Barbell Shrugged - Meet the Athletes of Invictus

Episode Date: July 26, 2017

This week, we went over to CrossFit Invictus in downtown San Diego to meet up with some of the very best athletes in the world. This week’s six-for-one special includes insights from four Games competitors and two Invictus coaches about what it takes to go from great to the greatest. In our first segment, we talk to training partners Garret Fisher and Holden Rethwill about how their workout styles compliment each other, how they train for such an unpredictable athletic event, and how to know when it’s truly time to give their bodies a rest. Next up, we talk to weightlifters and Games competitors Maddy Myers and Lauren Fisher about the challenges they face as dual-discipline athletes, how they’ll decide when it’s time to specialize, and what it’s like to enter this field as new athletes––only to discover you’re the best in the world. We round the conversation out with the coaches who got them this far, CJ Martin and Tino Marini. CJ’s trained over 40 individual athletes to Games, and Tino’s coached alongside him since 2012. We talk to them about these four athletes, and what makes them stand apart from even the most elite in the field. Enjoy the show! Mike P.S. And if you want to follow any of these athletes or learn more about them head over to the blog. We've posted their social media accounts here.

It's a long season. CrossFit is a really long season. And so just keeping them balanced and mentally motivated to be here, I think is probably the most important part of what we do. It's kind of like you treat them as individuals as well, because the conversations that I'll have with Holden are totally different from the conversation I have with Garrett. And it's like having that understanding of who you're coaching and how you kind of relay information to them especially outside of the gym Welcome to Barbell Strugged.

I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson. And we've traveled down here to CrossFit Invictus, downtown San Diego, and hanging out watching you guys train, getting ready for the CrossFit Games here with Holden Rethwill and Garrett Fisher. And today's show is going to be a little bit different. Yeah, we're doing something a little different today. We're interviewing these guys, and then we're going to take a break and interview Lauren Fisher and Maddie Myers.

And in the process, we're actually going to be talking with CJ, CJ Martin, who's all these people's coaches, people's coach. Yeah. And today I want to dig into what it's like to go to the games year after year for you, Garrett, and what it's like to go through the progression and the mental side and just some of the pain and suffering that goes along with the sport, which is unique to this sport versus other sports as well. Yeah.

So, Garrett, you've been to the Games multiple times. What's it like? What's your goal this year versus last year? And what's it like to prepare for that mentally? Year after year, it's like you finish the Games last year and you go, okay, well, now I've got to start preparing for next year again. I mean, for me, my goal last year was just to make it back to the games because I didn't make it two years in a row.

So 2013, I got fifth place. 14, I didn't make it. 15, I didn't make it. And then so last year, my goal was just to get back to the games. This year was obviously get back to the games, but this year I want to do well at the games again. My goal this year, to be honest, I placed fifth place. I want to get better than that.

So fourth, third, second, or hopefully win it. That's kind of my goal this year, to be honest, I placed fifth place. I want to get better than that. So fourth, third, second, or hopefully win it. That's kind of my goal this year. And then just kind of mentally, like for me, it's just a long season. So I've been in the sport how long? Competing now, like almost six, seven years now. So for me, I know once season's done, I'm going to take a good break, a good month, two months of not really coming into the gym too much, doing stuff outside, just mentally relaxed. And then, because I know it's a long season ahead of me. Yeah. I know a lot of people have a hard time

relaxing. This type of an athlete, like this, this sport attracts people who are like, go, go, go all the time. What do you do to relax? Well, after the games for sure, I'm taking a whole week off. I'm not doing anything. And then I got some trips planned ahead of me. I'm going to Nicaragua in September. Just kind of just have fun, go to the beach, surf a lot more, not really worry too much about training because my fitness is going to be there. You're not going to lose too much if you stay active. So just kind of heal up the body because my body is kind of banged up right now.

So just kind of physically get well and mentally prepare for the next coming season. Lots of burritos. Yeah, a lot of burritos too. Yeah, we're really in the – this gym is really in the burritos down here. So we've definitely been talking about just eating a lot of – Every day. Yeah, eating burritos like every day.

Just relax. Just have some good food. Yeah. Do you find that's a good strategy to be able to disconnect and to intentionally take yourself out of the environment? Like if you were just sitting in San Diego, you good strategy to be able to disconnect to intentionally take yourself out of the environment like if you're just sitting in san diego you'd want to go back to the gym like your friends are there like that's your hangout spot you enjoy training like by going out of town you kind of automatically are taking yourself out of that training environment so it's easier to take a break yeah definitely and just like i know like like for example i'm going to nicaragua and i know there's really no gym around where I'm going to be going.

So I'm not really going to have a need, like, an itch to go to the gym because there's not going to be anything there. So I think it's good. I like traveling, so it's good. Holden, this is your first year to the games as an individual. Yeah. And last year you were on the team. Yeah. What was that like going from team to individual? You know, you haven't been to the games. Yeah. What's, um, what was that like going

from team to individual or, you know, you haven't been to the games yet, so you're not going to know what that's like, but how's the, how did the training change or did the training change in order to make that leap? To be honest, uh, all the way through the open, I was still planning on being on the team. Um, and then the way things shook out afterwards, we had five guys for four spots. Um, I ended up qualifying for regionals in the position that I did. So CJ and Tino asked me if I'd be willing to give up my spot on the team to go individual so that another guy, whether it meant they were the alternate or not, was still able to compete. So I went individual, and then things just shook out.

I got a little lucky. The big man upstairs was watching over me, and we get to go to the games now. So the volume's a lot higher than it was last year on the team. You know, with a group, it's a lot harder. Like, with just the two of us working out, like, we kind of get in, get out, you know, get all of our work done pretty quickly. But with a group, it's hard to coordinate six individuals, especially with all of us having different coaching schedules

or different jobs and whatnot. So the volume's a lot higher. It's a little more intense. But, I mean, I love it. You were training with the team previously and started training. When did you start training with Garrett? So leading up to the Open and stuff, Garrett and I did every morning session together.

Tino was doing our programming for us. We called it the Fun Train. And then right before the Open, Tino kicked me off the Fun Train. We, like, didn't mess with him because that's when I started doing the team stuff. So I took a little break and started doing mostly team stuff for just like a week or two. And then during the Open training, everybody kind of just trains together. And then after that is when I fully jump back on the fun train.

So is there any particular aspect of training with each other or, dare I say, against each other that works particularly well for pushing you to be the best athlete you can be? Yeah, well, I mean, Garrett's a lot stronger than I am. So I know in workouts that involve a little bit heavier lifting, heavier barbells, or even some of the gymnastic stuff, I'm going to have to push a little bit harder if I want to compete with him. Whereas some of the more bodyweight movements or just like the longer aerobic capacity workouts, that's more my forte, so he has to push a little bit harder. So our strengths and our weaknesses kind of complement each other, so it's always a good training session.

I feel like that's a good dynamic to have. Like it pushes both of you to work on your weaknesses, the fact that you have complementary strengths. So you're having to push even harder to be as strong as possible. You have to push even harder to have your aerobic and anaerobic capacity to be as high as possible. Yeah. We've gotten to the point where we look at our spreadsheet before,

and you can kind of tell between the two of us, like, okay, I think Garrett's going to get me on this one, so I'm going to have to go a little bit harder on this workout. Or I've got the upper hand here, so I can't let him beat me on this workout, and vice versa for him as well. Yeah. As far as your strengths, like, so he was just saying that you're stronger than him in many areas.

