Barbell Shrugged - Navy SEAL and 3 Time CrossFit Games Athlete Zach Forrest - 278

Episode Date: September 20, 2017

From training and operating with the elite of the elite Navy SEALs, to going to the CrossFit Games as an individual 3 times (2009, 2011, 2013), Zach Forrest has attacked some of the hardest physical training in the world.   He's now a Level 4 CrossFit Trainer and since the Navy opened the first CrossFit affiliate in Las Vegas in 2008, CrossFit Max Effort (go train there next time you're in Vegas, great gym!). He's been in the game for over a decade, from not newbie, to competitor, to coach, to gym owner, he's seen it all.  If you're pursuing functional fitness mastery, Zach shares some great advice to guide you on your journey.  Enjoy!    ► Subscribe to Barbell Shrugged's Channel Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe  Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Barbell Shrugged helps people get better. Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. Find Barbell Shrugged here: Website: http://www.BarbellShrugged.com Facebook: http://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast Twitter: http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged Instagram: http://instagram.com/barbellshruggedpodcast

One of my athletes, they come back and they're like, man, I've been working with you. I lost 20 pounds and all this. Immediately, I just put them back on. I'm like, hey, it's all you. I am a guide, if that. I'm just giving you the tools. You are the one doing the work. Because they need to realize that what it is that they do in here, in the kitchen, at home, in their own life,

is everything takes place in their own head, right? And their actions, I'm not feeding them. I'm not lifting the weight for them. They are fully capable of doing it. They just need that, that vision that they just need someone to believe in them. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson, and we have a guest co-host, AJ Roberts. He's back. He's back. We're hanging out here in Las Vegas, and we're at CrossFit Max Effort with Zach Forrest.

And Zach has been, well, you discovered CrossFit way back in the day, 06. Yep. You've been to CrossFit games quite a few times, some as an individual, some as a... No, only as a, never gone as a team. Been to regionals as a team. But you're about to go... Yep. We're competing at the South Region.

At the South Region. Three weeks. For the team. Gotcha. So we're really interested in looking at your journey from the beginning because most people, I think, that are watching the show have only been doing CrossFit for a handful of years. Okay.

So you've been doing it for 11 years. Yep. And you've been a competitive athlete. So I think it's a really interesting journey to look at. How were you first introduced to CrossFit? So it was kind of uh not by name they would just tell us what to do it was in the navy they would be like here's your workout go and then we'd get yelled at we'd have to run to the ocean come back and then we would

be doing that for like six months it was always bodyweight stuff though like push-ups pull-ups but come to find out it was crossFit. They were just running us through benchmarks and like Chelsea and Cindy and all the ones that we love to hate. And about six months into that, they started incorporating some like dumbbell movements and some other stuff. And they would be like, okay, so you're going to do an air squat, but you're going to hold the dumbbells at your shoulders. And then when you get to the top, you're just going to press. Like, okay, cool. And they would never tell us CrossFit.

They would never say thruster. They would never tell us any of the branded movements or anything like that. I'm not sure if it was because there was a rule or we were trying to – I think they were trying to get us to do it on the down low. I don't think they wanted the brass to know that we were doing it. So I was doing it for about six months. And then, uh, in SQT outside of buds, we've, we, uh, we're asked to go to a level one course and the level one course was, uh, on the weekends of, of course. And we didn't want to give up our weekend. So it was kind of like a voluntold

situation, right? Like who wants to go uh learn about exercise nobody would raise their hand all right you you you you you you you're all going this way i've been exercising for like really hard for seven months i already know what i'm doing i already know what i'm doing i was like i don't need to be taught like i don't i don't need to i don't need to learn what a squat is i already know that i can run for days i'm good i swim in the ocean i'm a badass okay whatever and then we have Nicole Carroll come out and like totally crush us with some light barbell stuff. Like we had linebacker from Annapolis, right? Lieutenant JG in like Jack, 220 pounds, solid muscle could run a six minute

mile. No problem. Get under 95 pound barbell for some overhead squats. And here we have this 95 pound woman destroying him. And we were like, okay, so maybe there's something to this that we don't really know. Maybe we need to listen. Maybe we need to learn. With the transition, obviously you're doing it for six months.

You've just been told what to do. Like, obviously you were training before that, but was there any conversation around that? Or was it just kind of, you guys did whatever. So you never even thought about it. it was only at that at the level one that you're kind of like wait a minute this is actually exactly so it was it was actually pretty

eye-opening and i think it was left to every every guy on their own to figure out the worth of the weekend but i do specifically remember walking away thinking, holy crap, we just learned the tip of an iceberg. Because when you don't have that understanding of what's going on in the body or what the purpose is behind doing any given thing, you just think you're beating yourself up because there's someone overseas also beating themselves up because they're trying to kill you. Okay, I want to be more fit than that person. But then understanding what fitness is and how to obtain it, that was an eye-opening experience. To understand that it wasn't always just work harder.

It was a combination of work harder, work smarter, and this is how you work smarter. That was, I think that piqued the interest of a lot of guys that weekend. What was a lot of the work smarter thing, like takeaways that you had? I mean, that was a long time ago. So that's a big question to ask for that. And I still, and I, and then, but that's the impact that that weekend had, because I mean, even though it was a long time ago, I still remember the feeling and the experience. And it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily all the technique stuff because when you get down to it, it was,'t really like hey we need your knees tracking your toes and we need you you know hips below parallel blah blah blah it was more along the lines of the theory of

what fitness actually encompasses like the domains of fitness your areas of performance and uh strength to body weight ratio stuff like that And then also how it played into performance in the real world. So as a smaller guy, I was always interested in being stronger because it was so much more difficult. And I always felt like I was a liability to my teammates if I wouldn't be able to very easily pick them up and move them, you know, 20 yards in the blink of an eye if I needed to. Right. And so learning not only that I could do so more easily with better technique and through smarter training was like, this is something I need to I need to focus on.

If I want to be the best operator that I can be, this is an aspect of my job that I need to take seriously, because if I don't, it's very likely that someone else could die. So I do remember that impact specifically. You said you were a smaller guy back then too. Still a small guy. What are you talking about? Well, you're smaller back then. You said you were like 155 pounds back when you were doing the Navy thing. Like, you know, if someone gets killed on the battlefield

and you've got to carry them for five miles, like being 150 pounds, that's a rough go if the other guy is 220. Absolutely. And we have 40 pounds of gear on us. So it's like my 155 frame carrying 30 pounds is now 185, and now I have to pick up a 200-pound guy carrying 40 pounds. It's significant. You're yoke walking at that point.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Doing all that, the carrying stuff, do you feel like that really improved your work capacity? Carrying or caring? Carrying. Oh, carrying. That too. Let's talk about surveillance.

