Barbell Shrugged - Hanging with CrossFit Games Champion Rich Froning at CrossFit Mayhem - Barbell Shrugged Podcast EP38

Episode Date: December 12, 2012

We traveled to CrossFit Mayhem in Cookeville, TN to spend a day with the two-time CrossFit Games Champion, and reigning fittest man in the world Rich Froning.  Guns, CrossFit, and more!  Don't miss this episode of the Barbell Shrugged podcast! For more episodes of the show visit http://www.BarbellShrugged.com

Hey guys, this is Rich Froning, and you're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to fitter.tv. Alright guys, Mike Bledsoe here with Barbell Shrugged. We've got, uh, Doug and I came out to, uh, Cookville with CTP to visit Rich Froning, and his cousin, Darren Hunsucker. He can never say it seriously. Oh, that's your real name.

For the longest time, I've known Darren for years. I don't see him like every weekend or anything like that, but I never learned his last name. I was like Darren Rich Froning's cousin. But now that I know it's Hunsucker, I'll never forget. He's out of the bottle, bro. I would say everybody knows now. Yep, everybody knows. So we came out here to hang out and we ended up shooting some guns today.

I'm sure CTP is going to edit in some really cool shots of that. Yeah. We did a live stream via Ustream into our Facebook fan page. That was pretty fun. It lasted about 15 minutes. We're learning how to do that, so it ended up being kind of short, but I think that's all right. If you want any more updates on what we're going to do in the future, make sure to go to fitter.tv, F-I-T-R.TV, and sign up for the newsletter, and we'll get you the updates. So, Rich, you were in Chile last week?

Yep, I was in Chile until yesterday morning. What were you doing there? Spreading the word. Spreading the word. No, it was for BSN. I went down there, and we had these little, like, hour, two-hour little Q&A type things and then put people through workouts. So it was pretty good just to see the different cultures doing it.

This is 100% BSN stuff, not CrossFit headquarters? No, this is a BSN thing. Are you traveling for more now? Or is it kind of like just mixed between everybody? It's just a mix of everything. Lately it's been BSN just because I neglected doing all my appearances before the game, so I had to catch up on a lot for the year up until now. And then now I've got – I think I've got one more for Reebok

that I have to do before the end of the year. Doing it right now. Reebok, look, he's doing it right now. Right there. Good to go. Are you doing level one seminars? I'm going to do all the close ones. So we're having one at CrossFit Mayhem in February, beginning of February.

And so I'm going to be on staff for pretty much anything in Tennessee that I can get to. You're going to do ours next month? When are you guys? When's ours? January. January 19th. I don't know.

They haven't asked me. So if they ask me, then I might. Yeah, man, put in a request. Put in a request. There we go. He's in. He's in. Darren, my agent.

So we just did a Q&A with you live, and you said you just did a Q&A down in Chile. Q&As all the time. Yeah, you feel like every single one is the same thing over and over and over. Repetitive questions. Same questions, different day. Different culture, different people, yes. Different language. You ever get caught off guard and have any really memorable questions where you're like,

oh, shit, that threw me for a loop no like right now like there's the first one no actually it's always i don't know how to answer what's your diet even though i thought it's well noted that i don't uh really do any type of diet um and then how do i train which i'm pretty sure for the most part i've told people that it's pretty much day-to-day. I think people think that there's a secret. I don't think they believe you. I know. I don't think so either.

I've had this discussion with people before because they're like, I know you've talked to Rich. I know you've hung out with him. You're not telling me nothing. Is he BSing us? I think that he and Dan Bailey, I think they're just making it up fooling everybody they've got like this this master plan you want to jump in on this guys trust me there is absolutely nothing it's it is so funny to hear I mean do people because like they'll ask me all the time

they're like what does Rich do and I'm like it's the same thing everybody else does he does CrossFit he just does it better the the funny thing is is like me and darren have literally done the exact same thing since we've started crossfit almost and it's literally been the same since we started how you feel today i feel all right what do you want to do i feel like hell i haven't squatted in a couple days so it's just like back and forth that type of stuff basically training off of how rich feels it's just like back and forth, that type of stuff. Based your training off of how Rich feels? It's terrible. How do you think that training with Rich has helped you out?

It definitely got me a lot stronger. Yeah? Do you feel like if you were training with people who weren't just a lot better than you, that – how do I say it? Wow. Ouch. I mean, you're a great athlete, but, you know, a lot of the great athletes are training in gyms they're the best in their facility and it's kind of hard they don't have anyone to chase or anything like that do you think that's helped bring you up a level or do you think that's quite a big part or

not yeah but like a lot of our training is just basically like stupidity you know I mean you know it is you know it's just pretty much like how do you feel today? You know, just like you said, well, you want to try this? Like let's try and make it a little harder. Let's try and make it a little longer. After that, holy shit, you know, like that sucked. You know, I mean, that was terrible. Like let's try something else.

You guys do need to write an e-book called Stupidity Training. Chronicles of Rich Froning's Training. Dude, it would sell. Part one. Let's put a trademark on that. So you have a – Rich, you have a degree in exercise science, and you probably have a deeper understanding than most people who are training on some good ideas, empiricization, all that kind of stuff.

Do you feel that you're – even though you're kind of going off on how you feel, there's some kind of a cycle going on? I mean, with most of the power lifts and stuff like that, I do usually follow some type of six- or eight-week type program. I don't cycle them or do anything like that. The last time it was actually Googled just Russian squat program, and that's what we did for, what, six or eight weeks? Did you use the 13-week one off the Wikipedia page?

It wasn't off Wikipedia. It was just like the first thing that popped up on the list. We don't ever check Wikipedia. The first person I've ever met to do Wikipedia workouts. No, dude. I've never heard anybody. I've never heard that either. I walked in my gym like two weeks ago.

Was it the small off? Small off, yeah. I'm like walking by the computer. We have a computer that's set up for anyone and everybody to use. And I see a Wikipedia page up with a small squat routine. I was like, and I look over. And I was like, I figured out who was doing it. Who was it?

