Barbell Shrugged - Episode 8 - iTunes ONLY w/Michelle Kinney

Episode Date: April 23, 2012

The Barbell Shrugged crew is joined by two-time CrossFit games participant, 2010's Central East regional female champion, future CrossFit affiliate owner, and all around badass Michelle Kinney to discuss the upcoming CrossFit games as well as opening up a box.

So let's go ahead and get started here. Yep. All right. I'm Mike Bledsoe here. This is Barbell Shrug. We have Chris Moore, CTP, and our guest, Michelle Kinney. What's going on? We are going to interrogate her today about all sorts of topics. So she wanted to talk primarily about the Open and upcoming regionals for the 2012 CrossFit season. So we just finished the Open yesterday.

By we, you mean y'all. I didn't do shit. At Faction, we pretty much did the awards every Saturday. So we wrapped it up yesterday. And then half the crowd went out last night, and then the other half the crowd didn't make it out last night. So it seems like the people who performed better during the Open just stayed home last night. There's probably some correlation.

Too tired to go out for overpriced drinks. They weren't overpriced. They probably were. So you were talking about a little bit of a bias in regard to the CrossFit Open. No matter what happens in the Open, the cream still rises to the top. Yeah. How do you feel about that? I agree with them to some extent.

We saw in the Open last year, i focus on the women's side so if i give examples it's mostly women just because that's i'm focusing on the people that i'm competing against but about half of the top 50 in the entire world did not make the games through their regional their respective regional now some of them were in difficult regions like SoCal, which is nearly impossible to get through when you have Valley CrossFit in that region. And they sent three Valley girls and not a single other person from another gym in the entire southern portion of California. So they're good. They're really good. Who's probably going to win for them?

I would really love to know. I'd like to meet them. But this year, you know, there's a lot of – everybody, you know, the CrossFit community is a bunch of big whiners for the most part, or at least those are the ones that surface that complain about the programming of the Open. But I do think that for the most part – well, I know absolutely it does its job in putting the 60 men and women in the regionals that have the best shot of making the games.

So, like Glassman said, you know, the people between 40th and 70th place in each region, really doesn't matter. No, it doesn't. It sucks for the guy that got 61st, doesn't get to go to regionals and experience that, but you can't worry about that. You have to worry about it doing its job to find the fittest man and woman on earth.

Well, if it's GPP, why are you bitching? I mean. Exactly. But, you know, it's like there's a lot of arguments about how this year's Open wasn't heavy enough, but I actually think it was. We saw the burpees, which everybody complained about. For me, those are heavy. Yeah.

Well, it turns out that the burpees were my worst workout, which is very counterintuitive to how I've been up until this year as an athlete. But with the snatches, I mean, it got heavy, and if you're strong enough, you got a better score. And with the push press, at that volume, that was heavy too because even these so-called strong guys, if they're putting that barbell down, that means there's a heavy component too, that they were going to muscle failure in some regard.

And even with the thrusters, I know it was, you know, Fran weight, so it wasn't particularly heavy, but it's this barbell motion, you know, constant over and over, who can last the longest with that in their hands. So what do you think? I mean, you're talking about there being a heavy component like i feel like i didn't see a heavy component and we talked about like the snatch ladder so it went from what was it uh what was it for the guys 75 75 and then we jumped to 135 pretty insane 165 really and then so it's like recipe for fucked up shoulders and snatch form.

Yeah, for me personally, I'm a strong snatcher for a CrossFitter, but also I don't last that long. I'm afraid I wouldn't even get to the 165. Insert jokes where you want them. Yeah, you didn't see the One Rope Max event, and they didn't show it last year, and I didn't think they would this year at all. But Valenzuela, who's one of the strongest women in CrossFit, annihilated it. She was first, and it kind of showed.

They didn't do really a one rep max in the 2011 games either. And being able to sustain that muscular strength across 12 minutes or 10 minutes, whatever it was, that's more CrossFit than that one rep max strength component. Yeah, I could buy that. But, I mean, what's wrong or right, I'm not here to say. How many people got injured during that WOD? That's what I want to know. I have no idea. I think there was more reports of ruptured Achilles during the box jumps

and the 18-minute AMRAP. I don't get why everybody ruptures these damn Achilles tendons. They're jumping off the boxes a million times. It's just the high volume of the tendon. Fast, eccentric load on that tendon, man. I'm really smart. I stepped down from the box, bro. Hey, I did too.

Every single rep. That gets into the whole thing about what we used to talk about with criticisms of CrossFit and other sports. Like when I played football, we used to do box jumps. Every morning we got up at 4 a.m. during the spring. It seems insane. You were in the turf at 4.30 in the morning. And they have stations. And there's going to be mat drills.

Some asshole holds a football. Hut one, hut two, move this way, move that way, go down, come this way, go, next group up. Stand up. Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Hit the ground. And one was always a box jump thing. Hit, hit, hit, hit, hit. Like you do like fucking 100 reps the time you're there. Box jumps.

Yeah, yeah, just countless ones. And I go, well, you know the point the whole point is the train getting off the ground as fast as possible i mean you go to the fatigue you don't get off the ground very fast why are you doing a box jump like clean jerks and snatches if the goal is to prove such high amounts of force and power i could see some reps, but like hundreds of reps of snatches. It's like, you know, is it novel? Yeah.

But is it going to fuck up your snatch form for weeks and weeks after this? Probably. I had a really good snatch session the next week. Did you? I was like, bam. It was easy. I'll tell you what. You know, there's been a lot of criticism from Olympic lifters that haven't done CrossFit

and stuff like that. But I'll tell you what, I've been in the midst of, like, heavy CrossFit training where I'm doing a lot of high rep weightlifting movements. And then I ended up hitting PRs, like, within, you know, it would be like, you know. But your form is good. Do that have an impact versus somebody who does a muscle snatch every one of those? I'm sure that there's that tipping point where you go from, you know, is doing a lot of reps going to make you better or worse?

Maybe if you're an athlete who's just lazy and isn't trying to get better as they're doing the 50 snatches or something, then you might be seeing improvement versus not seeing improvement well i think the key here is that this is a competition workout and i doubt it's going to be programmed at your regular crossfit box for you all right today we're going to do i hope not yeah yeah i'm not i'm not sure doing snatches like guys except if you want to train to get better at that you're going to get hurt oh if it's fucking randomly hey let's fucking randomly, hey, it's a sumi snatch you can do today, bro.

Yeah. You're probably okay. But if you're like, I'm going to train to get better at this thing, you're going to fuck up your shoulder. Yeah.

It has to be inevitable. Yeah, well, you can't train a specific thing. A testing activity, not a building activity, I guess, as some would say.

Exactly. Right. Yeah. Actually, that actually brings up one thing I've thought about in regard to you how convenient whoa it's like we were like on the same page so almost every crossfit athlete

goes through it they go through they go from that point where they're like they're doing crossfit.com or they're doing that that testing type uh workout every day you know they're doing named workouts constantly maxing out constantly and i i've seen your training since then and uh like I remember seeing you trained a while back and training now and I think it's changed a bit so like what was at what point did you change from like testing like all the time to you know more training um pretty much this past December 2011 I kind of I was looking for something different after the 2011 games.

How did you place in that game? 17th. Super disappointed in that. It taught me a lot that entire weekend about what it takes to be a games-level athlete. In 2010, I was brand new to the sport. I started in September 2009, was at my first sectional competition within a few months, and then won sectionals. And I was like, hey, this CrossFit sport's kind of cool. And then I ended up winning regionals. And I was like,

I'm good at this, you know, and then 2010 games, I got 10th. And I was like, man, you know, I could do even better next year if I, you know, focusing on things well it turned out to be the opposite because I if there wasn't smart programming that went into it there is like he said just constant testing there was this constant level of each workout was just for time there's no intervals there's no rest which was totally against what I had been training as a collegiate runner where all you don't go out and run a 5K every day. You don't run your race distance every day for as fast as you can go. You train these intervals to get you fitter and all these different, like, trained skills. struggled the skill portion of the 2011 games with the weighted pull-ups, the L-sit hold, the handstand walk, the heavy snatch after the pull-ups.

So after a weighted pull-up, if you tend to pull on your snatch early, you're fucking fucked. Fucking fucked. That was me. I hit 115 on snatch, which is something that was just atrocious and then it's like oh pick up these heavy water jugs and run with them now and I was like whatever

I thought that was the best event of the whole thing it was my favorite I was like man I wish I was competing I wish I could do it I want to do it again just kind of for like that you never know we had to do it again. Just kind of for like that. You never know.

We had to do the Fran ladder twice. Maybe we'll, maybe you'll see that back of the games again. Yeah. So anyway, after, after the games and I, I mean, I was super upset and bummed about everything.

And I went to who I was getting training and guidance from and was like, things need to change. And I don't need to consistently do gym programming and gym lift templates. I'm a special athlete and I don't want to be arrogant, but I require different training than Susie, the 40 year old housewife that had come in the gym too. Is Susie real? No.

