep in the water, and you're faster swimming than wading at chest-deep water. And so teaching those skills is important, but also it's the contact. So where people really panic is the contact. Like at the games this year, the way they released them in that wave, there was some, you know, hanging and banging down in that pit there

Starting point is 00:45:32 as they swam. And if you were not comfortable in getting hit. You're talking about the athletes actually like clawing past each other? Yes. And that's the way it is. Climbing over each other. Swimming is hot in those events. Kicking each other.

Starting point is 00:45:44 People think that like Ironman, it's like, you know, it's like, oh, blah, blah, blah. It's so easygoing. It's like, no. Try swimming with 1,500 people at once that are trained all year for one event. They're fired up. I bet the winner is not even touching the water. It's just crawling over people. Well, so I'll give you an insight.

Starting point is 00:45:59 So I came from swimming. And so when I would do Ironman, they have a cannon at the start. I don't think I ever heard in the countdown beyond six i was gone because it's so dangerous yeah and so they have a flag that you're supposed to stay at and there's a hundred people on the starting line and it's moving and you could feel like the just the tension welling up in the entire group. Like the whole, everything swells. And it's like, you know, you hear this countdown, it's 10, nine. And like, I think the latest I heard was six. It's like, I'm out of here. Because one, it's moving. But number two, it's, you realize I could get pulled under as good of a swimmer as I am and it's

Starting point is 00:46:42 over. Yeah. So yeah, no, it's it's treacherous and but I love like with these athletes I love and mostly out of boredom I like uh I like I like accidentally on purpose hitting them in the swimming pool yeah I like coming into them and and accidentally coming too close and my arm lands on the back of their head I like that a lot I I do that in running. I think a lot of people listening to this if they haven't been coaching very long themselves or they coach CrossFit classes and they're the coach and the other people are relatively inexperienced, they say

Starting point is 00:47:14 go do this and the people just go, yes sir, and they just go do the workout. They say thank you and they go home. They probably don't experience the amount of conflict that you've demonstrated so far with being the argument with Rich and then Matt Frazier saying like that was a total waste of time like they might just think that they just do whatever you say and and just like accept it and and they're happy with it and they never like push back on you like how often do they push back so part of it is

Starting point is 00:47:39 is i that's a great question i i want that environment and I bring it on. Ask questions. Understand the purpose of this. If I cannot explain why this is the highest value of your time, then this isn't the right workout for you. That's people. I mean, I joke about it, but the amount of difficulty coaching those athletes is is it's it's incredible because you're challenged all the time. Why am I doing this? And that's the thing is like you're trying to not only have them do a workout for a physiological adaptation, but you're trying to create a mental adaptation. You're trying to create and develop them on multiple fronts in parallel. And that's really a difficult thing to do.

Starting point is 00:48:21 If I only get them in the pool one time per week, then I have to make sure that every moment within that workout is going to maximize their adaptation. And in order to do that, I have to have them on board. Because part of it is, like, Frazier, he's got to do the workout. And if he doesn't believe in it, then he's not going to show up the following day. I mean, that's the key. Does that happen where they just don't show up? up no i mean part of it is is that and i'm not going to say that i make them all perfect but part of it is is i learn along the way and i i i try and find

Starting point is 00:48:55 more effective and efficient ways but what i want is i want that open communication because i want the athlete to come to me after they, like you have in the pool. You diagnose a particular situation and what you're asking for is some help to answer the puzzle. And so part of it is, is like, how can we attack it a little differently? Like surfers. So I went over and I worked with some surfers over in North Shore Oahu. And you know what they said? I said, I'm just curious.

Starting point is 00:49:22 I'm just asking questions. What's the number one injury in surfing? And they said torn ACL. And I said, why is that? and just asking questions. What's the number one injury in surfing? And they said torn ACL. And I said, why is that? And I know how to surf, and so I knew, but I wanted them to engage them. But this is how it works. And they said, well, you know, when you catch a wave and you're going down it, one, it's the pivot point of the leg, the back leg, and being able to carve and turn,

Starting point is 00:49:42 but it's also the chop of the water. And so if a wave is big and you're turning and you combine those at the same time boom pop there it goes right i can totally see that so i ask them what kind of lower body training do you do what what do you do and they said well our sport is mostly upper body when we're paddling out in the lineup and we have to get position especially in competitions it's all upper body so we don't do any lower body work i said to him i said but the way the body works if you are working your upper body and that arm fatigue as you're paddling out you're trying to beat your competitor the lineup to get position and you're going to build up that lactate in your arms where's that lactate going to go it's going to go to the neighboring muscle groups the

Starting point is 00:50:23 space in between the muscles and eventually lactateate shuttle is going to hit the bloodstream. And when it hits the bloodstream, where's it going? It's going to go to the largest muscle group in the body, the legs. Your legs, when you go to stand, are pre-fatigued. So if we develop your legs' aerobic ability, their ability to clear that lactate out at a faster rate, one, you'll be able to paddleate out at a faster rate, one, you'll be able to paddle faster out in the lineup, but two, your legs and I believe one of the major causes of the torn ACLs are, is the instability or the

Starting point is 00:50:55 wobbly of the legs and they're like wow, like and the logic of it it's like oh my gosh. Well, and if they're only paddling from their shoulders, you're using a smaller joint than if we're locked down and everything's in the right place. I've actually thought about that a lot being on the water and on a surfboard. Like, where are my paddles at when I start to get really tired? You take two waves on the head, and all of a sudden,

Starting point is 00:51:19 the third one's coming, and you've got to beat it out. It's like, where is this coming from? If you get in a really good position, all of a sudden you're pulling through your core versus just your elbow out here. Imagine, though, if your legs on the back of the board are more aerobically fit, that blood lactate can clear. I mean, people always, it's interesting about blood lactate. People think, oh, how is that going to happen? Like in that amount of time, and it's really going to sit in the legs. Look at, so studies like on the Pommel Horse Firm

Starting point is 00:51:47 Gymnastics, 20 second event, they're measuring blood lactate in the legs after a 20 second routine. So if you're thinking about, I mean, like Kelly Slater, he got caught inside in the last, you know, at pipeline and he was paddling for five minutes. Here he has this timed heat, and he's out in the lineup because he can't get into the next wave. He's got to recover. It's the recovery is usually the limiting factor that's preventing these athletes from advancing. It's not their one-rep strength.

Starting point is 00:52:17 They get tired. Like, if you look at a lot of these athletes, it's the teens that's limiting work capacity. Yeah. I think the surfing community's a really i think the surfing community is a really cool way and i don't know how long have you been surfing for oh i grew up in california oh there you go yeah i've probably 10 years now and um being comfortable in the water is a very interesting skill i i've never had a swim

Starting point is 00:52:40 coach i've never been on a swim team this whole swimming thing is probably the only last like six eight months of my life of learning it. But being in the water surfing and becoming comfortable getting held under, not knowing where up is really, and you're just kind of like, cool, I'll just hang out down here until whatever happens and I just get to the top. I feel like that is a piece, I don't want to call it a fitness, but a piece of like a mindset and an understanding of how your body functions. Because if you don't trust yourself, which that may be a massive piece of fitness is trusting yourself physically.

Starting point is 00:53:15 If you do not trust yourself at the bottom, when you just get hit by like a 10 foot wave and you're just hanging out down there, that's terrifying. And you don't know what's going on and you will freak out. And that is the worst thing that you can possibly do under there. So that's back to the confidence thing. Yeah. So that's really the job of a coach, right, is to create programming that ultimately builds your knowledge and experience to make you more confident. And that's ultimately the task.

Starting point is 00:53:47 And so that's what, when I look at things, is that going to provide that stimulus? Because really what we're trying to do is create that. You know, I'm doing a workout with Jason Kalipa on Friday. And Jason, I'm incredibly devoted just because of the opportunity he gave me back in 2012. He made that giant learn how to breathe. He won a marathon row, half marathon row. And he run, yeah.

Starting point is 00:54:11 Because he blew up on the 7K the year before. Yeah, the burden run he did, and he won that. Yeah, it was incredible that here's a guy that got last in every endurance event at the CrossFit Games, and in seven months. People that look like him aren't supposed to be able to breathe that well. Well, he's an anomaly. He's a giant. Yeah, he's a big...

Starting point is 00:54:29 Bicep and tricep are the most terrifying things in the world. Can I tell you something funny about him? Please. When I meet him the first time, I meet him and he says... I look at him and I'm like, well, how much do you weigh? He's all, 208. I'm like, well, I kind of know what 208. I go, you're probably like 230 he's all he comes and

Starting point is 00:54:47 he's like i'll tell you something he's all won the games in 08 so i'm always gonna wait i'm like that's funny i like that you know i like that it's like my 13 year old son on the you know the basketball team he's like he puts himself in at 6 8 it's like 5 5 at the time. I'll get there. Yeah, so Jay, when, you know, like the opportunity with him, and part is he was really damaged because he positioned himself. He says, I get last, and I've tried everything. So not only did I have to improve his ability physically, but I had to improve his mindset on that of where he could do it on his own but he believed he could and so we would run every workout together and i would be

Starting point is 00:55:33 oftentimes bored with him and and and he was so loud like you were saying like just the breathing was so excessive and the amount of just body movement and noise and undulation of everything and, boy, super hairy and just like this big bear running around the track. And I would just sit there and we'd plot along. But every now and then. You were just so tired. Like, can we just run faster? Or just do something.

