Barbell Shrugged - From CrossFit to the Combine w/ Paul Beckwith, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash Barbell Shrugged #582

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

Paul Beckwith has worked with athletes of all ages and experience. Born and raised in Dillon, South Carolina, Beckwith moved to Palatka, Florida, where he was a four‐year letterman in football, wrestling, track and field and weightlifting. Following graduation, he played football at the University of South Carolina, where he was an All‐SEC performer and four‐year starter on the offensive line.   After a stellar college career, Paul declined a free agent deal with several NFL teams to pursue his passion in the strength and conditioning profession. After completing his degree in business management, he worked as a strength and conditioning coach at USC, advising the football, baseball, soccer, golf, swimming and diving and track and field programs prior to joining Apex. Beckwith’s multiple certifications include; OPEX Advanced Coach with expertise in assessment, program design, nutrition and life coaching; United States Weightlifting trained with certification in Olympic lifting. Paul has trained professional athletes representing the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), Major League Soccer (MLS), Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) and U.S. Olympic Weightlifting.   In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   From College football to CrossFit Coach The highs and lows of owning a CrossFit Gym Continuing education and hiring a coach The turn to developing athletes for the NFL Combine Strength, rehab, and performance while developing athleticism   Paul Beckwith on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   Diesel Dad Training Programs: http://barbellshrugged.com/dieseldad   Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa   Please Support Our Sponsors   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   BiOptimizers Probitotics - Save 10% at bioptimizers.com/shrugged   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://prxperformance.com/discount/BBS5OFF Save 5% using the coupon code “BBS5OFF”

Shrugged Family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, my very first strength coach of all time. Maybe not of all time, but my very first coach as I consider myself to be a strength athlete. Paul Beckwith, what an awesome human being. Not only was I under his tutelage for a couple years in South Carolina when I was in grad school, but I learned so much watching him grow a gym to 300 and something members, expand that gym, and then sell that gym. And if there's somebody in my life that has been just at the forefront of getting me into the strength and conditioning fitness arena, teaching me a ton about CrossFit. It is Paul Beckwith.

And it was really cool to be able to go down to South Carolina, actually go back to my first gym, or at least the town that my first gym was in, and get back to see him and hang out. So this show is super special. We get into all things from where he grew up, his first strength coaches, as well as his, his path into CrossFit after playing college football at university of South Carolina.

Um, and now the fact that he's coaching future NFLers and training them for the combine. I hope you guys love the show. This guy is, uh, means a ton to me in my career in this field and uh just super grateful that he's just been in my life for better part of the last uh 15 years uh before we get into the show you need to get over to organifi.com forward slash shrugged organifi.com forward slash shrugged that's where you save 20 on% on the green, the red, and the gold juices. And those juices are the most delicious juices because not only do they taste delicious, but they are loaded with the vitamins and minerals and the ashwagandhas that your body needs to function optimally. Check it out. If you are listening to this on a Monday,

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That's magbreakthrough.com forward slash shrugged. Friends, I take this every night. I sleep beautifully. It really is an awesome product. We have a full show coming out with Wade, one of the founders, here in the next couple of weeks. And I love their magnesium product, magbreakthrough.com forward slash shrugged. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Smash. This big man right here to my right is Paul Beckwith, who is the actual first strength coach, like the real strength, the first person I ever thought of as a strength coach for me that's you man you're uh you're literally the reason why we're standing on these microphones because you showed me that

there was a way that i could do this and somehow someone's gonna hand me money for it that's right and we could go play crossfit as pros i feel like coach ken is standing beside me he like reminds me same aura same big old man it's like i feel like i should just be quiet. You know Coach Ken? I do. Okay. Do you feel like you're kind of the same archetype, whatever that means? Same build, same confidence. I totally agree with you. I feel similar. The vibe is the same.

Same exact. He's one of my best friends. That's a compliment. For sure. Dude, just for the audience, I know most of this story. Dude, coming from Florida, you guys had a really good strength training background. You and your brother are pretty big humans. I'd love to hear just kind of the cliff notes before we dive into where we're in right now and where the kids you're coaching.

Okay. So backtrack 20, almost 20, 28 years, 1990. I was my freshman in high school. Yeah. My brother's 11 years older than me. He grew up, you know, with old Joe Weider, you know, cement weights. He left, went off to college. Dad dusted off the weights out of the attic got him down started trying playing around a little bit here we go again and uh we all have

this story it sounds like right yeah so um freshman year going into high school um really didn't know what to expect um i was very big and considered you knowwise, frame-wise, just as weak as everything. I think my max bench press at the time was probably 95 pounds. It baffles me because you're huge. And then fast forward, got into a really good program there in Palatka. We were 11 years in a row state weightlifting champions. That helps, man, in Florida. In the bench press and clean and jerk.

Who was your coach? Coach Headstrong, Jim Headstrong. He was out of Louisiana. Yeah. Oh, I bet he was a hatch guy. Yep, he was a go hatch guy. I guess, yeah. Come back and, you know, during football season,

pretty much all year long until we got into weightlifting season, it was five sets of five. Yeah. Old Bill Starr, bro. There's nothing wrong with five by five. And it was power clean first, and if you got time, do bench press. Five by five power cleans. Yeah.

I mean, and it was. That's four more reps than you got in you right now. It was strictly we would test preseason and then all through season football season we lifted three days a week

Monday, Wednesday, Friday Friday mornings before games that night we would train whether you're a starter whether you're a starter, whether you're a freshman or varsity. He lifted every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Tuesday, Thursday. We would all go out and run gassers around the pole, and that was it. That was your conditioning and your strength.

So you multiply that times four, and you'll end up coming out of high school. I was 265 coming out of out of high school uh bench press 405 with the pals sure you didn't clean and jerk 405 400 pound increase 300 pound increase you don't need all this crazy stuff for high school kids yeah it's just keep it simple yeah people do this weird stuff chill just do something very basic they'll get stronger yeah he was in shape he did the gassers i mean you know could he have done other things to get faster maybe but he was in shape he was strong perfect yeah that goes for training any new person like high school kids are just young people that haven't trained very much but any any new person sticking to the basics is

generally a good idea it's a it's a brilliant thing and getting anything past that is a bad idea yeah why get the most out of the least yep so and then the other sports i did was i wrestled yeah uh and then track and field you know shot and discus that wouldn't do anything sprinting was you know yeah um so uh if you're tall and you're jerking 400 pounds like being a thrower sounds like the move yeah so my junior year we had three of the top recruits uh one was the top recruit in the nation. He was a 6'6", tight end at 247. Boom.

And he cleaned and jerked 405. Yeah. Beast. And I was like, wow, don't drop that weight. Straight through the floor. What position did you play? I was a tackle in defensive end and tackle in high school. And they recruited me here.

South Carolina. Yeah. And for me, I was under the impression I was going to get redshirted because I was underweight at 265. But that whole thing changed game one when our fifth-year senior broke his ankle in the second series against Georgia. Oh, yeah. So now you're playing.

At 247. And the guy I'm going series against Georgia. Oh, yeah. So now you're playing. At 247. And the guy I'm going against, against University of Georgia, ESPN. Oh, boy. Under the Lights. Check that out on YouTube, friends. That's my boy out there. He was Matt Storm, who was 6'6", and a mammoth of a man. And I go out there, and I look at steve and he's like dude just give me the

ball and just give me like three seconds and we'll be okay so i shotgun that game and that whole thing so you play in center yeah oh yeah so i learned all the calls all the blocking schemes uh all the blitz pickup within 15 days because you know pre-season back there was you had 15 days because, you know, preseason back there was, you know, you had 15 days. Yeah. And it was two days, three days. I remember. Yeah. And that's why I went from 265 to 247 in 15 days.

You lost your weight. And it was just like, I mean, and the training table is not like it is now. You know, you don't have a nutritionist that can make all your shakes, bring you all the preps and all this kind of stuff. Here's some food. Go eat it. Right. It's like, all right, you're going to go eat with everybody else.