Hypothetical. So you've got a background. Is she hot? Is she a singer? You didn't just show up and were good at crossfit like you've been training your whole life right so i went through five years of division one strength and conditioning programs which set me up pretty well for power lifts and different body i could do dead hang pull-ups when i walked through the crossfit gym into the my first crossfit

gym so um with that in mind that whole fall I battled back and forth. Things didn't really change, so I knew I needed to go elsewhere, and that's where I went to C.J. Martin out of Invictus, and he had some good things to say, and I knew that it's not about just having a coach there to watch my movements, but to have this big macro outlook on things and specified skill days, specified go-hard days, and then your occasional test day, which has made all the difference. With these concerted efforts to work on skills,

I've gotten better at all these different things. So with my chest-to-bar pull-ups, I've done those in skill workouts. My handstand walk, which was horrible at the games. I saw you walk into the sunset the other day. I can walk into the sunset now. And all these things are practiced in an untimed environment, and that's made all the difference. So I would really try to train all my weaknesses in this timed environment

where I was just making it worse. So going hard constantly is not good? No, it's not. Oh, okay. And it's become clear. Like I've done so much better with backing off the intensity all the time. So it's been – that's kind of cool. So do you shop around for coaches?

Or was CJ Martin like referred to you and you were just like, oh, I'll talk to him, and you were sold the first guy you talked to? Or did you talk to some other – you don't have to name him if you don't want to. No, I definitely talk to him, and you were sold the first guy you talked to, or did you talk to some other? You don't have to name him if you don't want to. No, I definitely looked into other people. Josh Bridges had visited my old gym, and he did a workout and had all these great things to say about CJ. He programs for Josh. And he said, hey, you should think about this.

You should think about that. This is what CJ has me do. And I'm like, no, that's really good. Josh Bridges is just doing a whole lot of lifting, right? Yeah. He's a small guy. He's small. I know that's being said, but he's small. He's not competing this year, correct?

No, he's active duty right now. But he got 174 reps. Which is crazy. Yes. It's insane. He's been doing the workouts. I don't know if he's done all of them, but he did 12.5 again and got 174. Oh, shit. Insane.

He almost did two heavy chest-to-bar frans in 17 minutes, which is insane. That's okay. That's decent. Yeah. So anyway, he pointed out I would go through these two and three hour sessions at once and he would be like after 45 minutes you're you're not getting a whole lot out you can't recover from all that because you're such a high level you yeah your body can't keep up with what it's capable of exactly exactly and every day is an intense day you will not last it's like fucking when sam bird did the path inlifting competition in January, did three attempts upwards like 840 pounds at 100 kilos, 220 pounds body weight.

And then didn't squat heavy again until the Arnold where he did no hands 630 squat. Squat like 135 between those events. That's how long it took him to recover. Yeah. It's like two months of recovery after one event. Yeah. two months of recovery after one event yeah so i think people have to keep that in mind when they're getting to a higher level is that the only thing between you and somebody who's a beginner is that they can they don't tax themselves very much when they do any workouts they can train every day hard because hard is not really hard and i just want to put this like uh disclaimer out there if you

haven't been uh in a serious strength and conditioning program for at least two years you're probably not going to over train so yeah this is not you yeah i feel like really over trained no no you should probably eat better and just get enough rest so pretty much um so yeah josh josh sent me to uh or had put that in the back of my mind and that was i would say in september or october and so when december came and i was was fed up, CJ was one of the first people I reached out to. And he's been tremendously helpful up until this point. And each open workout, he gives me things to,

equipment considerations, nutrition considerations. Oh, shit. What happened? Coffee? Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Equipment considerations. Yeah.

Don't talk about that. Pacing and strategy and whatnot. And that's made a huge difference, too. So I'm excited to be where I am. So Invictus is in San Diego. Yes. And how many athletes does he have competing at games level? Shoot, at least 10.

He's pretty successful with his athletes. And, I mean, I'm sure some of that's attracting really awesome athletes. Yeah. Obviously. Yeah. Sometimes people are like, you know, they talk about certain coaches out there, and they're like, well, they've got these athletes. They're doing these amazing things.

I'm like, well, these athletes were pretty amazing before they even showed up. Yeah. these athletes are doing these amazing things. I'm like, well, these athletes were pretty amazing before they even showed up. But if you take an amazing athlete such as yourself, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if you showed up to the games and did better than 17th, right? So it's one thing if you get placed not as good from year to year, but if you start climbing the ladder, then. Exactly, and showing improvements there. It's no surprise that the games are getting more and more competitive so it's being able to keep up with that and if you want to do better you have to keep up with it and exceed

the level at which it's getting better so like they said in the 2009 games they had the snatch one max event in 2009 and i think there was only like 13 female competitors that snatched a 120 or higher and then they had over i mean maybe 150 in 12.2 i guess yeah 12.2 snap over 150 hit 120 after hitting 90 reps of various weights before so you just see the progression of the sport so it's a matter of keeping up with that progression and exceeding it if you want to do better. They're probably all people who didn't train to snatch at all before. Yeah, that's true. Which is pretty cool.

I mean, these are people that got exposed to and got proficient at that lift in a couple of years. I'm not as familiar with the female athletes just because I talk to more of the males, really. But some of those guys could qualify for national level weightlifting. Yeah. You know what? I was really surprised to see.

I saw a video of Rich and who's the guy who trains with him now? Dan Bailey. Dan. They were snatching. And Rich did a very fantastic, I guess, I don't know, I can't do the kilo in my head real quick, 275 snatch. I thought it was really very well done. 125 kilos.

Thank you, smart man. I thought it was brilliant. I mean, his form was, I don't remember his form being anywhere close to good. We've got two watches in the room with calculators. He's zooming on shit. But I don't remember him being anywhere. And I'm the one that came up with the conversion. I think a couple years ago I saw him doing something lifting-wise.

I go, okay, that's not bad. But he's another one of these CrossFit guys who doesn't pay much attention to form and stuff. And I saw his video. Maybe this was February. And I was like, holy shit. He's improved. Proper lifting. But then again, we're talking about very talented athletes.

You're seeing a lot more athletes seeking out proper technique. It used to be like, well, I'm good enough. And now they're going, oh, shit. That's not going to cut it anymore. I think I saw a forum discussion where Glenn Penla was talking about some CrossFit who competed at, maybe it was in Nationals in Columbus at the Arnold. But some guy warmed up, some CrossFit warm-up, did a 1,000-meter row, and then very quickly went out and placed third in his class or something.

I think the big guys were actually fucking just across the board very good weightlifters. Well, today. That probably happened within a couple of years. Today, I was warming up in the gym, and everyone got there at noon. We all started at noon. I look over, and we have three weightlifting platforms. I look over. I'm over on the rubber, like still warming up with just a barbell,

and these guys are snatching, you know, 135 pounds, and I am much stronger than any of them. And I was like, what are y'all doing? I, I still have a barbell. You guys might need just to be holding PVC pipe right now. Not that I'm that great.

You wanted to kick them off the platform. Oh yeah. Cause they were on my Lico bar. Hey, I'm the boss around here. You get off my platform guy. No, but you are seeing, uh, I'm the boss around here. You get off my platform, guy. No, but you are seeing, this is kind of my theory on where CrossFit coaching is going to go.

It's kind of like MMA. And mixed martial arts, you've got to be good at everything. So every mixed martial artist has their general coach, the one that's kind of directing all the training that's going on. But then they have a boxing coach, a kickboxing coach. And boxing and kickboxing are two totally different things. You may not be aware of it until you've done it. Until you get punched in the face.

Until you get kicked in the face. Right. Into the head, you realize it's different. I'm going to box. And then you've got jiu-jitsu and wrestling. So you have all these different aspects. And they have, like, you know, the guys who are good have, you know, their wrestling coach, their jiu-jitsu coach. They have a different coach for everything. And they have like um you know the guys who are good have you know their wrestling coach their jiu-jitsu coach they have a different coach or everything and they have

like their overall coach they end up with like five coaches very good point so i think the crossfit i think the best crossfit athletes in the future are going to have to have you know their olympic coach their powerlifting coach their their endurance coach you know and then and then all those coaches are going to have to communicate with, you know, the main guy programming. So I've kind of thought about that in regard to coaching, but I'm not sure I want to pursue the route of coaching and programming for games athletes. But it sounds hard.

Seems like you got to think about a lot of things i'm not sure i'm there i think you don't like working hard i like i i want to just stick with the weight lifting you make a good point though because you can't master all those things to master jujitsu and kickboxing would be a special individual right i don't do you know of anybody who's the master of two disciplines um bj penn boxing and jiu-jitsu. As a coach. Oh, as a coach. Yeah, to have the wisdom to communicate all the little details about two or three. Weightlifting is like a jiu-jitsu type deal in terms of everything you need to know,

you can learn in just a couple of weeks or maybe a year. But the rest, all the brilliance and the details and the art of or maybe a year, but the rest, all the brilliance and the details and the art of programming, I think it takes the rest of your life. And so you can't no longer coach yourself. You have to then defer to younger generation, like always great old, whether the coaches don't lift themselves anymore. Now they can finally turn that knowledge towards who they coach.

You know? Yeah. You know, totally. Absolutely. So this past year, the games, Rich Froning is, well, he didn't win in 2010, but it's one of those things where. It's weird. Everybody just pretty much wants to be like, fuck it, he won.