Starting point is 00:55:59 I'm not even working out right now. Jason, you're wasting my time right now. No, so I would always let him like lead a bit for entertainment purposes. Let the nice horse go first. Well, so when you run and you have that nice 90 degree bend in your arm as you do your arm swing, I

Starting point is 00:56:16 would every now and then get in front of him and what I would do is I would get in front and I would take my elbow during the arm swing and time it with his arm swing and as it with his arm swing. And as my arm was going back, his arm was going forward. My left elbow would make contact with his right bicep and I'd jam him accidentally on purpose. And I'd kind of push him back a little bit. I just thought inside, I just thought it was funny. And I would laugh to myself just as a game.

Starting point is 00:56:44 One time we were we were running though and he was on the inside of the track when we're going around and I went and did the same thing and all of a sudden he looks at me as we're running he says you do that again I'm gonna flick my elbow and you're gonna fly from lane one all the way to lane eight and go over the top of the four feet fence and you know i could do that don't do that anymore and i stop on the track i stop on the track and he like stops 10 meters in front of me he's like this is the middle of a workout he's like now what did i do i fend you and the thing with me and jay is there was always this slight misunderstanding and i said to him i'm all no he's all what well no i'm so proud of you. And he's like, so I threaten you and you're proud of me?

Starting point is 00:57:27 And I'm like, I am. Because you know I was playing a game. Now you're a threat. Now you're a competitor. You're aware of not only your ability to manage your interval, right, the speed, the movement of running, the intensity you're running at. You could do that on autopilot. But now you're aware of your competitor. You're aware of your surroundings, the environment. You're now a threat to me. He's no longer just focusing on, can I catch a breath? Yeah. It was a major

Starting point is 00:57:53 breakthrough. And he had no idea until I stopped. And I said, I will never do that because I can't get away with it. You're now a competitive runner. and it was like a pivotal moment and that's what you have to teach that's a very unorthodox thing to do like i never would have thought to to do that like is was that is that just like in the moment you that just came to you or is that type of that style something that you are familiar with did you have a coach that did that type of stuff to you like how did you get there no so i spend a lot of time thinking about it. And part of it is, is that if you don't have, like, so when I did the sport of triathlons, I had a running coach and I ran 50 miles a week.

Starting point is 00:58:32 Well, my coach can make mistakes, right? And cover it up with volume. Where I can't, every single thing, if I get Jason Kalief in those days, two days a week, then it has to be the highest and best use of his time. So in order to be truly effective, I have to attack in multiple planes. So I have to teach him that he can manage the volume, right? I have to teach him his intensity, his paces, how to control it. I have to teach multiple gears because in CrossFit, we don't

Starting point is 00:59:03 have a time domain that we're training for. So you got to be good at every one of them. And so what I have to do is things layered on top of one another. And that was an effect that would take time. It would take time. And so a lot of these things, when I sit and think about it, like you and your, your exhale, I love the fact that people can swim the length of the pool underwater. They take a nice deep breath in and then they make it across. But is that the end? The end is not because what are we really trying to do when we're trying to do hypoxic breathing? We're trying to simulate what it's like to be pre-fatigued in a workout so that when you're in that final leg of

Starting point is 00:59:43 the swim event, you're good. I've experienced this before. I know I'm okay. I'm confident that I'm hypoxic, but I could finish this lap because I've done it underwater. I would say, you know what? I think what you need to do next is exhale all of your air and then go across. Because if you're really trying to simulate the tail end, then why not go to what it truly feels like? So there's multiple layers in there, and we know what the game plan is,

Starting point is 01:00:10 but we can't go too fast because it will destroy the confidence. So we always have to have this progression. And then if we do it in swing, then why not in other sports? Can we talk about the running piece when we get back? We're going to take a quick break. We're an hour in. See, that's why we go two hours. We just got started! This is so good. We're going to take a quick break.

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Starting point is 01:03:47 Sunlighten.com. Mention Shrugged, and you're going to save $200. That's a great deal. Back to the show. Right on. Welcome back to Barbell Shrugged. We picked one up. Haley Adams.

Starting point is 01:03:58 Hello. You're here at Waterpalooza. Yeah. Two times CrossFit Games champion. One time. One time. Yeah, I got second. The first time I heard of you was at this year's Games, and they were like, some girl just jerked 235, and I was like.

Starting point is 01:04:10 230. 230, and I was like, carry the one. Holy shit, that's a lot of weight. That's unbelievable. Tell me a little bit about this CrossFit journey for you. So I started CrossFit at the beginning of January of 2016, and that was right around the Open, and I knew I wanted to do the Open and qualify for the Games So I started CrossFit at the beginning of January of 2016, and that was right around the Open,

Starting point is 01:04:28 and I knew I wanted to do the Open and qualify for the Games because the Teen Division was kind of new that year. So I did the Open and ended up winning the Open that year and made the Games, and they only took 10. And so then that summer I made my first CrossFit Games appearance as a 15-year-old. I took second there. Smashed. Not a bad first showing.

Starting point is 01:04:47 And then the next year during the Open, I actually ended up qualifying for regionals as a 16-year-old in the Mid-Atlantic region. So I went and competed at regionals that year, and I placed 14th. And then went to games again. And then this year I qualified for regionals again, took 11th, so slowly was moving my way up, and then won the game. So cool. When I lifted weights, and I still love lifting weights,

Starting point is 01:05:18 but it's so cool that CrossFit has a thing, that there's like an option for you to go play this cool sport. I like it because I was a gymnast, and I like to run. I like to swim, too. I'm maybe not the best at it. Well, that's why he's here. But I like it because it's something different every day, and you get to push yourself, and you find something that you're not good at or something that you're really good at

Starting point is 01:05:39 and different combos. Are you training at Mayhem? Yeah, I train with Rich and the crew. What are you learning down there? What's it like watching that guy work every day? It's insane. You think that you're going fast and you're like, oh, he doesn't look like he's going that fast, but then when you're going beside of him, he's flying.

Starting point is 01:05:56 You're like, what in the world? So good. One day. One day. During the break, you were talking her up pretty good. Do you want to repeat some of the things you were just saying about the 5K and the pacing and the whole deal that you just told us? Well, so what I admire about Haley is that, one, she's in this constant quest of learning.

Starting point is 01:06:15 She wants to learn. She realizes that that knowledge at the end is really the key. And a lot of the things that she's having to do because she's not reached maturity yet is to be patient. And there's a tendency for athletes to want to just jump the gun. They want to work on weaknesses right away. And for adults, that's actually the highest and best use of their time. Let's fix this real quick. We're not quite loud as the rest of us.

Starting point is 01:06:41 There you go. For adults, we want to work on our weaknesses because it's the highest and best use of our time but for hayley her weakness that she has as a teen may not be her weakness when she reaches full maturity and so it's to stake take a step back and go you know what we're going to do is we're going to create a broad spectrum of abilities allow your body to mature and then target and so to have that level of patience is really difficult and you must must like she's reading Jason Kalipa's book on the way here you must want to learn you want to learn and so what I admire was is that Haley is like a

Starting point is 01:07:18 sponge she listens to Rich she wants to understand why he is doing 400 ghts every single week like she wants to understand that and and why is the course so important in what we're doing in functional fitness like why is that the key and so what we were talking about earlier was hayley and and when this earlier this week they announced the 5k and there's a 5k beach run that's tomorrow morning it's the first event and so hayley as she's walking out the door um she's living with us now and uh while she's in cookville and she says what should my workout be because i'm gonna you know practice this run and i said what i want you to do is i want you to practice the speed that you're going to be racing at come Friday morning. You're going, in my opinion, if it's on the hard pack sand, you're going to run your 5k in 20

Starting point is 01:08:11 minutes. So what I want you to do is I want you to hold a 409 1k pace or a 640 mile pace. No worse than that. And what I want you to do is I want you to do it on the Air Runner. So 6x300 with two minutes of rest at that speed. What I want you to do is I want you to lock in the muscle memory so that when you go out there race day morning, your muscles are not surprised by the speed that you're being asked to do. So I just boom, boom, boom, boom. She looks at me, and she's like, got it. Got it.

Starting point is 01:08:44 You've got to explain the purpose of it, but you also have to have that depth of knowledge of, like, got it. Got it. You got to explain the purpose of it, but you also have to have that depth of knowledge of like, that makes sense to me. And then she goes out and executes. And how'd that go for you? I actually ended up going a little bit faster. You told me not to, but it was just in the last one. But I mean, I didn't really have any problem understanding.

Starting point is 01:09:00 Honestly, don't know how someone could understand that. But part of it is, is a lot of athletes will sit there and say, oh, it's too easy. Well, of course it's easy. We're just trying to lock in. I'm not trying to get you fit in the four days before. I'm trying to. And that's part of it is like when they release workouts, you're given the test. There it is.

Starting point is 01:09:19 Study that. Yeah. Why on earth would you go out and run a 5K at a slow pace? Is it because you don't think you could run a 5K? You just ran a slow 5K. Now what's going to happen is race day, the gun's going to go off, and you know what your body's going to want to do? Run slow.