Do you feel like that for you? You don't have anyone to chase as far as strength? Like, you're not as strong as you could be? Or do you feel like your strength's still just as good as it would be otherwise? No, I feel my strength's just as good as it could be otherwise. I don't know. I don't really get mixed up in strength numbers anymore too much like some people do. To me, if I can move a 220-pound barbell, like, fast, smooth, I don't know. I don't really get mixed up in strength numbers anymore too much like some people do.

To me, if I can move a 220-pound barbell fast, smooth, I think that's all you really need to do. You need to be good in CrossFit. Do you feel like your strength is your one rep max numbers? Strength numbers are high enough at this point? I have good one rep max strength numbers. I think my strength really, though, is a heavier barbell and moving in a lot of times. That's what I'm really good at. Yeah. Which is perfect for CrossFit, of course.

Especially for the games because the games has heavy weights for a lot of reps. Yeah, exactly. Why this sport? You can compete in anything. What attracted you to this sport? For me, nothing really attracted to me this kind of happened like I I was from Northern California and that's when I started training of Jason and I just started training them every day and I signed up for the open I did really well went to regionals I did pretty well I was like man I think I can make it the

games and I made it in 2013 so it just kind of happened yeah and now just I'm having fun and I could live I have a good it just kind of happened. Yeah. And now I'm having fun and I can have a good life. So I'm happy with it. Yeah. Actually, last time you were on the show, we caught you up in NorCal. That was episode 85. I looked it up earlier this morning. That must have been three years ago now.

Yeah. It was a while ago. Yeah. So I'm curious, how has your training and just your mindset around training evolved over those last three years since you were last on the show? Training for me really hasn't changed too much. Just kind of come in, get stuff done, work hard. I've always felt like my training is the best when I condition a lot.

So I make sure I focus on conditioning a lot and not, like I said, not necessarily worry about strength too much. And then just like mentally wise, I know how to disconnect from the gym if I need to. And just competing, just being competing at regionals multiple years, you're not prepared. You know what to expect. What about you, Holden?

How do you train when you feel like your training's going the best? Same thing. I like to do a lot of cardio, a lot of conditioning aspects and whatnot, but I also like to lift heavy here and there. So I think Tino does a really good job along with CJ of kind of balancing that out for the two of us. So we really, we hit kind of all stimulus throughout the week, which is nice. You know, longer workouts, shorter workouts, sprint workouts, heavy workouts, light workouts. It's a really good mix-up

I feel it's the best when we have the most variety You get stuck in a rut of doing like the same kind of thing over and over Which we do assault like every single day, but hey It gets it gets kind of mentally draining so it's good to keep things fresh which which they do a really good job of Hold on what got you into this sport? What attracts you to it? Yeah, so I played college football for four years up at a small school up in Washington. What school is that?

Central Washington. Okay. So I played there for four years, and then after I graduated, I took a job working a desk job for a little while. And while I was doing that, I was just kind of working out at Anytime Fitness, just kind of trying to stay in shape and decided that I really didn't like that. And so I looked up the local CrossFit gym and gave it a shot. That was back in, like, 2013, like October or so. So I started doing it then and then almost qualified for regionals that year.

I didn't know how to do muscle-ups, so I taught myself the day before that open workout. I think it was that long chipper one or whatever. And then after that, everything just kind of fell in place. I qualified for regionals the following year. That's where I met up with CJ and all those guys. And then before I knew it, I actually partially owned a gym up there and then hooked up with them more here. They invited me down, asked me to move down, so I sold my gym,

moved down here January of last year, and then I've just been here ever since. What was the main thing that made you decide this is where you wanted to be? You wanted to be training with CJ at Invictus. So I came down to the athlete camp, I guess that's like three Januaries ago now, like 2014, right before the opening regionals that year. And I just loved the community. It was really fun. You know, I met a lot of good people down here.

And then I was following the comp blog online, just kind of doing my own thing. And then after regionals when they invited me to come down and train, I came down here and just could instantly feel like the energy. Because when I was up in Washington, I was training by myself every day. And it was fun, but it wasn't the same. And then I realized, like, with a group of guys, you know, the opportunities that I would have down here, it was like, it was a no-brainer.

So I sold my gym, packed my bags, loaded my car up, and drove down all within like a one to two week span. Wow. Very cool. In most sports, we know what the competition is going to be. You know, we know the duration of things. We know exactly what is going to be happening. You know, our opponents can surprise us. But in this sport, it's a surprise all the way around.

How do you mentally prepare for that? Is that something you stay up late thinking about? Is there preparation strategies for that? Or is it just kind of like you know let's go with the flow I don't really stress too much about it because I figure we do enough stuff throughout the year and our fitness is pretty good like I'm not really worried like if they throw something at us it just comes down to being an athlete and that's what we've been our entire lives so I like the the unknown aspect of things because then nobody nobody knows you know

so it's not like somebody's gonna have really an upper hand above someone else it's just who's who's more fit than the other person you know what about you gary do you ever stress about what the workouts are gonna be no no no not at all um honestly i feel uh i feel like if you have good training throughout the year you should be prepared for anything. So I know personally, like, when I'm fit, when I'm ready to go. And so if anything's thrown at me, I'm going to be ready to go. But, like I said, like, those couple years I didn't make it, 2014, 2015, going in the regionals, I knew I wasn't where I needed to be,

like, going into there. And it showed. So, like, these past two years, I feel ready. And so anything thrown at me, I'm going to be ready to go. How would you describe that mental state and how it changed? For those years I didn't make it? Yeah. After 2013, going into 2014, to be honest, I was burnt out.

I didn't really like training. The fire wasn't there no more. I was just exhausted like i didn't really want to be in the gym anymore um i still didn't i guess well i got fifth place and at regionals but not where i wanted to be um and then 15 was kind of a hectic year for me because i was personal training rick ross at the time um so i was traveling yeah so i was traveling all over the world like that was just a crazy time for me. So training that year really wasn't a priority for me.

And then after that ended, I flipped the switch again. I was like, man, I want to get back to the games. So was that more physically exhausted? Like you're training long too high, you're under-recovering? Or was that like mentally, emotionally exhausted? You're trying really hard. You didn't quite make it to the games. You're kind of wondering like, fuck, why am I burning myself into the ground all the time?

That was a little bit of both. A little bit of both. But, like I said, it was like 14. I was just mentally over it. And then 15 was just kind of other priorities in life happened. So what turned it around again? I just made the personal decision. Woke up one day.

I was like, man, I want to go back to the games. Yeah. Just like that. Just like decision. Woke up one day. I was like, man, I want to go back to the games. Yeah. Just like that. Just like that. Yeah. No big venues. Woke up like, fuck it. I'm doing it.

Yeah. Cold turkey jumping. So you guys are top in the world in this sport. I mean, going to the games. What do you think separates you from the others? Because there's a lot of people that walk in the gyms going, I want to go to the games. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just for Holden and I, I think just we put the work in. There's no way around it. I see a lot of people like, I want to go to the games, but they don't put the work in. They're not dedicated. Me and him have been showing up, what, since like October? Yeah. October, maybe early September, and we've been putting the work in every single day.