Fuck it, he won. I feel bad for Graham. And everybody dismisses the fact that he got fourth last year. Yeah you're the fittest guy he was the highest his return performance was the highest in games history on the men's side anyway so he's a phenomenal

athlete for sure but that kind of like that kind of brings us to like the next topic of how the crossfit games determines the fittest man and woman on earth and the programming that goes into it and i think it's safe to say that anybody that knows anything about crossfit knows that rich froning uh his rope climb incapacity was what kept him from games championship in 2010 and the yeah he was miles ahead until that point and he just he didn't have to climb it well he just had to be able to climb it at period he could have done it it's kind of amazing that he couldn't climb a rope yeah as

athletic as he is and so the argument presented was shouldn't the fittest man on earth be able to climb a rope and you think about it well probably so maybe the the winner was chosen but it just so happened to be rope climb was the thing that that was that showed up that that the guy that was in the league couldn't do but there's a number of other things like throwing a softball that i think the fittest man and woman on earth should be able to do and And unfortunately, of course you do. Yes. They should be able to throw it. Did you win that event?

I did. Awesome. This is not because I grew up playing ball and, and softball and baseball. Yeah, sure. They're traditionally American sports, but you know,

I think they should have had a fucking shot put or discus throw. I want to see a three point contest. Yeah. Accuracy. When want to see a three-point contest. Yeah. Accuracy. When do we see? I mean, we had the sledge in 09. Yeah. Maybe some bad shooting.

I think you could do a three-point. I mean, if you're going to do a watt bike, you can do a three-point. Yeah. When's the treadmill coming? At what point does it get really ridiculous with the amount of shit you'll pick? I still struggle with that. You know, likema has a lot of things going on yeah and strongman has a lot of things going on a lot of disciplines but ultimately you you settle on some key things that no matter what the event is you're going to get some flavor like strongman you're going to see

an overhead press it's going to be an axle or a log or a stone or a concrete block you're going to fucking push something over your head you're going to carry and drag something you're going to be an axle or a log or a stone or a concrete block. You're going to fucking push something over your head. You're going to carry and drag something. You're going to do stones. I mean, there could be variations that throw you off, but you're going to be tested a few key things that are strong, man. Define strong, man. MMA, there's maybe a lot of martial arts, but they're set,

and you need those skills. But as soon as you open up, cross with every conceivable physical thing, is it too broad? I mean, too many fucking domains at some point? Too many domains. Softball throw is interesting, but it's out there. What is broad? Everything imaginable is pretty much broad.

I mean, that's essentially what they tell you to be ready for. Yeah, be ready for any and everything. What are you going to do? Make you drink a beer and throw darts at a dartboard? Team event this year. That'd be great synchronized swimming but i mean what does it stop the fifth man in the world's gonna be able to hit a dartboard drunk it could yeah bowling it could be ball they could do bowling yeah well i mean but what point does it stop and how do you define quantitatively the fittest man we could be

anything and when the when the general argument is well shouldn't the fittest man we could be anything and when the when the general argument is well shouldn't the fittest man be able to do this okay yeah sure i guess where does it stop exactly exactly when it'd be cool like you know if you're gonna be a this man or what you know you're gonna be strong you had to carry and pull shit climb with your body weight yeah catch things athletic overhead so that, you can have a lot of variation, but at least you know the things that define what CrossFit is.

Yeah. I think there's some things you know you're going to find when you go into CrossFit. Pull-ups. Why don't they do fucking shuffleboard? Shuffleboard.

Shuffleboard wide. Sports. Fuck it. Continually try and play new sports. It's in the definition. Ja Jalaya. The fucking Mexican game.

You fucking throw the balls. Frisbee golf. Frisbee golf. Pick any obscure National Geographic shit you know it's in the definition Ja Jalala the fucking Mexican game you fucking throw the balls frisbee golf frisbee golf pick any obscure National Geographic shit you can think of do that

but I do think they should discus throw would be awesome that's a legitimate test of coordination right there I don't know man

they may want to stay away from like the decathlon type events why? because then it'll become a decathlon

I'm waiting for like the decathlete I'm waiting for the decathlete are you saying people don't need to be able to type events. Why? Because then it'll become a decathlon. I'm waiting for the decathlete. Are you saying people don't need to be able to throw heavy objects far? Exactly. We got the 2012 games this year for the 2012 Olympic Games. Yeah. So I wonder if there'll be any decathletes. It can't be. They're like, oh, I'm done with the Olympic Games.

I'm not competing anymore. So who's the fifth person on earth? Is it Rich or is it the'm done with the Olympic Games. I'm not competing anymore. So who's the fifth person on earth? Is it Rich or is it the guy who wins the Olympic trials? Well, what I'm thinking is one of these decathletes are going to come over to CrossFit because there's money to be made. I don't know. There's a guy that was a decathlete at Mississippi State. He transferred to Texas wisely and ended up winning two national championships,

and he's won two world titles, Trey Hardy. I think he no-hided pole vault the last Olympics, but he's a pretty favorite athlete. Fucking pole vault would be awesome. That would be ridiculous. Go ahead. Get after it. The sail fit you are. Or a high jump.

Why not? But I think with the money, there's more money in track and field with the endorsements. So Nike's on board with that and they're paying they're paying real money to their athletes or if you win a medal you're fucking sick oh real money

but we'll stop there if you win a gold medal if you win a gold medal get yourself a Subway sandwich exactly I'm fueled by Subway sandwich and Red Bull

and fucking Apollo oh no when are we gonna see a CrossFit person endorsing some sort of food on TV soon I'm sure three four years I'm sure we'll be seeing I want Red Bull to get on board do you feel like When are we going to see a CrossFit person endorsing some sort of food on TV? Soon.

I'm sure it will be soon. Three, four years? I'm sure it will be soon. I want Red Bull to get on board. Do you feel like much of a celebrity in the women's CrossFit world? Not really. No? People don't ask you for your training advice all the time on Facebook. What are you doing?

Don't take my advice. You're probably nowhere near as fit as me. I get a lot of advice questions, and then, there's always the post of you look good. I'm like, thanks. I work out quite a bit, but yeah, it's only been like,

there's been one, one instance where I've been, uh, no, hopefully not. Um, identified it. I was at Kroger and it was a total, like, they don't do CrossFit,

but they recognized me from ESPN, which was awesome. Oh, that's awesome. That was so cool. That is cool. But that was only once. So if you go to CrossFit events, do people take pictures with you? Yes. Okay.

That's pretty awesome. Yeah, it is. It's cool. You get a little taste of fame without having to be too famous. Well, you can go home and not be famous, but if you hang out with CrossFitters, you're really famous. Well, the thing is, I went to the richest 5K in Atlanta, and there was a few people

that were like, hey, and got pictures, and then I think the rest of them just didn't know who I was, so. Yet. Did you win an event last year? At the games? Yeah. Well, yeah. The softball.

I won the triplet sprint. The muscle-ups, deadlifts, GHC sit-ups, and running. Well, yeah. I saw a softball. I won the triplet sprint, the muscle-ups, deadlifts, GHC sit-ups, and running. Yeah, the running. And that was against all the big names, right? Yeah, I was in the top heat that one. That was awesome. That was one of my favorite moments of my life.

Kristen was in there. Annie. Annie. And who else? Sakamoto. Camille. Camille, yeah. Camille's right next to me.

Yeah. All the real pistol grippers. Yeah. I was watching that and I was, I was drinking and, uh, and I was thinking, man, I'm glad they're doing that. Not me. It looked really, really hard. It was. GHD sit-ups and muscle-ups. Oh. And then it was like, it was posterior. It was everything. Oh, and it was the deficit deadlift. Yeah. It was in there.

Oh, the good old deficit deadlift. Yeah. I mean, I was literally pulling from my ankles and I'm short. Was it 35 pounders or 25 pounders they had on the bar? Iron. Tens. They had tens? Holy shit.

I want to say it was tens. Maybe it was 25. I've always been a fan of the deficit deadlift. Yeah. It's my shitty deadlift, just a little bit less shitty but the i mean when you watch everyone from the side as they're doing the deficit deadlift you're like oh yeah rounding oh yeah man because you're doing it for high reps too yeah high reps so you're doing deficit deadlifts frying your back you're doing ghd sets typically fry your back and then you see all these people duck running across the field

because their backs fry oh yeah it's like one of those things as a spectator i'm like why is he running so slow why is he running like that so we're we're all gonna go this year no matter what uh the i've been trying to call the guys I hung out in Ken Gall's box last year which was legit and so we're I want to get our own box because I want to take everybody from Memphis the whole time I was there I was like

thinking I almost felt bad because we didn't bring I didn't even bring my wife I love my wife but someone had to go to la and someone have whiskey bite the bullet yeah no so uh i want to i want to try and get a box and but supposedly what they're doing is they're selling to everyone who bought last year already first yeah so they get first dibs so if we can get it we'll be lucky yeah it might be tough to do that

so you feel like there's a bias towards, say, what we were talking about earlier, is you feel like CrossFit does not want to see the same individuals win every year because it's just not as marketable then? I don't know the reason behind it, but it certainly seems like they program with the intent of not having a repeat champion. At least that's what it seems like before. And it might be totally off-kilter,

but Kristen Clever and Annie are by far the two best at what they do. And it was always whether it was going to be Kristen or Annie. And the one way to make Annie win over Kristen is to make it too heavy for Kristen. Because obviously Annie's a bigger athlete. She's a lot stronger. But in terms of gymnastics, endurance, or anything else, they're pretty much equal.

And so I know that Kristen really struggled with the beach event. So I have, you know, only a handful of events that I actually have beaten Kristen Clever in, and that was one of them. So, yeah, I just want to make that point. How many more, Michelle? Do you know all of them? Handful?