Starting point is 01:09:34 And that's the surefire way to underperform. If you are given the workout, then study the workout. Get your muscles and body prepared for what it's about to experience because the last thing that you want is a surprise. How have you applied that same concept to the other workouts that were announced? So what you have to do is look at the workouts and practice the time domains. So, you know, if you look at, take, for example, we were talking earlier about that run-swim-run.

Starting point is 01:10:02 So if you look at that, it's a mile-and- run, 500 meters swim, and a mile and a half run. Well, that closing mile and a half run is after a lot of work. You've got to treat it separately. So when we were talking about Frazier doing 530 mile pace for the opening 1.5, we knew what his swim pace needed to be, but his closing would be six minutes because of the overall time domain of the workout. So you have to consider the total amount of time that you're moving. And so practicing those things.

Starting point is 01:10:33 I bet the open, when you coach the open, it's a lot of fun because you can pick that apart and really hammer home the exact pace that everybody needs on exact specific workouts. Right. And you've got a week to do it. Well, like, exact. So right you've got a week to do it well like exact so like you see a workout double unders how are you going to warm up just like so she's got workouts with double unders and part of it is is like you got to include that in not only your preparation of double unders but then also your warm-up and we know in a warm-up you got to prepare

Starting point is 01:10:59 your metabolic pathways your energy you got to prepare your muscles for the movement, but you also have to prepare the brain and warm up the brain. So knowing that, she should do some warm-up to get all three of those things going. But my argument would be is how do we be more efficient at it? I need to know if she's doing double-unders, how high does she typically jump in a double-under? Haley jumps with the rubber plates, the high-temp plates, a 45 and a 25. That's her average jump height. So what should she do in her warm-up? She should do a series of plate jumps to warm up her reaction time, sending the signal from the brain down to the feet at her double under height. It also prepares the amount of muscle fiber recruitment to make that jump occur. So we're doing two-fold in that. If she just does regular plate jumps to a 10 pound plate it doesn't it's not it's not the perfect warm-up and part of it is is they need to like right away you explain it

Starting point is 01:11:52 and because of the knowledge i got it do you think much about like the the weightlifting side of it if your expertise is kind of the triathlon swim bike bike, run piece. When did the weightlifting side of it kind of come in for you? No, so mine's- Or like understanding the gaming and technique and movement pieces, just- So mine really is, if you look at it, so I'm aerobic capacity specialist.

Starting point is 01:12:16 So anything longer than a three minute time domain, I'm good. So you could take anything. So take handstand pushups. You know, like if, Let's say you guys. So handstand push-ups, it's a gymnastic movement. Are you good at handstand push-ups? If you say no, then I would say, so is your limiting factor your shoulder press strength,

Starting point is 01:12:37 your muscular strength, or is it your muscular endurance? Do you just get tired? So an example of that, which, you know, I've talked about before with Spencer Hendel, I saw him do a hundred handstand pushups, games athlete. He was doing a hundred of them per time. When he finished, I asked him about what he was doing it for. And he says, I'm trying to get better at it. And I was trying to get as fast as I possibly could. And I noticed that during, when he was doing it, he was always doing three and then resting exactly 10 seconds. Beautiful pacing, right? Super knowledgeable. That's why he was doing it, he was always doing three and then resting exactly 10 seconds.

Starting point is 01:13:06 Beautiful pacing, right? Super knowledgeable. That's why he's as good as he is. He had a strategy. And so I asked him why he did it. And he says, well, if I don't take 10 seconds of rest or if I try and do four, my overall time is worse because I just blow up. I said, but if you're always doing three and 10, always three and 10 in your training, then how's your body going to learn anything other than 3 and 10? So is it his strength that's preventing him from doing it different,

Starting point is 01:13:31 or is it that he gets fatigued? I'm interested when you are coaching the athletes you're coaching and you're also helping them go through competition is, I almost have a belief now with the crossfit athletes everyone's handstand push-ups are the exact same they're all just completely world-class and maybe there's like one one hundredth of a percent of a difference in there but they're all physically so close to each other that now we're getting into the pieces that you're talking about of what's the perfect warm-up or how do we practice getting that extra two three seconds and that seems to be a real sweet spot for you of playing with the numbers or playing with the pacing

Starting point is 01:14:16 strategies to be able to suck each second out of every single workout i think that what we're trying to do is look at what glassman said. We're trying to increase total work capacity across broad time modal domains. Such a good definition. Right? Just broad enough. But that's the thing is that that's what we're really trying to do. And so what is preventing you from doing it? Is it the intensity side of the equation that's preventing you from doing more push-ups?

Starting point is 01:14:45 Is it? How come you can't do 300 air squats un the equation that's preventing you from doing more push-ups? Is it? How come you can't do 300 air squats unbroken? What's preventing you? Is it your one rep back squat weight? Is that what's preventing you or is it something else? And so part of it is addressing how do we continuously make adaptations in these athletes and the key is finding that more efficient and effective way. And most cases for athletes that have been around a long amount of time, what's preventing

Starting point is 01:15:10 them from doing more is they just get tired. So my job is then if that's their weakness, then I have to fix their, their fatigue in that particular movement. So if Spencer Hendel is telling me he gets tired doing a handstand push-ups and it's not his strength preventing him, then that's my fix. So what do I need to do? I have to find a way to increase his work capacity by improving his ability to clear fatigue at a faster rate. All right, that's one of the major measures of aerobic fitness is how fast can you recover. And so like Frazier, Frazier came and he says, you know what?

Starting point is 01:15:47 I want to be able to do 25 over the shoulder 150 pound D-balls. So 150 pounds 25, how many can you do? 13. What's his limitation? Is it his strength? No, if you can do one, then it's there. So what we need to do is we need to move in that

Starting point is 01:16:04 direction. So we all have the same things. Air squats, traditional movements, push-pulls, presses. We do. And what we need to do is we need to, instead of telling the athlete, you know what you're going to do is 10 push-ups and then rest. I don't want that. We build work capacity in the endurance world by continuously moving, but we do it by changing the intensity. So I want you to do three pushups,

Starting point is 01:16:27 and then I want you to flip over on your back, and I want you to give me a floor press with a 10 pound plate. Nice and slow, kind of like a running sprint and do a jog recovery. If we do that for five minutes continuous, I just got you to do the movement of a pushup for five minutes, but I disguised it

Starting point is 01:16:40 under various intensities. And what do we do now in the gym? You do 10 and rest until you can do 10 more. Why? If we're trying to build capacity. What we need to do is manipulate the intensity. Same thing with wall balls. If you practice a 20-pound ball, what are you good at?

Starting point is 01:16:57 20-pound ball. Why not do a 20 into a 10 and recover with the 10 to go back to the 20? I actually remember OPT doing, what's that giant, I think his name's Danny, he was doing like 80 pound wall balls for sets of 10. The guy's like a freaking behemoth, but watching him do those and I was like, wow, that guy throws that thing like I do with a 20 pound ball. Well, at Mayhem, I was watching one day and this is just observation, it's like they got the target up on the wall, and I was seeing, like,

Starting point is 01:17:29 they were missing off to the right and the left of the target. It was getting sloppy. And I don't like that. Like you said earlier, these are the top of the top. They should be perfect. So you know what I did? Me and Rich's dad, we made rings, and the ring sits off of the wall seven inches.

Starting point is 01:17:46 You know, a wall ball is 14 inches in diameter, so it sits off the wall seven inches. The ring is 21 inches in diameter, and you must make it through the ring, hit the wall to come back. And if it's not dead on accurate, it caroms off of the ring, and now your foot placement is off. You get punished for a lack of accuracy. If you always practice a weak shot up top, then you're always going to have an underperformance. And I want perfection by them because that's the expectation.

Starting point is 01:18:12 But that's at the elite end. For the recreational athlete, I would argue something that's more watered down. What do we always do in the gym? 20 pounds. But here's the thing. I could turn a 10 pound wall ball to feel like 50 pounds if I give you 50 ring dips before that 10-pound wall ball. Well, that means that you should probably practice a 50-pound wall ball. The idea of variance

Starting point is 01:18:35 when I think CrossFit started was like, oh, I get to do 15 different things in the gym. Wall balls and thrusters and squats and all this stuff. But variance to you now means a very very different thing than just movement patterns. It's ways to test that. Ways to perfect it. It's

Starting point is 01:18:52 an entirely different scope of variance that people are thinking of. But it's not. So it's new in our sport but it's not in other sports. So look at basketball players. How can they make a free throw in the opening minute and they can make a three pointer at the opening minute? They can make a three-pointer at the buzzer. CrossFit athletes don't have a shoot-around.

Starting point is 01:19:09 But they have to recognize that they have to practice various intensities under various states of fatigue. It's like what we were talking about the other day with jiu-jitsu, like flow rolling. There is no flow rolling snatches that, like, people just go out and, like, oh, I'm just going to only move this thing 100 times as smoothly as possible with no weight on it. Like, it's like training or complete rest.

Starting point is 01:19:35 There isn't much of that, like, middle flow zone where we don't have to think much. But that's the trend that's coming is part of it is that these elites are vetting all of this out. Yeah. And they're seeing massive gains on it. So, like, one of the things that we recognize. So, the biker, the Concept2 biker. Haley loves the biker.