How did you do? How did you handle it? So I was very fortunate. My roommate at the time was a guy that was doing exercise science, and he had already figured out that, you know, if you take shakes in between meals. You can get a few extra calories. You throw some shakes in your pack as you're walking to class and you're eating bananas and peanut butter jelly sandwiches

throughout the day. He put on 40 pounds of muscle in one off-season, one summer. And he was huge. He walked on, earned a scholarship. Oh, that's a cool story. He was an H-back, got picked up by the Jaguars. Cooler story. He was another strong freak dude, but, you know, he just had a great work ethic.

Did he help you put size on that season? Yep. So that next – so that after finishing my whole freshman year, I got back up to where I was 282. Yeah. My sophomore2. Yeah. My sophomore year. Yeah. And so then it just kind of streamlined going all the way through.

So my graduating weight was at 305. Did you go on? Did you try to play in the NFL? I tried to play. Yep. It didn't play back. So. That happens.

So, yeah. So I then transitioned. And during that time, my strength and condition coach was a very passionate guy. He trained under Bill Tootin, who was with the Denver Broncos for a long time. He was at University of Florida. They had a great program. He was a super high-intensity, volume, volume, volume, volume guy. It was tough to kind of figure out going from platforms and barbells

to Smith machines and just like squatting and repping and like, oh, my gosh. It was like, Coach, can I just kind of lift? Yeah. He's like, yeah, you see the track goes over there? You can go train with them after we get done with this. So that's how I met Bert. There you go. Bert and Brad and those guys were the lifters and throwers.

I mean, those guys were different. So that's what kind of got my – I kind of snuck off to the side and go do the cleans and snatches and jerks and stuff like that. We've interviewed two people today, and as soon as we tell them we're headed over here, we go, we're headed to Apex tonight. Paul? Paul? It's like this area, everyone knows you.

Yes. How was the high-intensity? What are your thoughts about the high-intensity training? You know, any type of training is going to have some benefit. It's only if you use it to pre-set and pre-indicate what's going to happen next. Sure. Volume accumulation is going to be great for getting big. Yeah.

But you need to get big, and then you need to transition to getting strong. Yeah. And then when you get strong, you need to get really strong. Yeah. And then when you get really strong, you need to get big, and then you need to transition to get strong. And then when you get strong, you need to get really strong. And then when you get really strong, you need to move stuff fast. Agreed. And then once you get to that point, then it becomes position-specific. I agree. I think the only thing with high-intensity,

it works if you're at a school that recruits unbelievable athletes. Yeah. And it lets you not hurt them. As far as benefiting athletes, I just can't see the signs in it. Well, I mean, the whole thing of overuse. Yeah. Re-injuring. If you can't squat and you're doing a whole bunch of squats the wrong way.

Totally. It doesn't really work that way. I agree. You put them on a leg press and just, like, don't go very heavy. Oh, yeah. You're not really doing anything. Yeah. You know, like.

So, and the whole, what I tell my guys that are coming in here that are either you're in high school, you're in college, or you're getting ready for the draft, it's like, look, this stuff we're doing now is not going to be your end-all career. Right. What you're doing here is trying to help develop you to become a bigger vessel of what you're doing so that what you're going to be doing to get paid is what's going to keep you on the field longer. That's when you said sports specific. Then you start thinking on position specific.

So I'm not going to train my guys that are in the league the same way I'm going to train a guy that's in college trying to get ready to go his next season. I'm not going to train the guy that's getting ready to graduate from college to go into the NFL. I'm not going to train him the same way because it's a totally different animal high school to college there's some variances just because of training uh your training age and your experience and understand the whole complexities of how it's going to train from well that's a whole lot of work getting done but how do i transition to getting stronger and faster i said that will come you come. You just need to learn how to work.

How to work, how to move properly, like the very basics. Yeah. And so a lot of kids come in and they want to say, I want to do all the cool, fun, sexy stuff. I said, you're not ready for that. Right. And you won't be able to get what I need for you to get out of it until you can do this stuff.

Right. And the sexy stuff, like you do it once you think you've passed by all the basics, and then you go through that stage, and now I'm just like, yo, just give me a front squat. Yeah. Let me get out of here. Go run around and play. Just go right back to the basics and just hammer those for another 20 years

and we'll be all right. This is exact. Sounds like Coach Ken talks about his block, you know, block zero, which is like the basics. Yeah. Block one. And it works on that. He talked to me about when they're in the NFL, it is like the basics, and block one, and it works on up. He talked to me about when they're in the NFL, it's like you just want them to keep moving.

Yeah. Maybe you try to get them a little bit better. Yeah. Definitely don't hurt them. Correct. Then you start working with them individually, like with Cam Newton. No one had ever gotten Cam to work out. Right.

And then Coach Ken asked him, like, what do you like to do? And then he figured out a workout around the things that he likes to do. Right. That's where he gets skipped. We're just trying to get you a little bit healthier. You're already awesome. I can't get you any more awesome. But when you've got kids training for the combine, though, they're hungry.

You probably have to pump the brakes on them more than you have to get up and go. You do really have to watch and manage the amount of volume they're doing. Because they'll be just sitting here and training all day thinking it's the best thing in the world. They're trying to squat it six times today. It goes back to the same rule. Our goal is to initiate, not annihilate. So if I can initiate some growth in this, doing a little bit of this, then we're good. Perfect.

Anything more than that, you're going to start annihilating. You're going to start going the other way. Then it's going to cause problems. You're going to get hurt. Well, hold on a second. I met you when you went to CrossFit, Jim. Yeah. That's what we did.

Backpack. So I got through. That was the annihilation phase. Yeah. Get him as an individual at CrossFit. Yeah. You ever seen the big man do a muscle-up? To some extent, that's what people are paying for, though.

They go to CrossFit because they want to get their ass totally kicked. Yeah. Yeah. And so after finishing up being an assistant strength coach, going to grad school, doing that whole thing, got married, had to get a job, started sales, got into that, got up to super. I think I got up to living out of my car doing travel sales. I think I was up to about 360. Cool.

Dang. Once you learn how to eat, you can do it forever. Bro, I'm telling you. That's the gift that keeps on giving, you know? Look, guys, I'm really good at eating. So I remember – I have talent. I remember going back and remembering one of the assistant coaches

getting a phone call from somebody at CrossFit, and they said look up this website, and it was the blue screen. Yeah. The dot matrix. Yeah. You know, like 5.0. The first one. And I remember going and doing a workout in the facility at USC,

and I didn't have a row machine, so you know what I did? I just compilated, okay, this is cool. I'll use a low row. Oh, my gosh. So how do I fix 500-meter row so I'll use maybe 150 pounds to do that 100 times? Does my meter work? I don't know. Anyway.

Rabdo was inventing. Yeah. And then that was that. And so then I remember I would say fast forward back to it, and I remember doing my first ever CrossFit workout was Nancy. I had a barbell and I had overhead squats. So you literally did CrossFit? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. I just thought of you on the – Oh, yeah, no, no. You don't look like the CrossFit. Oh, yeah, bruh. I'll get to it. Wow. I remember marking it off and going and doing, you know,

five rounds of 15 overhead squats and running 400 meters, right? It took me 47 minutes. I go back inside. It's like, wow, people did, you know, their average round was like, you know, 15 minutes. I called my buddy up and he said, yeah, that was their total time. I was like, what do you mean, for like a round? He said, no, that's all five rounds.

It's all done? I'm like, holy crap. I knew I was out of shape, but this is really stupid. This is when you were 360? Yeah. Yeah. So it was kind of like I was having to take some oxygen breaks in between. So fast forward that, went over to Atlanta to see CrossFit Atlanta.

Got to talk with them, see how this thing worked, and then come back here, get set up, do a little mom and pop shop at the bottom of a law firm. Yeah. And then that turned into me training pretty much their whole staff, and then I would go work, and then I'd do more training. And so it got to the point where I had to make a decision. What were you – what were you saying you had to go do?

Oh, yeah, yeah. What did you sell? Medical equipment. Oh, yeah. Yeah, medical devices. So I had some free time, but, you know, numbers were good. And then all of a sudden the numbers started decreasing because as my volume of coaching started getting bigger.

You didn't sell as much. So I was like like i need to cut bait and fish yeah so i was young i only had one kid so my mom my wife had a job she could teach and we had insurance so i was like okay mom i said honey i'm gonna open up we're going we're doing it she's like oh what okay cool so she's like don't go broke. Yeah. 2006, August 2006. Carolina CrossFit was founded. And did you have the money? Did you pay for it yourself or what? That was all part of the agreement that I had with the landlord that I was training his staff.