I mean, 12? No, it's literally a handful. So, yeah, obviously it matters. But anyway, so with that, if you look at her placing across all the other events, with the exception of the front squat by Monkey Bar event and then the heavy sled, she consistently did better than Annie. And I think she could have won had the front squat been a little bit lighter and had that sled been a little bit lighter.

So we're talking about maybe 20 pounds or maybe even 10 pounds on that front squat that could have made all the difference and could have changed the outcome of the entire CrossFit Games. So you think Reebok and CrossFit are sitting down together and trying to find the most marketable athlete to win? That's definitely a hypothesis. That was the discussion the night after the games were over. There was a lot of us at the bar and having a very heated discussion just about that.

I got called a lot of names for making claims. What do you think? You think they want like a hot chick to win? Is that what we're going for here? Yeah. I think if that's the case, maybe we should have seen Camille do a little bit better. I mean, she got eight. She did great.

Are we all going to agree she's the hottest chick visibly in the game? She's super fun. Is that what you're saying? You're suggesting? I'm not going to say who's the hottest. Not in my opinion, but worldwide. The worldwide opinion, yes. Who are you suggesting?

Oh, Camille, for sure. Camille. That's the consensus. Accent plus looks. Julie's not bad. It's the accent. It gets me every time. Oh, yeah.

You forget about the accent. Hello, James. You're so cute. jokes Julie's not bad oh yeah you forget about the accent yeah hello James just so you think for a theory to be to be proven false you only need like one thing to make it false you can have all these other things that make it seem like it's true but you know if you have this like one item that's like totally that's it but I don't think they should just put like fucking 10 hoppers up, throw X amount of events in each one, roll the dice, pick it? That's what you got to do? That's what they did for the first game. Isn't that the best way to do it?

I mean, when you have so many things you could choose from. The problem is if you do the hopper, then you can't give ESPN the heads up on how to film. Or Rogue. Here's the thing. Here's where it causes – here's where like the bullshit has to stop at some point you have to establish what crossfit is at that point so everybody knows what to expect like some guy's in the bar hey man cross is coming on hey what's that oh you know it's when uh

yeah they do the uh fucking i don't know they take their shirts off yeah that's the problem like basketball i can sit on a buddy fucking eating beer nights, drinking beer, sitting in the bar, going, okay, so-and-so's got X percent this, that, and the other. They got to do this, that, and this to win. Even though I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. I'm engaging in the whole culture of the sport. The sport's well-defined. Or I go, hey, the fucking John's got two turnovers already.

Can you fucking believe that? That means you have to do this, that, and the other. No, we win. There's no rules across. What is it? I think it makes it... There's no rules across it. What is it? I think it makes it really exciting, though, because everyone... So when you fill out your online profile to do the Open, you can fill in all your stats. I don't think most people

do, but I know a lot of people do. I filled in the ones that I knew. The ones you wanted to show the world? That's right. Yeah, I didn't show... I didn't show, like, what my... Helen? No, Helen would be good for me. Helen, it's short enough. Anything over 10 minutes and game over.

Fight Gone Bad. Yeah, Fight Gone Bad. I don't even have my score up. I am not posting that score up. I forgot it. Yeah, I always forget it because it doesn't mean anything to me. I'm like, oh, it's 267. What does that mean?

It's like that's an easy number to forget. That was the original Fight Gone Bad. We got a whole new one. So you can... The whole new Fight Gone Bad this year, right? What's that? Do you think this is going to be like MMA used to be? MMA used to be fucking Kung Fu Master versus Sumo Wrestler. Yeah.

And that shit got... Well, I think it'll be interesting because you got all these stats up, right? So you can like... Fantasy CrossFit. Well, you have last minute like you can pull that athlete up and i think they will probably do that on espn like pull up that athlete stats i don't know if they did this last year i don't think they posted stats no but it'd be interesting to say hey this wad has heavy snatches rope climbs and so it's gonna be overhead lunges

and it's like oh we got these guys and And, you know, this is my pick. And then you got the bookie. Yeah, for sure. Taking the money. You know what I mean? But everybody has to keep in mind some working knowledge of what everybody's good at. So you have like thousands of people. Yeah.

With thousands of potential things they could be good at. It's only 60 men and 60 women by the time it gets to the games, though. Okay, but so it's a lot of stuff. And you've got a couple months to mentally prep, you know. And at least 20 of each are going to be good enough. Or have been there enough that you already know sorry yeah yeah but it i don't know this is where it gets if it's gonna be a legit big time sport or athletic contest these were like real considerations because yeah i can look at the cowboys playing the saints and know what's

going on and kind of figure out my mind who's got where like so-and-so's got eight sacks this year oh shit watching the crossfit games you go oh so-and-so's got eight sacks this year. Oh, shit. Watching the CrossFit Games, you go, oh, so-and-so just increased their clean and jerk by 20 pounds last squat cycle or whatever, so they might have the advantage. It's hard to keep track with that shit. How do you become a fan of it? Well, a lot of people don't like to divulge their stats for whatever reason, and then you see all these people posting last-second open results.

Like, I don't understand all this. Like, why be so secretive about it? Can a guy on a couch follow it as well as like Michelle can follow her colleagues. Right. Do you think that can an average guy keep up with that stuff? Good point. And know what it means?

The average guy? As soon as it's on ESPN, it becomes some guy on his couch who just thinks he's, these girls look at really hot and he doesn't watch and he's doing it. It's like why, like watching beach volleyball or something, but at some point it's hard to connect with what's going on. I don't think so.

I think most people who are into football or baseball never played the sport in their lives. And they know more about it than I do. I was going to say.

But they're doing one thing. It's football. Yeah. But there's like you got all those different positions and different types

of like But there's constant. Ways to put the players on the field in different positions. You don't know what you're talking about. It's confusing. There's defense. One team wears red. One team wears fucking blue.

What is that? I don't watch sports. One team wore green, man. What do the colors mean? So, Michelle, what kind of bias would you like to see for this year's CrossFit Games? See, I don't even know that anymore. You might want to throw out something fake to throw off your competitors. Yeah, really.

Well, it's clear that I would like softball throw to see a repeat. They're going to change it to javelin. Home run derby. That would be awesome. What if they changed the throw to a javelin, like just a different object? Javelin would be fine because I competed in college with a javelin too. Basically throwing shit you're going to like. I'm going to like throwing shit.

And I think that, I mean, maybe throw a sandbag or something. I don't know. But that would be probably more a medicine ball, you know, the faction one-on-one games. But, yeah, as I was reassessing my open performance and what I would have thought would have been real big strengths turned out to not be the case at all. So with the burpees, I was like 600th in the world on those burpees.

And that's what I probably would have finished highest on last year. So now I don't even know what my quote-unquote wheelhouse would be. So you're a different athlete this year. Yeah, absolutely. And I want to see the most balanced program possible, and I think that's what we'll probably see. We saw that last year. We saw a little bit of a strength bias, I think.

And I believe that I'm ready for that, but that's what I've been pushing for since August is for that additional strength because I certainly couldn't handle it last year and want to be able to this year. So, you know, if we do do that long workout, I know that I can do well at it, but then be able to hold on when those weights get heavy. No, I'm not going to be top 20. Well, I'll hope to finish in the top 20 with the competitors in those heavier events, but I need to really excel in others.

But, yeah, I really don't know, and that's kind of crazy to think about that i don't know what i want to show up because with each open workout i wasn't like oh my gosh i'm going to destroy this each one i was kind of like i'm decently good at those i think i can do okay at it and that was consistent across all five like surprised yourself and i surprised myself so even with the snatch workout and um i got better with each workout, so with my worldwide ranking. So I was like 600th with the burpees. I think I was somewhere in the 100s with my snatch performance. But, like, I consistently got higher and higher ranked with the individual workout,

which is kind of weird. I don't know. Michelle, did you repeat any of the workouts? None. No. Nope. What do you think about people repeating? And do you – like, I and do you like i was sitting

there thinking like man next year it needs to be where you don't get to see any scores post until the very end yeah like you can post it but it doesn't show till till it's done and then oh shit if you wanted to do it again you could yeah but it doesn't post post and then and then it's kind of like a surprise yeah i like that idea for Because, I mean, I look on the scoreboard to kind of get an idea. So you definitely see the people like Kristen or whoever is demoing the workout. You get an idea for what's possible and what is probable for me as an individual. And that's generally how I base my goals off. And having it all be posted at the end will prevent all these people from redoing it over and over and over again.

And I don't know. I get super irritated when people repeat so many times, especially when there's no need to. So when you see Chris Clever repeat it when she's like the third best in the world. Already smoked it, yeah. And just to get a few more. And granted, she repeats it and then gets the top spot in the world and then gets two grand. Okay, there's a reason there. But why some other person goes from 10th to 9th, why would you do that?

It doesn't make any sense. And it's just like maybe is it ego? I don't know. But, I mean, I've seen even former games competitors doing it over and over again. I'm like, that's just dumb, but go for it. I mean, I've spent my other time getting better at my things that I need to get better at rather than doing thrusters and pull-ups again. Or go for a walk or read a fucking book.