So I think that honestly separates us from other people who want to go to the games. It's consistency, and we don't talk about it. We just come in and just throw it out. Yeah, it's a lot of dedication that I think a lot of people like the idea of it. They just don't like actually having to do it. And, you know, you do miss out on a lot of things outside the gym and whatnot, you know, making good decisions, trying to eat healthy, get good sleep so you can recover and whatnot.

So it's a lot of dedication, and I think that's given us the biggest, I guess, advantage or edge. I think the recovery piece is important to note because it's not hard for me to get in the gym and do the work it's the not doing shit on saturday night yeah yeah exactly oh i can't watch the sunrise on sunday morning because i have to recover i don't know it's kind of one of those things where you just you kind of have to eat sleep and breathe it for a while you know for for a few months out of the year and in the end it's all worth it it might suck every once in a while when you see all your friends going out

on Saturday night and you're like, no, I'm going to stay in because you got training on Sunday morning or whatnot. But I think in the long run, it's all going to be worth it. Yeah, for sure. It's all worth it. I mean, like qualifying at the regionals, like that's – it's so gratifying for me at least. Like every year I qualified, it's definitely

all the nights staying in, recovering, eating good. It's well worth it for me. It makes it all worth it. Deep in the middle of the offseason when you're still five, six months out from games, you've been training every month since the games last year. The

days that are really tough where you're not doing the stuff that you think is fun. A lot of people, they think they want to go to the games. They want to put in the work. But they want to put in the work on the things that they enjoy doing. Everyone has the thing that they enjoy doing. Some people just love doing singles on snatches,

and that's really fun. But that's not deep in the suck of training. You say you do airdyne every day. That's not fun all the time. So the days where it is a grind and it is rough, like, how do you get through those days, especially when you know you have, like, six months left to go? I think we just kind of rely on each other.

Like, we have a really good group of people here that are all training together every day. And especially during the offseason, like, there's a big group of us, probably 10 or so, like, our core group of people that train together. So, I mean, you're not going to be feeling 100% every day. It's inevitable. But you also don't want to let your friends beat you in a workout. of people that train together. So I mean, you're not going to be feeling 100% every day. It's inevitable. But you also don't want to let your friends

beat you in a workout. So that competition aspect really drives you throughout the season. And it's a mental grind at some point for everyone. So it's nice to have other people here to pick you up. And I think that the two of us training together have done a really good job of that, keeping each other in check, keeping each other motivated.

Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of pros and cons to training with other people who are tip-top in the world. You just said, like, you don't want to let somebody beat you. But at the same time, you've got to train smart, and you've got to know when to say, you know what, like I'm not going to even do that workout at all. I'm taking the day off or things like that.

Like how do you know when to, like, show up and maybe you're not feeling your best to just be like, fuck it, I'm just going to, like, you know, dig deep and get it done, or, hey, I need to take a day off. I think sometimes you've just got to think, or you got to take a look at how your body actually feels. Is it, oh, I'm mentally tired and I just don't feel like doing this, or is it, oh,

my back's actually kind of tweaked, I shouldn't do this. So I think we do a good job of keeping each other in check in those aspects and then also working with Tino and CJ, making sure that they know how we're feeling at all times. So like Tino, like I said, he does most of mine and Garrett's programming for us. If we've got something that we look at the spreadsheet the week before or whatever

and we're like, dude, it's not going to happen this week. We're not feeling it. We need to back off a little bit. Or if we're like, hey, let's ramp it up a little bit more. Let's try this instead. They're really willing to work with us based on how we're feeling every day. I think also, too, it comes down to maturity of athlete. He's been doing it for a while.

I've been doing it for a while now, too. I know how my body feels. I know what it should feel like. Perfect example, I think it was two weeks ago on a Monday, we were supposed to run heel sprints. I woke up and I was like, dude, there's no way I'm going to start the week off. Like, I was super exhausted. So I just texted him.

I was like, hey, I'm not going to be there. And he just did his thing. And I came in in the afternoon, and I felt great. Like, I was ready to go for the whole week. So I think it comes down to a lot of maturity as an athlete, too. Yeah. Last year, you guys went to the games. What did you feel was exposed for you personally?

I mean, with the games and something, it was like, what part of your body or energy system or whatever felt like it got the most exhausted? For me, I feel like I was overtrained, actually. Yeah, I actually went into the games, I felt I was a little overtrained. I wasn't recovered as I wanted, and the spark wasn't there. I didn't really have any push in any event. So this year, like I said, maturing as an athlete, I'm trying to be a little smarter, make sure I head into the games feeling fresh and ready to go. Mine was a little different. I was on the team. Physically, I didn't actually ever feel too bad.

Big Bob sucked. That was terrible. But physically, I felt okay after the games. I had a really good experience. It was fun. It was more mentally draining, just long days. So I definitely felt like that little mental dump at the end of the weekend. But we'll see. I mean, this is my first year as an individual, so it's going to be a whole new ballgame.

Yeah. Garrett, I want to circle back. When you worked with Rick Ross, what was the big takeaway for you from that? What did you learn from that experience? What did I learn? There's a whole never whole nother life out there I didn't really like learn anything Like life wise it was just it was a whole new experience To be honest, it was just it was just it was a whole new experience and about yourself? Did he teach you anything? No. To be honest, it was just

a whole new experience. It was just a crazy life. It was a life that, to be honest, I didn't really enjoy it that much. It was too hectic. It just wasn't me. It is interesting being somebody who grows up in sports and athletics

your whole life. Everything does seem to be pretty constant so that you can train. Yeah. And then you get around people who that's not anywhere near their number one goal. Yeah. Oh, shit. Yeah. Chaos. Yeah, it was chaos.

Yeah, it was chaos. Chaos, a lot of fun, but it was a good experience. It was very – I got some good stories for sure. That you can't share here. Before I wrap up, I have one last question. For each of you, what are your long-term goals for the rest of your career in the sport? What do you want to accomplish before you're done?

I think as long as I keep having fun and I keep enjoying it every day, I'm going to keep competing. I think Rich originally said it the best? Once I start to suck, then I'll stop. So if that ever happens, then I have no problem just jumping in and doing a group class. Like, I enjoy training. I enjoy working out.

You know, who knows where I'll be in a couple years from now. But I think for the meantime, like, I really love coming in every day, you know, going through the hard hard work and whatnot so yeah yeah um uh well holden said to be honest i don't really have a kind of a looking back like what i want to accomplish in the sport i just want to as long as i'm coming in every day having fun throwing out my friends and um i'm having a good life i I think it's a good life, then I'm just going to keep doing it. Guys, thanks for joining us today. Yeah, for sure.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Really enjoyed it. And stay tuned. We're going to get Maddie Myers and Lauren Fisher on next. Hey, everybody. Marcus Gersey, co-host of the Barbell Business Podcast. If you're a gym owner who's looking to fix, build, or just take your gym from good to great, tune in every Tuesday to the Barbell Business Podcast.

You can find us on iTunes and anywhere else you can download a podcast, or you can watch the video version on YouTube on the Barbell Shrugged channel. Tune in to find Doug, myself, and Mike Bledsoe talking about the latest tips and tricks to take your business to the next level. We'll see you Tuesday. And we're back, Doug and I, here at CrossFit Invictus. And we just got to do a show. The first half was with Holden and Garrett.

And now for the second half, we have a couple of ladies here at CrossFit Invictus. And actually, two of the strongest women that I've ever been in the presence of, I think. So Maddie Myers, you just set an American record in the clean and jerk and in the total. Yeah. At Worlds, which is a big deal.