And so I kind of we kind of I had the equipment and I would just buy as I went. So I did not take out any loan until I built the Taj Mahal of what it is now. And that turned into a – that's a whole other story. Let's hear it. I want to hear it now. So I had – when I transitioned out of the bottom of the law firm, I needed to get bigger space, right? Sure. And that space turned into – I had 50 members at the time. And for me to grow and to make a sizable income to support a family,

not just kind of living off my wife's kind of all this kind of stuff. And so that turned into me going and finding the perfect gym. Yeah. It was awesome. It was a true garage. I mean, it was an old Porsche garage. OG CrossFit. Yeah.

It was a wooden barrel top. Perfect. It was sick. And it had one door, and it had probably 15 bays inside that you could just. Platforms. It was the first gym I ever walked into where you had real platforms. Yeah. I didn't even know that was a thing.

Yeah. Oh, so it wasn't just the typical CrossFit. They had platforms, like, for weightlifting? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So it's a real deal. So I went in, and we, like I said, when I had enough money or enough clients that were consistently coming, I would take the income that I had made that month

and venture out and buy more platforms and buy more bars and more bumpers. It's like the original CrossFit model. And then probably two and a half, about two years into it, it was, I mean, this was probably 2009, 2010. So we had gotten through the whole thing. CrossFit's a fad thing. You know, we were going to not fall off the face of the earth. CrossFit's stupid.

Now you've got people doing CrossFit and, you know, Gold's Gyms and Planet Fitness. Everywhere. And you're like, oh, why don't we go to a gym? I was like, well, I don't know if you don't need to go to a gym, but the competition creates intensity. Intensity is where the change comes from. They're like, well, that's great.

So that kind of got spurred on, and I got to the point where at my peak I was seeing roughly 100 people a day. Oh, wow. How many members did you have, do you say? At my highest, we were right at 475. That was in like four years. Like I remember I showed up when it was like 50. When I left and moved out to San Diego, it was like 330,

which was like the greatest education of all time. I was getting my MBA and at the same time learned nothing in school, but I learned that like how to – dude, you made the place so cool. It was the first time like i had i had 10 years of strength conditioning in me before i met you yeah and then you became it was you were like the coach the guy that was going to actually teach me how to be strong and and learn how to lift like my first real olympic lifting coach was you like i had no idea how you can go back and watch some of the videos which is terrifying on youtube very YouTube. Very quad-dynamics. But, like, the ability to, like, create a family inside there,

I never knew that was possible. And to see it go from 50 to 330 members in more or less, like, two years. I was there two years for grad school. And the whole thing is the more you have the more people will come because the communication is word of mouth and people are like i want to get in yeah i'm like bro i cannot fit any more people in here with barbells i mean i literally had three rows of anywhere from seven to ten bars deep with people behind them. And so we would do barbell, you know. And I had pull-up bars literally surrounding the perimeter of the building

made out of PVC pipe. Not PVC pipe, but the plumbing pipe. Plumbing pipe, yeah. And had them framed on the wall. Then I finally convinced Bert to hook me up with a rig that I could do squat racks off of and pull-ups off of and jerk racks. Then it was real then. Then it was like, well, this is great.

So I had pretty much built the framework of it to the point where the only thing I could do is move into a bigger place. Yeah. And so overhead was, I mean, less than three grand a month. I would die of moves. Oh, my God. I know. But the thing was, it's like, you know. It was either go big or go home, right? I would stay right there.

Now. At the time. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You learned a quick lesson. So you take out a loan for 300 grand. Yeah.

You go across the street, literally across the street on the other side of the firehouse. And you got a 40,000 square foot warehouse. How big was this place? It's clean. How big is the place that you're already in, though? It was like 6,000. Oh, so you went. 5,000?

3,500. If you include the back room, it, so you wait. 5,000? 3,500. If you include the back room, it's probably that big. The back room? You're really going to throw that in? I mean, but it has platforms back there. Oh, yeah. I left it back there. Oh, yeah.

So let's say 5,000 to 30,000. So you're six times bigger. Yeah. Yeah. So right off the cut, the overhead went from. Gym owners, listen up, bud. Listen up. Talking to you, gym owner, on your way to the gym at 4.30 a.m. right now.

Cap your people. You can increase their money. You're going to learn about overhead. Yeah. So overhead went from $3,500. That's paying staff, rent, overhead, water, utilities, $3,500 depending on – You are making the money. Yeah. Dirt cheap. Yeah, right? on you are making the money yeah yeah dirt cheap yeah right so I just did the math you jump that up to to $10,000 a month just for rent and then utilities

never mind the fact that I had to put in a $70,000 sprinkler system oh that was like the rig that you guys like the fire marshals that you had to do that? Yeah, because I had, because that was because I had more people. Yeah. There was going to be more than 150 people in the

building. Yeah. Not because I had 150 people lifting at one time, but the capacity was that. So you had to go

and do it, yeah. So the city came in and said, man, you got to do this. So that whole tapping fee right there was just

like, whoa. That's enough for a lot of people just to be like, oh, well, fuck. I guess I got to go somewhere else now. Start all over. I mean, I would have done what he did then. But now what I know what I know, I'd have been like, all right, I'm going back to this place. Yeah, for sure.

But at that time you had like 350 members and they're paying. We're right there almost 450. Okay, 450. I mean, I was like, I was trying to figure out how I could add more time. Yeah, and they're paying like $200 a month. Yeah, so you're making real money for a CrossFit gym owner. A ton of money. Much more than most people I know.

And then, like I did too, I'm just going to go real big. Then more people will come. Will they? Maybe. Closer to the beach, that's what I need. See, the thing that really blew it, not really say blew it, but the intensity within that small confines of the original gym. Yeah.

I felt that, too. When we went into the 6,000 square foot, everybody spread out. People stopped bumping into each other, and shit gets weird. Yeah. All of a sudden, it's easy to stay away instead of being all up on each other it's too clean right yeah it's too clean so it's something about going to crossfit and it need to be a little bit of grungy yeah yeah they're like yeah i want to come in there especially in that in that original place it was super nice because we had everything we needed but had hard work yeah all over it man chalk yeah

times written in chalk all on the board just knew if there was somebody could have went and said don't do it yeah but yeah we've all done it it's the itch you gotta scratch until you found out you're like man i really just lost i should not have scratched that yeah oh yeah i think an ego got in the way of that one and you we would have you know doctors that are getting ready to go into heart surgery and perform 16-hour surgeries that are coming in at five o'clock in the morning hey man can i i'm ready to go and you're like okay let's go i need that i need that friend yeah so they're in there they're going through all that getting after it and then you had the moms come in and then you

had all the school height uh the college kids coming in that were seasonal. That was great. Then they were gone in the summertime. You're like, oh, my God. Right. How do I figure this out? Wait, your overhead got bumped significantly. Did that end up crushing you in any particular way? Like, you were making a lot of money.

That doesn't sound like the overhead's, like, too out of control. No, it wasn't. But the whole thing was when we went from the small, compact, intense, family-oriented kind of aura to the very edgy, corporate kind of. Because I had a shoe store in there. It was a culture shift. Had a chiropractor in there. You ran a big business.

It was like, this is crazy. They were just subletting space for you? Yeah. So that turned into kind of like, this is not what, you know, CrossFit really is. CrossFit is kind of like that underground kind of deal. Right. Now, fast forward versus, you know, competing at the ranch to competing in the depot. Yeah, right.

It's like, wow. So it got to the point where the overhead was kind of cutting in and thinning out and members were kind of off and on, back and forth. Yeah. And to the point where my kids were getting older, so quality of life, me having to spend time with family versus 4.30 in the morning to, sure, I could do all the classes myself, or do I have somebody come in and do the 5, 6, and 7, and 8, me show up at work at 8, and then leave at 5, pick up kids on the way home,

blah, blah, blah, do that, kind of like a normal 9 to 5 job. Sure. Or do I just stick to it and just do it all myself and so i got to the point where i had a training staff of about 12 to 15 coaches and paying them per hour per class you know 25 30 a class to come in and pick up some cash here and there it was great well then i started writing the checks with salary it kind of like it's like man kids are making $2,500, $3,000. Yeah. Sitting and just really watching and hanging out, you know?

