Barbell Shrugged - How To Stay Young w/ CrossFit Games Masters Athletes Annie Sakamoto & Ron Ortiz - 218

Episode Date: July 21, 2016

w/ CrossFit Games Masters Athletes Annie Sakamoto & Ron Ortiz 

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we interview... Annie Sakamoto. Ron Ortiz. And what do we talk about? Old people. Old people. Metamucil? No.

Magnesium. Whippersnappers. No, Metamucil. Big Newtons. Ginger snaps. Ginkgo biloba. Diabetes. Diabetes.

All right. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Hey, I see you sitting there, lonely by your keyboard. If you want to, just whip your fingers out. Put them on your keys. Type in http://www.barbellshrugged.com.

While you're there, swing on over, sign up for the newsletter. We'll send you some cool free stuff. And make sure to check out Overtime. It's a sweet place with a bunch of sweet stuff. And last but not least, I know you're trying to find a bitchin' t-shirt to get your mom for a birthday. Head on over to merch.barbellshrug.com. Alright, so, welcome to Barbell Shrug. I'm your host, Mike McGoldrick, here with Alex Macklin. Yo. CTP behind the camera. And today, our very special guest, Andy Sakamoto and Ron Ortiz.

Gotta hurry up. We're getting older as we speak. Lots of ticking. The sundial's moving. Yeah. So very excited to dive into this episode. I've been wanting to interview you guys for a long time. So before we get started, make sure if you haven't yet, go over to shrugstrengtest.com, sign up. We'll send you a really cool test that you can do. It's going to show you a bunch of different movements and then run you through a bunch of exercises that shows you any imbalances and weaknesses that you might have.

And then we will send you some really cool feedback and results on that. Shameless plug to get that out of the way. I better do that. I am not good at that stuff, man. Before we start, let me do that. It's free, so it's just one of those things, you know? Something we want to give away to you.

Anyways. What are you guys doing? What exactly is that? The Strong Strength Test? Yeah, yeah. We're talking about me now? Yeah, yeah. No one's ever asked me that.

I want to know this. It's a three-day test that you do that we created. Too long. Okay. It's 16 exercises. Okay. 15 or 16. And you basically run through all these exercises.

It's a bunch of different tests of different movements. It's basically like a strength imbalance test. It shows you how strong you are left to right, structural balance, deadlifts, pull-ups, all these different things you can do. And when you get done with it, you learn a lot about yourself. Like, oh, my push is way stronger than my pull. I need to work on this.

Like, how strong is my grip? How strong is your left to right lateral stability? Oh wow. Yeah. It gets, it gets like a really detailed. that's good. Yeah.

I don't want to know. I think that was, I don't want to know. I don't want to know how I'm balanced. No, it's a lot of fun. So anyways, let's talk about you guys.

All right. Yeah. So Ron, tell us about yourself. Nope. Nope. Nope. Sorry.

Go ahead. Annie. Yes. Yeah. Really? No, I want to hear Ron's story. You're so, I'll cheat about yourself. Nope, sorry. Annie, yes. Really? No, I want to hear Ron's story. I'll cheat off of you. Go ahead.

And say that you once were Asian as well. I was born a short Asian. How were you once Asian? I just grew into a Mexican. I think I was Mexican before I was Asian. See? See? See? Well, I found CrossFit in, let's see, 2014. No, no, 2004.

Yeah. See, I'm so old. What year is it now? 2014. It's 2016 now? Just found it two years ago. No, 2004. And before that, I was, and you can laugh,

I was teaching cardio kickboxing classes. Nice. And I thought, like. Like Taibo? Kind of? Yep. Oh, man. Yep. You just dropped Taibo.

Like with these, like with a microphone. With Billy Blanks? Billy Blanks video tape? Well, I was aspiring to work with Billy Blanks, but I wasn't there yet. My mom used to teach aerobics with a headset. Yeah. Yeah, no, I thought, Five, six, seven, eight.

And I knew Eva Tordokens, who was one of the original CrossFit ladies. And she said, I want you to come try CrossFit. And I was like, no way. I'm fit enough. I've got this. You should try my cardio kickboxing. I can kick for two hours. Yep.

And anyway, she brought me in. She kind of turned me on to it. And then that was it. I can kick for two hours. Yep. And, uh, anyway, she brought me in. She, she kind of turned me onto it and then that was it. I was hooked and left my gloves behind. Did you feel, oh, did you feel you were fit enough when you first tried CrossFit? I'm glad you asked me. So the very first workout she gave me was, um, 10 deadlifts at 65 pounds, 10 pass-throughs on the pomm horse we had a palma horse at the original crossfit gym oh cool um and a 400 meter run uh and it was three rounds but back and i was by myself so a 400 meter run was really just like a 400 meter trot and i and i had that moment i was like you should really try my this isn't fitness um and she and actually to her credit she was very careful

about the way she brought me in yeah so i told my husband about it i said i think i got this thing i think i'm gonna be really good whatever and he said i he had actually done it before with greg and a couple of surfers that were in santa cruz at the time and he said oh i'll go to a class with you so we came back on a friday, I think, at 7 a.m. And Greg and Lauren were coaching that class. And I remember specifically the workout that day was three rounds, 500-meter row, like 30 squats, 15 kettlebell swings, three trips around a cargo net. We had a cargo net back then.

We weren't supposed to touch the ground. And they didn't teach you how to touch the ground. That sounds so fun. And they didn't teach you how to use it. It was just let go. And then 25 glute ham sit-ups all the way back, all the way up. And he staggered the start so that you were trying to catch the person in front of you but not let the person that started behind you catch you. Oh, boy.

Perfect. There's the intensity piece. Yeah, yeah, right. If you don't understand it, that was the perfect way to show the intensity piece. So I did the whole thing. I did all 75 glute ham sit-ups, all the way back, all the way up. And just didn't know any different. Oh, no.

And I was like, that was great. I mean, that was the intensity piece I was missing from the first time. So the next day, I was like, oh, my stomach's kind of sore. The next day. Two days later. Could you walk? I couldn't bend forward. I couldn't bend backwards. I couldn't bend backwards.

I couldn't laugh, fart, cough, sneeze. I was done. Yeah. And I, and I was distended.

My belly was distended. And I told Jake, like, I have a hernia. You need to take me to the hospital. Luckily they didn't take me. He didn't take me to the hospital. Did you just foam roll it or something?