And you've only been lifting three years? Three years, yeah. Three years. And Lauren, you're known in CrossFit and in that sport as somebody who's really good at weightlifting, and you've been a national champ in weightlifting as well. Yeah. Maddie's a little bit stronger than me now. These up and comers are just getting so strong. So it's hard to keep up with them. How old are you? I'm 23. So the 23 year old saying up and comers. Yeah. The young people.

She's old. I'm getting old now. 20. 20, 20, 23. Yeah. So you feel like you're the old woman in the group and you're the young lady in the group? I'm not really the old woman. I guess I'm more of the veteran. She's the wise one. Yeah, I'm the wise one. Old wise.

Maddie's always getting advice from me. But, I mean, I guess I'm the veteran of the gym. And now there's so many, like, teenagers, the CrossFit Games. So that's what I mean by up-and-comers is, like, now this sport is, like, trending downwards where it's, like, you see, like, these 17-, 18-year-olds, like, they're looking so strong. But I guess I'm still young, obviously, so I don't want to say that I'm old because then all the other – some people will get offended. All the 30-year-olds.

Don't say that, Maddie. I'm feeling very bad right now. And Lauren, you're going to the games. Yeah. And Maddie, you just missed going to the games. You were one spot off. Yeah. So you've had ups and downs this year.

You're setting records and you missed the games by one spot. How does that feel? That was really hard at first because I missed it and then I had like I was back in the gym weightlifting one day after I missed it by one spot and then a week and a half later I was on a plane to Tokyo and so that was a really hard turnaround but then it was also good because it taught me that I had to be like have a really fast mental reset and really just focus on weightlifting and forget regionals and then come back. And now I'm back training with Lauren. And I think Lauren missed it one year.

My really good friend Reagan Huckabee missed it one year. And then they came back and smashed it. Lauren won her region that year. And then Reagan got second this year after missing it. So I just have to realize like it's not the end of the world. I'm going to come back better. In some ways, is that a relief now that you're done with CrossFit and you can focus solely on weightlifting?

Because I know you're chasing, you're trying to hit the senior American records at this point is what CJ was telling us earlier. So is it easier to stay focused on one sport at a time? Yeah, it's a lot easier. And I think this year we did sit down and we did say that weightlifting was going to be the focus this year and CrossFit was going to be on the back burner and kind of what I could do in CrossFit this year was like what I could do, but it wasn't going to be a lot of training towards it. And so now we're going to kind of have until December and I'm just going to weightlift and that's going to kind of be like my

last big year weightlifting. And then I think I'm going to take a little bit of a break competing from both after December. Gotcha. Where, uh, did you get into weightlifting first or CrossFit first? Same time. Same time. Yeah. Everyone thinks that I've only been weightlifting as long as I've been doing CrossFit. I just learned how to weightlift way faster than like how to wall ball and double under and run. Yeah. I'm more naturally geared for it. And Lauren, have you put any focus into weightlifting specifically lately, or are you primarily focused on CrossFit these days? Right now I'm primarily focused on CrossFit.

I mean, I've had a lot going on since 2015 when I sprained my ankle, didn't qualify for regionals, like sprained my ankle two weeks prior to regionals, then didn't qualify, then I went on Team Invictus. And then that whole like 2016, I just wanted to make it back to games and weightlifting kind of was on a back burner. And I mean, nowadays, like there's so many CrossFit competitions and as is there's weightlifting competitions. And so I kind of want to do more CrossFit than weightlifting, but it doesn't mean though, I still want to get back into weightlifting. It's just right now my focus is more towards CrossFit. And it's really hard when you're doing CrossFit all the time to keep up numbers.

Like Maddie's really gifted. Like she can do CrossFit and be really, really strong. But for me, like I think now, like if I want to keep up with girls like her, I need to focus just on weightlifting. So it's like you kind of have to choose one or the other nowadays if you want to be competing with the top girls from Team USA. Why do you think it's different for the two of you where you can focus on CrossFit, Maddie, and your strength numbers stay really high, but you said you're not like that? Why do you think that's different between the two of you? Maddie's just freakishly strong. She just has some natural ability where if she doesn't lift she's just

going to be like that really strong girl and that's same with my brother Garrett like he can not lift and just do crossfit and he's going to be really strong but I think for me my body type is meant to be a little bit smaller and more like running running and a soul bike like are good for me but it's just it's hard for me to keep on mass and be really strong at both actually on that note what do you do to keep on as much mass as possible or is that even a even part of your focus these days well my nutrition has been a played a big role this year i've been working with jen ryan from invictus so i've been following a macronutrient diet um and i'm eating way more food than i did last year i eat 400 400 carbs a day, 190 grams protein, and 88 grams of fat.

So it's around over like 3,000 calories a day. And I'm like still feeling a little bit hungry. I mean, not even close to how I was feeling last year, but I feel really good. And so I'm weighing in like every morning around 135. So it's really hard for me to keep on weight no matter how much I eat. Dang. The Fisher metabolism. It's really annoying.

Women everywhere. That's really good. I'm just so lean and I eat so much food all the time. But how much are you training? Training two or three times a day. Yeah. It depends on the session, but probably around like four to five hours. At least, yeah.

Yeah, at least. You're moving four to five hours a day. Most people get in the gym and move for an hour. Yeah, an hour or two. And then they leave and they're like, oh, I don't know why. Yeah, everyone's completely different, so don't recommend following my diet specifically. Like, oh,uren fisher is eating that much now i'm gonna eat that much do you find it's hard to put down that much food during the course

of a day um no it's actually pretty easy because i get most of my like it's all about nutrition timing too so i get most of my carbs in the morning like right before i'm about to train and then in between sessions like right after i have session, I have like 70 grams of carbs in my protein shake. Um, and I have two, two shakes a day. So that's already 140 grams of carbs, like right after I'm done training. Um, and then I also have a meal in between my training sessions. So I'm getting most of my meals earlier in the day. Um, which is why it gets down so much easier, I guess. How many of those meals are burritos? Well, I usually like the cheap, but none are burritos right now. I'm a little bit stricter with my diet, but I'm still more lenient than other girls.

Like, if people are going to go out and, like, and eat, like, tacos or burritos, then I'm going to enjoy myself, too, and not be crazy. Like, oh, no, I just had a burrito or taco. Like, that's the end of the world. Yeah. So I still enjoy myself a little bit, crazy like oh no I just had a burrito or taco like that's the end of the world yeah um so I still enjoy myself a little bit like on the weekends yeah Garrett was saying you guys love burritos around here oh yeah Mexican food I mean we live right near Mexico um taco Tuesday yeah taco Tuesday we all we used to do taco Tuesday every Tuesday after we used to do rowing a Tuesday night so that was always fun. But we love our Mexican food.

Are you pretty strict with your diet these days, Maddie? Yeah, for the most part because I still have to stay in a weight class, which is also the bummer of doing both is that I can't just decide to put on mass or lose weight because I want to sit right at like 63 kilos. And then recently we've had a problem staying up there, so I've had to increase because i keep weighing in at like 61 at meets i don't want to be i don't want to be the tiny girl because you can't tie breaks aren't done by body weight anymore so we're trying to keep me like just

perfectly at 63.0 oh yeah that's something i hadn't really thought about until you just said just now the fact you're doing weightlifting crossfit at the same time you're one of the only crossfit athletes that has to worry about weighing a certain amount. Yeah. Like leading up to games last year, I definitely got a little chunky. I think just because we're training and I was getting inflamed and I was just eating a ton. And so then like the next like month I had to like

cut it all off right away. So that's not always fun. I used to be a 58 though and that was that took way too much out of my CrossFit training to weigh that little and still train as much as I did. I have a question for each of you. It's about the other. I'll start with Maddie.