Yeah. Good gig. Yeah, right. So that's one of those learning lessons that you have. Every gym owner right now is just nodding their head. Oh, my gosh. Oh, yeah. I just feel bad.

I want to hug you because I've done it too. We've all been there. We've all tried to figure out. And we did it in the middle of when it was hot. There was no end to the growth. Oh, yeah. There was no way you could see, especially in your first business, that 2016 would happen when it just plateaued for no reason

outside of everyone knew what it was and it wasn't the fad anymore. Right. Totally. We went through it. We had the big facility. Our overhead was absurd. We were three blocks off the beach on the busiest road in the middle of the coolest beach. It's like you're paying for it.

I was handing over like a used car every month. Bam. You go buy yourself a used car. You want an SUV this month? Go get some. Yeah. It's gnarly. And everybody on this side was like, man, I would love to be out there.

It's so awesome. Yeah, right. No, you wouldn't. So, like, what – so did it – so did it – did you eventually say – did you sell it or did you – Yeah, so I just got to the point where, you know, I put the verb – the vibe out. So, look, I would – it became a kind of conversation between some of my tight friends that were, you know, if the opportunity came and somebody offered me a price and was just like, you know what, this is a great idea, I'd do it, you know.

And then I was like, what would I do? I was like, I have no idea, you know. I haven't thought that far, you know. And I had an opportunity where a guy that kind of, I mean, he was freshly new into the CrossFit scene. You know, he had the means to do it and just said, yeah, man, I'll do it. And then. Bam.

Chop, chop, bam, boom. Dude, one of the coolest things about, like, learning from you was that, you know, we've talked about how cool the gym was and we had all the top equipment and all the stuff. But, dude, I had never met somebody at that stage of my life like anytime anybody told me to lift weights it was like yo just go squat why uh well because squatting is what you're supposed to do right but i never knew things like energy systems you were like so far ahead in the education thing from where i was at coming from kind of like a bodybuilding world and just like finding CrossFit,

it was like, oh, this is a sport I might be able to be good at. And then, dude, the education that you like pumped in that gym was so high level for where fitness was at at that time that, I mean, it carried me for the majority of like to where we're at now, like having that base education. Did you major in exercise science here? I was undergrad, was in business. In business. Yeah, and then post-grad was in adult education. Oh, okay, cool.

So a lot of my information and training was OJT and learning from different coaches along the way. Getting into this, I knew that I had a strong background in barbell. Because you played football. And Olympic lifting. So that was a huge missing link in the whole arena. Especially early on. And just getting people comfortable having a barbell in their hand.

Squatting, front squatting, overhead squatting. Learn how to power pull, pull, jerk, post jerk, you know, moving weight. Yeah. It was cool. And then you sprinkle in some heavy, intense work, and then getting breathing heavy, and then go back to do a, you know, quality control bar, getting a pre-exhaustion and having to move really well with the bar.

Yeah. It really sets that barbell movement really, really clean. It sets you apart because back then the barbell movement was not so clean in all the other gyms. Right. In your gym, if it's looking kind of beautiful, it makes you way different. We got to the point where we had a USAW-sanctioned meet in our facility. Oh, sweet.

And so that was great. And so back to the educational piece, you know, I got to really digging in and talking to some friends and a guy by the name of James Fitzgerald. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. That guy. So.

He's significant. I put off the bullet, you know, right when I was, you know, had a big influx of cash. And I flew out there and spent three weeks, almost to a month out there with him. That's where you got it. So it was me, Nate Schrader, a lot of other guys that were in those, you know. I went through that light bulb moment twice.

Dark ops guy. Yeah. And I come back home and, all right, we got some plans. Let's try it it out let's see if you can fall off and see how the wheels go you know we were we were hard charging dude like we were we were super aggressive that was i was 24 25 25 and 26 years old so i was in the middle of it and crossfit his aerobic base was so big that i could throw anything at him aerobically but if i sprink sprinkled in some heavy stuff, like a heavy deadlift or a heavy squat, it would just crush him. And so I was like, okay, that's where we need to work.

So I was quite the opposite. Yeah. So all the programming and designing that I was doing was going to be based off of Anders, Jim, Jim, and – So Jim Cox is a Blue Angel pilot that was like my training partner for five years. We found CrossFit like on the same day, and it was like, screw you. He was like, screw you. I was like, all right, well, we're going to go work out and figure this out.

Every day for the next five years, we're going to try and slit each other's throats called CrossFit. Okay. And then he moved down here with us, and we both walked in. He came down like a day early. He was like, we got a gym. And I was like, let's go. I'm ready to move for right now. Let's find out. And dude, it was like toe to toe every day. Brandon Morrison. And then Jen Ryan showed up. And she's the 40-year-old fittest person in the world right now. So like our crew plus Spigener

and Gantz, who had just graduated and won a national championship in baseball at sc we had this like super early group of super athletic hard-charging people and he just went at it it just didn't it didn't exist anywhere that i knew of we're like those people were just ready to get at each other every day we talked talked shit, and we trained hard. Yeah. It would be easy to just get him strong. Oh, yeah. And I was like, wow, this would be so cool if we had somebody that could actually go and compete at each phase of the CrossFit Games. There you go.

We had our first competition. I had a 15-year-old Christian Klute. He was a big Olympic lifter, but he started, you know, he's from Namibia. Yeah. And his dad came by. He's like, I'd like to get my son set up to go to spring. He's swimming now at the high school. But he will get here at 5 o'clock.

He will ride his bike from the house to here, train, go school, swim, and then come back home and do training again. I was like, what? This is not the normal kid. Yeah, that's not normal. That's not the normal parent saying those things. Normally, you need to baby mine, but I might know. But, no, we had various – we had all kind of athletes that would just pop out of nowhere,

and they would come in and do great things like Jen and Anders and just kind of do cool stuff. And then the more you build those relationships, they can just come back and compound on you. One thing that was really cool about the program is, like, because the college was here, you'd find some kids that, like, weren't into the party scene. Like Josh McMahon, I think, was his name. But, dude, the difference between training at 25

and, like, learning how to train, train, do it the right way, and you're, like, training energy systems, and you're on a real strength program versus, like, I just lift because I like lifting heavy. Like, when you're 18 years old and these kids, like, it would be, like, a year in the program, and all of a sudden it would be, like, these kids are freaks now. Like, you just give them the right dose of the right thing,

and it would just turn them into monsters overnight. I've got so much data now from training these young dudes like you can see like there's like definitely all the way up until like 16 there's a slow down and then 18 hits and it's like boom i mean yeah it's like like morgan right now it's like pr pr pr ryan pr pr it's like once they hit 18 years old it's like the bottom drops out of their balls and they they just, all testosterone. You know what I mean? Yes. And they just become a man.

They go from the little boy to now they're a man. Yeah. And it's like, you're for real now. I don't want to fight you anymore. Was there a piece when you were like kind of moving away from the gym? It's not just like the financial piece and all that. But you were, it was 2009 or 2008 you opened? Yeah. 2006.

2006 to 15. So you're nine years deep into it. And it took me, I want to say, I mean, doing CrossFit, but I was like right in that 2015 window too. It wasn't just like the business part. I was like this methodology. We got to go a different direction and you start seeing things that you got to fix. So I saw that trail way back probably in 2008, 2009, just because my exposure to the previous collegiate strength conditioning

to professional strength conditioning to just the whole variety of the whole, you know. I thought what was great was CrossFit methodology was you would hit something every day. Yeah. And it was constantly varied. But there was a barbell in three of the lifts. And so that's kind of what got me hooked is like, okay, I'll do this running and energy system, but I really want to do the barbell stuff. And so that's what helped get me to – got me to the point where I started seeing pounds drop, started getting lean, and started really hitting it hard.

But then all of a sudden, after getting to that point, it's like, I need more barbell stuff. Yeah. Because that's just my essence, you know. Yeah. I like to move heavy things, move fast. That's why it works with all of us. And it was just like, I want to go there.