Well, we didn't have stones and we didn't have yokes, but what we had a lot of, for some reason, I remember this specifically, sandbags. Yeah. We loved sandbags. So sandbag get-ups, sandbag get up sandbag carries sandbag runs um i mean we were on the beach so there's a lot of sand i guess um but free weights yeah but that was i i remember the transference specifically to grip so hanging stuff because we we do a lot of pull-ups, we do a lot of rope. Um, and, uh, in, in Bob Beach in Virginia Beach, the, um, one of the obstacle courses is a pure rope course above a pool. So grip training and grip strength was extremely important for us. And, uh, sandbags

would allow us to get extra grip training with the carrying aspect. We didn't really do a lot of buddy carries because it was uncomfortable. Like, we're not going to do that if we don't have to. Maybe she was like, no, that's a little uncomfortable. We don't like that. It's hard. But it's uncomfortable to the point where it's like, here, you take a break while I carry you. Nobody wanted to be the guy that was being carried because we always felt like. The piece of shit on the shoulders and and so i was never the guy to be carried i was always the guy that they

wanted to be carried but i would not let that happen right right so i'd always get all your teammates are like yeah man we want to carry you like no fuck that i can do this no i can't give me this give me the m249 like i can carry that i can carry give me the extra shit so as you're So as you're doing all this, are you thinking, like, man, when I get out of here, I'm starting a gym and I'm going to compete. What thoughts are going through your mind? So competition wasn't even a thing when I started. We competed purely for ego in the gym. So when we would do workouts for time, it wasn't what was your time.

It was, hey, I i beat you we didn't even look at the clock because i because i was working out next to the guy that i as long as i finished ahead of him it doesn't matter exactly so the scoring um we would track our weights on benchmarks we would track our times but um we didn't even get into i didn't even get into full-fledged crossfit until maybe a year or so before getting out um because we had been training jim jones and uh another another system called hbi human performance initiative and and it was it was functional movement with variants at high intensity um that's a program from the military that they're implementing yeah exactly and but there was a lot of standardized linear progression runs, swims, and just, like, strength training.

VersaClimber, have you guys seen that movie? Oh, yeah. We did a lot of training on the VersaClimber. I hate that thing. That's miserable. That's miserable. It's one of the best conditioning tools. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

But I would never buy one for my gym just because I don't ever want to look at one again i remember nightmares yeah did you did like it's interesting because the transition is super you got in about to crossfit about a year before you got out did you see fitness like a lot of people in the forces they don't really know what's after did you see fitness as this is an avenue for me to kind of go into? Did that passion grow there? No. And so that's the thing. While I was in the military, the only thing that I remember even remotely being involved with was for HPI we had this on-site doctor physician

who was in charge of developing the program and overseeing all the operator's performance. He would track body fat and basic metrics, the vitals, and then basic the, the operators performance, like he would track body fat and, you know, basic metrics, um, you know, the vitals and then basic metrics as far as performance metrics, running swim times, certain basic lifts. And he would just administer the program and with another trainer. And then, uh, we, he would just track progress over time in my role, because I don't know if it was because I went through the level one or maybe I just naturally was a better mover or I had some sort of instruction, they used me to videotape a lot of the demonstration videos for certain movements. So, like, this is how you do a kettlebell swing. Boom.

And they would videotape me and so I had a lot of guys at the team that would approach me and be like hey so how should I do this workout or like what should I do today blah blah and they started coming to me as as a trainer even though I had no experience hands-on experience teaching anybody in this stuff um and then I started to actually like administer workouts to people and like start designing my own stuff. And I started experimenting with that. But when I got out, um, the only time that I even dawned on me was when I volunteered to help run a class, uh, locally out here in Las Vegas. And I had fun. Like I was used to dealing with operators all day long, or these guys, these alpha males that were just like, you know, hard charging is like, you tell them what to do and their ego will take over. They'll get it done. I was not used to, Oh, I don't want to squat all the way down because my knee hurts or like,

Oh, it's bad for my knees. Or I can't, that's too heavy for me. I don't want to do that many reps. And I was just like, you're scratching your head? Exactly. I was like, what do you mean? And I'm not someone to, like, argue really in that sense. I wanted to understand. So it was a very hard shift for me to actually ask why. Why do you not want to do all – why do you not want to lift that weight? Oh, I can't. Oh, you think you can. And so at that point I started to use a lot of the mental training that we had gone through in order to coach civilians.

Sometimes that would backfire. Sometimes that would backfire. Not all the same techniques work with the general population. Yeah, no. Actually, some of them I can tell you should not work. I would love to hear examples of what worked and what didn't work so um one is always like re-centering someone's focus like especially when they're breathing hard they had they you will see people like start to panic when their heart rate gets elevated like they they do these intense workouts and they go into panic mode and if you can re-center them

to where their heart rate is still elevated their respiratory is still elevated uh still elevated but mentally they bring back to focus without fully recovering they can experience that physiological effect with peace of mind with calmness in their mind and that can can really help people not uh fear. So we would practice doing that stuff. I want you to go really hard, really hard, really hard, really hard, and think about something that calms you down. What, and I would talk to the person beforehand and figure out what that was. When you think about your six-year-old kid that you got back at home or something like that, and you could see those, you could see it wash over their face. Other techniques we would use is to get someone amped up to lift something heavy.

Slap them in the face. No. Ammonia salts. I wouldn't even do that with seals because you're more likely to get punched back in the face. I never understood that. I was like, if someone slaps me, my initial instinct is to hit them back. I don't get it. 100% agree. It doesn't motivate me to lift weights at all. I was like, if someone slaps me, my initial instinct is to hit them back. I don't get it. 100% agree.

It doesn't motivate me to lift weights at all. I just want to fucking fight. Yeah, exactly. One of the things I would do, though, is if this mother would come up and say, this is too heavy, I can't lift this. They wouldn't even attempt it because they're already thinking in their brain, I can't lift this. And as long as I know it's well within their capacity

and they can do it safely, I w I could go up to them and be like, so you're telling me if your child was pinned under an object that weighed 85 pounds, you would not be able to go over and lift it off to save their life. And they're like, Oh no, I absolutely could. I said, so what, what is different between that and putting every ounce of effort that you have now into attempting this lift? And it's just changing the perspective. So I think there was a lot of stuff that we used in our own training for war, for combat, that is applicable to the athlete's mindset. And I think that's one of the reasons why I started to fall in love with it. Because that was one of the coolest aspects of me, for me, going through that training.