In your opinion, what makes Lauren special? What makes Lauren able to be as good as she is at CrossFit, and what makes her special as a person? I would say her drive and her work ethic, definitely. I think she's probably a little bit better than me at coming in every day, like taking everything seriously and focusing on everything, whereas focus-wise I'm sometimes up in the clouds and I like to talk to everyone a little bit all over the place.

But Lauren's like, we're doing Lauren's like we're doing this then we're doing this and she does like she works hard and puts like effort into every single workout even if she's tired and doesn't want to do it she'll come in and do it so thank you Maddie and Lauren what do you think about Maddie um I think Maddie honestly just has like all the potential in the world she's freakishly talented like she's so strong at weightlifting and she's really good at gymnastics, but I don't think Maddie like has yet to know like how much talent she does have. But she comes in every day and puts in the work just as much as I do. I think,

but once Maddie starts to realize her potential and kind of just focus mentally, like, which is what, like I'm always trying to tell her, like, don't worry about anyone else. Like just focus on focus on you and like if you can do your best like she's gonna go out and crush everyone because she has so much

potential so I think honestly for her it's she's so young so it's just a little bit more experience and focusing more on the mental aspect and not worrying if like one event doesn't go her way she can be really really good yeah so wise this is why she's what um what got you guys into sport what what draws you to do uh weightlifting and uh crossfit so i started when i was 14 and my brother garen my brother Ryan, got me into it. And at first they were like, oh, because I used to play basketball competitively. And they were like, we're training with this guy, Vince Carter. And I was like, Vince Carter, the basketball player? Like I was like super psyched up about it.

I don't know why I believe them. I was like 14 years old. And then I went to the gym, and it wasn't Vince Carter, the basketball player. It was the other Vince Carter. Yeah, they tricked me. And then the other trick. Yeah, they tricked me. And then I just ended up going like I did my first workout and I was immediately hooked. And I did it like three, three days a week during my offseason for my other sports, just as like a side benefit to like build up that strength and conditioning.

And so then by my junior or senior year, my coach at the time, Gabe Subri was like, Lauren, you could be really good at this. Like I could see you going to the CrossFit games. And I was like, what is the CrossFit games? Like, I didn't really know what it was. And then, um, my senior year when I was 18, uh, I qualified for my first regionals and I had no idea what I was doing. And I took 12th place place there like versus like all these top name athletes like Chyna Cho, Alessandra Pacelli, Jenny LeBow like all these top girls so I was just like super honored at the time to be there and just love doing something different every single day which is why I keep doing CrossFit like it's just always different and you're never doing the same thing.

You think training with your brothers and what impact that have on you as a competitor and from what I understand, there's a family element of competition. Oh, my family is super competitive. And so I think that's kind of like my, I don't know, like my extra, uh, what's the word for it? I don't know. Like my, I just have that like inner drive to always want to win. Like my dad always like taught us, like you can be anything always want to win. Like, my dad always, like, taught us, like, you can be anything you want to be.

You just need to work hard at it, and you just need to put your full effort into it. So I'm just, like, so competitive. Like, whether it's Monopoly, Marco Polo, basketball, like, we played everything outside. And so I always wanted to just beat my older brothers. I have three older brothers, and so I always just wanted to win my older brothers. I have three older brothers and so I always just wanted to win and so that's kind of in CrossFit the same thing I go into a workout and I want to be the best and so it's just that intercompetitiveness like I hate to lose So you guys got that from your parents?

Definitely for my parents probably a little bit more than my dad than my mom but still give some props to my mom. Yeah What about you Madi? Did you have a competitive upbringing so to speak um i was always in sports and then how i got into crossfit was that i hurt my shoulder i was a competitive rock climber for a long time and the crossfit gym was like right next door and so i started doing that and then my climbing coach was like hey maddie like keep going over there more than you're coming over here and then finally I kind of realized like I think I like this more like I think it's fun and I still I had no idea like it was a competitive sport I just liked it and then that was when I was 16 17 and then I ended up making regionals my senior year of high school

too and that was the first year I made games. I met CJ at a weightlifting meet, and it was my first weightlifting meet ever. I think we lied about doing a local meet to get into it. It was youth nationals, and I broke the American record, and I was like, whoa. I was like, I didn't really know. I was like, I didn't know this was a sport. I didn't really know you could do it.

Only the clean and jerk. I think I snatched like six kilos or something, and then I clean and, whoa. I was like, I don't really know. I was like, I don't know this is a sport. I didn't really know you could do, only the clean and jerk. I think I snatched like six kilos or something, and then I clean and jerked. I think it was like 102 or something. They were so skewed because I was like, I didn't have the technique. Like I was not a technical athlete. I just kind of, it was really ugly.

CJ won't let me ever forget it. And that's where I actually met CJ, was at that youth nationals. And then that's kind of where it took off and he was kind of like you know you could be really good at this if you ever want to like come down to San Diego and like you know actually train really seriously like you have a lot of potential so that's kind of how it started so you said if I heard you correctly you set an American record in a sport you didn't even really know existed yeah like one of the first times you ever tried it and then CJ was like maybe you could be

good at this yeah it was my first meet and I was a 63 youth lifter and I set the clean jerk in the total and I just I was like oh that's cool and my parents came and they were like I don't think they'd ever really seen me like they weren't expecting that and they were like they were like, I don't think they'd ever really seen me like, they weren't expecting that. And they were like, we don't know what just happened. They're like, you just won. I think they were. And my family's like not competitive at all. So to have a kid who was winning at sports, they're like, whoa, this is different. Like my sister is very smart and likes to do school.

And so I was kind of different. I didn't have super sporty competitive brothers. I'm like I come from an academia family. So those are the same records that you just set in Tokyo at, was it Junior Worlds? Yeah, those were, the ones I set

there were youth and then at Tokyo I set junior and this clean jerking total again, yeah. So what was the weight class and what were the records that you set it was 63 weight class and i clean jerked 122 and my total was 213 dang yeah yeah just kind of strong kind of strong yeah what about you how your numbers doing weightlifting these days are you feel like you're falling behind? Does that compare to Maddie? Does that wear on you?