And so then I got to be talking to James, and why it works with all of us. And it was just like, I want to go there. And so then I got to be talking to James, and he's like, yeah, I mean, what you're doing is understanding the complexity of how to program and what inefficiencies and what efficiencies and what, you know, how do you program as a whole for someone that you have no idea what their inefficiencies are? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're going to try to make a program based off a group,

well, you need to have three different models. You need to have, you know, the rhinos, you know, the jaguars, and the cheetahs. Yeah. Okay? That's just kind of like an avatar. So how would you do that? Well, you've got to test them. You, like, test them. he's like oh yeah this is how do you do that he's like oh you just you write out the programs and test them out this these are the things that we were going to test

you're going to have back squat you're going to do a press you're going to do a clean you're going to do a 5k uh row yeah you're going to do a Fran, a Helen, you know, to hit each of those energy systems. And you're going to do it pretty much every cycle, every three, four weeks. You don't have to test me, bro. Rhino. Right. Oh, yeah. No point.

Don't make me do the 5K. I'll tell you what's going to happen. I want to do five steps and say, I'm a rhino. The biggest thing from that was like, okay, that's awesome. So I luckily had the opportunity where I had 16 bikes. I had 16 rollers. I had a rack that I could have at least 24 people going at the same time with a barbell, on weights, on rack and stuff.

And so that allowed me the capacity to test. I have to know. So once you test them and you group them, so you got rhinos, jaguars, cheetahs, now what? So then I would write my program as a description. Oh, so if you're a rhino, this is what you do today. So I don't have the why of the day, but I do have the competition of the day. So I had the guys that wanted to get better at lifting and stronger, the Jaguars or the Cheetahs that we need to work in some strength stuff, complex.

Then I had the big guys, the rhinos and stuff. We're going to give you what you want, but at this time, we're going to do that after we hit what we really need to work on. We're going to give you what you want, but at this time, we're going to do that after we hit what we really need to work on. We're going to get you. Because our biggest thing is we want to be balanced. We're not professional lifters, right? We're here an hour to get in shape and, like, be better humans. To interact, to de-stress, to whatever, you know, get ready for Friday night or Thursday night or Wednesday night, you know, whatever.

And so for us, for me, that was the business model that I had to go to. Because if I did one thing, one workout, the folks that couldn't do a pull-up were going to get pissed. Because they had to use a band, they had to do this, they had to do that. And it was like, well, this is not really fun. Right. But then when I handicapped everybody in a group, it was like, oh, I could do this. I can go against the other people. And then if you wanted to go from, you know, a Jaguar group to a Cheetah group, you could.

You could cherry pick. And I didn't care because I had the leaderboard for that day. Yeah. And I didn't do Rx or non-Rx. I said, if you're in this group, this is what you're doing. This is what you're doing. This is brilliant. But as you play that out, you start to – I feel like that starts to break away.

And that's where a lot of things – I mean, I think we all have gone through that process where you're like you take a model to the end. Right. And then you realize like it breaks down when you take it to the end. So how do we start to split all these things apart and get those people grouped in? And then it starts to – it's like the more dialed in you get to helping a group of people, the harder it is to help all the people at once.

And then that's one of the great things that you had to do is you had to have a conversation with somebody that comes in. And you say, yeah, I'm here to train for the games. And you're like, okay, so we're going to have that conversation now. You want to train for two months and see how it looks and see if you're able to move. Yeah. He's like, oh, no, I'm ready to go.

I'm sorry. Here we go. And you lay out the program, and he's like, oh, my God, I can't move. I need you here at 6 a.m. on a rower for the next two years. So at 5.45, we're going to be at the pool. We're going to be at the pool. We're doing hypoxic swims. Every minute on the minute, you're going to do a 25-meter underwater swim on one breath.

And you're probably going to go back. That's my workout. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And then at break, after 10, we're going to get out and we're going to do Angie. And then we're going to go back in and we're going to do it again. And he's like, I was just kidding. I was just kidding. I'm not ready for that.

I was going to snorkel. I was kind of just hoping I could go win. I'll just jump in the class. Yeah. Rhino. And it's not like you had to have some maturity about you. If we were 25 years ago, if we were going to be that coach, bro, we wouldn't be able to handle those conversations.

Like, nah, man, you suck. You know, that's not how it works, you know. Yeah. You really want to say that to them. It's like you're not going to do it. You're going to die. Yeah. Okay.

You don't have the intestinal fortitude to make it past that point. Right. Right. So, you know the kids that come in that like. I do know. You've got to have a big aerobic background. Yeah. Lacrosse.

Hockey. Cross country. Gymnastics. Hockey. You see them. They're like 5'10". Yeah. 185 to 205.

You're like, oh, yeah. Super lean. Yeah. They move beautifully. Yeah. No issues. Good lever. Short arms.

Yeah. Four arms is a big one. It's like, it's just one in a million. Yeah. So, you know. And so, for me, what kept me going was, like, I want a new team. Right. So, I said, you know what?

I told James, I was like, I spent all this money learning your system programming, learning how to teach them. And he's like, in return, you're going to program for me one year and my team, and you're going to get us as far as we can go. He's like, game on. And so that's what kind of spurred on that trip to South Florida. We took a team from Columbia, South Carolina. We went down and we placed fourth behind.

You talking about Water Palooza? No, the regional. The regional. Oh, regional. Yeah. Right. And, you know, my group was

very strong and powerful, but man, we were tall. Right. And big. Yeah. So we crushed

the snatch ladder, but, you know, the snatch and sprint ladder, but the pistols and the sprinting and the running. The little dudes are going to kill you on that.

Yeah. What do you do? We pray for rowing, right? There's only so many things that are in your favor in CrossFit. Rowing probably is the best one. Yeah. So tall person. Maybe the only one.

Muscle ups and pull ups. When we had two guys that were, you know, that fit that mold, but they couldn't move weight like we all could. So it was kind of like a hit or miss, but at the same time, it was about the experience and having that good time. Sure, I mean, fourth is, I mean, that's pretty good. Better than most people, especially if you don't have the right crew. Yeah.

And you still did well. And the other thing, too, is that was kind of helpful with, you know, because during that time, it's like when CrossFit came out, you could have a team now. Yeah. You know, that was great marketing foresight came out, you could have a team now. That was great marketing foresight for them instead of having just individuals. Now we can take six people with two alternates. Kind of hide a little bit.

Now we can train. So that was just automatic validation. So you can't all do the same workout, right? Because now you can intermingle and kind of switch and load your team up to where you can have people kind of program-wise. So that was a good validation. So that's how we started programming, and that's how we kept programming. And it got to the point to where it got to the point where Friday night, we had Friday night lights or Saturday.

I've been to Invictus. I got to go to Friday. Yeah, with you guys. We went to Friday night lights. I've only been onceictus. I got to go to Friday. Yeah, with you guys. Yeah. We went to Friday Night Lights. I've only been once. Saturday, kind of Saturday crush mode where everyone would get together and we'd throw down. Saturday crush mode. We would just go write workouts on the board and say,

that's what everybody's doing. And we just got like, boom. Smash. Yeah. Dude, we're in this, like, really rad facility here. And you're training a bunch of kids. Yeah. NFL Combine., and there's more technology in here than I think I've ever seen in a gym.

It's like a D1. What is kind of the vibe of this place, and what are you building here? So this program, this facility is a return-to-play physical therapy and performance training model uh we are attached to the the parent uh host is the prisma health hospital system yeah um but we are attached directly to uh the orthopedic group so our orthopedic doctors across the state treat all the universities all the colleges all the high schools and middle schools so our physicians are in those schools and universities you know working with those athletes and so our physical therapists

and our athletic trainers are constantly in those programs and so the missing piece was that strength training right right so not that we want to kind of come into your high school and say we're going to take over your part no brother we definitely don't want to do that right my philosophy was we want to take the kids that are coming out of therapy and get them ready and get them to the point that they may be cleared right but they are not ready to go back to sport yeah you know i'm saying yes you can walk and you may have a little, but when's the last time you had a load on you, right? When's the last time you've been able to express a full extension and sprint, change direction, jump,

all those things that are going to be demanding of a sport. So the biggest thing was that was a missing link. Plus, as a physician, what's kind of cool is kind of say yeah we've got some olympic guys coming in yeah we've got some nfl it's a professional some nba guys that come down to our place and train they're like what so that kind of it helps you know bring validation and to what they're doing to what their skills are yeah so um that was kind of like the whole model that was kind of approached to me with some of my clients when I was at CrossFit. The orthopedists, the cardiovascular surgeons were like, yeah, man. So they kind of approached me and said, would you like to kind of help kind of formulate a program out of that?