And I feel like I'm able to share some of that stuff with a larger crowd. Yes, you saw being able to help people reach their potential through these little hacks, so to speak. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Can you share with us your transition from, I guess, out of the military and into being a box owner and a competitor too? So, well, the competitor thing was never really intentional. I just saw it, you know, in 2009, it worked for my schedule that year. We were like, okay, now I can go and I can, I can try and see what happened. So I just ended up going to Flagstaff for the regional back then, but I got into owning a box very kind of accidental, like started going to some classes that were being subleased at

Philippi sports Institute, which is down the road. Uh, this guy, Joe Marsh was running classes five times a week, I think maybe six or seven times a week and just one class a day. And I need a place to work out that wasn't 24-hour fitness. And so I started going to this class and he had to go out of town and cancel classes for like a week. And I said, hey, just so you know, I've done the level one course. I don't have too much experience coaching anybody, but if you're comfortable with it, I'd love to just, if you just tell me the workouts that you want me to run, I'll keep the classes going while you're gone. Cause everybody was grumbling. They're like, Oh, I'm going to miss working out for a, for a week, blah, blah, blah. I was like,

I'll keep the gym open or I'll run these classes. You don't even have to pay me. And so that was my first exposure to actually like civilian group training. And, have no idea if people actually enjoyed the class. I had a blast. But when Joe came back, we started discussions of like, hey, do you want to split train? Do you want to start coaching more? Do you want to make this into a business? And so the answer was yes.

And about three months of developing that relationship with him, we decided to open up a gym. And we started looking for like a facility that we could run out. And I think we both brought, I want to say $5,000 each to the table. So we started with $10,000 and then we just grew it from there. So $10,000 and a year later we had 250 members. Wow. 250 members yeah wow no 250 members yeah but here's the thing the first crossfit affiliate in in vegas okay from 2008 to the middle of 2009

oh it was easy so it was it was much easier in my opinion it was much easier than because if people wanted to do crossfit they had the one option basically unless they wanted to do it on their own if they wanted to learn crossfit um so they would drive across town to come do crossfit exactly now you say you're on the you know west side of town and they say i live on the east side i'm not coming it's yeah a whole different a whole different ball game exactly now now the market has completely shifted we've been talking about that but back then it was uh it was very it was i want i don't want to this sounds cheap to me it was easier to position yourself as the expert when you were the only person doing it you were the expert yeah so it

was and and it's not that we didn't take our continuing education like we we daily worked on honing our craft and becoming better coaches and we cared about our people but it wasn't maybe crap i want to know when the other, the next affiliate opened up, maybe at least eight months, six to eight months before we even heard about another gym opening up that was doing CrossFit. Well, it's been an interesting evolution to watch because, uh, for me personally was a, we opened up the box in 2007 and in the beginning,

I really didn't even know that there were you know continuing education yeah like there wasn't that much continuing education available and now there's 20 different weightlifting coaches running around doing seminars and powerlifting and strongman and and kettlebells and all this stuff so uh in my opinion it being 2017 there's no excuse oh absolutely no excuse and uh it was a youtube when did it come around i think it was 06 or 07 is when i found out about yeah 06 about what youtube oh yeah okay so you know if you're if you're in you know 06 07 08 it's like you get a pass it's like well yeah i mean you were you were technically the expert you knew more about you know uh the crossfit style training than

anybody um and now it being 2017 and due to you know internet now i can training than anybody. And now, it being 2017, and due to, you know, internet, now I can find, not only can I learn just by sitting at my computer, but I can also go and find out where there's a seminar near me. Oh, yeah. And so all that's blown up. So in my opinion, there's, you know, back then it's like, okay, you had to pass in a way if you're comparing it to how it is now, but now there's so much available, there's no excuse to not know better it's almost in in a certain sense

i could see some people now using it as an excuse like oh i don't even know where to start because there's so much information out there and to be honest you guys are a great resource like this podcast and like the content that you guys put out. It's a safe place. Yeah, but I'm almost skeptical. Like we have a trainer development program here, and I'm very picky with the sources that they get their information from because it's now an actual market. Continuing education for trainers is a market that 10 years ago, like you were talking about, didn't even really exist.

But now people will put misinformation out there just to make a buck. Or maybe not on purpose, but less desirable information. Or they'll just regurgitate something that they heard maybe from you guys, and they'll charge for it. Yeah, lack of experience was crazy to me on that point. I'll try not to go off on a tangent but you know you've got you're made for tangents you know you have you you've you've got people who are in their 60s you know in multiple fields weightlifting powerlifting strongman who have been doing this have seen the experience have gone through the evolutions and then you've got

guys who come out they read a book that was written in the 80s and go oh this is the way and then they start from they go back 40 years where these guys started and start preaching this stuff and they get results because it's not like it doesn't work but does it work long time does it work over time does it work more for than one person with genetics and and that's what people don't buy and they're buying ebooks from an from a 25 year old who the only results they've got is for themselves yep and they're fascinated by the fame game and like you said it's an industry now and so you got 150,000 followers on Instagram. You probably can make a living off of writing training programs for people, but you never work with that person in person. You never look at their technique and all of those things come into question. So I think now more than ever,

like you said, with the information that's out there, the skillset is how do you decipher and figure out who's a good resource? How do you know who to listen to, who not to listen to? That's where the skill is now, not can we get the information. The information is everywhere. Bullshit detectors. Well, yeah, and he makes a great point. Like people can look at information from 20, 40 years ago and make progress, and that's one of the downfalls.

It's not a downfall. I hate – I've got to stop saying that. That's one of the points I'll make about, let's say CrossFit as a program is that even CrossFit executed poorly or less than ideally will still yield incredible results. Therefore you have these people that have no real expertise or not a lot of training background, right. That are able to help your average person see tremendous results. And I am still on the, I'm not on the fence about whether or not that's good or bad because it's good. We, that's absolutely a good thing. People are

getting healthier. They're getting fitter, but now the perception of what it is to be a professional coach has been skewed. And that's the evolution for me personally. If we want to get back to that, let's get back to talking about me. That's not what I meant to say. That's not what I said. That's why we're here. That's why we're here.

But when you asked that question, that is what I realized back in 2009 and 2010 was I want to make this a profession. So in order to make coaching a profession, I look at other professional jobs. I look at doctors. I look at lawyers. I look at like CPAs and accountants. I'm like, what do they do? Well, there has to be a certification process, really.