Or sleep, I don't know. Rich redid the second one, the snatches. Yeah, he redid that just because he wanted to hit the 100. Yeah, just because. If you're sick or something, fine, but do it and be done with it. I didn't see as much repeat this year as I did last year. Like, I remember being on my Facebook and seeing numerous posts. People were like, hitting, you know, 11.2 for the fourth time.

I'm like, holy shit. But what was funny is some of these people were getting better scores every time. So, I don't. Everyone's got the same opportunity to do it, you know, four or five day period. So in my opinion, more power to them because I,

I think it's going to hurt your, your longevity in a five week competition. Yeah. If you, if you do the same one a couple of times and just totally smoke, you know, certain parts of your body. I couldn't imagine doing a 12,

four again, the, the wall and you may actually do it the next day, you asshole. Well, I think her circumstance was unique. She got the same score. Thank God she did. I was sitting there like, holy shit, if she does not get that one. She got one muscle up the first time.

I was like, oh, if she doesn't get that one muscle up at least this time, I'm going to leave the room because I don't want to be here for this. Yeah, she tends to throw temper tantrums when she's disappointed. But she made a mistake that I tell every athlete not to do. It's change your strategy in the middle of the workout. So what she did was she changed the way she'd done a pull-up or a muscle-up. She did one muscle-up the way she's always trained to do muscle-ups, and then she goes for muscle-up number two and tries a technique that she learned the day before.

And then she doesn't hit it. Fatigued. Terribly fatigued. Yeah, terribly fatigued. Where'd she learn that the day before? Oh, my God. Too many peeps. Too many peeps.

YouTube. No, I think it was a couple girls in the gym. Oh, okay. I talked her into it. I was wondering if it was the YouTube CrossFit one that they put out. Because you were talking about the injuries on 12-3 with jumping down. And you were saying you'd step down. Well, on there, they had the video saying, don't step down.

They said that the strategy would be to not step down because that's going to tire the shit out of you and no don't fuck up your ankle by jumping down fatigue 18 minutes is going to tire the shit out of you no matter what you're doing or how you're doing it that's just this is dangerous i mean i don't know but well i mean you think about maybe let's say 10 to 15 ruptured their achilles out of 60 000 that's pretty good odds but you know what's funny that's pretty good you'll be okay if they all step down if they all do it for less reps and they step down nobody tears their kids i tell i tell my coaches for the regular crossfit classes like people just want to look good naked you know yeah um for those people and what i tell them when i tell our coaches i tell them is step down off the box you know because i did not tell you to jump off the

box yeah because and i and i've always given that actually that disclaimer at the beginning of box jump wads but uh one day in particular we had an athlete who his achilles tendon just snapped right off, right off the heel. And it's not awesome. It sounds horrible. And he's a lawyer. It's like 6.30 a.m. in the gym. I'm like barely awake. This guy's on the ground going, ah! I'm going, shit, the lawyer's hurt.

I'm like, oh, man, are you okay, bro? I was like, oh, oh yeah you probably just pulled something i was like just hoping that yeah he's like he's like no it's something's really fucked up in there i'm like okay he goes i'm not gonna see you all right i'll go get some ice and he still trains and he now jumps off the box and stuff now but he was fairly he's one of these guys that are like super competitive um already pretty strong but just wasn't used to doing any kind of plyometrics and so the the tendon strength here's here's the point i make to people that no one wants to admit they're a beginner especially if they're already good at a myriad of things like i'm strong i'm in

shape i can run a mile and this this that and the other i can do sprints yeah but you've never fucking done ballistic activities like box jumps reps so on this thing you are a stone cold beginner so you have to train this just like that 40 year old housewife does yeah you have to step into this you can kill the squats and the sprints whatever if you're if you're doing those things i don't care how minute it is if this this is your first time doing it, you can't just jump in. You can be a beginner and an advanced athlete at the same time. Yeah. I agree.

All right, guys, let's take a break real quick, and then we'll come back, and then James and Chris, CTP, will show off some crazy new video. You just wait. Yeah. Keep the pressure on. I keep announcing that. I'm like, shit, now we're going to make a video. I mean, it is hot. Yeah. Keep the pressure on. I keep announcing that like, shit, now we gotta make a video.

Man, it is hot. Yeah. Thanks a lot, Chris. Don't worry, I'm shopping for a house, and I'm not gonna buy one unless it has a huge podcast studio that's uber comfortable. Uber comfortable. It needs a hot tub, so we can just sit in the hot tub

while we're recording. Sit in the hot tub. That'd be pretty cool. The hot tub so we can just sit in the hot tub while we're recording sitting the hot that'd be pretty cool the hot tub chronicles would never get weird oh no all right guys we're back on mike bletza chris moore is here ctp and i guess michelle kenny hi so we're gonna move on the discussion a little bit and uh you have decided to open up your own crossfit box named crossfit chickasaw and where'd you get the name it's the chickasaw gardens area of town and the shopping center is Chickasaw Oaks. CrossFit Memphis was taken. Those bastards. Damn it. We figured East Memphis or Midtown Memphis would still be a little confusing and might consider them the same or get confused.

We decided to go totally different, but we wanted it somehow geographical. Somebody took CrossFit Midtown. Did they? Just Midtown? Yeah, a long time ago. it somehow geographical so so somebody somebody took crossfit midtown did they just midtown mid yeah a long time ago i was like it did not how many cities how many cities have midtown i think all of them it's ridiculous every that's kind of what cities have this is this is the first city i've lived in i had a midtown i i have no idea yeah they're uptowns too right i don't pay was that a word yeah oh yeah for sure um so uh why did you open a gym well now that i've been involved in the sport it's just something that

i've definitely grown a passion for and i've wanted to be my career for a long time and in the situation i was in before it really wasn't going to be a career-like thing i always wanted to be a business owner and so you want to be a business owner before crossfit yeah i mean i want to run my own business you know you go to school for business or economics i did yeah i have i have undergraduate degrees in finance and economics and then i'm getting my master's in economics now i'm halfway through it thank goodness yeah yay i'll be glad when that's over but um anyway, I did always want to be a business owner. And then with CrossFit, I knew that this is kind of the perfect combination of my education and my passion.

So I jumped on the first opportunity to do so. Do you think you're going to be able to make a shitload of money no i'm not i'm not in that delusional of a uh situation to think that it's there's a ton of money in running a gym i know there's really truly not um if you're providing a good product unless unless we expand and have like lots of gems, but from one location, you're not going to be raking in the dough. You're not going to be a millionaire. But especially when you have two business partners,

so you have to divide. Oh, yeah. So anyway, but with that in mind, I do want to be comfortable. I don't really want to live an extravagant lifestyle, but certainly a comfortable one where I'm doing what I love and coaching people and seeing these people improve and do things they can't do or couldn't do

or didn't think they could do. And, and that's kind of what, what I'm after. So. Well, if you ever do want to make a million dollars, you know what you should do? Get your own flavor of vitamin water. Start a podcast. Start a podcast. Because this is where the money's at.

All right. No, I haven't made any money yet. Telling me about it. start a podcast start a podcast because this is where the money's at all right no i haven't made any money yet telling me about it crossfit hq has been pretty helpful or haven't they haven't slowed down any progress or anything like that are they pretty easy just to i've never had a problem with them i've heard stories of other people no it was it was easy i submitted my application and then exactly three weeks to the date it was approved and then they said they gave me an email with like three different things to do as far as the affiliate agreement um affiliate dues of course and then insurance and got that in and that's it no i mean i haven't had any issues they haven't said hey do this or do that differently

yet. Very cool. So. So you do have partners. Yes. So you think that was a, well, obviously you thought it was a good choice. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't think it. A necessary choice.

It was necessary, at least for me. I mean, I definitely didn't have the startup capital to get anything rolling and didn't want to do it all on my own because that's definitely a huge stress to just to undertake as a single individual. And I think with Robbie and Jeff, we all bring something totally unique to the table. And I think the three of us can kind of make things happen. And it's nice because as an athlete, that's like, quite frankly frankly like priority one so when i have to train my ass off from here till july it's nice to have two other guys that can step in and help me out and understand that i can't look dude i gotta train you know yeah are you gonna be coaching a lot um hopefully i mean

definitely i love coaching but you know you know i don't want to coach 6 a.m. or 5 a.m. every day of the week. I might take that up in the fall or something, but during competition season, I need to be cognizant of the hours that I work. What kind of growth do you think you guys will be able to experience down there? I don't know. I like to think really positively, but then I don't want to overs overshoot it and think that, oh, we'll be at 100 members in six months. But I think that's possible. I think we'll have a good, a good base that we're going to begin with. At least it seems that way. I've had a lot of people, people that haven't even done CrossFit, they're just waiting on it to open, to jump on board. There's a lot fewer now that I thought there was going to be as far as transplants from the gym up north. And then, you know, they're all over at Wolf River, and I think they're going to stay there, which is totally fine because I think, you know, that's probably where they're best suited.

But I really do think we're going to cater to a totally different demographic that hasn't been exposed to CrossFit yet. Yeah. I think we'll see a lot of growth with that. But I do, I mean, I've had, you know, I've been born and raised in Memphis. So I have a bunch of people that I know that are really just waiting on it to open. So I would hope to see us open with 20, like from the get-go. But that might be a stretch. I think you'll actually probably get some of the people who used to be in our gym

because we lived close to where we lived. Our facility was kind of close to where yours will be now, and then we moved further east. And then we had about a 15% loss. Oh, wow. Midtowners and downtowners. Yeah. They just couldn't make the drive.