I said, sure. Sure. And so this was before they had the original drawings for the Mecca over there in Lexington. I mean, now I need to see that. We got to go. This looks like the Mecca to me. Yeah, believe it or not, this is like the blue-collar workshop is what I call it. This is where you go get work done over there.

It's kind of like where you go get analyzed. You have every toy, the power plate. Appalachian did most of the research on the power plate where ablatsin did most of the research on the power plates over there you know you've got the 1080 sprint i mean you've got the the what is the shred treadmills treadmills yeah self-propelled it tells you all the readouts everything here and then all that all that stuff is is kaiser equipment like which i'm very curious about like why why that choice over others so the the Sorenix. It's really nice. So Sorenix, these racks over here, Sorenix, the Kaiser equipment over here,

there's not one single unit that can be a one-all, be-all. Each unit I use for different pieces of the program, of their long-term development program. The computer pieces are help giving me validation. Velocity-based training. Velocity-based training, workload. When you are in season, out of season, postseason, coming out of surgery, the computers tell me, you know,

variations between right and left side, how fast you're working. It also has all the pre-injury information and data so you have data points to where you know a true return to play is you would like to be anywhere from five to ten percent better than what you got before you can quantify so good though to be able to show people's insurance that too like yeah for an orthopedic company they're like look here's all the data we did this yeah. It's brilliant. It seems like they're kind of predominantly in physical therapy, orthopedic-type settings like this.

I rarely see them just in normal gyms. Just because it's the cost. You know, having an orthopedic group spend a lot of money on equipment that's not going to have a lot of return on investment, monetarily purposes yeah sure it's this is the only way that's going to be kind of able to do that so that's the only way that they can write this you know they can't you know if you're going to go to an insurance company and make this a part of the whole thing you have to have some data to give back you know yeah yeah the insurance companies like so why are you doing that and

yeah this is why we do this much. I'm actually super interested. Like you have velocity-based training set up on the bars. The camera system. You've got the triphasic. It's just got everything. But you're part of like a clinic. So how do you implement this stuff to people that are kind of coming out of rehab?

Many people would look at it and be like, that's kind of an advanced topic here that we're getting into. The cool thing is, say day after surgery, a kid comes in to get evaled. He comes right over here to the table. Meanwhile, there's a kid that is seriously six months post-op, nine months post-op, three months post-op, three months post-op, training, moving, how easy is it to get that kid out of a mindset of like, man, I'm so done.

I'm broken forever. Yeah. I can't do it. And seeing the same kid over here with the same injury that he has. Yeah. Nine months later. Nine months later doing cleans and squats. Do you see pretty consistent like the kind of the same two or

three injuries coming through? Yeah. And it's seasonal. So what do you got? Football season is going to be ACL, some hip and labrum tears, some shoulder stuff. Baseball season is going to be elbow, shoulder. ACL. And it's

seasonal. Soccer season is huge. ACL. EspeciallyL. Yeah. You know? And it's seasonal. Soccer season is huge. ACL. ACL. Especially girls. ACLs. Yeah. Volleyball, jump, basketball. It's all. Do you guys have a bunch of girls that come in here?

I feel like a mom or a mom and dad would walk in here and be like, I want my daughter in this place now. Yeah. We have a lot of. Everything looks awesome. A lot of kids. I mean, we have a good variation from kids that are 10. I start them at 10, and it's very, I have one section of pretty much one day,

one hour of the day where it's dedicated to, you know, those 10 to 13-year-olds. Yeah. And then 14 to, you know, 17-year-olds, and then everything after that. It's smart to grivel like that. Yeah. It's so different if not. Yeah. So, imagine having to train a kid that's going to be 11 with a guy that's

going to be, you know, a junior going into a senior. It's so hard. I've tried to do that. It's just like. It's not like the kid who is 11 is like, oh, this is so awesome. Meanwhile, my man over here is getting ready to do some massive weight and cleaning. Yeah, getting pumped up. He's like, I can't really get into this because

I got these creepy eyes. Some 11-year-old staring at me. That's so awesome. But there's evaluation through that whole process when we assess them. And so the programs that I utilize is all assessment- based every five weeks

just kind of get a litmus test there's testing and assessing throughout the program just kind of quantify to the parents quantify to your docs like it's great yeah so um but every sport um male female uh we even have a fitness class in the evening times for parents that can come in. Oh, you should get your CrossFit fix on then. Yeah, to a degree. They breathe heavy. That's the same. Yeah, yeah. They're going to lift heavy.

They're going to move. They're going to bend. They do all these kind of things where they're going to do all this stuff at the same time where they can truly take care of what they need to do. Yeah. Yeah. And the biggest thing is I want to stay healthy, and I want to be able to pick my kids up. Yeah. Right? That's all to do. Yeah. Yeah. And the biggest thing is I want to stay healthy and I want to be able to pick my kids up. Yeah.

Right? That's all I need. Yeah. That's all I need. Energy but not a lot of joint pain. Right. I feel like that's like, as I get older, that's like those things become more and more and more important.

And for us, it's a lot of osteopathic folks that are coming back from low back pain or have dropped a lot of weight, that have been in another program that we have, they've been in a diabetic phase for a long period of time. They've been on medication forever. And there's that doctor who does, he's got, instead of hip replacements, somewhere in Columbia there's an orthopedic doctor.

It's like a step before you actually get it replaced. I almost, because I almost came here and had it done. It's like he does something and gives you, like, just a new, like, part of the ball. Yeah. Oh, my dad just had that done. I almost came here to do it. The greater troke, yeah, it's a trocator. My dad just, yeah.

Trocator replacement. He just had it done. It goes in and, like, just re-shaves or something like that. Yeah, and cuts it in half and puts it back. I almost did that, but I was like, I'm just going to do that. My dad recovered from it so quickly that I didn't believe that he had a hip replacement. That's the thing now. He walked out that night.

He started working out 48 48 hours later yeah and then i was like dude there's no way you got a hip replacement like that's like a month on the bed and he was like no i think i think this is the video and he sent me the youtube thing and i was like oh wow whoa dude they took your femur the whole thing like that ball that's gone now you're titanium in there dude yeah that's what they i was going to come down here to do that but then you know i talked to this doctor i'm glad i'm happy with my yeah but anyway i was almost coming down here that's why i just thought i wonder if he's a part of this whole thing but yeah anyway i can't remember his name but it's like it's only this

dude here invented it in south carolina columbia yeah and that originated from the more clinic which now is now merged into submerge uh more orthopedic to uh palmetto usc orthopedics to now it's prisma who is the parent company for palmetto health baptist richland they got all the money isn't it interesting how like uh when you we kind of look at strength conditioning as a whole and we focus on these super fast super strong people for so much of life and then you kind of like step away from that and you realize how many people need to be in here for like just learn how to squat right it's an unbelievable number of people that just don't have basic movement education. And if you asked them to sprint down this, like, just go run the 40 as fast as you can,

it would look goofy as hell. Right. They'd probably get hurt. Yeah. They're going to tear their hands or something like that. Yeah. The cool thing about it is having been in each phase of, like, the training feast, the training world, you know, from a collegiate background to an entrepreneur background

to now a medical background, you can see really a vast variety of what specialty and what folks are really drawn to. Folks like to look at those people that can do those 1% things that nobody else can do, and then they'll try to go out and emulate it. You can't. Then they'll end up in the clinic. Then they become my client. It's really cool.

I mean, it's an aspiration, yeah. But remember, those folks are 1% of the world's population that have that talent. I would never go back and trade training for the games and coaching people to go to the games and do all that stuff. But I also almost wish I was mature enough to have realized, oh, do you know that person over there that sleeps six hours a night, has a couple kids, trying to keep the job going, just needs to get a workout in? Try not to shove paleo down their throat. You might not need that right now.