There has to be regulation. There has to be peer reviews. There's a whole scope of things outside of what just happens in your gym that needs to occur in order to be considered a professional and make professional wages, to make a profession and have a professional life. It's better for the clients, too. It's better for the athletes if you're approaching it as a profession versus a hobby. Right. So what I realized was I'm like, man, why does this sound so familiar? And it's because that's how we, we treat our job in the military. That's how, that's how SEALs

act with their job. It's not, oh, I show up and it's a lifestyle. This is, this is my job and this is my, my profession. And I need to get as good at my craft as, as possible. Whereas a lot of people in the Navy or the military in general, this is they just have a different perspective so they wake up and they they they carry out their day um and i think that perspective is what will end up saving the industry oh yeah i think we're going to see a lot of people drop off i think the big the i don't know if it's just an American thing, but I think the big thing with anything is people don't see crafts as jobs anymore. Right. So like being a trainer and being the best damn trainer, a lot of trainers get in and instantly go, I have to open a gym. They see a business side of it versus the purity of that being their job. Documentary

Euro Dreams of Sushi is a great example of a guy who's just dedicated his life to making sushi as a restaurant with 10 seats and sold out for years in advance. I think that people want to skip that. They want to skip that. I hope it was good. Max went there last week. Going to get the report. Sorry.

Go ahead. I got excited. I think to become an expert at your craft takes time. Yeah. And I think that's the biggest thing missing. Everyone is impatient. Yes. Everyone wants to be a professional. People probably walk in here and say, hey, Zach, I want to compete in the games.

And you're like, have you ever done CrossFit? No, I've never done it. But I think I can be on the podium next year. And you're like. That happens more often than i'd like to admit i like like like it's the amount of people that that want things now that aren't willing to go through any foundational process to set them up set themselves up for long-term success is is it's mind-boggling to me the the fact that you would want to be so good at something without having to master like basics or really

understand what it is that you're doing. So it's something that I'm still working on. Um, and I think that's something that every coach or trainer will, will realize is that in order to be a professional or to really hone your craft, it's, it's, there are no shortcuts. There is nothing that happens now it's that long i don't want to say grind because that makes it sound monotonous but it's it's you're in it for the long haul yeah so how do you balance that conversation like someone comes in they say like i've never done this before but i i see the guys on tv they're doing cool shit i want to go to the games you don't want to just say like you're fucking stupid

that's obviously not going to happen because they're going to be like okay well i'm going to go to some other gym where the guy's actually going to give me what i want so you know that's not possible but at the same time he this person he or she has this goal in the back of their minds you don't want to crush their dreams either you want to help them get to whatever their goal happens to be it's not your job to tell people what their goals are necessarily right like how do you how do you have that conversation and leave them motivated but at the same time give them some realistic expectations about what's going to happen so i chunk it down let's take a let's take a break and then get into that okay cool cool all right we're back

with uh what was it what was that epic question you asked doug do you remember i don't remember what it was this happens every time i do remember it was not every time no i don't just i remember what it was okay if someone comes in right what do you do how do you manage the conversation people like people have goals and aspirations it's not your job to tell them what they are but sometimes you someone's going to say something you're going to be like you know what like that's that's pretty far out of reach especially given the time domain that like i want to add 300 pounds to my back squat in six months you're like well maybe not you squat 150 okay why do you want that like i can do it i can do it okay you don't want to crush someone's motivation but at the same time you don't want to give them an expectation of something

that is very obviously not going to happen, and then six months later they come by and they say, I only put 100 pounds on my back squat. What the fuck? And now they're all mad at you for only giving them ridiculous results, but you didn't meet their expectation. Sorry, 100 pounds, my bad. I messed up somewhere apparently.

It was in that special formula calculation for the linear progression hack squat program thing I gave you. Whatever. So, I mean, the qualifier that you use there was and keep people motivated without crushing their dreams. And so I like to chunk down the goal. I reverse engineer everything. It's just how my brain works best. So when someone comes to me and they say, I want to be able the goal. I reverse engineer everything. That's, it's just how my brain works best. So when someone comes to me and they say, I want to be able to do this, right? The first thing I tell them is, okay, before you can do that, we have to be, you have to be able to do

this. And then before you can do this, you have to be able to do this. And then before you can do this, you have to be able to do this. And I lay out for them basically smaller goals. And I say, okay, cool. So now we have our roadmap. That's awesome. Because in order to hit this huge goal, in order to be the top 1% of the 1%, you're going to have to be able to do this, this, this, and this. Cool. Let's focus on this first. And for someone that comes to me and they're like, hey, I want to go to the games. The first thing is always, all right, let's get some standard benchmarks across. Let's work on learning these lifts and becoming habitual movers. So someone that can come in and I say a squat clean, they can just do a squat clean relatively well and consistently, right? And without them, without me boring them

with our charter of, you know, like mechanics, consistency, and then intensity, I have them just staying motivated on working towards certain aspects that will culminate in getting them to their goal. And now here's the thing. Most people, especially when they want to go to the games halfway through, they do one of two things. They either realize how much more work it is than they originally anticipated or halfway through their goals change. And so the people that I've only had maybe two people stick with that original goal of, I want to go to the games. One person ended up having to move, and now they're training under another coach.

The other person is Nick, and he's right on target. Like he's primed. So it's a matter of making sure that people understand that any goal is a culmination of a lot of smaller goals and processes. And then once they understand the scope of the work, let them know that it's still feasible. Like I don't tell anybody, like I have, that's probably a fault of mine is that I think if anybody wants something bad enough, they can do it, right?

I might tell them, hey, it's not feasible for like one year of training or something like that. I'll be realistic with that. But if, if someone tells me today that they want to go to the games and then I lay out a plan for them and in six months, they're still working towards that plan. And they're like, I still want to go to the games, even though this person weighs 150 pounds and, and isn't, you know, maybe genetically gifted. I'm still working with that person. Absolutely. If that's what they want. Cool. We're going to try our damnedest. So it's, it's a balancing act really. Yeah. Have you ever gotten better at that over time? Absolutely. Oh, if you would ask me,

what did I do with that for like five years ago? I would have probably, actually, I think I remember this one kid that walked in. I think I straight up laughed at him, and that was a bad response. I mean, I was being a total douchebag. The kid was being weird. He came in with his shirt off. He was ready. He was ready. He's like, I am ready.