Just had some mad doms. That's it. Oh, it was so bad. And I was one of those people like that hooked me. It seems like a lot of people, that's either the no way I'm never going back. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Well, you're leaving out some other things too. You've competed at a high level in CrossFit. Well, and so back then there was no competition. There was no CrossFit Games back then. So it was just a lot of us kind of pushing each other and kind of finding our limits. And then when the CrossFit Games, the 2007 CrossFit Games, I had just had my daughter. So I didn't compete in the first CrossFit Games. I opted out also of 2008.

And then 2009, I did team just with a couple of people at our gym. Um, and then 2011, I finally got the courage to, to do regionals. That was the first year of the open. I made it in the open. I made it to regionals. I was not, I had no interest in doing regionals at that point. There were so many new people coming in and I really was kind of nervous to test where I might fall with all of these, the new guard that had moved in, but a couple of people convinced me to do it. And, um,

and then that was it. Yeah. Very cool. And you're competing in the, you think competing in the master's level. This is my first year in the masters. Okay. Yeah.

For regionals. Um, well, so the, so for the masters, it's just the masters qualifier, which just happened. Yep.

Um, I, I made it to regionals for the northern california region as well but i'm going to opt out of that and really just focus on masters level yeah what and what uh age group i'm not going to ask your exact age i'm just gonna no gentlemen um i'm i just turned 40 this year so i'm the very first yeah okay see that gray hair look at that it's in there um what other years did you compete i was at the games 2011 2012 okay but i've been at the regionals 11 12 13 14 15 so this will be my first year not at regionals yeah which is hard because i really do like regionals it's a ton of

fun but for me i want to put the focus on the games this year. I'm so happy to have made it back to Carson. Yeah. Very cool. And I actually first met Ron in Carson in 2012? 11. 11. She's awesome. Let me tell you what happened.

So during the time that she was talking about all of the stuff going on with her, you know, doing the workouts, we were like busy creeping on nasty girls. There's a whole group of us at the fire station. I'm oh my god look at these girls explain that real quick okay so i actually started doing crossfit but it was through videos like nasty girls that annie was involved in that we were like man if they can do this you should be able to do this and getting on the rings the first time you're like i thought that was the first workout you ever did i thought you were gonna say god no that would have been pretty cool i'm not i'm not too familiar i'm i'm waylifter so on the rings the first time, you're like... I thought that was the first workout you ever did. I thought you were going to say that. God, no. That would have been pretty cool. I'm not too

familiar. I'm a weightlifter, so what is Nasty Girls again? What? Yes! I love people that don't know what it is. And there are people listening that don't know, so what's the workout? So it's the video. You have to tell us what the workout is, because all I remember is the ring muscle-up, the strict ring muscle-up. So I was like, oh my god.

It's three rounds. I think it starts with 50 air squats, seven muscle-up, the strict ring muscle-up. So I was like, oh, my God. It's three rounds. I think it starts with 50 air squats, seven muscle-ups, and then 10 hang power cleans. Okay. And it's three rounds of that. At the time, so it was myself, Eva, T, and Nicole Carroll that did the workout, and we were – All pretty hot. We're like going, oh, my gosh. It was all that Tybo I did. We were on rings where we had to kneel so that we could all be.

I mean, gyms didn't have, well, this was the original CrossFit gym. We had one set of rings. So in order for all of us to do it, we just hung rings from a pull-up bar. So we were all having to go off of our knees. Nobody knew how to kip. It's not prescribed as strict muscle-ups. You were doing strict muscle-ups? But we were really doingip. So it's not prescribed as strict muscle-ups. You're doing strict muscle-ups. But we were really doing strict muscle-ups because we didn't know any different.

We were too stupid to know how to kip. Hey, train stupid, whatever. Sorry, we totally derailed you. No, no, no. It's good, man, because I didn't know exactly the sequence. But there were certain parts where we were like going, there's no way. How are these guys doing this? so along with creeping on her so we would always watch these videos and continue to just that's how we grew like our the guys at the fire station we continue to grow just

by watching what they were doing and the progression of what was going on with crossfit as a whole yeah yeah and that's what we do. We just go, okay, so how do you do this? CrossFit Journal videos back in the day. Yeah, exactly. So that's what kind of carried us through to that next stage. And, I mean, it just continued to grow with us. Sure. We had a few of us that were really grasped a hold of it

and continued to, like, I went to sectionals. It was sectionals back then. Back when there wasn't sectionals. Yeah, it was back then. Back when there was sectionals. Yeah. 2010, yeah. And I just got obliterated by all these young guys. I'm like, they have to have a master's. Okay.

There's just no way this is going to work out. So I tried a couple of years sectionals, got blown away, and then continued on through in 2011 when they first had masters. And that's how I – so we met. And the first age group was 45 back then. They didn't have a 40. No, they started with 50, I think, the very first year. Wow.

And then I was like, I'll have to wait till then. I actually did it. I remember walking underground after our ceremony back in the, back 40. The grass, it was a parking lot like this. It was the best. And I was walking through there and Annie kind of stopped me. She goes, you're a master at that.

I was like, yeah. She goes, how'd you do? I go, I did pretty good. She goes, well, no, no. How'd you do? I got third place. And she gives me this big Annie hug around the waist. And she's like, oh my gosh. She goes, so what's wrong? I was like, well, you know, I thought I could have done better. She goes, are you kidding me? So she totally

like, I left there going, she's absolutely right. You know, I got to keep my head up and be excited about what happened. And then she just hugged me. What year was this? 2011. Okay, cool. Yeah, that was the first year they had the 45 to 49. Gotcha.

And from there, it's just kind of snowballed. Sure, you've competed every year since then. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. And what have you been, like, what is your highest level of competition in crossfit um the games okay basically good games um i was fortunate to win in 13 um and so you won the games in 2013 and what age division yeah what age division uh now i'm 50 i just turned 50 but that was uh 45 to

49 45 to 49 okay and then in, have you been going since then? Every year. Every year. Yeah. I've been fortunate to make it. One year I thought I was going to. I had some shoulder surgery go on, but I was able to come out and do pretty well. Yeah, not going to let a little surgery hold you back?