I think it was Jason Mitchell. Somebody tag him. This dude squats a lot of weights. I mean, I'm not gonna argue with him but like it was kind of funny that it was like

it wasn't off of like some training website it was the it was off of Wikipedia Wikipedia Wikipedia is everything well you know

and people can go on there and write like whatever they want just like the rest of the internet yeah yeah it's on the internet

it's gotta be true if it's on fitter.tv it's true know that yeah what uh so you do have you have this base of knowledge is there are there things that you avoid like you're going off how you feel but you're like man i probably shouldn't do pull-ups five days a week because that might hurt my shoulder of course like the the overuse the just doing the same stuff all the time i mean we do a lot of the same stuff multiple times throughout the week but it's not like five days a week doing something. Um, I like Darren said, though, there's a lot of stupidity that goes into what we do. You got anything that really just kills

your joints that you only do in competition. You just keep it out of your training almost altogether. Pistols. I'm just not a big fan of pistols. I don't touch those until like the regionals. That was the first time i'd done them since the 2010 games okay yeah i heard that is that true like you'd never done pistols ever and it was just in a competition you were just like like this and just did them all yeah kind of the games in 2010 and then like i said i'd maybe done i don't know five or ten pistols just like i don't know they just weren't for the for the most part of the beginning I was doing CrossFit, they just hurt my knees really bad just because my form and technique just on squat and stuff was so terrible.

I was very quad-dominant, knees forward, so I'd get a lot of knee pain, you know, tendonitis type of knee pain. So I was like, I'm not going to touch pistols. That's probably pretty motivating for the rest of the general population for you to say that your form used to be really terrible at something. It was. Like everything wasn't just handed to you. No, I mean, it's taken a lot of work.

And, I mean, you know, everybody's like the high volume that we do. But I think that helped me to, you know, to get better at stuff, get more efficient at stuff. Because literally me and Darren started about, what, 100 yards from here up in the barn. That's where we started doing CrossFit. Running down the mountain. We never had any type of

coaching. It was just each other. Watching videos, YouTube. Wikipedia. Wikipedia. Mostly Wikipedia. Doing the journal, like reading the journal, trying that type of stuff, but as far as an actual coach, neither one of us have been actually

coacheded unless you call each other yeah how much of your condition is made up from like rowing airdyne stuff like that or do you is most of your conditioning coming from things like pull-ups and a lot of it's a lot of it's rolling and airdyne but then i mean um usually a one or two CrossFit-style Metcons a day, and it may be an interval Metcon, maybe a traditional 12-minute AMRAP. It varies, really, to be honest. And that's by feel also?

Do what? That's by feel also? Yeah. Or it's by feel or what I haven't done in a while in a workout or a combination of stuff. So it's a lot of by feel or what I haven't done in a while in a workout you know or a combination of stuff so um it's it's a lot of a lot of my feel how I feel do you log your workouts no no I wish we would have done that for a while I'm actually the same way I'm I'm I will sit and plan workouts I'll plan way out for myself and stuff like that but as far as like recording results and I tell people

you have to record results. You want to keep up with it. You want to get results and da, da, da. People are like, so where's your log? We've got, we've got, we've got Wattify in our box. I was doing a little plug for them. Oh yeah. No, but it's actually, it's actually pretty good.

It's a, it's a program that, you know, it's set up to where we've got two TVs set up in the gym that one has the actual workout of the day on there, and then people log in to the class, and then they put their results in, and it actually has it, you know. How do they log in? Can they use their own device, or do they have to log in at the gym? Both.

They can use their own device or at the gym, and it's actually a pretty handy thing. It keeps track of all their, you know, their named workouts, keeps track of their lifts. It's actually a pretty beneficial program. That's pretty cool. It is cool. You just go to Wodify.com. Wodify.com. If you want that.

Yeah. Try it out. I'll check that out. That's a paid for service or that's free? I think we've got a free purse. Do you know who I am? I don't think you're supposed to tell people that. They don't care.

But I'm pretty sure you just pay per member. The member is kind of like $2 or something like that per month. There's a lot of services like that. It's actually a pretty – Yeah, it actually is probably one of the most helpful things we have. Because people get fired up because, I mean, they can actually see the progress. I mean, we make sure everybody logs in and everybody puts their stuff in, but it just keeps track of it for them so they can't lose it. They can't see the progress. I mean, we make sure everybody logs in and everybody puts their stuff in, but it just keeps track of it for them.

So they can't lose it. They can't screw it up. How can they access their profile? Is their profile on the Wattify website, or can they access it through your website? It's on their – well, either one, I think. There's a login. I mean, there's even like an app for your phone. You can get like a Wattify app, and if you have the login and pass,

you know, like your ID, you just log in and you can see everything. You see the workout of the day, people's times, who has the fastest time, who has the slowest time, who used the most weight, who did it RXed. So it's actually pretty cool. I mean, you know, because people come in and they see that, you know, and it has it for like each class too. You can break it down by each class.

Pretty handy. That records all the times of everyone at your gym or everyone that has that app? Everybody at our gym. At our gym. Yeah. Yeah gym yeah yeah for that i mean for like that workout like it'll tell you everything about like that workout how hard is it to input the wad not hard at all it's easy it takes 30 seconds that's one of the things that i don't like about those programs a lot of times i i get intimidated real fast because i've been doing it this way for years and they're like all right now you're gonna change it i'm like it's actually pretty easy you and they're like, all right, now you're going to change it. I'm like, I don't know.

It's actually pretty easy. You go in the program, and then you can set it up to where it will post to the website on its own. Oh, perfect. It's actually a pretty sweet setup. You may have just convinced me. I know. I'll definitely check it out in the very least.