Let's go. He came in with his shirt off, and he didn't fully understand the concept of our sport. Like, he thought there were weight classes. So he was 19 years weight classes so he's he was 19 years old and he's about 5'4 and he weighed 145 pounds he's like i'm gonna be a world champion of the sport i'm a world champion wrestler and i never bothered to look him up but that's what he said he came in pretty cocky and he's like i want to win this sport i want to be the best of the sport and i and i straight up i said you have no idea what you're talking about and i and i literally

walked away from the front desk and that was this is while we were over at the other location and that was obviously a huge douchebag move on my part but i don't know what happened to that that guy i don't know if he if he ended up training somewhere else i i know he's no you crushed his dreams he's crying on the sewage system here i'll never amount to anything. Matt Fraser's listening to this right now. Yeah, you did walk away from the front desk, you dick. You dick. He's like, I'm never forgetting that.

But it was, like, enough, that happens enough to where it's like, you know, I have no right to tell whether or right to tell someone whether or not their goals are feasible or obtainable. Like, if someone really has that desire and they really want something and I have knowledge that can help them, yeah, why not? What was the shift in you for that? Because coming from obviously probably with your background that's kind of hot probably a hard mindset for you to even comprehend like when someone like you just so used to work ethic and you know and grind and just like you know this is what it takes when someone comes in and you can kind of tell me you have no idea like where did that compassion come from like how did

it evolve because it's an interesting point like you know a lot of times when you're very high level it's difficult to relate to someone who is unrealistic um and and and cultivate that like environment where you can help them thrive and it sounds like you've gone through a transition with that in terms of how you respond and how you how you breed not breed but how you you know rise people up in the gym. I mean, that's, you know what, that, that is a huge shift in, in my, in my perspective. And, and I'll tell you, so there's a book, you know, uh, I don't even want to talk about that book cause it's so cliche. Dale Carnegie's how to win friends and stuff.

But here's the thing. When someone comes to me and they want to get better at any people skills at all, and I say, have you read that? And they're like, no. I'm like, you have to do that. That's block number one right there. You read that, and it's good to repeat it, and it's good to be cliche. It's number one for a reason.

And that gives you a foundation of understanding about how people operate. Then you can layer on other information. It's teaching someone how to squat. Yeah. You got to be good at that, and then you can move on. Totally. Absolutely. And, you know, that book opened up a huge – what's the word that I'm looking for?

Like when blinders have been taken off, right? I started to understand that we are – I'm not in the business of making people fitter. I'm in the business of making people happy. And, and I realized my own happiness depends on my ability to feel like, actually for lack of better, to simplify it, to feel important. I feel important when other people are happy. That's, and, and Dale Carnegie, like he wrote in that book, he's like, everybody just wants to feel important in their own right. And I feel important when, when people are thankful for, for, for what I can give them, for what I can offer them. And I realized that I have knowledge and a skill set with coaching and training and running this gym that not a lot of other people have. And if someone comes to me with a goal that I can help them with,

I will be happier as a result of it. So that was the major shift when I realized my own happiness depends on that and my own feeling of importance. so in a sense it is kind of selfish but um something else that i've always been a huge believer in uh people would talk to me and they're like man you've been to the crossfit games you're you're a high level athlete i never consider i am the most you guys i'm i'm five seven I was 155 pounds, you know, brown hair, brown eyes. Like, I'm a mutt of Europe. I like French, English, and, like, German. Like, I don't have no genetics, right?

So it's like I'm not a high-end athlete. I'm the most average of average. I'm slightly below average, actually, is what I would consider myself. But I like to have the belief that people short sell themselves all the time. They don't know what they are fully capable of. And I tend to believe more in people than they believe in themselves. And I think once I realized that that belief was true within me, I started to figure out how I could direct that more easily. I started to read books like that.

I started to play around with how I spoke to people and how my interactions happened. And I realized that if I wanted other people to have that confidence or that belief in themselves, that it needed to be brought up. It needed to be inspired. I could not drill it into people. In the military, you can drill it into someone. You can beat them into that perspective almost. And they will be forced to recognize that they are more capable than what they originally thought.

And the training does a really good job of that. You can't do that out here. You can't do that in the gym. People want to be here. They're paying you to be here. They're volunteering basically to be here. And that shift is what happened for me. to be here they're paying you to be here they're volunteering basically to be here um and it's that that shift is what what happened for me i think having having the ability as a leader to have a

bigger vision for someone than they have for themselves is one of the most important qualities a leader can have yes how do you how do you get someone to believe that you believe in them and that they're more capable than they think they are. Journey. You don't stop believing. You don't stop believing. You just, it's the answer nobody wants to hear. It's day in, day out consistency. That's the grind. This job, training, being a good coach is, I think you guys would agree,'s like 60 70% psychiatrist if you

want to coach someone really well people skills are paramount and you need to be willing to listen you need to be willing to talk you need to be willing to understand and you need to be able to take what it is that you believe about that person and you need to lead them to that vision to that site you can't tell them it's not going to happen. I can tell someone you have so much potential over and over and over. Until they're able to experience that breakthrough for themselves, they're always going to be one or two steps behind in that. So one of the reasons why CrossFit is so attractive to people,

the group setting, is because they are continually pushed beyond what they think they're capable of in front of other people. And that gives them that feeling of importance. And so the coach is often credited with, you know, thanks for giving me this PR and all this stuff. And every time I hear, you know, one of my athletes, they come back and they're like, man, I've been working with you. I lost 20 pounds and all this. Immediately, I just put them back on. I'm like, hey, it's all you.

I'm a guide, if that. I'm just giving you the tools. You are the one doing the work because they need to realize that What it is that they do in here in the kitchen at home like in their own life is is Everything takes place in their own head right and their actions. I'm not feeding them. I'm not lifting the weight for them They are fully capable of doing it. They just need That that vision that they just need that vision. They just need someone to believe in them or believe more in them.