No. What's crazy is that to watch the level of competition come through, because now you have Annie and Bill Grundler and these other athletes that are just all regional athletes, level athletes that are coming through. Sean Ramirez is another one that are just crushing it. Yeah, I mean, looking at the first Masters division, you know, it's one of those where it's like,

all these guys probably could have been in regionals or were close to it at least. It's like it's one of those where it's like, all these guys probably could have been in regionals or were close to it at least. It's like it's just as competitive. A lot of the ladies in my division are doing regionals. They made it to regionals and are actually competing. Yeah. That's insane. Well, Ron, how did it feel, man?

Like you won the CrossFit Games. How did it feel? You came from that. It was surreal. It was funny because I went in thinking, oh, yeah, I got a pretty good chance. Every year you think that, obviously. You're not going to lose.

You're going to participate and do things at the best level. But it came down to kind of the last event, and I started out, and I remember Jerry Hill, who's another Masters crazy. Yep, animal. So he and I were kind of like right in there. He, we were in the mix and we had to do a hundred double unders and I'm busting through these hundred double unders and Jerry's going,

I'm like looking, I'm like, he's going to kill this. And he takes off on the run and he drops his jump rope and it like lassos his feet. I mean, when I say lasso is like almost a knot. And he's like stopped in his tracks and I just continued to run. I was like, a knot around his ankle. And he's like stopped in his tracks.

And I just continued to run. I was like, what just happened? And I look back and he's like trying to get this thing off his foot. He's trying to run with it. But it's like literally knotted his legs. And we talk about it all the time. So I took off running. Then we had rope climbs and some other stuff.

And at the last thing, I was coming around the corner going, holy crap. And I was running as fast as I could. But I was running like an old man. It was he had his cane barely getting down the track and I was like if somebody took off running after me right now they would pass me and yeah it was kind of surreal I stopped I was like wow man that just that just happened did you ever think when you when you started did you ever think you would get to that level and win the cross you hope you do like I said you go into it every year going okay i'm prepared as far as i can be um i've done everything i can do at this point but it also depends on the workouts too the workouts are a big part of it you know you can have a ton of gymnastic stuff

and have a gymnastics guy that's gonna just crush you or have a few heavy weighted things and then the bigger guys will do better so they always do a very good job at making sure that it's pretty even across the board yeah i think the the top level athletes the top let's say eight you know to ten athletes will always be there yeah but i think like ron said you know some years they might just some of the workouts might lend themselves to an engine some years it might lend themselves to a little bit more skill on gymnastics. And we all expect that, that we know that that's what's going to happen. So are the fittest the fittest?

Definitely. But I think really when you're looking at the top, you know, five to ten, any one of them could be there. Yeah, so that's a good point on why it's important if you make it to that level that you need to go in with the mindset that it could happen. You know, you could be up there and you can't count yourself out. No, no, sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Very cool. Well, I was going to ask like as a master's athlete, like how do you, how do you train? Like how do you train for this? I mean, you're going to hit that. Very careful. I started working with Jason Leiden this year and it's been the,

a kind of a phenomenal year for me as far as the way i feel um and he said it early on which was great you know you only are as old as you feel um and he's right and i act like i'm about 17 so sometimes i feel like i'm 17 but then there's also days you know i have two kids and they have sports and activities and they're young and um and sometimes sleep just isn't what it should be or could be because of other obligations. Um, so it's just knowing the days that I can push and, and that what he's given me, I can really go for it. And then knowing the days that, um, I got to back off a little bit, it's not worth it. I'm going to.

It sounds like you have a lot of confidence in that. And have you always been that way? Have you always just trusted the plan or, you know, was it different? I have always trusted the plan. The coach I had before this, I actually worked in the gym with him so he could see me. Um, so that was in some ways this year has been a real growing year for me because he would watch me work out and he would adjust the workouts on the fly depending on, he could tell if my energy was low, my energy was high was high um so this year has been a really good year for me because i've had to think a little bit more for myself even on the open workouts and everything i've really had to be a little bit more mindful of myself um but i

but i'm always in communication with jay and he's really good about giving feedback what specifically has he been working with you with or working with you on mainly my engine? Cause I've actually been working with Mike service on my Olympic lifting. I had a lot of bad habits that I had to clean up and, and I've been working with Dave on my gymnastics because same thing, you know, we didn't, we didn't have coaches like, like Dave and Mike and Chad and those guys in the early years. And so we were kind of, I don't want to say making it up as we went along, but there, no ollie lifting coaches. There were no specialty coaches back then.

So a lot of what I had been doing, I'd been doing for years, and I needed some help with my technique. Yeah. So they really helped program so that it all makes sense for me so I'm not doing too much, too little. Right. And then Jay is really good about getting me in different intervals, different modes, you know, different work durations.

And so I felt that in the Open this year. I felt like my motor was probably the best that it's been. Yeah. And healthy. Does he, like your old coach, does he adjust based on, like, how you're feeling, how your energy is? Do you? That's a little

bit more up to me because he'll send me my week of programming. Like on Tuesday, he'll send me next week's week of programming. Um, and so all, you know, it's, it's a little bit more on me to kind of make sure that the lifting fits with everything. I mean, he'll look at everything, but, um, if I'm doing a workout and I'm not feeling it, I've, I've texted him and he'll say, just back off and go 80% or call it a day. But a lot of it, I have to rely on myself and look at his programming and adjust if I need to. What's kind of like a telltale sign, like if you're not feeling it that day? For me, the biggest sign is, because, you know, you can go in the gym sometimes and feel kind of tired, kind of crickety, kind of old.

And as soon as you start moving, you feel every day but as soon as you start moving you feel good like the heart rate the blood flow everything feels good yeah and then there's other days where you know you go to lift let's say 55 pounds for one and it just it feels heavy yeah so a lot of it for me can really be the barbell or just um my timing on movements you know if it's hard to get my kip going or whatever that might be i just know and so what do you do on those days you just kind of just cut it off or do you it would depend probably on the day but sometimes i'll just go light and work technique and then other times yeah maybe you do a little you know 20 minute row and just call it, or sometimes it's just stop, done, pack it up.

Yeah, I actually work with Doug. Go ahead, I'm sorry. Sorry, we're going to take a quick break and move this into the sunlight, and then we'll come back and hear more. Absolutely. Okay. All right.