Yeah, and they're pretty good about, like, you know, there's some things that need to be changed. Nothing major, but they're working on it, and that's part of the deal with us is, you know, we give them feedback on that need to be changed. Nothing major, but they're working on it, and that's part of the deal with us. We give them feedback on what needs to be changed or what stuff needs to be added. Very cool. I got a question for you. 10, 20 years from now, obviously you're big into fitness,

and you'll probably be working out the whole rest of your life, but maybe not competing to be top in the world. What kind of stuff are you going to keep in your workouts, and what are you just going to throw away and be like fuck this i'm never doing that again because i hate that shit uh i don't know running running working out i saw i saw you had a really big hill coming out you guys run that hill we've ran that hill what once darren gosh yeah one time ridden our bikes up but a couple times that hill is miserable i feel like the bikes would be it's. It's a 5K from the bottom. Yeah, from the bottom to here, it's almost exactly a 5K. I didn't believe my GPS at first.

I was like, three miles. It'll take us like three minutes. It's like 10 minutes later. You're like, where is this? It's hard. And I'm in a Prius. That was part of the problem. That was the struggle getting up that hill.

I kept joking about you were going to come jogging up next to us. I thought about running it over when I pulled into the driveway. I thought we were about to get run over. I'm looking at my GPS like, are we in the right spot? And this big pickup truck comes flying up. I can see it in the rear view. Freaked me out. Not my Prius, folks.

I'm just kidding. I mean, well, it's not. I wouldn't be embarrassed if it was. It's a sweet car to travel in. It's cute. So cute. CTP's car is sweet for traveling. We got all the way here without having to pump gas,

and we'll probably get most of the way home without pumping gas. It's pretty good. Wow. And it's a quiet ride. It's nice. Have we run out of things to talk about already? And there's three dudes in it that makes it even

better three grown men I'll probably Olympic lift more that's what I enjoy did you go to the American Open no I did not

I wish I would have they didn't invite you no I never got an invitation bunch of jerks you didn't get invited to the whoa whoa

you didn't get invited to the Outlaw Open oh that one yes I did get invited I was going to say what is Rudy thinking I did get invited to the whoa whoa you didn't get invited to outlaw open oh that one yes i did get him what is rudy thinking i did get invited to that one i didn't somebody get him on the line i was in chile that's right yeah that's right i knew that oh man you know when we talked last time i was like man you should do the american open i remember that was the last podcast.

Yeah, okay. So you're going to do nationals for weightlifting now, right? Sure. Yeah. For your gym? Or for your barbell club? I don't care. Yeah, yeah.

You can join my weightlifting club. I don't care. I can coach you. That's right. I'm Rich Foning's coach. The coach he doesn't use. The funny story about that one, some of you guys may know Thomas Cox,

whoever listens to this, but he's one of the guys that I actually train with. And he went to HQ. Where is HQ? I don't really know. He was at Media HQ in Santa Cruz, California. But do you remember that show, Where's Carmen Sandiego? That's what it made me think of.

Anyway, random thought. But so Thomas went. He was on a recruiting trip because he's the offensive line coach for Tennessee Tech. And he showed up to HQ because they knew that he trained with me. And there was a Twitter. I think it was Twitter or on Facebook. It said, we have Rich Froning's coach in the house today what do you have any questions you'd like to ask him and uh the question i asked was who's rich froning's coach and then they were like thomas cox do you

know him and i was like he's not my coach so it's always a joke with thomas he's like i swear i didn't say that but he's like yeah sure he didn't you did yeah it's okay let's take a let's take a break real quick and shoot some guns everyone down welcome back we have moved locations we went to uh crossfit mayhem which is 20 minutes away for some people and 10 minutes away for others less gunfire here yes a lot actually at least inside well the the first part of the journey you can go as fast as needed, but through town is miserable. Yeah, we noticed that. Yeah. Yeah.

The CTP was having a rough time keeping up with you in his Prius. Yeah, the Duramax has a little bit more power than the Prius. You're like, here's the address, just in case you can't keep up i'm like i don't know and you were like yeah that and i've country roads man yeah that i've driven that that uh path probably i don't know like countless times i mean that's where i grew up so yeah lots and lots of driving on yeah we literally popped the hill and you were gone yeah yeah i figured that's what was going to happen so i didn't want to you know just completely ditch you so i gave you the address yeah appreciate it yeah yeah i i uh a few summers when i was a kid hanging out in the country uh my cousins and stuff like that that

lived out there that's how they drove oh yeah i was always like oh 100 miles an hour okay yeah that's how you do it normal yeah yeah and then now that i have the truck that can actually like pull those hills and stuff it makes it even more fun. Yeah. Is this one of those towns where when you get pulled over, you're like, hey, Bob. Yeah. Like, you know all the police officers. I know the police officers because I worked at the fire department, so it's a little bit different.

But, I mean, for the most part, you know most of the guys. How big is the town of Cookville? I think there's, like, 40,000 in the, you know, in Cookville, but then there's like four or five smaller towns right around here that everybody works here. So, you know, during the day, you know, Monday through Friday, there could be anywhere from like 75,000 to a hundred thousand, I think is what they say. So, I mean, if you guys didn't notice from traffic, it gets pretty ridiculous just for how small you think it was. So people are traveling into Cookville to do some work.

Yeah. I remember last time we were on the show, you said that in this small town, even though it's a small town, you still didn't have this overwhelming celebrity status. Yeah, no. Like a lot of the crossers might think you would have. Right. But you're still just a regular guy. Yeah, just rich to most of the people here. So it's pretty good.

No statues. Almost a year later. I did get the key to the city. Did you? Which does absolutely nothing. I'm always wondering about that. What does that mean? I don't even know what it means.

They gave me a key. It's like, you know, whatever. But it's like an old-looking skeleton key that says City of Cookville on it, and it does absolutely nothing. Didn't Master P get the key to Memphis? Are you on the level of Master P yet? I don't know. Cookville is maybe not the same as Memphis.

And then I got some letter from the state, letter of recognition from the state. So that's whatever. That's pretty cool. So we're at CrossFit Mayhem, which is your second location, third location? Second. Well, technically second for Mayhem, but third if you count CrossFit Cookville.