So I want to offer that. So as you've grown and evolved as a coach and as an athlete, how has your programming changed over the years, both for yourself and for your competitors and for your kind of more everyday, I just want to be fit athletes? Programming, I love programming. That's probably my favorite aspect of CrossFit, of strength conditioning in general. It has changed a lot. So everybody knows, like, what we talk about at the Level 1 seminars,

you know, couplets and triplets make up the bulk of our programming. You know, go heavy, you know, three, four days a week, often do chippers and long workouts every now and then. And, you know, one heavy, you know, three, four days a week, often do chippers and long workouts every now and then. And you know, one, one workout a day is, is enough. And I stand behind that. I think all that is true. If we're trying to be generally fit competitors in this sport will need more volume. They will need more frequent exposure to certain skills. Um, but I've changed the way that I program in the affiliate specifically just to make people have a more, more happy balanced. So I definitely need to give people what they need, right? And I need to do a good job as the, the head coach, as the leader in that aspect of explaining why they're getting what they're

getting as far as programming. But some people take pure enjoyment just from lifting heavy sometimes. Cool. So they also need that. Some people take pure enjoyment from getting a skill that they've been constantly working on over and over and over. Some people aren't even interested in that. So I have some athletes that walk in, they're like, I could care less. I couldn't care less. Excuse me. I hate that saying when I mess that up. I couldn't care less if I never snatched ever again. Like overhead squats, I think that's stupid. And I'll explain to them the importance of it,

but it's not going to make them happier if I just beat them into the ground with that. So programming has, for the affiliate model, has followed into a balance of what do you want versus what do you need. And I feel like as long as people are having fun and they're developing relationships and they're still making progress in the right way then the affiliate is doing their job competitively to be good at this sport you need more volume you need more volume you need to be durable you need to have consistency efficiency you need to understand strategy you need to understand pacing You need to be durable. You need to have consistency, efficiency. You need to understand strategy. You need to understand pacing. You need to understand where your

threshold is. You need to understand what your red line is. Now we get a lot more, your systems need to be way more dialed in. Nutrition is no longer a lifestyle. Nutrition is now a job. It's a full-time job. You to look outside of the gym even even more if you want to excel in the sport and i think actually that's the next big thing for um the competitors in the sport is focusing on recovery is is doing and and a lot of people i think that's why hinshaw like aerobic capacity has taken on such a huge following is because they realize, holy crap, I can recover if my aerobic system is more developed. You're telling me that I can do more volume by having a better run engine or better aerobic engine.

I mean, yeah, absolutely. That's oxidative, like your body's ability to regenerate, to recover. And I think you're going to see competitors start to focus on not just smarter training here with the barbell and with gymnastics and stuff, but nutrition and recovery. Yeah. So you already basically jumped into the next question in a couple of ways. It was how do you balance, as a competitor, super high volume training with longevity? Oh, yeah. balance as a competitor super high volume training with longevity oh yeah that's uh

i almost talk to my competitors on a very frank level i say you are going to sacrifice health and longevity for short-term functionality right now high-end fitness i don't i don't think that this is personal belief this isn't anything substantiated except for personal experience and anecdotal experience. I feel like in this sport nowadays, if you want to be a high-level competitor, you are going to sacrifice long-term health, longevity, joint health for short-term high-end, top-end capacity. I mean, I would argue any competition essentially sacrifices that,

like just competition in general. Yeah. And beyond that, mainly because not just the body sacrifices but life. How you be a high-level athlete and maintain good family balance, monetary balance, like, you you know if you need to be training six hours a day something's got to take a hit yeah either work family friends something so there's there's a lot that goes into it now that doesn't mean it's it's right or wrong it just is what it is but you know at the end of the day you got to understand what those sacrifices

are and i think that's why you mentioned earlier look you know all these people come in they say it and only two have kind of come through and actually done it. It's because very few people understand the sacrifice. And in a way, it kind of sorts out the crowd. It's kind of a, it is a survival of the fittest. You know, Glassman's always said that in everything he's done is this, the strongest, the fittest will survive and everyone else will fall to the wayside. And it's kind of, it's not the longevity mentality, but it is, it is the sport.

And that's part of that side of this industry, you know? And to play into that, you said the longevity of the sport, and you said the survival of the fittest. And what my, again, this is just personal opinion, with athletes nowadays, you see some people come in, and they already have like this tremendous amount of capacity and they don't realize the durability that is needed in this sport. Froning did not start out, correct me if I'm wrong, if you guys know any more information, he did not start out

doing five workouts a day. Kristen Clever, I know, did not start out by doing five. I don't think it was five, but he jumped in at two or three. And the thing to note about Rich Froning was he didn't go from nothing to CrossFit. Exactly. He was a college athlete. He was a high school athlete. He was never not an athlete. And so we have these people that are like, I want it now. They're impatient.

They're not willing to hone their craft, even as an athlete. And they want to start. They want to jump in with high volume. And now I have to caution because I'm like, yes, high volume is necessary. You will need more exposure to more skills more frequently because that's how you're going to adapt. And that's how you're going to make progress. However, you have to balance that because injury overuse injuries, chronic acute, like that, that will happen. So I think you're going to see a lot of I wouldn't be surprised if you saw training plans

to develop like Olympic cycles like four year plans to get someone to the CrossFit Games, two year, three year plans where the first eight months we're going to focus on building mechanics and consistency and then the next eight months we have this macro where it's going to be okay we're going to work on increasing our volume

and then fading back and then over the course of three, four years, you've built someone to being able to tolerate a high-volume program from which they can then launch games training. I think that's one of the reasons why I had any decent success in that sport is because coming from the military, BUDS is high-volume. Like that is that I was used to being beat up right so i could do two three workouts a day and it would be normal normal it was it was work as usual right where where someone that comes into this from any other sport and they're just gonna be driven into the ground i feel when you guys interviewed is it cook love is that how you say his name that's exactly what he said about with the Olympic lifters.

Like, if they can't do the basic fundamentals, they spend, what, eight months doing general physical preparation and building up through basic foundational movements. And so it's interesting because it's in the other sports, right? It's in the other sports that require high volume. And, you know, CrossFit's just, we don't say it's behind, but CrossFit, the development of the sport, the sport is still young. People forget how young this sport is. I feel like there are a lot of coaches that, us four, like they understand that concept.

I think the sport is filled with young athletes. I think the athletes, I think the people that everybody's watching, they don't even know what they're capable of. They don't even know the best way to get there. And that's why when I see athletes getting all these followers and all this business from people that are like, I'm just going to do what they're doing. They're like, follow my program. It's like, I don't even know if that athlete knows what they're doing.

They could just be a genetic freak in the current level of competition. They could just be performing well now because relative to everybody else, they're high. We were talking about this on the way here. Even if you scaled the workouts of some of these, of what we would consider a high-level athlete, it's not even balanced.

It may not even be balanced enough for the average person to approach. Absolutely. Even if you lower the volume by scaling or the weight or something like that, it still may not be that great of a program just because somebody's operating at a high level with it. Right. So much stuff doesn't get taken into account from strengths and weaknesses they've already developed to genetic leverages and then also personality based on, you know, some people need variation to stay consistent. some people need the same thing every day you know so much that goes into but

we've seen this outside in in the strength and conditioning world for years you know pro teams colleges trying to copy and then college teams high schools trying to copy and then you know middle schools and below trying to copy these programs that are wrote for higher level athletes and it never works out good and over time they've realized that you know each development stage has to have different principles and fundamentals that are focused on and i think that the you know for the length of time it's been around we've seen the evolution it's incredibly grown but there's still a long way to go and i think you're seeing if you look at another sport ufc and we look at development of mixed martial arts that's still a young sport considering and even now they're still figuring out. How do you train to be a Conor McGregor?