I don't really compare myself to Maddie or to any of the other girls with my numbers because right now I'm focused on CrossFit and doing the best I can at the CrossFit Games. So if girls like Maddie are doing that in weightlifting competitions, I'm not going to let that affect me. My numbers have been stagnant since 2014. I've had the same 110 clean and jerk and the same 83 kilo snatch since 2014. But nowadays it's so hard for top athletes to PR at our level. Like you're constantly trying to get better at something like else, like trying to get better at strongman, trying to get better at your gymnastics. Like it's like you can never

really focus on one thing. And I mean, at regionals there was no barbell so why does it matter how much you're cleaning jerking or snatching right now when uh you're not really even seeing that much of it and even at the open like it's not like we're going for a one rep max lift and I'm not really ever going to be the strongest uh lifter in CrossFit anymore um but i'm still going to be like one of the top but that's all you need to kind of be just need to be even across the board they're good enough for crossfit yeah they're good my numbers are good enough they're way good enough yeah so i'm curious from both of you like what what's the hardest part about competing in weightlifting and crossfit i would say for me the hardest part because just as Lauren was saying,

weightlifting comes naturally to me. You take me off running in a salt bike and I will come back very out of condition and have a really hard time. So for me the struggle is that if I put a large emphasis on weightlifting, I will get really strong, probably a lot quicker than other girls will. And they probably wish they could get strong that fast. But the downside is that I will get like my conditioning goes away like that. Like if I don't keep up with it, then I'll be like running 11 minute miles and be like on the floor dying. So for me, that's

probably been the hardest thing. then just you know there's only so much you can do in a day without overtraining so it's kind of figuring out like which one I care about more because CrossFit and weightlifting have both gone to a point where I don't really think you can be the best at either doing both I think eventually and that's kind of what I came to this year was that I felt like I was spread way too thin. And so I'm kind of taking now to December to really like sit down and decide like which one do I care about more and like which one do I really want to pursue? Because the weightlifters are getting so strong. Like you have Morgan King and Maddie Rogers and all these people who they started in CrossFit, but now they're just weightlifting. And then like, you know, you have girls like Lauren and all the strong CrossFit

girls. It's hard to do both at the top level. I think you could do it two or three years ago. I don't think you can do it as well anymore. It's more competitive now. Yeah, definitely. Especially on the weightlifting side. I feel like weightlifting like four or five years ago was like a non-existent sport and CrossFit has been like a really good feeding system into it but now it's way more competitive to be in it. Yeah. What about you Lauren? What's the hardest part about competing in CrossFit? Well I was gonna say basically what Maddie said is it's spot on. It's just like so hard to be good at both. Like if you're just focusing on weight lifting you're gonna lose ground on your conditioning and when you're out on the track like you're not gonna be running as fast as the other girls and like you're a soul bike you're gonna be like getting off minutes slower than

everyone else just me just because like you haven't been working that conditioning so it's hard when you're focusing on weightlifting you lose that conditioning and then say you focus on crossfit more and you're running like three to four times a week, doing a soul bike twice a week, rowing, like basically cardio every single day. And your legs get a little bit smaller, like you get more leaner and you're just not going to be able to keep those numbers up as high as you want them to be. Yeah. In regard to preparation and training, not knowing what's happening at the games,

how do you mentally prepare for that? Again, like, we just have good coaches like Tino and CJ. They're preparing us with a program just for anything. So we're doing anything and everything you can imagine. Swimming, well, swimming, rowing, running, like, assault bike, all the cardio. Because at the CrossFit Games, like, as we've seen in the past, it's so much heavily based on running. So making sure our aerobic base is there and then also still putting in the barbell,

doing a lot more dumbbell work now, adding in the strongman training, gymnastics. You just, every single day, you need to practice everything to make sure that when you get there, you just feel the most prepared. And you're like, wow, I never really worked on that or did that. But if you can come in just trusting the program, then I think you can do really good. Yeah. And from what I understand, you just had surgery on your ankle.

Yeah. How is that recovering? It's doing so much better than last year leading up to 2016 games. I couldn't even run for like two months because I was getting so much pain than last year leading up to 2016 games I could even run for like two months because I was getting so much pain in my ankle it was like so weak and it was really weird couldn't do sled pushes um so no one really knew that yeah I was swollen all the time it was like massive yeah like run like a 400 and the next day it would be like so swollen and I couldn't really do anything so um not many people know that I mean I won California regionals probably on a busted up

ankle and then I went to 2016 games and it was primarily running so that's not going to favor someone who hasn't been running at all and then uh after the 2016 games I immediately got an MRI and found out that I had a torn uh peroneal peroneal tendon with two centimeter tear. So almost like it's pretty big tear, longitudinal tear. And then I had an osteochondral lesion, big words right here. But a piece of my bone had clipped off. I think probably when I had sprained my ankle in 2015, like that collision caused a piece of my bone to clip off.

And so that's why I get more swelling in my ankle in 2015 like that collision caused a piece of my bone to clip off and so that's why I get more swelling in my ankle and then I also had some loose bone fragments like going around in my ankle and the doctor was like I can't believe that you competed on this ankle because after I had the surgery he's like I had to do major reconstructive like your ankle was like coming out of its socket so I had to like put it back in its place he was like I cannot believe that you competed on that and he's like you must be a really like tough person and I'm like yeah well I do CrossFit I guess but I don't know um so that he said it would be five to six months before I would be back so I got my surgery August 31st so I was like just in time for the open um to make it back like I literally started squatting in January.

I didn't start running until, like, February, doing double unders. Like, my recovery time, or I had a much longer off season than everyone else. Like, I was in a boot for, I can't remember how long exactly, but it was, like, for maybe two months or so, just trying to do as much as I could. But you couldn't do much, and then just like not being able to go below parallel. So, I mean, coming into the Open, then I won the Open. And just trusting the process and doing everything I can to get my upper body really strong

and knowing that my legs at the time, like they'll come back. It just will be a little bit longer. back, it's just, we'll be a little bit longer. Um, so now it's looking really good though. I'm running three to four times a week and my ankles feeling like a hundred percent compared to last year. I mean, still obviously get stiff and achy after I run a lot, but he said, the doctor said it wouldn't be a hundred percent until like a year after surgery. So it's been a long process. Ever since 2015, my ankle has not been the same since I sprained it. So just making sure I do all the rehab and everything for it. Yeah.

How do you stay positive through that whole process, knowing that you have a body part that's not 100%? I think kind of just focusing on the things that you can do. Like you could be like, well, I have a busted up ankle. I can't do anything. I can't squat. I can't run. Like just focusing on everything you can do and not like worrying about everyone else and saying, oh, they're squatting. They're getting really strong. Like they're getting really good at this, but just focusing on me and making the best at what I can

do at the time. Um, and just going in every day and enjoying what you're doing because like it's going to be hard when you're like in a boot not able to do anything but like just looking forward to that day like oh I get to do rope pulls or I get to do strict muscle-ups that day like looking forward to what you get to do with the other body parts like you can make the most of it and also just thinking like oh I'm going to get really strong abs like my abs used to be weak and I was like now I'm going to get a really strong core, strong upper body, like just focusing on the things that you can make work. And soon your other weaknesses can turn into strengths.

Yeah. I found that to be true. Anytime I get injured, I get good at something I wasn't intending and getting good at. Yeah, yeah. That's how it always ends up working out. Yeah, I'm real good at the assault bike. Yeah, I'm really good at the assault bike. I was doing like just arms and then one-legged

assault bike and yeah, so it all worked out. Awesome. Thanks for joining us today, ladies. Yeah, thank you. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Very insightful. And we're back, and we are actually hanging out with the coaches here at CrossFit Invictus. We've done a show with you before, CJ. What episode was that? Just recently. That was episode 262. And we also have Tino. Are you going to have to help me with your last name?

Marini. Marini. And thank you. Italian, Scottish. American. Yeah. That's right. American.

So when you hear the Scottish guy, that's Tino. Yeah. So we just got done talking to the athletes that you guys are coaching. Three of them are going to the CrossFit Games. One of them just set some American records in weightlifting. So good job. Something's working. I think we're doing okay.