You know, it didn't fit their schedule anymore. Sure. So you might get an instant yeah bump from those guys because they're not training you know at the other crossfit gyms in town so you're welcome yeah thank you no problem hopefully hopefully you'll be able to get them a lot of them said hey um when they left is like if you should open a gym in midtown i was like someone else is gonna yeah it's gonna happen it's gonna get that what i find interesting is now we have what uh five five crossfit gyms now in memphis that are you know pretty pretty on their way yeah and once y'all open too and and then we're talking about oh how you know it's gonna work it's gonna work but then you think about atlanta and they have how many you said? I have over 50. Yeah.

What the? I cannot imagine that. Atlanta's fucking huge. I was going to say, the Atlanta metropolitan area extends over the entire state of Georgia almost. I mean, literally like the Alabama state line, you drive in like 10 miles and then it's Atlanta metro area. It's like, it's just so spread out. There's no.

The other thing too is when you drive through Atlanta, they have billboards with supplement advertisements. Do they? So next time you're in Atlanta and you're driving through, just look at the billboards. There will be, like, EAS protein. And that kind of tells me a little bit about the demographics there. It's like there's probably... They're a little more health conscious than Memphians.

A little bit. I think Memphis is on the upside of that with the green line and there's a little bit more awareness about you know getting outside and getting and being active going to like shelby farms has been as busy as as i've ever seen it you know i grew up i grew up running my ass off there for cross-country practice and nobody went to shelby farms back then. Now you see like with the dog park, I mean, you'll see a hundred people out there on a nice weekend. Our dog park is dope. Yeah.

It's awesome. So yeah. That's the best one I've been to. Yeah. So with Faction being right there, it's pretty much, you know, Shelby Farms is Faction's backyard. So when I have like a easy 10 minute cool down run, I just jog over there and it's awesome. I'm going to miss that.

Yeah. It's pretty cool. For the longest time, like, we opened up. There was, like, there was basically two CrossFit gyms in Memphis for the longest time. We were the first, and then Bartlett came along, and we kind of had, and the funny thing is, is, like, if you go to some other towns, there's,

the CrossFit gyms are very different, but I don't know how to put this i said there wasn't a much of a price difference yeah so like there wasn't like uh a lot of times gyms are charging 125 a month that didn't exist before i think we're starting to see that with some other gyms or whatever um they just don't do you know as much coaching I guess. So maybe we should edit that out or something. No. No. It wasn't specific towards anybody.

No. Okay. So anyways, I think it's super exciting because we basically have three CrossFit gyms popping up. And, well, I say two CrossFit gyms popping up in a matter of months. And then there's another CrossFit gym that's coming under new ownership just over the state line in Mississippi. Okay.

So they're – yeah, so basically you've got to – I say, you know, three gyms where there's – Who's the owner? Me. Me. There's three gyms with fresh blood in them. Yeah. So I think there's, you know, two brand-new gyms and one gym that's going to get revived.

So I think that I'm pretty excited to see the Memphis area kind of bringing more CrossFit in and more awareness. Absolutely. So when people think about CrossFit, when you have all these gyms around and it's more out there, people know what it is because of its exposure on ESPN or or maybe their friend tried it so it's become something that not it's not what their their friend tried and had a bad experience with and then they told all these other people that hey don't go try CrossFit it's too hard but you see all these other gyms opening up that are kind of facilitating the good message that CrossFit, you know, can really be for anybody and everybody, and it's not just about – because that's one hurdle that I think everybody

has seen, every gym owner has seen, is people's misconceptions about that CrossFit's way too hard, and they get online and Google CrossFit, and they see all these scary videos of this death metal playing, and, like, guys with their shirts off laying on the ground in a pool of their own sweat. Like, yes, that's CrossFit, but that's not all it is. Yeah.

So I think too, is that we've got, uh, I'm, I'm pretty excited too, that we have a high quality problem. Not a problem, but it's a, it's a great, it's a great thing. Yeah. So, uh, we don't have like low quality yes gyms hanging around you know creating bad names so like you know that was that's been my fear in the past is like man i hope no one opens up a gym and does a really shitty job and then someone goes well that's crossfit and i'm never gonna do that again exactly and then and then they kind of basically ruin potential uh crossfitters so i think that uh i think we're

doing pretty good in Memphis area as far as the quality is really high. Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that. I hadn't really thought about that specifically until now. Like what Limp Bizkit did to Nu Metal. There's some... There's a good Nu Metal band out there? No, there's not.

I didn't think that. But I've definitely been... I've visited some other CrossFit gyms in other towns. Same with Creed, bro. You know? Yeah, Creed really brought down the whole hair job. Shit was tight for a minute. But, you know, you go to one CrossFit gym, you're like, you're in a town for a week,

you go to one CrossFit gym, and then you're like, I'm going to go to the other one for the rest of the week. Yeah, exactly. Or something like that. I don't think you're going to run into that inphis too much i don't think so i was i with i'm not familiar with 901 and i don't know what they're doing and then there's there's other random people in town that are running crossfit classes and um i've run across some people they're like yeah i cross him like where because you know they're not on the affiliate blog yeah exactly so it's um and

i don't know what these other guys are doing but that that worries me but you can't really control that but as far as the actual legit affiliates we've had a pretty i think if someone's seriously interested in it and they're going to do a little bit of research i think it's pretty easy to differentiate between so i think most people do do most of their research on the web. So a lot of emphasis on the website, guys. Can you do research somewhere else? About CrossFit? You can actually visit.

I went to my library. I looked it up on the card. Do we have a decimal system? And I couldn't find anything on CrossFit. By the way, okay, so as far as like doing research, well, the thing is they got to go to your website. They got to give you a phone call. They got to come in and try it and stuff like that, right?

Of course. So it gets more and more difficult outside of looking at the internet. CrossFit in North Atlanta did something genius, which I need to copy, is they put an instant chat on their website. You can, have you seen it? I know what you're talking about. Yeah, like you just, you hover over the little button that says, hey, you want to talk to somebody at CrossFit North Atlanta?

And you're like, oh, shit, yeah. And then you click it, and there's someone available. It's usually someone like, you know, one of the managers of the gym or something like that, and they'll talk to you about anything. Yeah. So I pulled up chat one day and started talking to, what's her name? I can't remember. Anyways, I was just talking to her about the business stuff.

I was like, this is so cool. She's like, you'll have to get it here. Cool for you. I'm sure that shit sucks for them. I'm like, oh, damn it. Not the instant chat again. Some asshole. Well, I told her, if I'm wasting your time, let me know.

You're wasting her time, I'm sure. But I think that's a genius way to get people. People are like I'm gonna call that's hard I don't ever want to call yeah I want to email and text yeah so I think you know the same thing if you can get some like that on your website I think that helps out a lot yeah your websites basically your front window into your gym and how you're gonna track how are going to attract people to it? All right. So you, you have a, another business. Do you want to promote it at all? Um, not right now, actually. Okay. I don't, I don't have a lot of time for it. I found she's got a great idea and trust me when she wants to tell you about it. Whoa boy.

Yeah. Some of you may know about it, but I don't want to promote it and then not give it 100% effort and then fall short of anybody's expectations of it. What is it? Sounds like something that takes effort. It takes a lot of effort. Iguana heating lamp? Yeah. Chris. No, right now it's athlete and gym owner.

That's her true passion, by the way. I know. I'll be honest. Ridiculous. So what do you want to talk about? All right, well, then we won't talk about any of that stuff, which is fine. Yeah. Yeah, it's surprising.

Maybe it's not surprising how much time just one business can take out of your day, for sure. Plus school and training. You're an awesome athlete. I don't know how you're doing the school thing. I don't either. I was doing – Half-ass. I'd been running CrossFit Memphis for about a year while I was an undergrad,

which is super easy because getting undergrads, it's easy. And then, and then I started going to grad school and grad school was hard. And then. You really shed a lot of light on the education and business. It was so hard. Grad school hard. Undergrad easy.

So I, it was definitely one of those things where I had to stop going to school because the gym was gonna they both suffered for a semester both school and the gym suffered for a semester and I came to the realization that I can do school later and after running the gym and coaching for a while

once I got out of like academia because I was in I was studying exercise science and things like that so I once I got out of like academia I because I was in I was studying exercise science and things like that so I thought I knew everything and then I got out and I started learning more by coaching and listening to other coaches and doing a little bit of traveling and then I can realize that I don't need any more exercise science academic work to be a really good coach and to run a run a gym especially run a gym so if you're

good if your degree is in exercise science it's not gonna help you run a gym at all so i want that to be known can you say that again you might you might be able to write some legit programming make doubtful um no you can't until you've until you've had experience with athletes, it's not going to happen. Yeah, the experience is huge. If you're an experienced athlete and you study it and then you come away from it, yeah, but on its own, it's meaningless. Yeah. Sorry.

Everything I learned in school, I was constantly thinking about how I could become a better athlete. That was the only way to really pay attention. Same with business or anything. Running a business is different than getting your MBA. Sure. And after my undergrad, I wanted to go to an elite MBA program, and they were like, you better have five years' work experience before you even come through our doors.