You know and that's what they're looking at. He's looking at looking the only does all this flow stuff But there's a reason he's been fighting since he was so young and there's any strange certain way So his stuff works for him because of those other experiences that you that nobody's gonna be able to replicate or duplicate And there are two truths that I've found. One is, I mean, this is something that Louis, I mean, has been telling forever, is that the more advanced of an athlete you are, the more variance you need. Right? It's pretty simple.

It's like you cannot, linear progression doesn't work forever. There's no like, okay like okay i'm gonna squat this day bench this day blah blah and that's gonna happen every week the more advanced you become the more variance you need simple right two there are two types of athletes especially as we get into advanced style training one is the well-rounded athlete two is the athlete that needs a biased program based off strengths and weaknesses exactly what what you said. And if you give an athlete, like I'll take myself for example, because I, I know myself pretty well. I feel, um, I'm a very well-rounded athlete where if I do a biased program, I will lose overall fitness. The best way for me to increase my fitness is to do a very well-rounded program and have equal exposure of most skills. Now, if you have

someone that has blatant, obviously, blatant, obvious deficits, deficiencies, they will need a bias program, but more people think they are a bias athlete than, than what is true. Matt Frazier is a very well-rounded athlete. Froning is a very well-rounded. Smith is a very well-rounded athlete. They would not do well with a biased program, right? And then you look at some people like, I would say, oh, what's the guy? I think CJ's athlete. Jeff Evans, super strong dude, right? I don't think a well-rounded program would work as well for him. He needs, because of his genetics and his training history, he needs a specific program.

And I think a lot of athletes, when they want to look at competing in the sport, have a hard time, because of ego, in my opinion, have a hard time figuring out what program they need to do based off that. Well, that's where the art of coaching comes in and comes back to the relationship of coaching and athlete build. And I think that that's what is so important as you develop is just to understand that that's, you know, what makes you better as an athlete is being able to coach because then you understand those things for yourself. So it's a beautiful thing that we're

seeing develop within the sport for sure. How many people do you think actually need a strength-biased program? Like so many people come to me and they're like, I just need to get stronger. I'm like, what do you mean strong? Strength, the productive application of force is everything in CrossFit. If you do CrossFit correctly, you will get stronger. Now, if you have a high level of capacity and in all gymnastics and all monostructural realms and endurance realms and all that stuff and you can still only like dead lift twice your body weight and you want to be competitive okay yeah we need to give you some

extra barbell stuff but i have so many people that are required or not requiring they're requesting and they are really seeking out more strength, more strength, more strength, when in actuality it's like, do I need to actually get their hamstrings and their quads and their hips stronger, or do they need to move better so they can more efficiently apply their leverages and their already genetic blueprint? What Louis would say, you're only as strong as the base of the pyramid, but the floor in that is how are you measuring strength. Right, that's a great point. And that's what I think most people don't understand there's so many different ways to measure strength if you're just measuring strength

by squat bench and deadlift then you then then yeah people need to get stronger but if i say let's do though how are right if we do it that's how that's what they think their strength is if we need to do a pull-up i should have changed the question because you're absolutely right as coaches we define strength almost differently than our athletes because – oh, our dog is here. But, like, we could talk about strength, and it's going to be a completely different concept than the athletes that are trying to develop the strength. So that's a great point. I mean, and I learned this when I got, when I transitioned, you learn, you're like, okay, well, I can't do a handstand pushup, but I could, you know,

bench press 900 pounds. Well, it's two different planes, two different levels of strength. And so it's exciting if you've had one, one thing, cause you've got all these new things to get strong in. But I think that's the big, people don't understand when they hear strength or flexibility, they're limited to what they, what they perceive it as right you almost have the blinders on and you've got to take those blinders away i watch those bar star guys and those what they do you know one-arm muscle-ups that's fucking strength yes but but you know people don't think to themselves oh i can't do a pull-up i'm not strong like you said i can't did the 400 pounds i'm weak it's it's all relative based on the movement and based on the plane and based on,

and so you've got to understand that this sport, in my opinion, for competitors and for anyone, life in general, it's about well-roundedness. If you have one asset that's way higher than the other, that usually means that you've sacrificed something else. And that's where the long game comes into play for just feeling great. You were mentioning earlier about training. It's about you feel better ever now than ever, but it's completely different than when you're an athlete. And I think that is just a transition you go through if you've ever been an athlete is you understand that it's hard to – I think it's hard to tell someone who's never – if you've never been strong in what you think is strong,

it's kind of hard to say to you, it doesn't really matter. Yeah. Because they don't want to hear that. Nobody wants to hear that. It's a blow to the ego. And you said exactly what CrossFit's definition of strength is, and that is the productive application of force in any given task. And so if I were to break that statement down though, like most people think it's the contractile potential, right? Like how hard can your muscle contract that strength? Well, okay. It doesn't matter how hard it can contract if it doesn't direct that force productively. So even if we broke that statement down further, the productive application of force, that's, that's work, that's fitness to me. So if with Cron,

this is where I always, I like to read the manual, the level one training guide and all that stuff, and I will dissect every single statement if I can, right? And the productive application of force is, to me, it's almost a way of saying work capacity across broad time and mobile domains. It's almost like saying if you don't have the strength to run five kilometers fast, you're just producing force for a longer period of time, which is fitness, right? So when you say, Louis would say, you're only strong as how, what did he say? Pyramids only as tall as big as its base. Right. So the stronger you are, the more potential you have to apply force in any domain, right? And I think people understand that as how hard can I contract my muscles?