Yeah. What would you say attracts these athletes here to work with you all? I think we've created a community here that allows them to be successful. And so we've been coaching athletes since 2009 when we opened our doors, took our first team to the CrossFit Games then. And so over the course of that time, I think we've learned a lot from the athletes, and we've been able to develop a community of athletes. And then when people see that there's like-minded

athletes who are succeeding at some place, it makes it a little easier, you know, on our part to continue to attract them. So it's been really nice. You know, a kid like Maddie Myers grew up in New Mexico. She wants to pursue athletics. And, you know, as she applies for colleges, she's applying to San Diego because she already knows that there's a group of athletes here. So that's been, we've just been really blessed and fortunate to get some kids like that. It was the same, Lauren came down, she graduated high school in 2012 and applied to San Diego State. And came down and and then Garrett by virtue of you know Lauren being here and and us having a lot of other good

athletes that he could train with made the move out to San Diego so for us it's it's awesome we're just blessed to continue to get some great athletes to work with and because they work with each other I think they just continue to get better mm-hmm I mean you have hundreds of athletes both in your physical locations. You have three locations here in San Diego, and you train a bunch of athletes online as well. You've sent three teams to regionals this year and many individuals to regionals,

and now you have quite a few people going to the games, one team as well as a couple individuals. For the people we just interviewed, for Garrett and Lauren and Maddie and Holden, Maddie is the sole weightlifter in the group that didn't quite make it to the game. She was one place off, which is a super bummer. Sometimes being that close is more of a bummer than being far away. But for each one of them individually, they're all amazing athletes.

What makes them so much better than the rest of the amazing athletes you have here? What drives them to the top of the heap? Sure. I think work ethic. I mean, all of these guys have a hard, you know, they're willing to come in and put in the work. But it's what they do outside the gym to try to make sure that they stay focused on training. I think our best athletes do a better job of that sometimes in proper fueling and making sure that they're paying attention to their sleep quality and their sleep habits.

I would say that's a big portion of it. They're also more experienced than a lot of the guys, right? And that just comes down to we've got some great athletes coming up that are younger and just haven't had time to develop. than a lot of the guys, right? And that just comes down to, we've got some great athletes coming up that are younger and just haven't had time to develop, but somebody like Garrett and Lauren, Lauren's young, she's what, 23, 24, but people forget her first regionals was 2012.

And so she's had a lot of time to develop in the sport. And so I think the fact that they've had time and good consistent training. I think Holden was probably the best example of that. Holden moved down pretty much like Soldi's gym moved down last year was on, two years ago he moved down? No, it's been

about a year and a half. He was on the team last year and then he worked his ass off like he worked super hard this year and was always committed his ass off. Like he worked super hard this year and was always committed to the team and trained with Garrett every single day. He pushed Garrett, Garrett pushed him

and then when regionals came around then we kind of made the decision where we'd push him individual and we knew he was going to be successful but he's probably the best example we had of coming down, training with athletes, training in this environment, and it's just helped him excel really, really well.

You mentioned that the things they do outside the gym are debatably even more important in some cases than the things they do inside the gym. People love training. That's the fun part. The things outside the gym, those are the tough things because they're not really sexy. They're not fun a lot of times. And some of those things could be said for coaching as well. It's easy to. The things outside the gym, those are the tough things because they're not really sexy. They're not fun a lot of times. Some of those things could be said for coaching as well.

It's easy to coach an athlete in the gym, but then the other 23 hours of the day, what do you guys do as coaches to help them when they're not in the gym? We do a lot of counseling. These guys are highly driven athletes. They're type A athletes.

There's a lot of pressure on them. As the sport's grown, there's become more and more pressure from sponsors and there's financial pressure and the volume of training. A lot of these guys aren't working other jobs and the guys that are working other jobs, we're talking to them about trying to balance things. And so, yeah, we always say that I think we do a lot more coaching outside of the gym and trying to get these guys, you know, really kind of, uh, kind of finely tuned and paying attention to their lifestyle stuff, um,

and just keeping them mentally balanced so that they can make the duration of the season. It's a long season. CrossFit is a really long season. And so just keeping them balanced, um, and, uh, and mentally, you know, motivated to, to be here, I think is probably the most important part of what we do. It's kind of like you treat them as individuals as well because the conversations that I'll have with Holden are totally different from the conversations I have with Garrett.

And it's like having that understanding of who you're coaching and how you kind of relay information to them, especially outside of the gym. And I think that we've done that well with whether that be individuals or whether that be with team it's like treating them as individuals um and making sure that we're doing the most we can for them and their um kind of adaptation um across the year tina uh you don't sound like you're from here. What's your background? So I'm originally from Scotland. Family's Italian. My grandparents moved over to Scotland for some reason from Italy. And then for some reason, for some reason, for work, it was for work. Like half of the family

went to New York. They went to like really nice places, and my grandparents decided Glasgow, Scotland was the best place. So, yeah, I grew up in Scotland. I was a professional soccer player, and then I fell into CrossFit. Long story short, I actually did my level one here at CrossFit. It was CrossFit San Diego at the time. You were in Scotland. Yeah, I came over. So I discovered CrossFit, came over to just watch 2010 games,

and I did my level one here. That's where I did my level one, too. Yeah. My first one, 08. I was 10. And then I dropped into Invictus, and at the time I was like, I want to be an athlete. This is awesome.

And CJ just started his online programming. Well, yeah, you just – I've been doing it. You've been doing it for a bit. I started charging people. Yeah, I started charging people his online programming. Well, yeah, you just... I've been doing it. You've been doing it for a bit. Started charging people. Yeah, started charging people for online programming. So I ended up starting with CJ. I actually still have my program, looking back.

I think it was like October 2010 I started. And then through different things, we obviously built a relationship and i ended up coming out here and helping with online stuff and then i met my wife and got married had a baby and stayed hung around for a bit longer so a lot of uh you were you were doing cj's programming and then helped out and now you're helping uh primarily helping out with garrett and holden and a lot of the other yeah and then it's here in the gym and then online stuff i mean the the cool thing that i had coming from an online perspective is that online programming is totally different from

coaching athletes because like having an athlete the other side of the world whether it be like australia dubai or europe um like you ask questions that, you ask questions that don't really come up on a one-to-one basis with an athlete in the gym. So I had that experience, and it allowed me to coach athletes from afar. I was still coaching in the UK, and then obviously coming here, and the level of athletes stepped up,

and obviously just surrounding myself with surrounding myself with people like CJ and other great coaches has obviously helped me develop and then help coach these guys so I'm curious for each individual athlete maybe we'll start with Lauren like what what makes Lauren special like what are what are her strengths, weaknesses, her upbringing, et cetera? Like what makes her uniquely good? I think her competitive drive. I mean, Lauren is probably the most competitive person I've ever met. And we had a great experience actually with Maddie Valvobro and Lauren in Miami at Guadalupalooza one year. And Maddie was newer to the sport, but they're uh they had to enter the water and they're running down a ramp and lauren was on a different team from maddie and val and

lauren just kind of you know pushes by and leaps into the water while while maddie and val are just kind of tiptoeing down this ramp right but afterwards they came out and Maddie's like, that was so rude. Lauren like pushed me out of the way. And I was like, I know that was awesome. That is competing. Learn from that. Take notes. But that's something that Lauren's had in her