So when I – after me and Darren, you know, we trained for probably six months in Dad's barn. We were like, all right, we'll start, you know, training people. And so we actually opened up a gym, and we weren't affiliated at first just because we couldn't afford it and that type of stuff. Well, then after regionals in 2010, Daveave castro was like hey get you affiliated so we affiliated and we're crossfit mayhem where you went the first time and uh that was actually the second location of mayhem and then when i started the first location it would be the barn well no no the first location was actually in like a gymnastics uh we were kind of just in the corner

we had some family friends that owned a gymnastics place. I think I remember you telling me about that. It's a bad place to start. It's pretty cool. Yeah, so we kind of started there and then moved right down the street to where you saw. And then I started working for Tennessee Tech. And it just got too crazy to run an affiliate, train, and coach at Tech. So Chip was actually running CrossFit Cookville

out of the weight room at Tennessee Tech. So we just closed Mayhem at that point and then kind of joined with CrossFit Cookville. Well, then, a year after that, we decided to – Chip couldn't – we just couldn't run the class through there because it was one class a day and then it just it got to be where athletes were in there most of the time they have precedence over the place anyway right so it just got to be too much of a cluster so I was like you know I at that time I was not really I was forced to resign at Tennessee Tech when I took the

supplement deal with BSN. So I was like, I didn't have anything to do from. What was your, what were you actually doing at Tennessee Tech? I was the assistant. I guess the assistant strength coach was my title. I was more of an intern. It was like a work. So you can't do that and have a supplement company sponsor you? They said not.

They said it set a bad example for the athletes. So I needed to make a choice. But when I was working... Being like NCAA-type rules? Rich Froning, the bad example. Never heard that before. Yeah, so it was whatever. So for, I guess, from the beginning of February

until the games, I trained at the house. So I trained out of the garage, did all that stuff, and then after the games we opened this place up. So that's the journey of CrossFit Mayhem to CrossFit Cookville back to CrossFit Mayhem. Okay. This place is pretty impressive. This place is very impressive.

Bill set us up real well with Rogue. I had the whole idea of the original CrossFit Mayhem. Yeah, the block building. We're driving through the city on the way here, and most of the buildings are a little bit older. And so I was thinking maybe y'all got like a old auto garage or auto parts place or something like that. And we kind of like, oh, they got the new building in town.

Well, this is actually, this building was built in 1920, but it was revamped. Like if you go. It looks new. It looks new because it's been, I mean, it's been but it's that it's actually connected this was a shirt factory and the building over there which we originally looked at it's a lot bigger but it's all wood floor and we were like that's not gonna work so yeah but it was a lot more space there's like 10,000 square foot how big is this place uh we got uh right just over 4,000 in there and then like 1,200 in here.

Okay. Yeah, we're standing right now in the room that's, yeah, it's obviously smaller, like Rich just said, but this is kind of where you like to train a little bit on your own. I like to train a little bit. Bring some new clients in and stuff like that. Kind of get away from the bigger classes in the other room the equipment setup is is pretty unique compared to most CrossFit gyms I noticed that a lot of your rogue rig stuff is the it's a little more robust yeah yeah it's the new monster monster

rig so I think it was the first one in the U.S. the first one ever, I'm pretty sure. But, like I said, when we were trying to figure out what we were going to do about equipment, Bill was like, what do you need? And I was like, you guys do this for a living. Tell me, you know, set us up. So he literally just – it was like every day was Christmas. And then they sent some guys down to help us set up the big rig. But the biggest pain of the whole thing was, you know, getting the floor ready to put the floor down and then paint.

I mean, it's just a pain in the butt. You guys did the floor yourself. Yeah. When I walked in, I was talking to Doug. I was like, surely they had someone install this for them because we're like, man, we like our floors at Faction. We're like, well, I wonder if this would be better than what we have.

And I was like, yeah, if someone installed it, that would be great. But you guys installed it yourself. Luckily, we had a good group of guys helping us, but at a few points, it was like four of us cutting it all, laying it all out. When we taped it, you really need about 10 people was optimal because it's got to be pulled back.

I mean, like I said, there's a little over 4,000 square feet in there, and we had to lay it all out flat, let it sit for a day. Then we laid it all out, then we had to go back and cut it and lay it. Then you had to go back and peel it up, lay the tape down, so tape the whole room. Then you had to come back and peel the other side of the tape and lay it and pull the seams and overlap it i mean it's it was a good sounds complicated process but it looks good now but it was it was a pain those big pieces of floor you know i know we're all weightlifters and all but it's heavy yeah it's awkward it's just bulky and awkward

yeah how many people said just turn it into a workout and you're like oh yeah sure go for it it happens it was constantly every time we move flooring people like just make a workout out of it and we're just like shut up just my dad my dad used to do that he'd be like oh just make it a wad and i'm like shut up like he's like i got a wad for you once you run up to the bar and grab me a beer and i'm like that's not a workout at all i'm like shut up not chopping your wood yeah yeah exactly what uh are there any uh pieces of equipment you got in here we were playing on with the yoke a little bit uh any do you feel like that's uh i mean the the great thing about the yoke is how i don't know what i'm saying the great piece i drank i drank a monster drink at

rich's house and i a little jacked up. I can't think. I like it because it's just versatile, especially the taller one, like you were saying, because you can put a pull-up bar on it. You've got a squat rack. You've got a yoke. You were doing some jerk exercises and stuff on it. Yeah, I've been having some trouble doing jerk recoveries at home because I actually got rid of a piece of equipment and wasn't thinking about that was a place to do jerk recoveries because of the rack, kind of like what's over here.

And I totally neglected to think that I could do a jerk recovery with a yoke. It's pretty unique because there's a lot of instability there. So you have to stabilize a lot more. So I'm going to play around with that when I get home a little bit. Good. Any other pieces of equipment you feel like really make a difference for you in the training or something that you would recommend other CrossFit gyms get? I mean, anything that Rogue makes is, I mean, it's just good quality stuff,

but, I mean, it's so versatile, a lot of stuff you can do. I mean, the monster, any rig, but that monster rig, know it's got the the attachments for like safety squats you safety squats um i mean we got band attachments we can hook to this type of stuff um it's i mean like i said with with anything that they do they make it to where you can do multiple things on it so that monster rig is pretty sweet um and then everything else in here is just your basic crossfit stuff but like i said just the way rogue makes stuff is always the just completely different so yeah i don't know i can't i think that's all we have yeah it's pretty much mostly rogue stuff we have a couple things from other places but i'm kind of stuck on

yeah just going to rogue for everything yeah Yeah, once you figure it out, you're like, I mean. It's worth the extra few bucks it might be. You pay a little bit less to buy cheaper stuff, but it's cheaper quality, and you might as well just pay a little bit extra, which I don't even know now. I haven't even been shopping around about stuff. But, I mean, the prices are fair, too, and shipping and all that stuff. I'll get a notification your order's been day, the next two days it's there. Yeah, unless they're customer service, I'm pretty happy with that.