Starting point is 01:19:54 She rolls her eyes. Well, because. Like, when I first came to Mayhem, they all stand on there. And I'm like, whoa. And they put the damper up to 10. I'm like, um. The first time I did it. Outstanding yeah my legs blew up like 20 calories so I'm like having a panic attack thinking oh my gosh like I'm not fit enough to do this and they're all doing it and I can't do it but I just ended

Starting point is 01:20:15 up doing a bunch more workouts well then I got better but still it's awful so she's having to stand right in these workouts and it's not that she hasn't done workouts i mean i've programmed for standing but the question is is then why stand and part is is that these elites what they're showing is i can transfer into the movement of running if i'm standing out of the bike it's the most similar movement to running so if i'm always practicing seated on a bike you know what i get good at i get good at staying seated on a bike it It doesn't help my psoas, my hip flexors and opening up my hip. It makes it worse. So what do we need to do? We need to find a hybrid movement that's between cycling and running. And that is standing on a Concept2 bike erg. That's what they practice. Like Haley, tell the story of the games with the workout, with the burpees and the bike erg. So the workout was 30 deficit handstand push-ups um 40 deadlifts 50 calorie biker and then 60 burpees over the bar so like when you get to

Starting point is 01:21:10 the biker you're already pretty tired from the deadlifts so i knew that we were gonna have to jump and i didn't want to just like sit down the whole time and just be like crunched over so i started standing just to kind of like get ready for the jump. And I asked him before, I was like, should I stand? And he was like, yeah. Smart. Smart. That's way, way elevated conversation for only being at this game. Everybody, all the teens in that heat are looking over, and they're like, because they never trained.

Starting point is 01:21:35 And it's intimidating as shit. They're all sitting down, and you're like, look, I'm a freaking boss. I'll stand this whole thing. I don't even get tired. I'm Haley Adams. Come at me. But then I had the damper on. Go sit on your little bike over there. I didn't put the damper up on eight. It don't even get tired. I'm Haley Adams. Come at me. But then I had the damper on. Go sit on your little bike over there.

Starting point is 01:21:46 I didn't put the damper up on eight. I put it, it was on like three then. When I put it on eight and ten, it rocked my world. Well, at the beginning we were talking about it. Just, is the bike thing the easiest one? Are we allowed to categorize it of the three of, that one's the easiest one to pick up? To pick up, yes.

Starting point is 01:22:06 To pick up. I'm terrified of a road bike. That tiny little tire is the scariest thing in the world. I will be so scared. It will start going so fast, and I'm speed wobbling, and then I realize I haven't even gotten out of my driveway. That thing is just so thin and so scary when you start moving on it. So coming out

Starting point is 01:22:25 of rich's house um if you go one direction out of the house it's straight up and the other direction it's literally straight down and uh over the summer laura horvath was with us and she was hanging out um and we went for a bike ride and this downhill descent off of Rich's, it's not perfect asphalt. It's sketchy. And I was going down at around 40 miles an hour. She never touched her brake. She had 65 miles an hour going down this thing. Never been on the bike before. Ah, terrifying, terrifying. You're going to crash. We got to slow down. I yell at her. I'm like, don't you ever, like you, I'm like, don't you ever do that? Not on'm like, don't you ever do that. Not on my watch.

Starting point is 01:23:07 Boy. Oh, my gosh. I go, let me guess. You've never crashed on a road bike before. And she's all, nope. And I'm like, that's why. Yeah, I'm with you. But if people are interested in getting into the bike,

Starting point is 01:23:18 and that's one thing I've never actually done is have any training on a bike. What are you testing them for on the bike? And I guess does the bike erg, whatever, does that actually translate into a lot of the stuff that you want when they're on road bikes? We all have, like in the experience in CrossFit, we've all done things like, for example, take bench press. You did it and then it's been now four weeks since you've done it again and you go back to bench and you PR. That's because we have so many movements within CrossFit that cross over. It's not like this theory of specificity where if you swim, bike, and run,

Starting point is 01:23:55 you get good at swimming when you swim and running when you run. We cross over. So the question is, is if we're going to do a movement, does this have a crossover effect into another movement? And so when I'm sitting and talking with these athletes and it's like, if we're going to ride this bike, then how can we carry it over into a similar movement pattern? And running is the most similar to riding a bike if you're out of the saddle, standing like you're going up a mountain, right? You're climbing up a hill.

Starting point is 01:24:26 And so the reason that there's been such amount of activity is because we not only use it to improve our running, but we also use it to improve our performances on the assault bike. Meaning, if I get you to train and maximize the development of your legs without any contributing fatigue from your arms like occurs on the assault bike then i could develop more work capacity with my legs right so why not train the legs in isolation train the arms in isolation then of course if you want to get good in a movement you got to train that in the movement, which is the assault bike. So we use the biker to maximize the adaptation of our legs without any contributing fatigue. That's how I'm going to build my work capacity.

Starting point is 01:25:13 So what they do is Haley knows that when she's on an assault bike that she's typically around 65 RPMs. So she's got to practice that same cadence that she would see on the assault bike on the biker. So when she stands, what's her cadence? 65 to 70 RPMs, which matches her assault bike. But she's doing it while standing. But remember, the assault bike is also seated. So she has to practice seated as well. But what's the cadence when Haley runs?

Starting point is 01:25:43 What's the cadence when Frazier runs what's the cadence when when frazier runs it's all the same it's 160 to 180 steps per minute 168 steps 160 steps and running is 80 rpms 180 steps is 90 rpms so what rpm should they spin at 80 to 90. if you spin and you think you're seated at 50 rpms and you're seated on a damper of six that goes back to what i said that is a total waste of your time it has very little transference and if we're going to ride this thing then why not optimize your running why not optimize what you're trying to do which is the assault bike something that uh kind of comes up for me when i hear this is how are we or how are you mitigating all the tiny little nicks and dings that come along with the volume?

Starting point is 01:26:28 The question first kind of popped into my brain when we were talking about the kick rate and people kicking from their hips and their hamstrings and Frazier not having a developed hip for the kicking motion. Yep. In developing that, you've got him going back and forth and back and forth. And we've got just so much. How are you keeping the volume? Thank you. How are you keeping the volume at a level?

Starting point is 01:26:50 Because they're not just doing what you're doing. They also have to go snatch and clean and jerk and squat and then do different conditioning. How do you keep that many reps at a healthy level so that they can actually show up on competition day? But that's the thing. Someone brought someone brought the real drugs holy shit starbucks good lord this is my dear friend facundo facundo is the guy that helped arrange the tour in europe uh with me and rich and this is my angel from heaven heidi look at that yep i know she brought the coffee i believe it

Starting point is 01:27:22 she got the coffee she's all mine no so the thing about it is is that volume is obviously a concern but here's the thing Matt is not doing all of his work in the pool I recognize the muscle groups and what I need to do is not only fix that muscle group but also the neighboring muscle groups and so I want to make sure that we're limiting the amount of potential injury if he's got a weak hipor, that's a source that's going to cause him a problem down the road. Think about how many movements that are hip flexor related. So what do I do? I do dry land. So we end up building capacity through dry land. I want to improve your hip flexor. You know what I do? Haley knows. I'll give you five rounds of 15 seconds

Starting point is 01:28:05 of Russian twist with a 20 pound ball. Bang that ball on the ground as you rotate. I want the feet off the ground. At the end of that, what do I do? 45 seconds of very slow knee to chest. Recovery. One's high intensity, one's low intensity, one's build fatigue, the other's clear fatigue.

Starting point is 01:28:22 Think of it as running. A running sprint and a jog recovery. Anaerobic, aerobic, fast twitch, slow twitch. And you know what you end up doing? Five rounds, that's five minutes of hip flexor work dry land. And it's isolated. Where did you learn how to do all this? That's the beauty, I think, of CrossFit is that we are functional fitness experts. Well, what about your triathlon days and transferring this into,

Starting point is 01:28:44 is there a way that you just see movement now after so many thousands of miles? Yeah. So that's the thing is like, I close my eyes. If I see Haley do a, let's say I see her do a snatch, you know what I see? And I close my eyes afterwards, nothing, darkness. But in movements where I have spent a lifetime in working on, I see it, and I see it long afterwards. And so I'm able to look at a swim and see it on video in a glimpse and just go, that's the problem. That's the blink thing. Like I went into the pool with Haley, and it was three strokes in,

Starting point is 01:29:17 and I didn't even need to see anymore. Yeah, he knew. Well, there's like in Gladwell's book, Blink, he talks about a guy that could predict double faults at like 95% before the tennis player threw the ball in the air. Just by the way that they approached the line and like held on to their racket. And it was like an insane number of success rate of being able to actually like predict double faults that's chris yeah so that's what i like i like like like when laura and and um kristin holte came and visited they both said we want to get better at our legless rope climbs and i love that part that they want to engage and have that dialogue an athlete who doesn't engage i walk away because part of it is it's a lot of work but i need their involvement because i'm i'm trying to

Starting point is 01:30:10 invent something that hasn't been done it's a conversation right and then i need them to be the guinea pig so remember i said i don't charge for any athlete none like zero because i experiment on them and then if once i get it down and I know it works, I bring it and I show the masses, this is how you're going to increase the number of push-ups. This is your protocols. How do they trust you, though? I don't know if I was the best in the world and you were like,

Starting point is 01:30:38 hey, let's do this thing where you're going to do the push-ups and then we're going to roll over and do the 10-pound plate. I don't know. You can go experiment on someone else. That one sounds a little hoaxy to me. But remember what we said was... Championships. So Rich had a What's Rich Doing weekend this weekend.