since the day that I first saw her was the 2012 regionals. Gabe Subry, who owned the gym that she was working out at the time, he came up and told me, he's like, hey, I've got a great 17-year-old girl. I'd love to introduce you to her. I want her to move down to San Diego. She's applying to colleges. And so he pointed her out. And in 2012, there was a workout that was row, pistols,

and then barbell cleans, right and uh hang cleans and at the time that weight was heavy for lauren and the thing i loved is she had just done a set of like two right barbell drops she looked exhausted and you saw her judge tell her like you only have 10 seconds left before the time cap and as soon as she dropped that bar and the judge told her she went grabbed it like did a set of three or something finished and stepped across the line right before the time cap right and so she didn't even perform that well on the workout but what i saw when i'm sitting in the stands is like here's a girl that as soon as she knows her back's against the wall is going to fight for it. Right. That she knew she only had short time and she didn't just sit there and let the clock

ride out. She did the opposite. She took a, you know, instead of taking that long rest, she would have taken, she was instantly back on. And, um, I think, I think those things, some of those intrinsic characteristics that, um, you know, when athletes come to us with those, that's awesome. Cause you know, you can make them, uh, you know when athletes come to us with those that's awesome because you know you can make them uh you know you can make them stronger and faster but that is really important very hard to teach that as well i'd imagine yeah you have any thoughts on norm before move on to the next person work ethic yeah um like obviously people come with is that are athletes and being an athlete only gets you so far.

The three guys that qualified, the biggest thing for me is work ethic. These guys come into the gym and bust their asses every day, and they put the work in, and they listen, and they take everything on board. What about Garrett? What makes Garrett unique? Let's just speak to Garrett. Garrett came down, and we didn't really know him, obviously, been to games before, and we're like, oh, like,

he probably just might come in and do his own thing. And then last year after games, like, we sat down with him. We're like, yeah, we'd love to help you. And he's been really receptive to taking on, like, new information. So Garrett came to us. He was, I wouldn't say he was broken, but he had a lot of imbalances. And we spent a lot of time doing stuff that Julian's done and kind of lining them back up again.

And most athletes would be like, no, I've done this before. I'm just going to get on with my training. He was like, Garrett, we think you should do this? Cool. Okay, how much weight do you want to put on this leg or um what do you want me to do next and he's been like super easy to work with he comes in he's always the he's always the first person that that comes in and he'll he'll make the guys go like he'll be like hey guys like we're starting in 10 minutes like i don't care like if

you're if you're not ready i'm starting without you um and he'll come in get his work done make sure he gets everything in, gets out of the gym, has his recovery food, sleeps well, eats well. He's kind of like a proper professional athlete. Him and Kristen Holter are probably very similar in that way. It's like they're very dedicated to being an athlete, and their life is like being an athlete as their priority. And obviously Lauren as well.

Yeah, Garrett's, I think his mindset and that level of professionalism also, right? He does all the things to prepare well. But then at regionals, you know, he had an event that didn't go his way. And what, like we talked about it for two minutes and he's like, well, that one's over, like I'm going to get focused on the next. And that stuff that I think is maturity as an athlete, it's hard to teach for a lot of people they they'll get stuck in that bubble but his ability to just be very professional and be very focused on things i think is a major benefit for him yeah he's been able to remember after the first event not the second event, sorry and some

stuff happened during the event and he's like, I just need control what I can control, and that's his performance and he knew his performance, he did everything he could in that workout, whereas most athletes would be really beat up, they'd be like oh I did terrible, like this happened and that happened, and literally it was

like CJ said, like a five minute conversation, this went wrong and that was it and he pushed on so what would you say about uh Maddie what what's how does she stand apart Maddie uh I mean Maddie we I think a lot of times we forget Maddie's 20 years old she's she's actually very mature in a lot of ways for a 20-year-old, but she is insanely talented, right? She's insanely talented as an athlete. She's strong, she's fast, all of those things. And what's been impressive to me is how she's learned to come into a group environment, learned to deal with pressure. And so like this year, you know, you said she missed by one spot. But honestly, I think it's the best thing that will ever happen to Maddie

because she has so much talent that just getting to regionals or just getting to the games isn't going to be her long-term projection, right? And so the fact that she just missed this year and the way she's coming back from that and the way she's viewing it as an opportunity to grow, I think is probably going to be the attribute, not that it has gotten her to where she is, but the attribute that will get her even further

in both CrossFit and weightlifting is that she knows how much it means to her now. And sometimes when you've just been successful all the time, it's hard to know what that means, right? She, she made it to the CrossFit games as a, you know, high school senior. And, you know, so that was the first year, last year she went teams. There was never any doubt that the team was going to qualify. Um, and so she's always just been successful, even in weightlifting. You know, she was putting up great numbers, even, you know, in her very first competition. I think she was, you know, she won and may have been close to some American youth records.

Right. Yeah. So she's always had this great talent base. What I get really excited for with Maddie is once she's really honing all that and, and really directing that once she is, um, you know, and she's doing that now she's, she's, she's doing the things that Lauren and, uh, Garrett, like we were talking that professional approach with Garrett, she's able to start, um, really directing her focus. And that's going to mean that I think the next couple of years are going to be massive for Maddie. Yeah, I noticed she had a plan for how to approach, how she's going to move forward all the way out

till December, January. And when I was 20 years old, yeah, OK. No way I was thinking about things that far out. And finally, what about Holden? What makes him unique as an athlete? He's the definition of a workhorse. Since he came here, he's just busted his ass. One of the best things that happened to both Garrett and Holden was finding each other's training partners.

And they kind of go back and forward on workouts every single week. And I think that for Holden, he's just been able to push beyond these limits because you'll see he's super motivated when he trains with Garrett because Garrett will do something, and he's like, well, I need to do that. And he performs so much better in that environment, whereas before I think he was training by himself. And he was making progress, but he wasn't making as much progress as what he

he did over the last year when kind of garrett came into the gym um but yeah he's he's just worked really really hard kept a really good attitude uh focused on his training and then on the lead up the turn of the year he started dialing and stuff that we were talking about like nutrition he's sleeping and working on stuff outside of the gym to make sure he's optimizing performance within the gym. How are you guys programming, and do you do any mental preparation with the athletes around preparing for a competition where we don't know what's coming? Yeah, so we design programs together.

We'll kind of compare some notes and think about how we can tweak these guys. time of year as we go into the games and we don't know what the events will be we start to throw them into things that are way less comfortable or outside of their comfort zone so we'll get them out of the gym a lot more we've sent them on swims that they don't know the distance of and so they're thinking it's a half mile and it turns out to be like a 1.3 mile swim and stuff like that. And just to really throw them outside of the comfort zone, I think is important because we know when they get there, something's going to go wrong or they're going

to be faced with something that they're not used to. So we just look for opportunities to do some stuff like that where we, you know, force them to use odd objects that they wouldn't normally use in a year and just seeing how they react to that when it gets tough. Yeah. I like that. Surprise them. Well, that's got to be fun, right? Yeah. It's fun for us. Yeah. Fun for you, frustrating for them. Right, probably. If someone wanted to find out more about what you guys are up to, where do they go? Yeah, just InvictusFitness.com or CrossFitInvictus.com. Or we have a YouTube page, Tino.

We have a YouTube page. We've got an Instagram page. I think YouTube is Invictus Athlete. Instagram is CrossFit Invictus. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for joining us today. This was really cool to be able to talk to athletes and talk to their coaches.

Thanks. Thanks, guys. Cool.