Always. If we end up with something broken, I just take a picture of it, email it to them, and they go, okay. And then just send me a new one, whatever it is. No questions asked. No. They don't ask what I did to it or anything. They might now. Yeah, they might now. They're used ask what I did to it or anything. They might now.

Yeah, they might now. They're used to dealing with CrossFit guys like you. They're just like, I don't even want to ask. Don't tell me. What do I do? I don't know what's going on. Not when I get equipment sometimes. Mm-mm.

No. I think I'm more likely to break things putting it together. Putting it together, yep. Yeah. Luckily, we've had several different tries at stuff. So the first one's always shoddy at best. And then the next four or five, if it's a few other things, they're always put together perfectly.

But the first one's a little iffy. I'm pretty sure I'm doing something wrong. We've put together our fair share of rug rigs, but I always get too many bolts too many bolts and not enough washers yeah it's never worked out perfectly never and i think they're sending us the right stuff uh-huh it's definitely our fault you just use it wrong yeah we're putting i'm like i know when i'm supposed to be using washers i think i think yeah yeah every time we blame them though the people that do it for a living we're, those guys don't know what they're doing.

We got it right, I'm pretty sure. We did not screw that up. And then someone's like, well, the instructions are on the internet. That's hard, man. Going to the website and clicking on those buttons. Let's be honest. Who's going to use the instructions anyway?

I know. It looks pretty simple. You just look at what the picture looks like, what it's supposed to look like, and then you make it look like that. That's what I do when I work on my Jeep. It's not running right now. It hasn't ran in years.

Might be why my gun is already jammed. I work hard on that all the time. Project. So what kind of things did you have at your old place that you weren't that concerned about getting here at the new place? Anything that you had over there that just sat in a corner you never used it and you you're like you know what when we go to the new place let's just get rid of that thing just like playing you know self like just squat stands

like if the yoke didn't have that bar across the top you know it's just a plain squat stance yeah I mean you use it but I mean the racks have squat stands but the I mean with the the yoke is just it's so much better because I even have I've got two at the house well one's mine one's Dan's but just having one at the house is just I mean it makes it neither one of you let the other guy squat and your squat stands it's like labeled rich for Dan don't want to have to adjust anything no he's a little bit shorter right well yeah a little, a little shorter. A little stumpier? A little stumpier.

We're going to make fun of Dan until we get a podcast with him. Okay. And then we'll try and draw him out. But I didn't ask him, so. That's true. Might be fine. He was working, so I don't know what he's doing. He still works for Tennessee Tech.

Yeah, he took my job. Gave him your leftovers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So how much yoke walking do you actually do? Do you do much strongman stuff?

Do you do stones? I do stones and axle stuff more than I do actually like yoke walking. I do a lot of overhead stuff with the yoke just for stability

and like you were saying. You do a yoke walk overhead? Mm-hmm. And then? Overhead walking lunges. With the yoke? With the yoke. To lower it. 300 pounds, right? Mm-hmm. And then? Overhead, walking lunges. With a yoke? With a yoke. You have to lower it.

300 pounds, right? Yeah, right. But stones and axle, I do quite often. But yoke, just because we haven't had any here lately, I haven't done much. But we'll probably start doing a little bit more. At the games, did the oversized med ball kind of catch you by surprise? Not really. No?

No. You said we were talking a minute ago. You were talking about them being a little bit lower. Yeah, you have to get a little bit lower. Versus the stone, it sits up a little bit higher, and you can get a little bit better of a grip. The ball, you have to kind of like lay it over to either forearm to get the other forearm underneath it.

The benefits of the ball is you don't end up with no skin on your forearms. Yeah, you still get a little eat up, but not nearly as bad. And then also you don't have to worry about breaking the floor either, you know, if you're doing it in here. Yeah, I know about that. We've broken a lot of things with Stone. Yeah. When I say we, I mean the guys training at my facility.

Yeah, the ones you coach. No, not anymore. Oh. That and we had tacky on everything. Yeah. That shit is nasty. Pine tar. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We had that everywhere. And then we had... Over the floors. Mineral spirits and all sorts. So then, like, the tar gets everywhere, and then they bring in, like, this crazy stuff to clean it up with. And then you're like, what is that smell? Like, come in the next morning.

Like, high? Yeah. And then the training session goes extra well. I do this good. It's like you can't even see the clock anymore. I don't even know where I'm at. Yeah. What?

I can't think. It's that monster energy drink. Let me handle this, Mike. Go for it. So before the podcast started, we were talking about your celebrity and what some of the craziest things that's ever happened. That was all off the record, Chris. When I was in Chile this weekend, actually, people were like, they'd give me a shirt from their gym. They'd be like, now, can I have your shirt?

Oh, they want your shirt? I was like, this is like, it was like my Team USA shirt from the Invitational. I was like, no, I'm kind of attached to this one. I can't, I'm not. And they're like begging. And I was like, I'm not giving you my shirt. You think that was a cultural thing? I don't know what it was, but I was like, I'm attached to this shirt.

And this is the only shirt I have. Like, I'm not giving, you know, you're not getting this shirt. Like, they weren't just asking, but they, like, really expected you to give it to them? I'm pretty sure, but then they were, like, begging, and it got a little, like, I was like, I'm sorry. Like, I'll send you a Mayhem shirt when I get home, but I'm not giving you this shirt.