So that's pretty much what kept me from going straight into grad school. Out of undergrad was the fact that there's a ton to be learned from experience, and then you want to get the knowledge and build off of that. So that's kind of evident in the more elite programs. And then I'm not even getting my MBA now. be learned from experience and then you want to get the knowledge and build off of that so yeah that's kind of evident in in the more elite programs and then i'm not even getting my mba now so yeah after after running a gym for a while after running a business i got my undergrad in exercise science and then i was like well maybe i should go get a degree in business and then i started looking at mba programs so i read um the 10-day mba. The 10-Day MBA book instead.

So now you have your degree. There you go. Same thing. There's a little certificate in the back that you can tear out. By the way, the 10-Day MBA is actually a pretty good book. Especially if you don't have any business background and you're just running a gym. It'll give you some insight for sure. The finance part totally just fucked me up.

I was like, ah. but then you also have mit e-courseware are you familiar with this man that is legit oh man that helped me through all my statistics really that you can take mit courses for free you don't get a piece of paper at the end but you learn and you can take the test you can get the answers to the test. I mean, it's pretty awesome. It's free college. It's free college from MIT. So it's not like it's free community college. It's not Phoenix Online or whatever.

Someone was telling me that there's an Olympic weightlifter in one of these colleges like Phoenix. I think so. Yeah, where it's like they have the cheesy 3 o'clock in the morning commercials where it's like i want to go to school gonna go back get my grades but there's like there's like an olympic lifter i have not seen it but i want to yeah it's devry yeah there's there's one with fucking uh shannon doherty yeah education connection she's like i I went back to school, got my degree. No, you fucking did not.

This is ridiculous. You're on a fucking hit TV show for like 20 years and you did not go back to fucking college. To get your culinary degree. At like 44

because now you figure, well, I got to do something while I was there. No, you didn't. That's funny. You're doing nothing. Ridiculous. So I ended up,

I read that book. No, I read a shitload of other books on business. I pick up, I mean, I read more about business than I do training now, which would have been very hard to believe five years ago. If you would have gotten me five years ago, all you do is read about business. I would have slapped you in the face. But one of my business partners has an mba and uh not no offense to him but like he definitely knows certain

aspects of the business way better than i do like he's he set some stuff up that i didn't even know i should set up type of thing but and and he covered those bases and that's why he's there and he does an awesome job at it but there's some aspects of business that you just like an mba is not gonna no it's just not gonna help you there so there's some fundamental knowledge there and then beyond that it's all experience yeah like kenny rollins said knowledge without mileage is bullshit yeah you need mileage you need to go out and see shit for yourself and do things. That's so cheesy. So cheesy, right?

Name a sentence that's really catchy and powerful right now. Say something. Say wise words right now. Go. It's so easy to say cheesy shit. Say something. Nothing. Nothing. Alright, guys. We're going to move on to our Are we going to call it our mailbag? Mailbag. Our man bag. That sounds like the ESPN. guys uh we're gonna move on to our are we gonna call it our mailbag mailbag our man back

mailbag mailbag all right so uh we've had a few questions submitted um one of them's a softball but we'll answer it anyway uh sometimes that's perfect because michelle plays softball so some of us who are who've been in the industry for a long time, we have this assumption of knowledge. This is why it's good for us to take questions because everyone knows that. No, you've been doing it for five years. That's why you think everyone knows that. So the first question is,

Oh, shit. So you guys at home, just go to fitr.tv. There's a feedback button. Click that. Submit your questions. Speaking of guys at home, we've been getting a shit ton of traffic. I'm pleasantly fucking surprised. People are listening.

How about that? I'm actually really surprised. CTV. It's fucking mail time. Not time to stroke your beard. Fucking mail time. Stay focused. All right.

First question. Mail time. Go. If it's not... I'm going to kick your ass. A lot of people listening. If it's not good to go hard to kick your ass. A lot of people listening. If it's not good to go hard at CrossFit workouts every day, then what's some other good program to follow

other than FactionSC.com, obviously? And what he's referring to is our competition cycle, not the regular programming for the looking naked crowd. Anyways, actually, I will refer this to you. Well, doesn't the competition cycle have built in? I mean, I don't know. He's just asking for something other than that. Yeah, it has built in intervals and rests and less intense days.

Well, I think there's a difference between a general program and then something specific to you. And that's where I had to make the change with my my programming was because I was following this general plan that makes you good at that makes that focuses on the big picture but doesn't you know if you have some deficiency which mine was clearly strength and and a few gymnastics skills, you don't get better at them if you only practice them once a month, or you only see them in a MetCon once a month.

So it has to be a program more tailored towards you and your strengths and weaknesses. So I think beyond what Faction's competition cycle is, the only thing I guess better would be a more focused program for the individual. Exactly. So there's also Invictus. Yeah. He has a competition cycle also. Right. And then OPT's got, I like OPT.

Yeah. A lot. And I'm trying to think, I'm not really familiar with anyone else that posts like on a blog somewhere I know there's a lot of really good guys out there programming but as far as things that I've looked at I haven't seen anyone outside of those guys yeah

outlaw guy I don't know how he programs I haven't looked too deeply into it I've looked into it a little bit and I kind of I think his personality kind of just who's that guy i never heard of this guy um rudy he programs for some games athletes yeah i believe i believe there's a blog i don't know if outlaw crossfit there is a blog actually there's a really funny like faq web page put up at some point so it's i think it's hilarious yeah. I wouldn't put it on my website.

No. But he obviously doesn't care if he gets new members or not. No, definitely not. But yeah, you just have to keep... Out of the loop on this one, Seymour. With any of these blogs that are geared towards competitive athletes, they're going to be higher in volume, sure, and probably more skill intensive.

So you could probably pick any one of them and find success there. But to step it up to anybody that wants to actually compete at the CrossFit Games, it has not gotten any easier and will continue to be more and more difficult to make it to that level. And it's about the actual training, exactly what you need to train at the exact right time and fine-tuning all these different movements and components of CrossFit. So like Mike brought up, having different coaches

that are more capable of honing in on certain skills. So like with me, I've been fortunate enough to go train with Mike Bergener a few times and then train with Jeff Tucker on my gymnastics skills. And those are the two areas that I need the most work in. So I've branched out to get some of the best in the world to teach me what I'm doing wrong. And in terms of programming, you know, I rely on CJ to do that

and, and it's, it's, it's been great. So. Did, did, was,

was CJ, was he following OPT at one point? Was he part of that doing stuff with James Fitzgerald? I feel like there's, he has some connection because there's an OPT

little banner thing on his website. So, I definitely think that he, he takes some of the, I guess, the methodology or, or what OPT little banner thing on his website so I definitely think that he he takes some of the I guess the methodology or what they have some of the certifications that the OPT offers I think so I don't know methodology I would laugh when I see those kind of programs like a detailed program you're still they're still picking a bunch of random shit honestly are they not I mean

they definitely I do know with our programming with OPT's programming because those are the two I'm most familiar with there's definitely phases where you're focusing on specific types like you'll see a lot of snatching going on for you know a few weeks and stuff like that and there's a progression

and stuff like that if you're just blindly following my stuff I'm basing my programming off of our athletes in the gym and and people who leave comments so if you're if you're just following our blog or you're following any blogs workout and you're not giving the coach any feedback yeah i mean you're training in the dark for sure well that's that's a huge part of mine and cj's relationship is that i have to write notes about the workout, my fatigue level. And specifically last week, my fatigue level on the scale 1 to 10 was like 7s through 9s the entire week. And so Wednesday, I was on the phone with him, and we were scaling back.

You know, like, I was like, I'm not going to make it through 12.5. I almost fell flat on my face at lunch, you know? So that feedback is huge because if you just blindly follow something, it doesn't necessarily mean it's the best. If there's a workout done on paper and you say, okay, I really should have done it at work, I've got to go in, but still do this, you've got to have somebody there to help you. If you can't do it yourself, just say, I've got to back off. It's okay if I don't do this.

Right. Because sometimes it's not going to work out if you try that yeah and with and with the i know i guess with you you think everything all the shit's just totally random but well no i don't think that but when i hear people say when i hear people say that i there's a detailed program for something inherent inherently highly highly varied yeah it's not fucking detailed programming. It's general things moving in a direction, which is good. But my attitude is that if there's an undertone of logic and reason and some progress and barbell lifts and stuff, good.

But when it comes to rope climbs and fucking kettlebell swings, none of that shit matters enough to fucking try to program it. You can fucking periodize kettlebell swinging. It the stupidest fucking idea i did five five sets of fucking rope climbs coupled with fucking thrusters okay i've got it's hard and i've got there's like medium heavy very heavy oh no i've got this awesome spreadsheet i put together which i emailed to you right and then here's the other thing and there's people and there's people who do just as fucking Oh, no, I've got this awesome spreadsheet I put together, which I emailed to you, right? And here's the other thing. And there's people who do just as fucking good by just training very hard and thinking fucking 10% as hard as what you're doing.

So my attitude is always this, that you can really try to focus on – there's things that obviously need to be worked on. And barbell lifts can obviously move forward in a reasonable manner. But there's all these other things you get really lost in the weeds about trying to coordinate oh yeah and keep all the hundreds of plates spinning yeah and you're better off just remember okay what are my fundamentals and in the center of that there is being smart and resting when i need to rest and when it's time to work fucking working really hard absolutely people get people think too fucking much man i think i think a lot of athletes self-defeat in that they question programming too much. And so they don't put 100% effort into it. They're like, well, I don't think this is going to make me better.