Starting point is 01:30:54 Haley attended and worked the whole thing and they did a Q&A and someone asked about the work I did during the Q&A and Rich, what did he say? Oh yeah, Rich said that he always gets inspired by the Henshaw workouts. He uses some of Henshaw's workouts to come up with our stuff for the day. So that's what I'm trying to do.

Starting point is 01:31:11 I'm not trying to create all these workouts. I'm trying to influence a methodology that they then use their own background and experience to create the workouts for that adaptation. But if they don't want to learn, then it's a lost cause. I have a question. So you know Julian Pinault? Yeah. Okay, so the first time we ever trained with him,

Starting point is 01:31:30 one of the first concepts he was outlining to us was that, in his opinion, when CrossFit first came on the scene, it was all about high intensity, like going all the way to your limit like in one short workout, and then you're done for the day, and then you do it again the following days,

Starting point is 01:31:43 you know, three days on, one day off, whatever it was. And he said people got away from that they started pacing they started getting good at pacing and now they're doing three paced workouts throughout the day or whatever it is and so he was trying to get his athletes back to getting to getting back to the intensity of getting to full anaerobic fatigue and so we would do like heavy sled drags all the way to fatigue where we couldn't move the sled. And then he would take one 45-pound plate off the sled where we could pull it a few more feet and then we'd fail again.

Starting point is 01:32:09 He'd take off a little more weight and we'd pull it a few more feet until everyone threw up and that whole deal. That and with jiu-jitsu athletes, we used to put them on the assault bike and we called them tough tests. And you would just go 100% full speed as long as you could tolerate

Starting point is 01:32:26 until you just gave up and got off the bike. And if at any point you could speed up, that meant you were doing it wrong. You weren't going 100% effort because you were able to speed up. For that type of intensity, do you apply that in any case? Or is it all what you've been talking about? No. So I like what you just said. I really do.

Starting point is 01:32:46 And it's in line with what I say as well is that part of the problem is that you can't do a high-intensity effort every single day. That's the surefire way of burning somebody out. They're just going to sit there and go. I mean, could you imagine if you come to the track and you're like, what are we doing today? I'm like, two miles per time. Tomorrow, what are we doing? Two miles per time. Two miles per time. Oh, what are we doing? Two miles per time. Two miles per time.

Starting point is 01:33:06 Oh, no, no, no. Today it's a one mile per time. Eventually you're going to go, I don't want to show up. Totally. And so part of what I think we as coaches are only, our only way of judging our performance, mine. It's not about wins. Those aren't my wins.

Starting point is 01:33:23 Those are her wins. Those are Matt's wins. Rich's wins. Those are theirs. I'm one of the pieces that have helped them. My thing is, is that I have somehow done something that inspires Haley to want to do another one of mine tomorrow. It's the same thing with the gym owner, an affiliate owner, or a coach. If you can inspire that athlete with your programming to come back, then that's the win. And that's the only benchmark if they come back. Because in this day and age with all of the bombarding of options, if they still pick you today, I mean, I'm so proud, Catherine, we're over five and a half years.

Starting point is 01:33:57 Catherine, to somehow inspire her to want to come back, that's the benchmark. And so part of it is that you can't just throttle people. You have to go back to them and go, look, in this workout, I want you to take a short burst like they did the other day. You're going to go 10 seconds as fast as you can, and then I want 50 seconds of easy, easy recovery. And you're going to do that for 20 rounds. I got her to move for that amount of time, but I also got her to do something fast twitch explosive,

Starting point is 01:34:28 and I taught her muscles how to go from fast twitch to slow twitch actively. There is value in there. If I always tell her I want you to do 10 seconds and then rest, then she's only going to get good at that 10 seconds. It's not sustainable. Yeah, where do you see your role? You mentioned Katrin. In working with Ben, how do you see yourself fitting into that puzzle?

Starting point is 01:34:50 Just because there's so many pieces that go into it, and you have to realize he's the coach. So that's the thing is that Ben, there's a lot of athletes that have a coach, and Ben is one of the ones where he's in charge. And so we have dialogue. I sit down. We go and look at workouts together. We talk about it.

Starting point is 01:35:11 But he ultimately has to make the difficult decision. My job, just like an employee would be, is like I'm coming in and I'm going to make my pitch, and I'm going to try my best to fight for my position because this is what I believe she really needs so an example of that is that when we started her mile time was six like ten and we got down to like 525 and and so I said I said to Ben and Katrin I said you know then the goal was 520 and I said if you

Starting point is 01:35:44 want to get to 520 I need another day and they both Ben said, you know, then the goal was 520. And I said, if you want to get to 520, I need another day. And they both, Ben said, no, you get two days. So I said, well, why don't what we do then is let's hold on to 525. And I think her other, like, next target is let's work on our one-minute time domain, 400 meters. Let's work on some speed. And so that's what we did. I maintained but focused on that. The goal was to get her down

Starting point is 01:36:06 to the low 60s. We were about a second and a half away from the target. I went in and I said, I really need another day. The answer is no. So then what do we do? Maintain now the 400. I maintain the mile. And what do I go for? The 3000. That's the thing is that he has the most difficult position because he is trying to also fight for his time. And he's having to balance it. Mine isn't to say whether or not it's right or wrong. It actually makes my job with him super easy because he's bearing 100% of the weight.

Starting point is 01:36:36 I only have to deliver on my side. Yeah, it's a really interesting thing because when you're operating at that high of a level, the people, the athletes, and the number of coaches you need around you, and the number of body maintenance, healers, the whole thing. And now everybody is fighting

Starting point is 01:36:53 for what is probably an eight-hour day of that athlete showing up to work to train, recover, train, recover, all those pieces, and everyone probably wants an extra day. But for me, I have never held back on the knowledge that I have, ever. Like, I feel like my expertise is riding workouts, riding workouts and understanding the relationship of volume,

Starting point is 01:37:21 intensity, and recovery. You know, and people don't understand how to incorporate recovery into a workout, right? If you're doing five by five back squat, you're going to take three minutes of rest. And the reason why you take three minutes is because your priority is I have to do five repetitions at a particular load. Well, my argument would be is how do you know you get three minutes in a competition or in a workout? What if you only get a minute? Now you're stuck. Yeah. So part is, is that for me, I share all of that information with them 100%. A lot of coaches, they feel that's their intellectual property,

Starting point is 01:37:53 and that's where you run into trouble because you get this because I said so. My job is to defend a position. So if I am defining and saying our workout today is it's going to be six sprints up this hill to that 50 meter point on a 12 percent incline. And what I want you to do is after you hit the top of that, I want you to come down to the bottom of it. And the reason what I want you to do is I want you to walk down to the bottom. As soon as you hit the bottom, I want you to go again. And the response back is that's not enough recovery time. That's what I'm driving at is that I want you to not have enough recovery.

Starting point is 01:38:26 And so number one is you're fastest and you're going to get progressively slower. And the reason why I want you to do this, Katrin, is because I want to improve your anaerobic capacity, your speed under a very high dose of lactate. And when we do that, we are going to engage a buffering system. And I fight for it. If Ben sits there and says, you know what engage a buffering system, and I fight for it. If Ben sits there and says, you know what, her buffering system and that movement is fine, then we drop it. And that's the great thing with Ben is that he's smart. He's been around.

Starting point is 01:38:55 He's been programming at a very high level for a long amount of time, so those conversations for me and him are very engaging. It's fast. I want to talk about kind of the new direction of CrossFit and moving into the health piece. But before we get into that, what are you learning with the athletes? Like, what are the things you don't know right now? So part of what I've recognized is that, you know, CrossFit's obviously maturing. And there is a tendency to always just drive

Starting point is 01:39:26 towards high intensity. But the definition of high intensity is it needs to be clarified at the affiliate level. The number one program workout is the 5K. Let's say it takes you 30 minutes to do a 5K. It's still a maximal effort, but it's 30 minutes. Is that high intensity? Of course it. It's still a maximal effort, but it's 30 minutes. Is that high intensity? Of course it is because it's a maximal effort.

Starting point is 01:39:49 Or is high intensity an eight-second sled push? So that's the thing is that what it's based upon is the time domain that you're telling these athletes that they have to work for. So what I want is I want to improve your 5K but not run a 5K. I want you to do an 8-second sprint, and then what I want you to go into is your 30-minute 5K pace as an active recovery. I want to get you to develop a broad range of abilities based upon time. I feel like I used to play a lot of these games with the ERG.

Starting point is 01:40:19 10 hard strokes, 20 5K strokes. The ERG was always an interesting piece. I've never really been a very comfortable runner, Yes. 20, 25K strokes. Yep. The ERG was always an interesting piece. I've never really been like a very comfortable runner, but on the ERG you can see the meters right there, the outputs right there, so it's a much easier game to play. I would play a game. I would play this game with you.