Right. And some other guy was like, you know, why do you have the numbers on your shorts? And I was like, you know, that's kind of how that identifies in the games. And he's like, can I have them? Like, I'm wearing these shorts. These are the only shorts I have. No.

And he's like, oh, you sure? I got a new business idea, man. We're just going to take pictures of you wearing clothes and then sell that online. Yeah. We'll get it all made cheap in China. That's right. Just like fake Louis Vuitton handbags.

Yeah. I think there's, I think, I've heard this before, that people sell panties online. You know, panties that have been worn. You heard about this somewhere? You heard about this. You saw it in a book. Yeah. Some weird story somewhere.

Right. You do the same thing. Same thing. Might stink a little bit by the time he gets there. Rich's Under Armour. Yeah. That would add value. That was probably a pop-up on an unknown website. We're not talking about that.

So Mike was saying, or asking rather earlier, if women are just throwing themselves at you, whether your wife's there or not. But the fact is, my wife's there most of the time, and there's just no shame. People have no shame. It's like, my wife's standing right there. My wedding band's on. It's obvious I'm married, and they just don't care.

She's standing right next to you. My wife is in here somewhere. I just saw her in here, so I was like, maybe we could try to get her on here, but I don't know if she would. Well, you know what? We're on the website for our show here. One of the biggest things that brings people to our website is the search terms, Rich Froning's wife. Because that one. I have no idea why that is.

Have we ever brought it up on an episode before? No, we've never brought it up on an episode, but we were discussing it the other day. It's like the 10th most search term that brings you to our website i don't know how how i don't know how i think i think i think that podcast i think we podcasted at regionals and then i we had we had like the first two or three podcasts like transcribed in its entirety uh And I think that text is lost somewhere deep in a blog entry. Wow. And I think that's why we pop up for that. Jeez.

But the fact that people are searching it is what kind of makes me think that that's kind of strange. A little strange. So we're debating why that was getting searched. Why is that the search item? So anyways, you have to thank her for our current popularity. I'll tell her that. We appreciate that. I'll tell her that.

She is here. Can we bring her in? I don't know. Will she want to come on? I don't know if she will. I can try. That would be great. Let me try to coax her on here.

Yeah, let's take a break real quick. We'll see what we can do. All right. All right, we're back, and we failed. That was an epic fail like i didn't even get the words out of my mouth before she's like i'm not coming in there i was like why she's like i'm not coming in there she's like i gotta go she knew she's seen the show before she was like no she just and every time a camera comes around she runs and then she wonders

why people don't know that i'm married and i'm'm like, that's, that's why if you would get on camera and just show people that you're real, this is Rich Furning's fake wife. That'd be our next biggest search term. Fake wife. Um, but no, we were just talking about if she does CrossFit, she doesn't, uh, she'll every once in a while, she'll, we'll go to an event and she's like, it's just so inspiring. I want to do it. And then it never happens. I think she views it more as a sport since you compete. I mean, she sees people that are very unathletic do CrossFit and try their best. Because a lot of these things aren't a competition. It's like showing people.

She's seen every range of person do CrossFit. But she just never played any sports, never did any type of physical activity or anything like that. She's always been skinny, you know, that type of woman that doesn't have to do anything and looks great. And she's just like, I don't want to do it. I'm like, you guys can't force her to do it. It's like I'd like to say, you know, it's not for appearance. It's for your health, but she doesn't buy that

she's like yeah what about eating you guys have to eat totally separately or she eats similar to how you eat she doesn't eat anywhere near what i she's a pasta and mountain dew and that's about it like that's her two favorite things on this planet so um but like i said never changes her appearance whatsoever and i'm just like i like, I don't understand it. The pasta Mountain Dew diet? Yeah. She should write a book. That's right.

She'd make a lot more money than we do. Yeah. On the pasta Mountain Dew, but I'm just kidding. I know, right? And I don't do anything. Everyone hates her right now. I know. So I don't know.

But it's good, though, too, because she honestly could care less about how i do in a crossfit performance so that takes some pressure off too like she's just like as long as i'm safe she doesn't care she doesn't have expectations yeah not like one day um just keep paying the bills honey i know right one day i came home and there was it was when i did that 225 grace last year and hq had posted it and it was on Facebook and you know people were writing comments and she's like I watched that video today she's like I just don't get it she's like it just doesn't look that hard it's not that impressive I was like thanks hell I appreciate that why don't you go pick up that 225 it's like you know it actually it's very good to keep me

very level because no matter how good I feel after I've done something at the gym that day I come home and it's like why didn't you take out the trash why didn't you do like it's just you're like you're like oh yeah I am it's normal when you get home yeah so it's it's good because she doesn't give a crap about what I do so she cares about you know like I said my performance you know she cares about how I feel about stuff, but she's just like, she could care less about how, you know, what my clean and jerk is. She probably couldn't tell you what my clean and jerk or my snatch or anything like that. Probably couldn't tell you what the movements were. She actually, she's learned a little bit of that stuff.

Yeah. I base my whole relationship with my wife on that, actually. It's like, man, I hope I can clean jerk 300 pounds a day so Ashley will be impressed. Well, at first, that's what I was like, ah, she'll think this is cool. And I'm like, she doesn't care. She's like, I don't even know what that means. You know what?

I get caught up in the moment sometimes. The thing I think is going to impress my wife the most is that when I'm at a party, I'm playing Guitar Hero. Like four beers deep, you're like, she's going to love this. I was like, check this out. You're pressing buttons. It's a video game. You're like, so? I'm like, she's going to want me so bad after this.

Because I look cool. That that's right can you play real guitar i can't that's why i put so much that's why i put so much stock in the uh the guitar hero yeah i don't know my buddy uh chris moore um he's normally on the show he he uh started playing the drums on guitar hero and And then actually. And then he started buying, like, the different setup for the drums. So he started adding, you know, the buttons or whatever. So he bought a real drum set. Now he can play the drums. So, like, Guitar Hero, like, taught him how to play drums.