Okay, welcome back. We took a quick sun break. Yeah, we moved out into the light. I'm getting sweaty now. I'm easily the pastiest one here. You're getting the boob sweat going on. Yeah, right on. So before we stopped uh we're on we were just getting into talking a little bit about your training okay so um i've actually

worked under a couple different coaches uh recently well recently last year um doug came on as this my coach doug chapman okay um and he's And he's got a pretty good background. He's pretty good. Neil Maddox. Yeah. China Joe. And he was one of, I think he was, somebody said he was the 18th affiliate. So he just has a lot of experience.

Oh, he's been around. He's been around for a really long time. Very cool. So he's got a good program. But with that, there's a lot of things that I do need to work on. And like Annie, I have um duke ben who's who's come on as my gymnastic coach who's really helped through the open through our qualifier um during the qualifiers there is a lot of strategy yeah we have to do and especially as

master's athletes because we do have our weaknesses and points that we need to work on and he helped me kind of like sit down and look at let's piece piece this out. Let's look at what, let's test it. Let's do this. I had actually done one of them one day and he goes, all right, we'll do it again tomorrow. We'll get this down. This is how we're going to approach it. And I'd like slayed my first score. So there's a lot of pluses in having that person right there on scene, looking at what you're doing and going, okay, this is what we need to correct. This is what we need to do. this is what we need to do,

because they know you that well. So having those specialty coaches is huge. Yeah. It really is. Well, let me ask you this. Going to the Open, what's the difference that you might do when it comes to handling the workouts? It's five weeks long. You've got to be careful about how many repeats, or do you?

Tell me a little bit about that and how it might be different from say a young buck a 20 year old young buck with no kids not really a job who can just kind of chill out and train what what's the difference one of the big things and i mean any any one of us masters that has jobs that's the difference too is that a lot of people there's i have a good story beyond that but i get long-winded so um we have so many other obligations in our lives. If you look at 90% of the masters are either professionals. We have jobs outside of what we do. We have to make the time to train.

And if you're not fortunate enough like myself, I'm a firefighter, so I have extra time. Oh, I didn't know that. I can actually work out at the station. I have two days off in between my shift days where I can actually work out, and I'm putting four to six hours a day in the gym. Oh, wow. So you train a lot. Yeah, your training volume is pretty high then.

It is. And the way Doug programs for us, he gives you kind of a blanket things. This is what you need to cover, and then Duke will come in and help me go, okay, let's do this, this, and this, and we're going to put gymnastics in here, and we'll work on this end of the gymnastics portion of this. So, um, it's like a, it's a lot. Yeah. So there's a lot of moving parts. Oh, a lot, a lot. So when you go into the qualifiers to answer your question. So when you go into the qualifiers and stuff like that, we're having to really break those things down and go, okay, when I get, when am I going to do this? We got four days, five days

to do four workouts and you're trying to fit it in there and going, okay, if I going to do this? We got four days, five days to do four workouts and you're trying to fit it in there and going, okay, if I need to double this up, how am I going to approach this? Yeah. There's a lot involved in doing it and wanting to be successful too, because you have people that, that,

you know, are trying to help you as much as possible. Yeah. Yeah. And what about you? Like, yeah. How do you balance in the open specifically in the open or the qualifiers?

Let's talk about the open. The open, I always went in the mindset with I would leave it open to do the workouts twice. So once on Friday, once on a repeat on Monday. And you almost have to go in with that mentality because if you do it once and you think you're done and then you realize you have to redo it, it can be really hard to motivate to redo. So I always kind of went in with that mentality. And then it would just be a little bit how I felt on that Monday and watching some of the scores come in.

But the Masters are worse than anybody else. In every press? In every press? No, I think more like we wait until the last minute to post. It's a game that we all play. It's like poker. No one wants to show their hand. No one wants to show their hand. No one wants to show their hand until nobody can do anything about it.

That is so crazy. Yeah. I love when I see a post when someone does that. They're like, come on. Like, everyone post your scores. I'm doing it. And I'm like, you're not playing the game. Yeah.

Because it's a game. It's part of the game. You're not going to guilt them into doing it out of the Facebook post. Nope. Nope. Wow. But I'll tell you, and it is, like, the end of the five weeks, you're kind of done. You want to be done.

It's hard to do that last one twice, I would say. So it's nice that you have a couple breaks between that and then the qualifier. And a lot of that, too, like being done is so much of your training all of a sudden revolves around just the open workouts. Yep. And that's hard. You know, you're doing the open workouts. And that's hard. You know, you're doing the same workouts. You're kind of manipulating some of your lifting, some of your gymnastics to make sure that you're the best for the open workouts.

Again, it's the game that you have to play. We know what it is when we sign up for it. But it's just hard that you kind of have to switch gears and everything is for the open. Did you do 16.5 twice? Hell no. I did. It was horrible.

I think it's at the point now where everyone, almost everyone has to redo the Open workouts to get the best score they can. But with the Masters, it's different because your score or placement in the Open dictates where you start in the qualifier. Can you talk about that a little bit? The strategy there?

That's a big part. I think that's why a lot of the game goes on with how late you put your score in um some of them you just know you do good you're like all right i did get on that i'm gonna go ahead just post this and you'll be okay but then you'll have these guys come out of the woodwork you're going oh man what the heck where did this guy come from and the way they design the workouts there's always going to be strengths for some of the people. You'll have those gymnastic guys that will just kill or crush or wad. Maybe they're in the lower, lower. And then they'll bump everybody else down.

Yeah. That will affect your score. It does. That happened in the qualifier. There's a lot of there's. Yep. Man, I'll tell you what. That that pole that Ben Smith's dad pulled.

Oh, yeah. 600 pounds. Yeah. That messed up Ron. That messed up Ron's weight. That's a grown man strength. No, it just messed up my soul. Yeah.

I was like, what the heck? Oh, so go ahead. No, you got it, man. I was going to ask you, Annie, so we talked with Jason earlier, and we talked a lot about how he programs for his athletes. Do you have like a yearly kind of plan, like planned out from the end of the Open or end of the qualifier to the next year.

We don't know if she's going to be alive that long. She just turned 40. The plan is to stay alive. Just stay alive. It might not be worth his time to do that. I just started working with Jason last October. So we've only been working together about six or seven months. But when he, when I very first talked to him, I mean, what I loved about Jason was he said, I have a plan in place and it's going to have you peak for the, for the open and the qualifiers. And then I'm going to back off and it's going to have you peak again for the game.