Starting point is 01:40:38 What I would do is I would tell you, you know what I want to see? What I want to see is I want you to go on the row erg and what I want you to do is I want you to pull 250 meters at what you consider a moderate pace. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to look at the total meters you accumulated in that moderate pace and then what we're going to do is we're going to go eight more rounds and I'm going to give you an adequate recovery between those. And what I'm going to look at is the deviation of your ability to hit that same number of meters in those remaining rounds. The kicker is that you're not going to get a look at the monitor in those remaining rounds.

Starting point is 01:41:12 You're going to have to do it by feel. I work out with my eyes closed all day long. I work out with my eyes closed more than I do with my eyes open these days. So what if I gave you that moderate pace, a fast pace, and an easy pace? I think I'd smash that just because I practice it all. I would smash the idea of the workout because I'm comfortable in that place now, but the actual

Starting point is 01:41:32 performance piece, I might not be there. So the key is that finding what speed that you're the furthest off in from an average point between the fast rounds, the moderate, and the easy, and there's your weakness. I actually try to row by sound now versus look at the monitor. So I had a coach.

Starting point is 01:41:50 Look, this thing's 22 years deep in my life right now. I can't have fun doing regular shit. I have to find the weirdest way to do it and just being as present as possible. I mean, we go from work and doing all life, and then all of a sudden we get an hour. And, like, how do I turn this experience into, like, a borderline meditative way to lift weights and perform at whatever my capacity is? And now everything done with your eyes closed

Starting point is 01:42:17 forces the... forces things to go from the external, what do I look like, and what am I seeing, to how do I feel? Which is a really awesome way to work out. And then when you close your eyes, you have to use all of the other senses that matter to you. So now all of a sudden the chain and the way the erg is making noise becomes how I tell how fast I'm going.

Starting point is 01:42:42 But that's super advanced, right? So part of what is, I mean, look at what happens. But that's super advanced, right? So part of what is... I mean, look at what happens when you go into a gym, right? I mean, most people, they just want to be told what to do. I want people to be engaged, and so they take that ownership of the workout on them. How do I tell you how to attack your workout? If I have 40 people coming into a class,

Starting point is 01:43:04 how is it that I know what your capabilities are? What my job is to write amazing program, explain the purpose of the workout so that you could come up with a strategy so that you then execute on it. And then on your drive home, you evaluate your performance on how you could have done better. That obligation of the workout and the tactics, the strategy is on you. If I can get you to buy in on that, if I can get you to believe that, then you're going to come back. But if I'm just pushing content and I'm just saying, do it, do it, do it, do it, they're gone. And then it goes back to the same thing. Zero retention. There's too many distractions out

Starting point is 01:43:43 there. And so part is, is like, you're really advanced in the things you're saying and you're taking what you're saying to me. I mean, you're taking that ownership. I guarantee that the average person has no idea if they're better at a two minute, 500 meter pace, a two 15 or a three. They have no idea because they don't know how to do that. It's been an interesting process i mean i i just really got so bored with so many things like that was really what started it and then uh yeah i like there's so many different ways to just i if load and intensity and time are the only metrics to view a way to grow those run out really really quickly when you hit 32 years old. You've got to get recovery in there.

Starting point is 01:44:26 Recovery. Yeah, so how do I continue to advance this conversation in my own brain? And it leads to that. So that's where I'm driving is that I think that recovery needs to be addressed and we need to be looking at ways to improve the ability to recover i mean a perfect example is firefighters so you know i do a bunch of work with firefighters and they when they go and fight a fire they go in and they have to wear you know scuba the tank and because of adrenaline and stuff the tank normally lasts for 20 minutes because of their inability to recover after a 20-minute

Starting point is 01:45:05 battle with the tank, they're not allowed, they're not deemed fit enough to go back in to fight. That means that that individual, that firefighter has a capacity of one 20-minute tank. So you can look at a fire and go, you know what? This fire is going to take me 40 tanks. I got

Starting point is 01:45:21 40 guys, and they're capable of doing one tank. That bad that's bad yeah that's bad and so part of it is is that why is it that they can't recover in after they go in with the tank what is their limiting factor and it i not through improving their max speed or their one rep lift if i can accelerate that they were going to recover, I could potentially double the capacity of the firefighting. Improving the rate of recovery. And that is the thing that is really, for me, the direction.

Starting point is 01:45:55 Frazier, he did 13 heavy D balls over the shoulder and one in 25. What was getting in his way? He got tired. Spencer Hendel, what was getting in the way of him? He got tired. How many pushups can was getting in the way of him he got tired how many push-ups can you do unbroken and why can't you do one more i get tired yeah so part of it is is like let's slow down i'll give you your intensity but i also want you to do a thruster with the pvc pipe instead of sitting and doing nothing it's one of the one of my like one of

Starting point is 01:46:21 the best questions from like everyone likes to do fran with 95, like, everyone likes to do Fran with 95 pounds, but no one wants to do it with 65. Yeah. Because you have to go too fast. You've got to push the limit so hard. It gets so scary. It's going to hurt way more. So how about this one?

Starting point is 01:46:36 I want you to do Fran, and I want you to finish in three minutes, and I want you to take ownership in the weight. I want you to take ownership in how you're doing your pull-ups, and I want it done in three minutes. And I don't want a maximal effort. I want you to retain control. So let's just call it 98. And that's not even the core of the workout. What I want you to do, and I'm going to write five movements up on the board. And the movements are a floor press with the PVC. I want you to do a shoulder press with the PVC, a deadlift with the PVC, and let's just call it, what's that? Did you say air squat?

Starting point is 01:47:06 Yeah, air squat. Yeah. And what I want you to do is you're going to finish this three-minute Fran, and what do normal people, what do we all do at the end of Fran? Fall on the ground. Right. But that's what, okay, so I want you to recover, catch your breath, but why do we lay on the ground after Fran?

Starting point is 01:47:25 Because of the amount of lactate that's throughout our entire body. We didn't just create localized lactate. We now created global lactate where it's flooded every muscle fiber. And now we can clear fatigue in any movement that we do because the lactate is going to be used as fuel and it will be pulled out of the bloodstream, processed through the muscle. So you are going to take one of those movements that I wrote down on the wall, and you're going to pick your weakness. And what I want you to do is accumulate in a jog recovery pace

Starting point is 01:47:55 two minutes of total time in one of those movements. And what we're teaching you is how to extract that lactate out of the blood and process it through your slow twitch recovery fibers we have now used a metcon to improve our ability to recover in our weak movement i don't know how much you think about this while you're programming these things but we interviewed izzy muhammad and he created he the way he views a lot of this stuff is he's tinkering with things like this and clearly he's been around rich i'm sure you've worked with him as well but stuff is he's tinkering with things like this, and clearly he's been around Rich. I'm sure you've worked with him as well. But he's viewing everything that's going in as this download. So when he shows up to competition day, it's like,

Starting point is 01:48:33 I need to do 100 GHDs, whatever it is. He's like, okay, well, I can hit 10, rest 20 seconds, 10, 20 seconds, and I can do that all day long. I know how to recover in between those pieces. I know the exact amount of time that I need to go and perform the next piece that I need to do. And it sounds like that is almost invaluable to the way that you're able to mix these things up and get the recovery piece in there. So when you show up on game day, there's no, it doesn't matter what comes out. We've tested the highest level. We've tested 80%. We've tested 70%. We've

Starting point is 01:49:06 tested all these pieces and we know how to recover in between each of them so that we're moving through this. It's just the body knows exactly what's going on. Well, and once we start that process and she's doing it too young. She's going to have a freaking database inside you that's unbelievable.

Starting point is 01:49:22 That's why I think Chris and I work so well together because all the stuff that he says is like drilled inside my head and he knows my already knows my easy medium moderate fast paces and I'm like what do you think I hit and he tells me it's exactly it. Yeah so that's part of it is understanding you have a whole spectrum of intensities even in lifting you know define your load that you're lifting as your intensity and you know people know they're one rep three rep rep, 5 rep, 10 rep, 20 rep. But do you know if it's a 10-minute time domain, a 5-minute time domain, a 50-minute time? Do you know?