They're just trying to get a sweat on and be healthy. Tell them to drink a little bit more extra water. Be quiet. Just let them do their thing. Don't push them so hard in a place that they have no interest in going. I love what you said earlier about the person that comes and says, hey, I want to go to the games. You get it all the time.

I want to go to the Olympics. What do you really? I do the same thing. I set them down. Let me tell you what that takes. And let me tell you what the odds of you getting there are. And then if you get there, what are the payoffs? So are you really ready to go through all of this to get not very much?

And then they'll probably normally say yes. I'm like, all right. And a month in, I take them zero serious. I barely talk to them. And then if they get through the month, then we'll start talking. But odds are, it's just a one in a million yeah 10 by 10 solves a lot of problems 10 by 10 which is what i do yeah that is step one step one there's a barbell over there i need 100 by the end of the day don't come back that you threw up too bad get back to work yeah

we all did yeah good luck it's just not's just not realistic. You just see the end. Yeah. Most people come and they see, oh, what it's like to be on the podium. You didn't see what it took to get to that podium, bro. You didn't see the parties they chose not to go to. Yeah. You didn't see, you know, the food they chose not to eat. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, or the work that they put in. Yeah. Or the willing, you know, getting themselves up at 5 a.m. You did not see the two-a-days all that time. Or going to bed at like 7, 45, 8 o'clock. Or the willing, you know, getting themselves up at 5 a.m. You did not see the two-a-days all that time. Or going to bed at like 7.45, 8 o'clock. Or the struggles.

The tears when they didn't work out. You know, Hunter, seeing her goes really well, doesn't go well. And having to be there for it no matter what. There's a lot that goes into being an Olympian. It's not just cool. It's not just the gold medal. Damn, that gold medal is like so much. There's a lot of stuff people don't see.

I've told the story on the show before, but when Mike McGoldrick was training for the CrossFit Games, we were out watching a movie with like eight people, and then in the middle of the movie I hear beep, beep, beep, beep, and like his alarm went off, and he was like, oh, stood up and was like, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, and just like walked out of the, like there's actually probably only like 30 minutes left in this movie. It's like about to be like the end of the movie.

He easily could have just watched the rest of it and then gone home and got asleep. He's like, nope, my fucking alarm went off. I got to get this much sleep. And he walked out. And he does that all the time. And that's why he goes to the CrossFit Games. Because that mentality spread to every aspect of his life. Not just that one tangible example.

Everything. Yeah. I remember when those guys came out to James' place in Scottsdale and just living with them for two weeks and just see how they operate. I was like, I mean, I'm just out here for the experience, you know. Yeah. I'm like Tiger Woods going to the Navy SEAL camp. What are you here for?

You want to be a Navy SEAL? No, I'm just here for the experience. I kind of want to watch you train. Yeah, it's like, dude, I want to be like, yeah, wow, watching Danny do crushing 300 pounds. I'm hoping you'll tag me on Instagram, actually. We had a group at our gym once. It was Hunter.

They were having a birthday party for a girl, and they invited Hunter to come, and they were having cake. And she said, with all due respect, I'm not – you know, I'm training for this. She was training for the world championships. She had to make weight. She had to drop weight. She had to drop. This was now her second weight class drop.

Yeah. She's like, no thanks. You know you're having cake. I'm like, it's not your fault. She's like, I just can't trust myself there. And they start getting mad at her. So I bring them all into a room, and they're expecting me to have these girls. Yeah.

Because Hunter won't go to their party. I'm like, well, actually, Hunter's the one doing the one thing I said to do. She's being the master of the mundane, and you guys are doing the absolute opposite, and you're trying to pull her down with you. And they didn't know what to say. Right. I'm like, so I've got Hunter's back. She's doing what I've said.

You guys are trying. Not only are you not, you're mad because she's not going down with you. So anyway. Pure passion. So, anyway. Pure pressure to sabotage. When you have the combine guys in here, what is that, like, training? How long do you have them for before? Like, do you get a whole year with them? No.

What's – I don't even know what's – Eight weeks. Oh. Eight weeks. Shit. So, this year the combine has been pushed back a whole month. So, we'll have them – Because they come right from SC straight into here.

I don't have any guys from SC. Oh, really? We got guys from Texas. Oh, there we go. You get hooked up with an agent, and he sends you his people. So one or two guys that represent, and they'll send you their guys. The guys that they feel like are typically your first-round guys. Yeah.

Are going to have the pick-a-letter. They're going to go where they want to go. Yeah. Guys that are going to be second day, you know, second through. Grinders. Through third round. They're going to work. Still going to get paid, though.

Those are the guys that are going to really get all. They need the combine to kind of validate, you know, fast, strength, speed, you know, being able to do ball control and all that kind of stuff. The first-rounders don't even really need to go. They don't. That's why you'll see them on TV. They'll just show up and they're in their suit and they're not doing anything. They'll wait for their pro day to come.

I coached a kid who I told not to go, and he went and he tore his hamstring. It dropped him from being a second-rounder. Guaranteed. He was leaving early. Do you remember – I totally just – oh, John Ab guarantee. He was leaving early. Do you remember? I totally just, Oh, John,

a body. He was all American at wake forest. There was a big movie fifth quarter. Anyway, they told him, you know, not to go because he had nothing to gain. Right.

Cause he was this high and he was kind of short. So he was, he was already as high as he's going to go and he had nothing to gain, but he's just a very, you know, he's confident. He's a linebacker. Right.

So he went and he tore his hamstring. was brutal broke my heart but yeah anyway so i mean you have uh it's set up just like game training right yeah they'll train three times a day they'll do rehab they'll do uh they're here eight hours strange strange they're not here they're intermittent between here and alexington where they're going to get in the pools, rehab, doing all that kind of stuff and training over there, more or less in the lab for testing and assessing. Yeah. And so we'll do that periodically, usually every other week. So if they didn't go to a bowl game like the Reese's Senior Bowl, those guys will stay here

and we'll just kind of work on those things. We'll do all the prelim testing, you know, what's the test they have when they do all the questions and stuff. Any of the interview testing. Yeah. All of that stuff when they have to go through and sit through, you know, an MRI for like eight hours. Just like cattle.

Yeah. You know, they see your knee. They get you to a point where they want to see how you're going to react to being up all night, and team is going to call you. Like, I thought we had an interview today. I thought we were going to meet today, and you're in bed sitting there. It's like 2 o'clock in the morning. Oh, do they really do this?

Oh, yeah. So, I mean, they'll play mind games the whole time just to see if you're going to blow up. Wait, what's the purpose behind it again? Like the main intent? To see what your response is going to be so you're not going to be a head case. Yeah, when you go in the league and all of a sudden the papers and ESPN is talking junk about you, are you going to freak out? Are you going to go drink and drive and wreck your car?

They want to see how you respond to stress. Yeah. So the most recent thing that's been in the news is about the guy from Seattle. He was having dinner with his wife. I didn't see that. I hadn't heard about it. What happened? I don't watch the news.

I didn't see it. So they were having dinner. And he's a big old offensive tackle. He reaches over. She's like, he wouldn't bow to him kind of deal. I mean, it was like way out the rector. So I reached over to the table, chokes her. Thinks he killed her. In public in the

restaurant? No, at the house. And then he gets up and just, and he goes back and finishes dinner. Well, he finishes dinner, then he leaves. Well, she kind of comes out of it, calls 911 and goes down and just kind of Yeah. So those kind of things.

I mean, he's not going to the league then. There's a lot of – I mean, a lot of mind game, a lot of mental prep, question answering. God. On top of just the underwear Olympics, right? You know, you're going to show up butt naked, chew you, do all your stuff. Cattle.

Yeah. Cattle. And they'll put you – I mean, there was an incident where a linebacker from a certain team was in the – not the OR, but in the hospital getting ready to go get scanned. And one of the nurses was writing down his vitals and all this kind of stuff. And she made a comment, blah, blah, blah. And he thought it was a racist attempt, whatever, which, in fact, it was not.

And so he just goes off on her. And so immediately, red flag, he gets up, and all the teams say we're going to move on. So they ship him home. Jesus. You just got to be prepared. Chill. Chill for a few months.