So, um, and I just put my trust in that and I'm, and I'm glad that I am because it's working out. He has a very, I don't know if you listened to any of his lectures or anything, but he has a very detailed plan. He knows what he's talking about and it's, it's working out. He has a very, I don't know if you listened to any of his lectures or anything, but he has a very detailed plan. He knows what he's talking about, and it's very methodical. So you're not just going in there blind without any kind of roadmap. No, exactly. The idea is very much to peak and then back off,

and that's one of the reasons I chose not to do regionals this year is because I want to, the idea is not to hold, who can hold a peak that long? Yeah, I was going to say, do you feel like that's maybe even more important, who can hold a peak that long? Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, do you feel like that's maybe even more important for masters level athletes? Definitely. I mean, let's face it really. And even in the games, even at the young level, the game is recovery. It's how fast can you recover and be good for the next event? And I'm, I think that's how it is with most all sports, right? The game is recovery. And so, but even more so with Masters athletes,

it's because it is just harder to recover. It's a test of durability. While we're talking about it, how do you specifically, what do you do for recovery? I really try to make sure that I'm getting eight hours of good sleep. And that's, again, that's not always an option. Come on. Okay, so one of the biggest ways.

I have two, and they're nine and seven. And so we're still like, we still help them brush their teeth a lot. Yeah, bath time. Exactly. But one of the things that I've done, because I used to put the kids to bed, and then that's when I would get on the computer and do my emails and blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, if you get on the computer at 9 o'clock at night. Oh, you're staying there until midnight.

Yeah. So one of the things I've done this year is when I put them to bed at 8.30, 9, I go to bed right after. I go, I lay down. I mean, my teeth, we're brushing teeth together, all of us. My daughter and I shower half the time together, and then I try to go to bed right when she does. And then nutrition.

The food is the other thing that I really try to go to bed right when she does. And then nutrition. The food is the other thing that I really try to. And that's the hardest thing is just making sure that it's all planned out for the week. Yeah. And my husband doesn't want to eat exactly how I want to eat. My kids don't want to eat exactly how I want to eat. So it's finding that balance where everybody's getting good healthy food, but everybody's happy and their needs are met. How do you eat specifically? I'm like probably 80% paleo.

Okay. And that works for me. I have some cream in my coffee. I've cut back completely on a lot of the – so I used to be really strict paleo. And when I'd gone on the grid, the guys were like, bro, you're going to die. No carbs?

What? You need carbohydrates. And I was like sitting there one day, and Christian Harris is like eating this big stack of potatoes. I'm like, fuck this. I'm going to get it. So I started eating a lot of carbs, and I began to notice, okay, so my performance went up, and I'm still, I just did that VO2 thing, and my lean body mass is ridiculous. So I have to eat carbohydrates to survive.

If I don't, I'm done, bro. I'm telling you right now. If I don't, I'm done. And I noticed my energy drop. I was fortunate last week. I spent the week with the Mayhem crew over there. I don't know. Those guys don't eat.

I don't know what it's like. Oh, yeah. I've been around Rich. He just drinks shakes all day. They don't eat. It's crazy. Those guys don't eat. I don't know what is up. Oh, yeah. I've been around Rich. He just drinks shakes all day. They don't eat. It's crazy. I'm like, bro, you've got to eat. So I've noticed along with that too, so nutrition is huge, sleep is huge,

and it's usually a giant hole in my plan. With being a firefighter too, our sleep is so screwed up. Yeah. It's not that we get a ton of calls but two calls after midnight i'm getting now like four hours maybe two hours of sleep and the whole interrupted sleep oh my god it's terrible and you never sleep completely sound so that's a big thing so i try to make up for it everywhere else when i go to the gym i try and take like rest bells in between certain exercises and stuff where we're just sitting down rolling out or doing whatever

yeah and um i also try to have really good vitamins in there so yeah good fish oil those things are really important i think for us as masters because there's certain things that we're not going to get yeah through other means um one of those we were just talking about two days ago was magnesium is so huge for a lot of things there's like a giant deficiency and a lot of things that we have and one of them is the magnesium so yeah oh listen to this kiss lucky dog that was for dave newman one of my biggest supporters he's huge see you dave see you dave um you're saying, no, there's a lot.

To just narrow it down to one thing, but there's a lot of people that are really magnesium deficient. And magnesium helps with, like, sleep at night. This is one of the things I didn't know. The smooth muscle relaxer helps you chill out. Yeah. So there's ZMA. Yeah, ZMA, right?

There's also just regular magnesium, but you've got to be careful. Yeah, because sometimes you just blow that toilet out. Don't take too much. Don't take too much. I did the natural calm for a little while. Oh, no, I can't take that stuff. And I was like, wait, I'm not sleeping because I'm in the bathroom. Like maybe I could be sleeping if I wasn't in the bathroom.

Oh, that's so funny. I'm so tired. I can't do it. I've got to poop again. I want to ask you a little bit about how much it's changed over the years. So obviously the workouts now are harder. They're more demanding. There's more volume.

The games went from like one day to two days to three days to six days. Along with that, we're getting older. How do you handle the training volume to keep up with, you know, the new volume that demands in the sport? Yeah, well, I think I mean, that's why to me, I have to say the last couple of years. Again, I love competing in regionals. But to be honest, I really didn't even want to necessarily make it back to the games because for the open division, their volume is ridiculous. It would put me in my grave.

It's crazy. And I think, but I haven't done games as a master's, but the workload looks much more appropriate to our age group. So I think they've actually done a really good job of skill, strength, and volume. To me, it looks almost more like regionals, which for me, I can manage regionals. Sure, yeah. It's tough, but it's totally doable.

Six, seven workouts. Yep, yep. And I feel, you know, you might feel beat up after, but not obliterated. Right. And the master's workouts look to me a little bit more like a regionals weekend. And that, like for that, I'd love to go because it's i think in our training we prep for that you know you start to i'm not doing two three workouts longer workouts a day yet but i'm sure as we near yeah yeah what's a typical day of training for you a typical day

of training is usually um i do gymnastics two or three days a week and then olympic lifting four days a week and then some sort of metabolic conditioning or or um workouts five days a week okay so like when you say gymnastics you mean like that's like just a gymnastics only focus session yep very cool so yeah so i mean that and that that's what comprises the four to six hours of work right so if i'm going to do gymnastics dave will give me, you know, between three and six elements that I'm going to be working on. And sometimes that's mobility style stuff,

but a lot of times it's sequencing of chest to bar, bar muscle ups, or, you know, different handstand deficit, strict pushups, whatever that might be. And then the Olympic lifting, which can easily take two hours. Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, and then a workout or two. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And then a workout or two. So it sounds like a lot of practice and not necessarily like beating yourself down every day. So like. Right. Let's talk about like beat down workouts. How often do those come up, you know, in a week? Not that often? No.