Starting point is 01:49:52 And people don't know. Why? Because it just hasn't become the priority yet. It hasn't. We have to get through all of the other priorities like once if you're a male like is it better to spend your time knowing that you have to snatch at a minimum 275 these days to be even remotely relevant is it is your time better spent doing pure strength work and a pure olympic lifting thing or is it playing with these intensities and finding where you're going as and then kind of like everything will rise together so that's

Starting point is 01:50:25 that's the direction what we recognize and what crossfit is bringing in i mean i i gotta hand it to glassman what what he really did is he created this sport for the athlete that got pushed aside the athlete that loved sport they loved health and fitness but because they weren't at the extremes they got they they were told like you're not welcome to be on the team. You didn't make it. You got cut. And what we have found is that this center population of people that has an even distribution of fast twitch and slow twitch fibers, the ones that sit in the middle are creating a

Starting point is 01:50:58 level of human performance that's never been seen before. And what we're recognizing with the average population is that they need to do those heavy lifts, those one rep, three reps to challenge their central nervous system. And what we're recognizing is that these, let's call them recreational middle of the non-Olympian periphery athletes, that those heavy lifts are offering a significant contribution in terms of their economy in the movement that they want to become proficient at. So as a runner, what we're recognizing is that an athlete within CrossFit can run two days a week,

Starting point is 01:51:35 but because they're doing a high CNS stimulus weightlifting movement like back squats, deadlifts, it is contributing to a significant degree on the motor fiber recruitment in those movements such as running it is an incredible direction you brought up the the definition of of crossfit a couple times and i think functional movements we can all buy into that of maximum muscle recruitment big joint to small joint like that that we can buy into that the the idea of variance i don't think i've ever heard anybody take it as far as you have and that's it's phenomenal um we need to be talking more about the variance piece but when it gets into the high intensity piece of the definition i start to have a real problem with it and it sounds like we don't need that piece anymore we need to be

Starting point is 01:52:20 talking about variance of intensity versus high intensity so what what I'm doing is I'm actually hybriding constantly varied and high intensity. So what I'm saying is that if I have you do a five-second sled sprint as fast as you possibly can, that's high intensity. But if I send you to the track and I say, I want you to run 60 minutes on the track as fast as you can, they're maximal efforts. But if I look at the meters per second that you're moving, there's a dramatic difference. But your level of intensity is a maximal effort, right? It's just going to be a different intensity to get there. Right. And so what I want is I want to develop a broad range of abilities. See, you're not a specialist. So I don't know if you're going to have to do a 40-yard sprint or a 400-meter run or a 4,000-meter run. I don't know. But as an

Starting point is 01:53:10 individual and anybody that's here at Guadalupalooza that's doing this sport or interested, I'm going to develop your ability in all of those time domains, every one of them. And so no matter what gets dropped in your lap, you're confident you will be successful in it i'm not going to create an olympian level 5000 meter runner i'm not because you know what that's a specialist we are generalists in this sport and you know what we could do whatever comes on our plate we're going to be good at it so when we have all of these pieces in the constant variance and crossfit starts to change the conversation, though, and now it's this big health and wellness piece.

Starting point is 01:53:48 Now we've got relatively old, somewhat out-of-shape-looking people doing burpees on the main site and picking up water jugs. Like, this conversation is level. Like, this is your doctorate level in variance and high intensity and thresholds and all this stuff. Where does the regular person kind of start to put these pieces together in this new direction of CrossFit? If you're the SME of understanding what's going on

Starting point is 01:54:18 and someone looks to what you're doing and now they're looking at what CrossFit's new message is there's a bit of a gap there and how we speak to people that are looking to just move better and learn weightlifting I do understand

Starting point is 01:54:37 learn lifting weights, sorry not weightlifting I do understand and appreciate what you said but I want to also condition that where the people that go to the CrossFit Games, they're the anomalies. They're the outliers. The people that are 75 years old that are getting out of the chair or picking up milk jugs, that is, if you think about it, the original definition of what Glassman was doing. Think about it. Rich Froning in the beginning, when he started, he wanted to play baseball, but you know what they told him? You he started he wanted to play baseball but you know

Starting point is 01:55:05 what they told him you're not good enough to play but you know what crossfit will take you crossfit is a group of people the population the 99 that sits in the middle the people that love fitness they're just not welcome at these extremes yeah and what glassman did is he accepted them and he created greatness in that group and then as it evolved it fractured into this elitist top level but that is like the anomalies the core of what CrossFit represents is the broad population the 99% of the people that didn't have a place and now there's this community and to say that to say that that a 75 year old or someone in these movements it's bringing right now awareness that that group is welcome they're welcome and we got to make sure

Starting point is 01:55:55 that we're not losing sight of what the original foundation of crossfit was i think in all honesty i think what your message is is a much safer better way to go about all of it. Like, let's just get people moving and teach them what 70% looks like. Right. Like, get them to feel 70% instead of just go. Yeah. Like, I think that there should be a better education piece to CrossFit that you don't just show up for your workout. We have coaches talking about, I mean, this new breathing,

Starting point is 01:56:22 nasal breathing thing. Like, do we have to have all that? No, but at least it brings awareness to the fact that you can't go balls to the walls five days a week because that's, like you said, today we're going to run one RM, two mile. Same thing tomorrow. Same thing the next day. We can't do that anymore, and I think that there's a real piece

Starting point is 01:56:40 of the conversation that needs to be led with let's talk about variance in intensity and how we can program workouts in a general population where you don't have to wax people all day long every day so i'm lucky enough to so crossfit partnered up with me on the aerobic capacity course and one of the things that i know from my conversations with crossfit is that this educational piece that you bring up is one of the foundations, one of the pillars that they're really going to be targeting long term, that they recognize that this is a very unique population of people that is doing a sport that's never been done before, and it's evolving. I mean, to think that, I was very controversial when I started. I mean,

Starting point is 01:57:20 very. To think about pacing something, and they come and say, we want to partner with you. It shows how receptive that they are to people that are moving the needle. Because the sport's evolving. It's changing. And what they recognize is that as information becomes available, they want to partner up with people that help people learn. They want to be a resource for education for the population within this community. So affiliate owners, level ones, level twos can come into these educational pieces, whether it's online or in person, and learn. One of the things that they

Starting point is 01:57:57 like about what I'm presenting is every single piece that I learn and that vetted out with these elites, I bring it into the course. And then my job is to go out and find the next piece so that the course continuously improves. And they like that. They're encouraged by that. And so I think that long-term, CrossFit, they recognize. I mean, let's talk about business. He gets money from where? Where does CrossFit make money? The affiliate and from education. So you know what? And they smash it.

Starting point is 01:58:29 But we have to keep, you know what? If you don't keep your eye on the prize, then what happens? People don't show. And so part is that we can strengthen our affiliates if we continuously provide them education for the people that come into the gym. Yep. And if you don't, if you alienate the 75-year-old people, then you know what? There's a huge percentage of our aging population that's going to get ignored.

Starting point is 01:58:48 Yeah. You said many times that on the topic of education and trying to push the ball down the field, so to speak, and learn and innovate and try new things that you don't charge for your services with these high-level athletes because you get to experiment on them. I'm curious, in your mind, were there times where you're like, I got a fucking great idea, and then you tried it in practice and it totally didn't work? Do you have any examples like that that just crashed and burned?

Starting point is 01:59:13 Well, I mean, the fear of drowning one, I mean, I almost lost a life that day. No, I mean, sometimes they don't go that well. That could have gone poorly. I mean, one time I was sitting there, and the thing is, is like with Ridge Froding, you get caught up in his ability, and you're almost, you think he could do anything.

Starting point is 01:59:33 And so I'm sitting there, and he's doing handstand push-ups, and he kind of came down, and I then played with him on doing a push-up plate jump where it's a ballistic, and you explode in the bottom of the push-up, and you land on the top of the plate, just like you would do, like, uh a plate hop you know so i didn't yo bud my baby facetime me i gotta go and so i'm sitting there and rich just like on plates he he i don't know how many had like 9 45s you know and he went from on the middle of it, he jumped up and he got up to nine, explodes up.

Starting point is 02:00:07 And I'm like, I turned to him, I said, Rich, can you do a handstand jump? And he's like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, I mean, like the same thing that you did with the push-up onto the plate with the plates outside your shoulders. Can we just put a couple of plates outside your shoulder? You go up on the wall, you go down and explode up and land on the plate. He almost became a quadriplegic that day.

Starting point is 02:00:32 Yeah. Whew. God! But I mean, if he jumps on nine points. But we tried. Wait, did you start with just jumping and landing with his hands in the same spot? Or did you go right to the plates?

Starting point is 02:00:44 The 45. Well, because that's where you- The 10s, it could have been anything. Did you start with just jumping and landing with his hands in the same spot? Or did you go right to the plates? The 45. Well, because that's where you – The 10s. It could have been anything. It could have been a full map. Yeah, but he – But we went for it. Well, because he's that way.

Starting point is 02:00:54 It's like you look at it. Don't be a pansy. Just try it. Let's go to the extreme because he makes it look everything is – Rich, I'm telling you. Does he win every day in training? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:01:06 Anything. I don't – I've heard from a couple people that he is just different. EZ Muhammad specifically laid out just like that whole thing with him and how meticulous he is and how just – he actually – it was one of the first times we talked about it after the show after we interviewed him at the Granite Games. And it was interesting because the way EZ described it was almost in a way of like, you don't want to be rich.

Starting point is 02:01:42 You don't want to have to deal with the things that he deals with because there's so much pressure in his own brain on himself and the training and the perfection and all of it of you really don't want, you think you want to win the games seven times or whatever it is now, but you don't want to be rich. I would love to. Well, you're one of those people. I would love to.

Starting point is 02:02:04 Congratulations. It's like if I had to go to the team games again this year, I would be like, I want to win all events this year. Yeah. And I would love that pressure. I mean, I know it's probably not easy, and I know I've kind of felt something like that before. Not to his extent, but I think he handles it well, though.

Starting point is 02:02:20 That was the thing about this tour with Rich, is it was important when we went to Europe. So we did 17 two-hour classes in seven countries in seven days. And it was important for me to get him out in front of people that have never had the chance to meet him and to understand what he's about and what drives him. Because he is an anomaly and his drive is unlike anything that you would ever ever even come across and it was important for him to see what people's perception of him ironically coming out of that it was interesting to see the changes that are happening in CrossFit and all what Glassman is doing and the

Starting point is 02:02:59 reaction over in Europe it is overwhelmingly positive over there. They recognize the opportunity that he is creating for all of these countries and the amount of enthusiasm. It rolls back the clock here in the U.S. 10 years where there's this groundswell of like, wow, we can actually, and there's opportunity on a scale in every country. And that, unless you go over there, I mean, we saw that. We saw in these countries where it's like, this is awesome. Yeah, what's really cool about Glassman is that at one point in time, he was just a personal trainer.