That's cool. And then I think drums might be a little more intuitive for some people. I don't know. Don't listen to me. I know nothing about music. I know nothing about music whatsoever. Just so you people know, don't know. Don't listen to me. I know nothing about music. I know nothing about music whatsoever. Just so you people know, Doug cannot whistle.

Yeah, I can't sing, play an instrument, and I can't even whistle. So I'm never going to try to play the guitar. I can do like a really high-pitched fake whistle and a really low-pitched weird whistle, but I can't do a regular whistle. I can go like... And I can go like...

But I can't do a regular whistle. It can go like and I can go like but I can't do a regular whistle. It sounded like somebody opened the door and there was a draft coming through. What's funny is Doug and I have been friends since like 2006 and I just learned about this today. We were in the car and I was like, yes, I've got something on Doug now. Like over Doug. I can't sing or play an instrument, but at least I can

whistle. You got me in that category for sure that's pretty funny so you try and impress your wife with other things other than fitness she's pretty besides taking out the trash that literally is probably the most that or doing the dishes she could literally care less about anything physical. Because, like, I wakeboard quite a bit whenever I'm, well, I did before I did CrossFit. And, like, I got to where I could do flips and stuff like that. And then I'd come into the boat, and she's like, you're an idiot. I'm like, did you see that?

That was like, that was awesome. And she's like, you could have hurt yourself. And I'm like, yeah, I could have. It's just every time I'm like, I'll do, even in here, I'll do something. She's like, you could have dropped that bar on your head. I'm like, what? I could have. What?

But, you know, it's just how completely different our upbringings were. Like, my parents were like, I'll rub some dirt on it. You'll be all right. Where her mom, great lady, but it was just like, everything was like, are you, are you okay?

Hillary has no scars anywhere in her body where I have probably a scar on every major portion of my body where she's just like, no, she's like, well, I fell off my bike one time. I'm like, Oh, I wasn't allowed to ride the bike ever again.

Yeah, exactly. So I was done. Actually, speaking of doing flips and stuff, you said you started in a gymnastics gym. Have you ever done like pommel horse or parallel bars or high bar or anything like that? You ever tried any of those? No. I mean, flips and that type of stuff, yes, but not, no, like real gymnastics stuff. None of the hardcore stuff.

You're pretty solid on a trampoline? I can jump on a trampoline. Yeah? Yeah, maybe not as high as the guys in the Olympics. Did you see that? That's actually an Olympic sports trampoline. It's crazy, too. They're way up there.

Oh, yeah, they're higher than the ceiling right here, and they're doing triples and maybe four times flips. It's nuts. It's fucking crazy. I grew up with a trampoline in my backyard me too and we pulled off i think i think that will feed your athleticism a lot oh yeah like if you go back there every day and fool around for half an hour that's a lot of body awareness right there i don't know about a lot of that give me a chance to play on times too i'm sorry go ahead i fell off the trampoline several times too as a, yeah.

I've gotten to the point where I bounce, and then you're not sure whether you want to try to scramble in the air back onto the trampoline or try to go all the way to the ground, and you land on the middle of the springs, and one foot goes through the springs. Dude, I decided I was doing – my brother and I were doing front flips off the trampoline one day. It's like front flip off. I'm like, oh, cool.

So I just – I missed and landed with my back across the bar. Oh. Kind of like just slid off, hit the ground, and just laid there for a few minutes. It was one of those things where I didn't move very well for about two weeks. Right. There might be something, like I might get like an x-ray one day on my spine. I'm like, oh, you got a, you know you fractured your vertebrae at one point.

I'm like, oh. Yeah. That makes sense. Surprise. Yeah. I get x-rayed one day on my spine like how you get up you know you fracture your vertebrae at one point like oh Yeah, that makes sense surprise. Yeah, did you get sued one time for a guy jumping off your roof on your chair? I think it was like for like two hundred thousand dollars I threw a party and uh when I was in high school and Dude jumped off the house. We were all jumping off the roof Onto the trampoline, but the one guy that gets hurt tries to sue you. His dad, yeah. Did it go through?

No, it actually got dropped. His dad was being a little too aggressive with how much money and the way he went about trying to get it. It didn't really work out for him. So I was relieved. Right, yeah, I bet. I'm like 18 years old getting sued. I'm like, oh, my God, I'm just having a good time. And there wasn't even alcohol involved. I think like, oh my god, I'm just having a good time. And there wasn't

even alcohol involved. I think we drank too much sweet tea and it just got out of control. We used to do boxing matches on trampoline. Oh man, boxing matches on trampoline are the best. They'll last forever because you can't plant a foot. It's just all arm, you know what I mean? Just throwing punches. Yeah, we used to play football on the trampoline. Oh, yeah? Like, have somebody throw the ball off of the trampoline and two people scramble for it in midair. That didn't turn out well a few times.

Like, you start, like, pushing off, and then somebody falls off. And then I'm trying to think any other crazy things we used to do on the trampoline. Football was probably one of the most. Craoline football was probably one of the most craziest yeah one of the most dangerous i try to catch the ball and do a backflip at the same time oh yeah yeah like mid you know catching the ball you have to flip like it's interesting i've done that stuff into a pool but not on a trampoline we set up a mini trampoline in front of a basketball goal and uh my dad was like well i'm gonna make this basketball goal like super sturdy so he filled the entire goal with cement so you know

it's a post and put cement right down the middle and uh i decided to do a 360 slam dunk and my face hit right on like my two front teeth were loose it was like i had this ball cap on it's like took all the skin right off my forehead smushushed my nose, blood coming out, front teeth loose. It was terrible. Actually, similar to that. You ever driven a jerk into your chin or into your nose or drop a bar on your head or anything? Yep. I've done that a couple

times. You got any scars on your head from that? I think I have a... You got something. One on your chin. You got a little split there. I think that's from that. I'm trying to think of anything else You got a little split there. Yeah, I think that's from that. I'm trying to think anything else stupid. From a jerk gone bad? Yeah.