Yeah. Why is that? I mean, I think because I think Jason, like what he programs me, my workouts can be very effective, um, without totally beating me down. And that's, that's important, right? Because minimum dose, minimum dose to be effective and come back the next day and be able to do it again. really good because he'll give me a lot of like if i'm rowing he'll give me a certain pace that i have to hold or if i'm you know running he'll give me a pace that i have to hold or on the assault bike a wattage that i have to hold and so that's where the push will come in for me which is great so very very specific parameters for you to work in so that you don't blow yourself up right and he's not always so specific but a lot of workouts are very specific like that, and it's good.

What about you, Ron? I think mine, the last little bit, and that's having to do with the open and the qualifiers. It seemed like it was kind of scaling down because Doug did that with the Masters. He kind of scaled this down a little bit, but before that, we have a lot of beat-down workouts. It's like continual leaving the gym, limping to my car, getting in my car going, Oh my God, I don't know if I could do this tomorrow. So a lot of that, um, that's kind of how he programs. Um, Duke is really good. Cause he'll come in and go, okay, so we got, let's say these hands,

handstand pushups sets. I want you to approach it like this. So then Doug and he kind of worked together. And then when I'm doing twice a week, I was having kind of active recovery days, and I've been starting to work with Chris Henshaw. And Chris's workouts are pretty beat down. They'll beat you up. He puts you on the track. What's his specialty again?

He's aerobic capacity. I mean, just crazy good at getting your numbers back into perspective where you need to be. Like your VO2 max? Well, VO2 max. See, that's the thing. So I did my VO2 max, and it kind of came out. It was really good. It came out superior.

But my aerobic capacity was really crappy. And Doug's looking. I mean, Chris is looking. He goes, this doesn't seem right. Because I just did a workout with him. You couldn't have done that workout of the track if your capacity was that that bad yeah so I think I do a lot of stuff on the rower it's kind of my favorite thing so I think he's gonna kind of transfer that now more to the track which I'm not excited about and then to um probably the aerosol, which I'm even less excited about.

So there's a lot of beat-down workouts that we do do through Doug, and his theory is kind of to keep you at that point where you're, like, really on the threshold of just, like, falling out and then taper you off when you get to the games. And then when you get to the games, you're ready to go. Gotcha. And it seemed to work so far. It really does. You know, you end up having to really kind of keep and keep check on your your

body and make sure things are staying together you're not falling apart have you been with your current coaches for a while like how long have you been um well duke duke and i started um probably about three or four months ago okay um chris i had met met him before that, and he's worked with me, continued just sending me workouts and stuff. And then Doug, I've been with him for about a year. Gotcha. So, like, what would you say to a person that, you know, maybe is just starting out in their master's competition journey?

Like, what would they do? Like, what were you doing when you first started? Well, see, that's the thing is I had a gentleman just talk to me here, and that's the cool part about what we do. We have a lot of people that we, I mean, I'm blessed to be where I'm at. You have a lot of people asking you questions, and they're looking up to you. And my first thing, honestly, is if you want to be competitive,

number one, you start competing. Find a little competition somewhere. Start finding where you're where you're lacking and then definitely get a coach i mean honestly you can have a great gym crossfit gyms are amazing and they've saved people's lives they've probably saved my life because at one point i was kind of fat and chunky but um you could never tell so that was back when he was Asian. I was a short Asian. A short Asian. But, you know, the thing is that to find somebody who's going to be able to program for you

and start to find those weaknesses, whether it's somebody even in your gym that just is aspiring to do that and they can help you along the way because they're going to learn at the same pace you're learning. And then when you get to a higher level, you to have somebody who knows knows all those capacities your energy systems the things that are important um and then those are things that jason and these guys are just phenomenal yeah yeah it's crazy yeah they talk and you're going my son actually is getting the he got his degree in in kinesiology and stuff. Very cool. He was talking to me. He's like, Dad, he starts talking about all this stuff.

I'm like, go ahead. Huh? Talk to my coach about that. Exactly. I'm the athlete. I just do what I'm told. Damn it, son. You're talking over Dad's head right now, and I don't like it.

You know what? Just don't say anything. Just go. That's pretty good. Well, he wants to program for me. He's like, Dad, can I program for you? I was like, Dad, listen, I'd rather have you. Hopefully we'll get him underneath Chris for a little bit.

A little burn there. You got to have to tell him, I'm good. I'm good. I would love to have him do it, but I want him to get better experience. He's like, oh, no, Dad. Everybody knows Ron and Annie. And if I start programming for you guys, you need to get underneath a guy like Chris. You get underneath Chris Henshaw or somebody like that.

You need to get underneath a guy like Chris. You get underneath Chris Henshaw or somebody like that. You need to intern. I think Dave Durante came out and he did a little seminar at our gym, a gymnastics seminar. One of the things he said is, this is my philosophy, but he put it into beautiful words. He said, I'm not here to get you that one rep for that one workout. I am here to enhance your gymnastics experience. And so what that means is a lot for most people, but this would be my advice to most, especially masters,

but basically anybody aspiring to do CrossFit is that you have to do a lot of the real unsexy, monotonous, tedious work on the front end. If you really think that you're going to have a career in competing. Because if you're just trying to get that one bar muscle up for that one workout, and it's a chicken wing any way you can over the bar, I can guarantee you right now that your career will be very short. Whereas if you can learn the fundamentals, if you can learn how to deadlift before you try to clean,

if you can make sure that you've got a good sound squat before you start snatching, then your career is infinite. Because CrossFit has put it that now you could compete when you're 60, 70 years old. So really, if you can look at it that your potential athletic competitive career is infinite, then it behooves you to start with the basics and the fundamentals. And that's good advice for anybody.