Or I think I'm getting worse over here. So they'll do extra something that wasn't in the program. I'm like, we're not trying to get good at that. We're trying to get good at this. So stop doing that. And so it gets really frustrating as a coach sometimes. And I've jumped on people repeatedly

you need a foundation of reason my conditioning is going down I was like we're getting stronger this cycle asshole yeah I mean apply focus where it needed

but all these other details you gotta let go of them yeah that's where I when I was trying to program for myself that's what I had trouble with

I never thought I was doing enough so I was like oh do a little of this do a little of this I walk out I'm totally waxed. I can't program for myself for that exact reason.

Think of trying to get good at powerlifting or weightlifting. Limit your exercises to five. Just do the lifts, a couple variations, and front squat, back squat. Say five lifts you're going to do. You're trying to find the optimum way of doing that. Think of the rep ranges you could do. Just one to five. Think of the sets. Okay, one to five and think of the days you could train okay there's seven possible days a week i could

train one to seven yeah but multiply that together you have millions of different things you can do there are people who do it millions of different ways and they all get fucking stronger yeah so there's something else that makes them better and it's it's not oh that guy does rdls and good morning so that's why he snatches that. No, he fucking works hard. I would say this. I would say half the programs out there are not great.

If you're doing pull-ups three days a week, you're not doing a good program. Um, so there are simple things like that. Like, you know, there are programs that will injure you and there's, you know,

so there's, there's like smart and dumb, right? But on the smart side, the, the half that are programmed relatively smart, if you just believe in the program and train hard, you'll get your results. So that's –

Amen, brother. So boil down your programming to those bullet points. Exactly. All right. Question number two. If I'm not shopping at Whole Foods or some farm but eating meats, vegetables, nuts, et cetera, from the local grocery store, am i any better off than the guy shopping at the center of the i guess the process stuff yes next question i'd like to think

i am yeah yeah i mean even if you're shopping at a grocery store where you're not getting everything organic and not getting all of your meat grass fed and stuff like that i would say uh yeah you're you're way up way better off macronutrients and, and quality are, are definitely have to be lined up. I would say go for macronutrients first, make sure you're getting enough protein and enough fat and you're not eating too many carbohydrates. And after that, I would start worrying about like the quality of your carbohydrates and that would be vegetables and then the type of meat you're getting. And of course it's, it's like a journey, you know, it's like when I first started, as I progressed in how I eat and my nutrition, there was a time where I didn't even know the difference between grass-fed and regular beef.

You were so dumb. Can you believe that? There's no telling what I'll be doing in five years from now. Right. But you've got to keep in mind, most people are still thinking, Hey, I went to Kroger and they had fat-free, non-fattening frozen yogurt, so I can't I just eat all I want of that? Oh, yeah.

They don't pay attention to 40 grams of sugar per cup in there. Yeah, but I think everyone should just be trying to progress all the time. If you were maxed out on your budget for food and stuff like that, you may have a harder time progressing. But I would challenge you to like, depends on how much of a priority your health is, I would turn off my cable before I stop eating grass-fed beef. I would turn that shit off and I would pursue it that way. But if you have a hard enough time just eating, not eating ice cream three nights a week, you probably don't have to be at that level. So it's just all about progress.

If you're even asking a question, you're probably doing all right. And I think sometimes when you set that bar too high with the grass, you've got to get the grass fed. And then the next thing that happens, oh, I can't get my grass fed, so now I'm just going to eat the Snickers bar. It's like, let them know that you can – like when we had a seminar, we had a,

we had a CrossFit cert, cert done at our gym recently. You know, that's fucking close. And all the trainers that came, they all had generic grocery food. It wasn't grass. You know,

they brought all their food to eat during the weekend. It was all like, you know, we got a level one coaches aren't good to athletes. I'm just kidding. These are golden gods man come on keep in mind like the bulk of the time if you're making good decisions and 20 of the time you're eating other things and some of that time you're eating really terribly it's probably fine your body's

resilient most of the time doing good things will get you just about all the benefits i made some bad decisions last night yeah i had tacos twice and two days somebody laughed at me and they they had all the right to laugh at me It was really funny Chris was there to see it Well I was at the bar Listening to Arma Secreta Is that how you say it?

And one of our friend's bands Actually Chris Walker He's been on the podcast His band Friend of the show His band was awesome I was thinking Oh yeah I'll probably like his music

But they started playing I was like And the first song was like Okay their first song was really good And then they started playing their second song I was like, oh yeah, I'll probably like his music. But they started playing. I was like, and the first song was like, okay, the first song was really good. And then they started playing their second song. I was like, this is awesome. I went and stood by the stage. This is legit. By song three, my shirt was off.

That's right. No mosh pit. No, but I was drinking hard cider, crisping. But then I ordered a sandwich so somebody somebody caught on that i was ordering like gluten-free drinks but eating bread so they they thought that was pretty pretty funny they were like you're by the way if you're if you're drinking like a hard a fucking woodchuck cider it has no gluten in it so it's okay and it's like 50 grams of sugar if anybody's saying that it's ridiculous uh well it kind of depends on how sensitive you are to gluten or whatever.

So I'll take the sugar out of, like, you know, apples over eating some of the gluten. Do you realize how many apples are in that jar? There's like five apples. It's delicious. Okay, yeah. I mean, if people are going, well, should I drink hard apple cider or just beer? Which one's better for me? Now that one's fucking good for you, bro.

Everyone try this Fox Barrel. It's a pear cider. Yeah. That's really good. All right. Question number three. If you're concerned, drink water. Question number three.

I think I heard Doug say you shouldn't do kipping pull-ups. Is that right? What Doug was referring to is that kipping pull-ups are not the friendliest things to your shoulders most of the time, especially if you have mobility problems. If you have full mobility, then you're probably pretty healthy. You don't want to do them constantly because even if the muscles are recovering, all the tendons and all that kind of stuff may not. Those shoulders actually are a very complex joint.

Make sure you're doing some rows. Barbell rows, dumbbell rows, stuff like that. That's going to help strengthen your shoulder without putting it in that bad position. If you do have good mobility, one thing you can do, and you've done some gymnastics stuff, so you could probably attest to this a little bit, is try to stay hollow when you're doing your kipping pull-ups. It'll shorten up that range of motion a little bit for you. Define hollow. And you'll get more power out of your kip well hollow is uh maybe you would know how to like i don't know how to describe it now uh technique wise i usually i

usually uh show people what hollow is if you've ever uh just uh google hollow rocks and if you can do hollow rocks then then that's staying hollow. Your abs are tight. Your glutes are tight. Glutes don't have to stay tight. It's the opposite of the position you're in when you want to back squat. Your chest is out. You don't want it out.

I'm not good at describing. It's how I tell people to do glute hams. You're kind of tucked forward. Is that what it is? Like opposite arch? I'm not. Kind of rounded position? Yeah, a little round.

It would make your lumbar spine flat as opposed to, you know, the other way. All right, guys. As far as I wanted to say one thing about the kipping pull-ups because that's – I went to Jeff Tucker's advanced gymnastics certification course and learned a lot. And with the kipping pull-ups in mind, his idea is that if you can't do a dead hang pull-up, you have no business doing high rep kipping pull-ups for that exact reason. The shoulder joint is not strong enough clearly to pull your body weight up. So you add this weird-ass swinging component where magically you're able to get above the bar all these different times. It's still taxing your shoulder and all the components of your shoulder more than it's strong enough to handle.

And so that's why we see a lot of shoulder issues with the kipping pull-up is because people aren't strong enough. Mobility issues, not mobile enough. So yeah, I've not had shoulder issues because of my pull-ups um but i've been able to do i don't know what the magic number is but if you can't do a dead hang pull-up but you can do x number of kipping pull-ups your that doesn't mean your shoulders are strong enough so definitely um hollow hollow dead hang pull-ups are about the best thing you can do to strengthen that joint as far as far as for the kipping pull-up we actually took kipping out of our our foundation or the fundamentals course yeah because yeah like man these people so it's hard as hell to explain some of these people are like 250 pounds 300 pounds and

and them hanging and swinging from their shoulders which the rest of the the last 20 years they've been sitting like this at a desk and now now you're like, do this and swing. Open, close, open. It's a bad idea. So, yeah, just kipping pull-ups can be good, but just go into them nice and easy. Good recommendation. Get your dead hang pull-ups down first.

And there's a lot of progressions towards that as well. Oh, got any plugs? Sponsors? Anyone you want to promote? You want us to go this way so you can have some time to think about it? Yeah.

Make sure I have everybody. I'm going to plug fitter.tv, F-I-T-R dot TV. This is where this show is at. Oh,

I got to hurry up, James. Really quick. All right, techniquewad.com, go. I want to plug, we'll have a new CTP cam coming out soon, and we are on iTunes now, guys.

So subscribe to us on iTunes. And yeah, go. Barbell shrugged. Barbell shrugged. Go. The ChrisWardBlog.com. Go read something, I guess. Good shit.

All right. Go, Michelle. Follow my quest for 2012 at MichelleKenney.blogspot.com. Also, Reebok, again, Faster Progenics, and Pure Pharma, thanks for being my corner. Word. Awesome. I'm in your corner too, Michelle. See you all next time.

See you. Oh. So, Matt, are you going down on me? How do we get it in, right?