I'm trying to think anything else stupid I've done, just CrossFit-wise. The ankle thing that we talked about earlier, that wasn't very smart. Was it fell off or jumped off a rope and kind of landed on the rope on the ground? When I did it, just kind of. Yeah, one good reason. I mean, we're not the best at our gym about that, but try and get that rope to go right off the ground instead of yeah because we have like a ton of it yeah they're like 30 foot or 25 foot ropes i mean

they have like 18 foot ceiling so it was yeah you got you guys have ropes in here that far wall okay i didn't see when we first walked in because they're pulled up to the ceiling yeah dad made a little mount there i think uh cTV probably caught it on the way in. The two big screen TVs. Yes, that's Wattify. That's Wattify. That is legit. It's a pretty sweet setup.

That made me want to do it in our facility. It doesn't mean we will. I hate it when we interview people sometimes. And they're talking about what they do in their gym. And people are like, why don't we do that? I'm like, because we don't're like talking about what they do in their gym. And our people are like, why don't we do that? Like, cause we don't have enough money. Jeez,

Billy money doesn't grow on trees. If you get more people to come into the gym, maybe we could buy that stuff. Right. Why don't you bring in your friends? All of them. Got to advertise for me and maybe we'll get you some nice stuff. We have way too many ideas.

You have 30 new ideas a day. Yeah, we... No time to do all of them. The other thing, too, like, I'm in the bad habit. I think it's probably mostly my fault. I see something I like, and then we'll buy one or two of them or something like that instead of buying enough for a class to do. Right.

And then we end up with a bunch of, like, random equipment. Yeah. And we've tried to get really good about that. Like, all right, let's get rid of the stuff that... We don't use. Yeah, and buy more of the stuff that everybody can equipment. Yeah. And we've tried to get really good about that. Like, all right, let's get rid of the stuff that we don't use. Yeah. And buy more of the stuff that everybody can use. Yeah.

I mean, that's why we don't have like a ton of GHD machines. Yeah, because you've got to have a ton to have a class. Yeah. I don't know.

I think rowers make it hard too. Rowers are tough. Rowers are good. Expensive and they only do one thing. Yeah. Unless you follow

CrossFit.com last week. What they do what did they do that was uh arms only oh yeah and then legs only rowing and then there's three ways to use the scrambling for stuff to do with the row he said it that was doug but uh shepherd actually wrote uh one of our i don't know if you know shepherd tate he uh trains with trains with McGoldrick a lot. And he wrote this really long story about why you might need to do, like, arms only. That's if, like, you're out in the middle of the ocean and, like, there's a storm coming and something breaks your legs. You have to do it.

It's like, oh, thank God I followed CrossFit.com so that I could be ready for this scenario. Wow. Darren actually, he didn't do the workout, but he rode 500 meters arms only, 500 meters legs only, 500 meters arms only, 500 meters legs only, so a 2K. Just like that. I was like, you're an idiot.

Just sitting there watching him go. Like, why don't you just bend your arms? So you don't bend your arms. I guess it's just legs, yeah. Huh. if that has any like advantages to teaching proper mechanics because i know i break it down a little bit when i'm teaching rowing like yeah you know we're gonna do just the arms you know arms plus hips and arms plus legs so there it is maybe it was a skill transfer day and people just took it as a yeah hey i don't think anyone knows who's actually programming crossfit.com do you know who it is is that a secret isn't it huh pukey isn't he's doing it pukey the cloud that's what it says

every day i don't know no i don't know you know you're just not gonna tell no i don't i sometimes i'll get the work i actually i used to get all the workouts ahead of time. Now I don't. I think my email's broke. I don't get them anymore. Just so they can compare you to get people something to shoot for. Yeah. I always wondered about that. I was wondering, a lot of times they post on there, like, as soon as it pops up, like, these three people did it in this time.

Sometimes they'll give you like a week. How do they know that? A week early. That way you can, that way, you know, because sometimes it gives people a little extra motivation to do it, I guess. Oh, yeah. But lately – I see like Dave Lipson do it in this amount of time.

8,000 pounds on a back squat or something. Right, yeah. Genius. Brilliant. He's cheating. I'm just kidding. Don't hurt me. I think that means we're done.

I think we're done. I think we're done. Did you get a picture of the sweet mural in the background? That is actually, you know what this place used to be before? Was it our gym? What's that? Random fact. This was a prehistoric dinosaur museum.

No way. Awesome. Yeah. Every once in a while, if you look, you'll see like fish or fishing line hanging from the ceiling. I thought you were going to say like a ghost. No, I think there's a pterodactyl or something hanging somewhere. It's the dinosaur ghost. So we actually left that mural because it looks cool.

Oh, it's cool. No, I'm just kidding. We just haven't painted over it yet. I'm just agreeing with Rich, so he'll think I'm cool. It's awful, but hey. All right, guys. We're going to call it a day. We're going to do a little bit of promo. Doug, what do you got? Rich so he'll think I'm cool. It's awful, but hey. Alright guys, we're going to call it a day. We're going to do a little bit of promo. Doug, what do you got?

What do I have today? Excuse me. I'll just plug the thing that I always plug, which is my mobility seminar called Maximum Mobility, which I don't think Rich has seen yet. He may throw that your way someday. Get you mobile. Basically all I do is go through

each one of your joints and i teach you how to find if you have any restrictions at those joints and then i show you exactly what to do to fix those restrictions so you can find that in the fitter store just go to fitter.tv and click on the shop and it's under seminars it's called maximum mobility rich you got a thing to plug. Yeah. I think we've already done all Rogue, of course. Rogue, BSN. BSN. And come to CrossFit Mayhem if you're in Cookville. CrossFit Mayhem.

Yeah. Come on. So if someone wants to drop in, if they're passing through. Just let us know, crossfitmayhem at gmail.com. And 20 bucks, I think. Like I said, it's kind of like people are like, what do you sell that product for in your store?

I'm like, go to the store. I don't know. Let me look it up. Yeah, I'm like, it's online. Yeah, it's online. So everything's online. CrossFitMayhem.com. Cool.

And don't forget, go to Fitter.TV, F-I-T-R.TV and sign up for our newsletter so you can get updates about all the cool stuff that we're doing. Peace out. Peace. Thank you.