Right. At any age. At any age. Because this is a long game. It's the game of long jets. Yeah, it should be a long game it's it's a game of long jet it should be yeah it should be a long game uh i want to ask you what advice you would have for mothers you know with with obviously with children um that that that want to compete you know let's say masters that you know have chaotic lives and

are very short on time like what's what's like some very simple habits or advice that you could give them i the number one thing for me is support crew i have i have such an extended crew of people that help me in so many ways obviously from my husband who for me is support crew. I have such an extended crew of people that help me in so many ways. Obviously from my husband who gives me unconditional support to we have a nanny. We're lucky enough to be able to have a nanny to even just friends and family and people around my gym that help us in so many ways to have a really good support staff. Any of us that are competing, we have a support staff that runs, you know, 50 deep. And then for me, it's really just about planning ahead. I've got to know what the meals are going to be for the week.

I've got to know who has to be where, when, and where my training is going to fit in and where I might have to bite it and not train or shorten it. But the planning is, I've got to look a week ahead. And a lot of that for me is the meal prep. Yeah. So I'm blessed too because, you know, we had a campfire night the other night and they had me talk and I got to be long-winded there too, which is good. But I found myself talking most about my wife

because without her support in what I do, it could never be done. Yeah. I mean, I'm getting home from the gym at six 37 o'clock. She has dinner. She's already worked and coached early, the earlier classes in the day she's there. Um, it was a lot more difficult before she actually went to the games with me last. She was at the games with me and she, you know, she would be like, the heck man it's like seven o'clock what are you doing home so late blah blah blah but once she experienced that competitive part of what has to be done and what we need to put out i have i mean even being here i've been fortunate i was here for two i've been here for two weeks yeah you know and she let you

oh my gosh she gave you permission she just goes you need to do what you need to do. She understands. I'm I'm bummed because I couldn't have her here. I mean, she really want to be here. But we have kids graduating and it's it's just so much. So, yeah, having that that family to be able to support you and support is huge. Huge. Yeah. Well, you can do without it. You could do it. But it would always be something in the back of your head going, oh, my gosh. You know, my. Yeah.

So, yeah. And a lot of what you do is or a lot of what I do is for that support crew that I have. You know, it's it. They help drive me. It's wanting to be better for my kids, for my husband, for my friends, for my family, to be an inspiring um athlete mother coach friend yeah yeah and i like what you say ron like you say you just got to do it you know like if you want to get to that level yeah there's no there's no excuses you know it's it's it's you want to do it because you you're going to do it because you want to do it well and there's definitely a little bit of

selfishness that plays in but there's there's other opportunities for us to be selfless too and to give back. But there's many a day where I'm like, I feel so selfish right now. But I think the family and everybody is kind enough to let that happen. Yeah, that's good advice. I want to be conscious of y'all's time. I appreciate everything you're sharing with us, but we've got some questions that we asked online, if you don't mind answering a couple of them.

Oh, yeah. I didn't know if anybody was going to answer. You told us that, and I was like, ah. What's that? This is from Instagram. Barbell Shrug Podcast. Go follow. Yeah, so as Masters athletes,

has your training changed over the years, frequency, heavy days versus light days? So we kind of touched on that, but anything you could, you know. What? Oh, sorry. Wampler Chris. Wampler. Wampler Chris.

Wampler Chris. For me, it's just, you know, when I look at the original days of CrossFit, we literally went in, did a – which is what most CrossFitters do. You do an hour workout and you're done. And some days that, you know, that would mean maybe a small strength component and then a WOD and you were done. Whereas now, not only are the sessions longer,

but they're much more purposeful. You know, it's you're squatting this day, you're snatching this day, you're cleaning. I mean, it's very laid out. And CrossFit started as random. That was the whole idea was it was random. Well, that first workout you named when we started this episode was you named, was it running?

Deadlifts. Deadlifts and? Cargo nets. Passers on a poma horse. Yeah, passers. So it was weightlifting, gymnastics, and monostructural. So very simple and very classic crossfit. It's kind of cool.

All right. Is there anything you want to add to that? I mean, honestly, same thing. I mean, it's just more intense. Keeping track of things. I think we're keeping track of things more and more because you want to see where you're at each week, how your lifting's gotten, if you're starting to lose anything here, gaining anything there. And then it's always monitoring the skills that you're needing to

work on. Those gymnastic skills for me, because I'm a bigger guy, it's like I really have to monitor those and make sure that I hit those every week. And I'm religious about making sure that those things get done. Tacking your weaknesses. Oh yeah, absolutely. You want those things to be your semi-strengths when you go into where you're going. Gotcha. All right, next one from at Sherry Gall. Annie, you have long been my favorite. I know how hard you work.

Could you talk about your nutrition? Shut up. Thank you very much, first of all. Sherry? I think so, yeah. Thank you very much. Nutrition Sherry I think so Thank you very much Nutrition wise I eat

All meat I love meat And fish I eat a lot of Japanese sweet potatoes Really Yeah Go for it

Shut up Are you part Japanese Just a little Half I'm half I'm half And I eat a lot of rice Go ahead

Go ahead More Japanese I'm part Asian too half I'm half and I eat a lot of rice go ahead go ahead more Japanese I'm part Asian too yes you are yeah quarter Chinese what up Asian

the mixes yeah lots of veggies not too much fruit I mean I will have some and I I try to be like I said

about 80% paleo but what's the 20% definitely some some dairy donuts donuts don't do it for me be, like I said, about 80% paleo. What's the 20%? Definitely some dairy. Donuts don't do it for me. I have chocolate every night, though. Every night after dinner, I have probably

half a bar of chocolate. Dark chocolate? My parents do the same thing. I just heard something really good. The fact that when you have something like that before you go to bed, it kind of gives you that insulin dump and you sleep better. Yeah, it drops your cortisol, lowers your stress levels, you feel good. Bam.

Good excuse. From at Noah Olson, Ron, how are you so big and handsome and how is Annie always smiling? Well, wait. Mine is the big. Those questions should be redirected back to Noah. Yeah. Thank you. Someone else called him out.

We'll get there. He's always smiling. I love that kid. Someone else, Josh Cooper 77 said, how are you always sneaking up in the shrugged comments? Boom, spotted you. Noah. Noah. So we were just joking around.

Talena's here as well. And we used to have these like group sessions. It was like Guido, Noah, myself, a couple of the bigger athletes from South Florida. And Noah was just like the little guy. He's like, oh, okay, here comes Noah. I remember, yeah. Like a little puppy. It was awesome.