Starting point is 02:03:36 Right. And now he's done pretty well for himself for just being a guy that teaches squats. Yeah. It's really, really impressive. He's really dialed into the future clearly and knows where this thing's going and what. He may not have all of the specifics, but he's really bright. He knows what's going on.

Starting point is 02:03:55 Incredibly bright. He knows his impact. Incredibly bright. I mean, that's the thing is that he knows the direction. He's very smart. And, I mean, I'm not trying to stroke him. He's very smart. And I'm not trying to stroke him. He's very smart. We've had really these conversations and where he wants to go.

Starting point is 02:04:10 And keep in mind that Glassman, when he got his start, he released all these workouts on.com for free. Yep. I mean, he wasn't driven by money at all in the beginning. He wanted to prove that what he was doing is accurate. He's not all about chasing dollars and money. Comes from a science background. Right.

Starting point is 02:04:26 And he firmly believes, though, he believes that this is right. And it's not just a recent thing. This approach has carried him from the beginning. He never chased money in the beginning because he chased his passion and his belief. And although this health and where that's going i don't participate in any of that i have to assume that there's some method into that reasoning because all of his approach through the history of what he's evolved has not been about chasing of money it was about chasing a passion and belief that he genuinely is confident in.

Starting point is 02:05:07 It would be interesting one day if all of a sudden CrossFit turns into, like, a brain health platform. Like, we figured the physical out. We understand a lot of these pieces. And now all of a sudden it's like now we're getting into the brain health. I listened to our show the other day. You got me thinking about brain health a lot these days, bro. I think about it a lot.

Starting point is 02:05:23 Yeah. Brain health. Well, I actually, so part of it is i think that if you look at it crossfit has created this incredible name this brand and one of the things iron man in hawaii was the same thing iron man created the hawaiian iron man there was one event and iron man recognized that it the value if they were going to turn this into global awareness they had to take this brand that they created and make it more regionalized. So you know what they did back in my era? They created five Ironmans around the world.

Starting point is 02:05:53 And what they did is they created a point series. And if you wanted to win the big prize purse, you had to accumulate points. Whoever got the most points won the most money. So it forced the elite level triathletes back in the day to go to it was new zealand germany canada hawaii uh brazil and we had to compete and what it did was by having these athletes forced to go to these competitions around the world it developed ironman within those regions how many ironman events are there every year? 200? And they all carry the Ironman name.

Starting point is 02:06:28 They all do. And that's what CrossFit essentially has done with these sanctionals is they've forced these athletes to travel. I mean, Haley's going to London at the end of February. She never would have done that. She never would have done that. Yeah, without their help. Hey, this has been

Starting point is 02:06:46 phenomenal. Thanks, man. I really, really appreciate it. I feel like we could do another hour here. We're just getting started on this thing. Where can people find the seminar? You... Did you move to Cookville? So, yeah, we went. Heidi and I went there. Why does Froning do this to people?

Starting point is 02:07:02 You know why? You moved from California. You got rid of your surfboard to go to Cookville, Tennessee, where there's a freaking pond that Froning's dad built. We surfed down that pond. Oh, my gosh. What do you think, Kelly Slater's going to show up and build one of his little wave pools? No, you're in Cookville.

Starting point is 02:07:21 Kelly Slater's not going there. No, but Kelly Slater would come to our zip line that takes you over the pole. Yeah, he probably would. Yeah, he would. No, I, yeah, what Rich has done, though, is he has surrounded himself with amazing people that keep you, like, inspired. Yeah. And that's what he's done. And that's his magic is he's surrounded himself with people that really leave you, like, I feel good about myself.

Starting point is 02:07:44 And that's the magic. Yeah, so you could find me. So we're just about to release our year's courses with CrossFit. You can find those through CrossFit HQ, but we're going to release 30 courses around the world. A lot of them are in Europe because of the amount of interest there. We've got a bunch in South America. We're going off to the Middle East.

Starting point is 02:08:06 How many coaches are on your staff? I teach every one of them. Oh, my Lord. He's really good, too. Get that guy some frequent flyer miles. No, so part of it is that I like going out there, and I like seeing what's happening in the community, and it shapes the direction of where I want to go,

Starting point is 02:08:22 and I learn a lot from that. That's one of the pieces that helped me keep my edge. Um, the other thing is, is that you can go to aerobic capacity.com. Um, you got a wealth of information that's there. You could sign up either for the seminars, their programming, you have training plans and stuff. There's training plans. Matter of fact, all the workouts that end up getting vetted out by all these games athletes all get put in through that. There it is. So that's where we experiment on them, every one of them. Where are you going in this CrossFit world?

Starting point is 02:08:52 Tell me what does the vision of your life look like? You've won the CrossFit Games at 17 years old. Let's talk about the future. What does it look like? Well, this year I'm going to compete on Mayhem Independence, but I'm still doing individual comps because that's the end goal. I'm still in high school, so if I decide to stay in Cookville and go to college there, then that's where I'll go.

Starting point is 02:09:18 Or if it takes me somewhere else, then I'll go somewhere else. But the main goal is always going to be, it's kind of hard to say, but win the individual CrossFit Games. Whether that takes five years, it's going to take a lot of work, but I've got the right people to help me. She's training with Froning, Frazier, Tia. Right? Yeah.

Starting point is 02:09:35 That's a huge intimidating factor. Now that I'm old, when you look back on your life and you don't realize you're in a really really cool place, you know you're in a really, really cool place. I do. You know you're in a cool place already. The interesting thing about looking back at times is you're like, oh my God, I learned

Starting point is 02:09:54 so many lessons that were just a part of the daily conversation. And I've had some really, really, really cool training partners and business partners. And hanging out with that guy where you just, man, you don't just the daily conversation is the most important thing that you have in your life and the people around it. And it's super impressive what you've done. So congratulations. That's really awesome. Well said. Doug Larson. Hold on.

Starting point is 02:10:20 Where can people find you? Social and all that. My Instagram. There's a lot of Haley. So it's Haley Adams, but with four S's. We're going to get that work done. You should be number one. You need a blue checkmark.

Starting point is 02:10:35 That would be nice. Like, I ride the bike standing up, and I don't even have a blue checkmark. What's going on? Gosh. Call Zuckerberg. We got to get him on the standing bike. Let's do it. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:10:46 Well, thank you, guys. We've got a camera to make this happen. Thank you very much. Thank you. Really good. Doug Larson. What can we do? Where can we find you?

Starting point is 02:10:53 Follow me on Instagram at DouglasyLarson. Yeah. DougLarsonFitness.com. Barbell Shrug. Wednesdays and Saturdays. I'm Anders Varner. At Anders Varner. Follow us at Barbell Shrug.

Starting point is 02:11:02 At Barbell Shrug. That's not right. At Shrug Collective. Damn. A year and a half later, I still got it all messed up. Get into iTunes, YouTube. Tell us you like us. Leave a nice comment, people.

Starting point is 02:11:16 And we'll see you next week. Shrug fam, that is a podcast right there. If you're going to do it, you better go and do it and smash it just like we did with Henshaw. That guy crushed. How about Haley? Man, tickets to hang out with all the cool kids all the time.

Starting point is 02:11:34 She's in such just an amazing opportunity to learn from the best at such a young age that just those conversations just wash over you when you're her age. One day she's going to wake up and be like, oh my gosh, I am ready to attack the world. Get ready. She's crushing it. Make sure you get over to Instagram.

Starting point is 02:11:53 Follow me at Anders Varner. Every Thursday I'm putting up a Q&A. I'm answering the coolest question I got on Instagram TV. I'm putting it also on the show. I'm just trying to connect with all of you guys. Every time you reach out and you're over at Anders Warner and you hit me with a DM, I'm writing back. I enjoy the conversations. You're the audience. I appreciate the hell out of you. This has been the coolest experience of all time. I'm going to say it every week because I'm

Starting point is 02:12:19 so grateful that I get to spread my love for strength and conditioning and CrossFit and all the things to you. Be strong people pursue strength. It's the greatest thing ever. Just be in the gym, get strong bleeds into every aspect of our life. And if you do it as well as you can for as long as you can, amazing things will happen to you in your life. And I'm so grateful that I get to be here. Want to thank our sponsors again, get over to Organifi.com forward slash shrugged. You can save 20% on the green, the red, and the gold juices using the coupon code shrugged. And then Sunlightened.com. Three-in-one infrared saunas. Man, they're awesome.

Starting point is 02:12:59 Mine's set up in my garage. I'm in it all the time. Set up a call. Save $200 using the coupon code SHRUG. And we're going to be back next week. I appreciate the hell out of you. See ya!

Barbell Shrugged - Chris Hinshaw: The Man, Mind, and Coach for Mat Fraser, Rich Froning, Tia Clair Toomey, and Team Mayhem — Barbell Shrugged #379

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