He was literally a first-round draft pick. Oh, God. It goes from first round to not being drafted. Not even a chance. Wow. Like no team took him. No. Wow.

We're not going to invest millions of dollars into somebody that's not going to represent the brand, right? Think about all the data now on the bus, you know, the first-round bus. You see it all the time. Nobody wants to take that chance. You spend millions on this guy who gets you nothing. Right. He does nothing but bring, like, the brand down.

Yeah, it's like, you know, there's so many other good athletes. And we all know now, we all know, like, you know, look at the great quarterback, totally blanked out, Tampa Bay now. Brady? Brady. Brady. Like, he was, like, what is he, second or third round? Way later than that, I think.

Yeah. And so, like, why take, you know, you think first round. He was the last pick of the draft. Yeah, he was like so going down. So, like, you're just thinking this guy is probably going to lose his mind and, like, bring that brand down when there's all these other athletes. This is not worth it. You know, it's not worth taking this on a head case.

It's like, yeah. But normal typical day for training is going to be 6 a.m., rise, breakfast, stretch, warm up, and then we'll train at 7.30. We'll go to 7.30 to 11. We'll do training. Training will be upper primarily last day of the week primary is going to be lower body mondays wednesdays fridays tuesday thursdays who have touches more of an upper body push pull yeah building up to a rep count doing um 225 drop sets i'm working on the 225 for raves. Yeah.

So, I mean, those are the things. You know what the drills are. You just set up. Practice the drills. Yep, set the program. And then afternoon is going to be another light lift session with some aerobic capacity work, either treadmill, underwater treadmill work, pool work.

Then the rest of the day is going to be field work, position drill work, working with a designated coach. It's either going to be an O-line coach, defensive line coach, wide receiver coach. That's awesome. So just lining that up. You practice the 40, practice, you know, the 510 or whatever, the 510-5, the shuttle.

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't have to be hard practice. Specificity, man. You have eight weeks to see improvement in practice, your things you're about to do. You have eight weeks to prove that what's on the film is the same thing that's going to be on the field. Good God, so much riding on that. So, I mean, understand that 99% of what their draft pick

is going to be on that videotape, that 1% is a validation of what we see on film as what we see in person. So just don't mess up. And then the interview process. So when the coaches come up and they have you away from everything that's new, you're stuck in there for five days and you haven't really slept a whole lot. So when they start throwing those interview questions, you're in front of everybody.

You got all these cameras in front of you. They start asking questions about. 20 years old. Right. About your background. Yeah. About your sexual preferences and all this kind of stuff. And about your family.

And it's like, whoa. Yeah. I mean, they hold no boundaries back. Because they've got too much money invested. I would smoke so much weed going into that. Guys, I'm cool. Oh, that's not counting all the drug testing and all that. Oh, dang it.

Never mind. That was legal once you get drafted, though. Oh, yeah. They're not coming after you for that. That's a whole other podcast. You're right. Dude, this is phenomenal. I can't believe I get to come back a decade later And hang out in Columbia, South Carolina

And do a barbell shrug and hang out Yeah, I'm so proud I'm so proud of you Thanks, man It's awesome It's been a fun ride Where can people find you? And what do you have?

Social media and all that stuff Personal social media is Civil Back Training 53 That's it, that's my Instagram That's where I That's my Instagram. That's where I know you. Twitter. Yeah.

I've heard your name a bunch. Yeah, Silverback. I try to, you know, that's one of the things with the hospital system. We have a brand and stuff, but we can't control it because of marketing. It's a big business, big pharma kind of deal. i feel like they're doing something very new here right now i'd never expect that this would be part of the hospital system yeah walk in and have had what 12 squat racks over there filled with velocity-based training yeah the camera systems alone are well over six figures yeah one two three four five six yeah well over you got well over six figures in cameras yeah never mind the power plates and the the 1080 sprints or the lab yeah

yeah yeah i love this place so yeah so that's kind of like where the uh the the the ball is rolling and that's it's all thanks to the orthopedic group stepping up big. You know, two things that keep the hospital system afloat is cardiac, thoracic, and orthopedics, you know. Yeah. And a big thing for orthopedics is sports, you know. Yeah. And the folks, you know, our parents who were the baby boomers are now getting older.

I think it's also really important that kids have a place like this that parents get the buy-in and trust because it's part of the hospital system. It's got to be real if they back it. So they're okay bringing their kids here. It's not just athletes. I'm good here. Yeah, everything's top-notch, and it's not just like, oh, that's where the football players go, baseball players.

It's like, no, this is part of the hospital. This is just getting everybody ready to be a human. And that was one of the things with the CrossFit gym, too. It's like you would have people come in and try to figure out, is this a CrossFit gym where you go in and you die? Are we allowed to leave after? If we don't tap out, are we good? Do we pass? And it's like, no.

My biggest thing was educating folks that come through the gym. Yeah. It's like, look, what you see on TV is not what we're trying to do. If you want to do that, that's a whole other program. Yeah. Our thing is we want to be able to move and lift and have quality of life. Yeah, stay a little bit better today than you were yesterday. 1%, you know.

My big thing is 1%. If you got 1% better for a whole year, that's 365%. Where else can you get that better? You can't. Yeah. Awesome. Coach Travis Mash. Mashlead.com.

Thanks for having us, man. Appreciate you. Awesome. Doug Larson. Douglas C. Larson on Instagram. Appreciate it. Yes, sir. This guy was stoked about it, by the way.

He's been talking about it for a while now. It's been, I mean, I really want everybody that's listening to understand that, like, when I showed up to the gym, it wasn't just like, oh, I have a strength coach. Like, dude, I watched you grow a business, and it became something that I knew that I could do because you did it. And not only that, like, I saw somebody that was in an industry that I loved doing a thing that I loved, but I had no, yeah. Like, and it was like legitimately learning a craft and getting people better because you were putting the work in. And on top of that, now that

I have, I'm married and I have a kid, like dude, just having Dorothy around, having your kids in the gym. Like I realize that there's there's just like a lot of life and having a family that buys in on everything you're doing. And it just it meant more to me than just fitness and watching the business, like becoming family friends, seeing you guys struggle, seeing everybody bought in like having two three kids and growing a gym and if anybody's ever grown a gym you know you're there at 5 a.m and you leave at 8 and at best the amount of sacrifice that goes into that is is like beyond anybody anybody's understanding until you're in the gym industry right and i got to watch all that and like be your friend and and learn all of that stuff so when i went to go open my gym that's awesome yeah and when i got to go well i didn't have the family i didn't have the kids at the time it was like i need a place to

train and hang out with people yeah but but i knew you you don't learn as much until you're going through it but i like had an experience to draw off of, like, how a family can rally around a business. I had an understanding of, like, what the education looked like and how we could get better and how to grow a gym membership like you did and how it's supposed to feel. And that was the first time. And, like, it was more important than getting an MBA.

It was more important than any of the reason I was actually here, which was school yeah um and you just paved a path that allowed not just me but a lot of us that were part of that early crew to go open gyms to go to the crossfit games like you were the original coach for all of all of us yeah and a lot of that has to go back to just being your ability as a coach. It's one thing to coach. It's one thing to give that person your whole toolkit, your roadmap, and be okay with them leaving and going and being fruitful and seeing all the success.

I think that's the coolest part. The best part of being a coach is having someone who doesn't need you anymore eventually. That's your ultimate coaching goal is to be able to take someone and give them everything and wish and hope and provide them and tell them be better than you are. Yeah, right. Right?

That legacy of being able to just say, like, yeah, man. Yeah. I remember when he used to come in the gym and go hard at it. I was like, wow, that's great. And then look at him now. It's cool. Doing cool stuff. Yeah. Like Ryan like, wow, that's great. And then look at him now. It's cool. Doing cool stuff. Like Ryan Fisher for you.

Exactly. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. Make sure you get over to BarbellShrugged.com forward slash DieselDad. All the dads getting strong, lean, and athletic. If you are in Palm Springs, Vegas, San Diego, or L.A., get over to Walmart. We are on the shelves in the pharmacy. Three programs, strength, conditioning. What's the last one? Strength, cardio, and fat loss. Those ones. It's been a long day, friends. We'll see you guys next Wednesday. That's a wrap.

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