It was awesome. And he just blossomed into this frigging amazing person. He did okay, huh? Yeah, he's pretty good. He's all right. He's pretty good muscle-ups now, too. Last one from Project Silver. I don't know why I keep seeing at.

I just say Project Silver Fox. What does weekly training volume and recovery look like? So, again, we touched on that a little bit, but just any kind of little tidbit you could give here for them would be great. Recovery for me, I do a lot of active recovery stuff, and that's where Chris has helped a lot too because for a while I was getting a little bit boring. I'd have a 10K row or a 5K row. That was my active recovery.

And it was supposed to be at a pace where you could talk. And I would get going. As a matter of fact, I did one the other night, and I got done, and my wife's like, that wasn't active recovery. I can't help but lean on the camera. Some days you feel like getting it. I just get bored. As a matter of fact, I did one the other night, and I got done, and my wife's like, that wasn't active recovery. Leaning on the camera. Some days you feel like getting it. I just get bored sometimes.

I'm on the rower. I'm like, oh, my God. I'm at a ridiculous pace. So active recovery is really important for me. I feel better doing something. If I don't do anything, I get pain. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Literally, if I sit down on a couch for any length of time, I get up, I'm like, oh, my God.

So I try to always be doing something. Yeah. And then I have to stay away from the gym those days because I find myself, if I go and somebody's like, hey, Ron, you want to do this? I'm like, yeah, let's go. So really important to take that rest serious. Yeah. Serious. And eat well that day. That day should be like active recovery, but also good, healthy eating, making sure you're getting all your nutrients, everything you need for your body to start up the next day. One of the big things we do on the weekends is we always,

I mean, with the kids, we want to anyways, but we always try to do something fun. So a lot of times we'll take the kids surfing. I might surf a little bit, but it's more about the kids surfing or swimming or usually for us, it's kind of water-based. But yeah, something that, something active that we can do with the kids where it's about them. And that's, that's obviously active recovery, both for my body, but really for the mind and the spirit.

Yeah, yeah. It's a rejuvenating activity. Yeah. Yeah, great. Thank you. You know, the biggest thing I noticed from you two, and I'm going to kiss your butt for a second here. So I look at you guys as idols, and when I get to this point, I really hope that I'm in as good a shape still. And I'm still kicking ass.

So I'm learning a lot from you'all right now and I appreciate it. Um, but the biggest thing I noticed is how fun you guys, how much fun you guys are still having, you know, like not once have I heard anything negative come out. Like I have to do this in training or we got to go do this. Like, like you guys have been smiling since we showed up and you haven't stopped and it's really awesome. And I think that could be something that's really important to take away. I'm so glad that you brought that up because that I'm, that's it for me is that I still take so much joy out of, uh, CrossFit out of coaching CrossFit and then out of competing. And I've always said, as soon as competing isn't fun for me anymore, I won't compete because I CrossFit brings me so much joy, even if it's just as an everyday CrossFitter and as a coach and a gym owner that I wouldn't

sacrifice competing for that feeling yeah because it is so much fun yeah yeah I I have a you know I was just thinking I was like man I need to give you the group that I work out with now they're like they're like my kids it's that's a big joke it's like sherry's like they're all they're all like in you know 20 maybe a 30 year old i can still be their dad but yeah to be there with them keeps you young as hard as the workouts are we get done you're high five and hugging each other and stuff like that so that camaraderie that you have it's always there it's like we have here with these yeah everybody here you leave here and you're like best friends with everybody. And experience it wherever I go. If you go to somebody else's group, it's the same

feeling when you get done and you've expended that energy and it's amazing. It keeps you young. I'm pretty sure if there's a workout in the games this year that involves fun, we're going to win. Who can have the most fun? Win winning us i wish they could measure that i just have one more question and ron we we kind of talked about this earlier but like what do you want to say to people

like like y'all's age that are like wow i can't get into this i don't know what to do like what do you want to say especially when a 20 year old's telling them they need to get checked yeah exactly you don't even know and you know what? I don't. We get it a lot. There's guys at the fire station that have a lot of excuses, a lot of excuses. And the biggest thing is do you want to feel good every day? You know, every day you can feel good about not only yourself but about what you're doing. I just encourage people to continue to grow, you know, rather than settle.

A lot of older people are like, no, I'm too old to do that. Bullshit. You're not too old to do it. You just got to get up and do it. Start somewhere, whether you're walking, whether you're doing this. I mean, there's groups that my wife has coached that are like, you know, in their 60s and 70s. And I'm like, man, that is amazing.

Rich at Mayhem. I was just there. And they have a class that's literally all older people. And some of them are progressing to the younger people's class. Oh, wow. Yeah. So I told Darren, I was like, man, that's genius. That is genius because there's so many people

that kind of throw in the towel at a certain point. They go, no, I'm done. Yeah. Just get up and do it. Phys physically and like not wanting to learn anything, not wanting to put yourself out there. Nothing keeps you young like learning, you know, trying to learn new things. Kill complacency.

Yep. Kill complacency. I like it, bro. I just thought of that. That was so good. T-shirt. I think it was inspired by kill complacency. T-shirt.

I like it. Yeah. Wow. That just happened That's a good ending there Let's just stop there Yeah let's stop there Thank you guys Where can we find you guys

Anything you want to plug Like just tell us Where we can find you And more information about you Power Monkey Camp That's for the next couple days Right Yep

Next couple days Back again in October And at the games And at the games At the games Carson We did it What about social media?

I'm horrible with social media. But at Annie Kimiko, A-N-N-I-E-K-I-M-I-K-O. I'm on there every once in a while. That's your message. Is that your Instagram or Twitter or? Yes. Huh? Instagram.

It's Instagram. Okay. I've tried to get better. Mine's at Strong Ortiz. Okay. No, he's good. You're good. Strong Ortiz. I've tried to get better. Mine's at Strong Ortiz. No, you're good. Strong Ortiz. I try. We tag them on Instagram. I try.

I have dead spots in my... I'll do really good for a week and I'll say, four weeks later, it's like, hey, Ron, you need me? Well, it's kind of a millennial thing. It's very telling of our age. Thanks so much for having us on. Thank you. Thank you for coming on.

This is fun. This is awesome. This is great. Thanks for listening, guys.