Do you have any really easy ways that you use to quantify that well-roundedness with your athletes? Do you have like five base standards? We could use any benchmark water, any one-rep max test, but like, you know, squat one-rep max, power clean clean helen and then like 5k time and then you can see like what percentage of the average regionals athletes time are you the way you can see like well your squats actually not that bad you're at 70 but your your 5k time is at 45 so really it's like strength your main limiter as far as your well-roundedness goes so here's here's the thing i i like i do and it's i have those

level posters up on the wall right there and those are old those need to get revamped and i i typically uh rewrite them every one or two competitive seasons because i feel like it needs to be relative to the current field it's like strong back in 2009 was a 205 pound snatch you are not strong if that's what you're snatching now as a male, as a regional levels male. Everything is relative to the competitive field. So those are from three years ago, those posters up there. And I would say now I love there's this infographic that I don't know who puts

out, maybe it's actually HQ that puts it out every year that says, these are the average statistics of a regional or a male games athlete and female games athlete. I'm like, that is great data because now I can see what do my athletes actually need to get better at. And I always take it with the perspective that if those are the things that are tested, that's great. But there's a lot of things that aren't listed there that need to be taken into consideration um one of the things i think people don't uh train a lot of is locomotion uh like obstacle course style stuff and moving your body weight not just running through a course but like being able to climb and surmount objects and stuff like that the functional application in my opinion or the natural application of a muscle up or a rope climb, I think that is something that should

be tested more often. And I'll take, we're, we're lucky that we live two or three miles down, um, the road from a pretty well-known obstacle course gym. Uh, and they run CrossFit classes out of there and it's Rhino CrossFit in there. And I, I really look forward to days where I can take my athletes over there and run them through an obstacle course because it highlights a lot of things that we can't train, but that may come up in competition. And so I'm always looking at things. Everybody knows, oh, I need to deadlift this.

I need to be able to back squat this. I'm always looking at things. What could they test that nobody else knows about that we need to have capacity in? Yeah, I mean, that's what's so interesting about the sport of CrossFit is because there's no defining movements. It's like you show up at the games and you not do one thing you've ever seen before. Okay, there's no ropes, there's cargo nets. It's like, shit, we've never seen a cargo net before.

Yeah, that'd be perfect. The first year everyone sucks it, next year everyone crushes it. And so that's what's exciting about the evolution of the sport is who knows what direction it's going to go. And I think the best approach is, like you said, each year you've got to look at the data based on that year, and that's all you can go off of. And so to answer your question, because I know I went off on a tangent right there, I look at those hallmark data points, but I'm always looking for a way to test athleticism. We have a definition for fitness. Nobody is, nobody is step forward with a, with a,

with a definition of athleticism. And I think it's your ability to learn fitness. It like, if, if there's a difference between knowledge and intelligence, knowledge is what, you know, intelligence is your ability to learn, right? Given information. I think that's the difference between athleticism and fitness. Fitness is your capacity. I think athleticism is your ability to gain capacity. The ability to adapt

quickly. Exactly. The ability to adapt quickly. So if I have two athletes with identical benchmarks, deadlift, basketball, snatch, clean jerk, 5k time, fight, combat, fran, basketball, snatch, clean and jerk, 5K time, fight, combat, Fran, whatever. And I give them a task that is completely, they've never done it. The more athletic athlete will win.

Yeah. How is, so you, it was your first competition in 2009? Yes. Was that what it was? That was the first year in the games, yeah. You've been competing for eight years. Ooh, that sound makes, I'm old. You in the games, yeah. You've been competing for eight years. Ooh, that sound makes me old. You're 31 years old now.

So how has your training changed over time? Because you've been doing it for a while, and even if the sport had stayed the same, I imagine your training would evolve over time. But the sport has evolved, and then you've gotten older, and you've been doing it longer. How has your training changed over time? It's changed with the seasons.

I've had multiple coaches. I've worked with, man, who have I worked with? I was coaching myself for the longest time. I got programmed for John Wellborn. He was probably my first official coach. I've worked with Dusty Highland. I've worked with Brute Strength and Mike Cashew. And I've worked with a good amount of people.

And my programming has always, it's very hard to program for myself because I don't like to do certain things. Yep. I know how that is. Yeah, exactly. Rowing and snatching. And I'm like, I don't need to run because I'm good at running. And then I don't need to do pull-ups because I'm good at pull-ups.

So let me do all this stuff. And then what happens is my capacity goes down. So I've learned that, for me, I need to stick with a well-rounded program. And I need to incorporate more aerobic stuff nowadays. I got out of the military, and I took advantage of the fact that I had a tremendous aerobic stuff nowadays. I got out of the military and I took advantage of the fact that I had a tremendous aerobic base. And I felt like the sport at that time, where it was

headed, was completely anaerobic. So I started with John Wellborn and Dusty and just focusing on getting stronger. Gaining weight and making sure that I could keep up with the guys that weighed 190 pounds on the lifts. And then I realized if we look at a 15 event weekend or even regionals, a six event weekend, which of them is going to be dependent on my ability to lift heavy for one or two reps?

One, maybe two events, maybe two events. the strongest guys are not the fittest in CrossFit in the sport it's like Matt Fraser is not the strongest I mean he's one of the strongest but it's your ability to recover it's your ability to move sub-maximal loads 980 to 90% I think for multiple reps quickly maybe 70% right and and then you need a mix of skills. So I went from, you know, this huge aerobic base where, with, uh, a lot of proficiency in gymnastics, focusing solely on barbell stuff. And then I got into, okay, let me do just gymnastics, a high skill stuff and, and only lifting, uh, olifting just focusing on my technique and efficiency and now i realized crap i need i need personally to focus more on the um metabolic aspect of this of of

crossfit i've gotten away from putting myself in the suck putting my like hurting i i don't like i got i got bored i got i got um not not uh i got yeah bored i got sick of just grinding and being in pain all the time that i stopped doing met cons that would allow me to fully express power so i would start doing things like cleans and snatches and muscle-ups, these high technical movements and pistols that would naturally blunt power production. You do a workout that's simply thrusters and pull-ups, it hurts because you can go fast because the movements are so simple. And I feel like you need a well-balanced program in order for me to maximize fitness. I had for the longest time focused on strength, and then I went to high skill because I was like,

oh, I'm a small guy, I'm never going to be that strong, so I need to outwork people efficiently. And then now I realize, no, I need it all. So it's going back to, it's come full circle, back to CrossFit. Yeah. Would you say you approach things a little more conservatively? I think most athletes over time and coaches become a little more conservative over time.

Conservative on what, like volume? I guess pay more attention to maintenance versus trying to aggressively get, I mean, are you trying to add 50 pounds to your back squat? Are you trying to knock 20% off of your mile time or something okay so like with goals like i don't even i don't even for me personally i don't even mark progress it i let it happen i can i train percentages consistently and then when i program a test day or when it comes up i hope for the best but i also understand that there are other factors in at play because I run two locations. I run two gyms. It's like my nutrition I'm not 100% dedicated to.

So if I don't PR on a testing day, but I hit 90% or 95% of what my 100 max is, I'm like, I feel like that's good because I don't program for that. Now, the athletes that I program for that, I'll have higher expectations for. But I, yeah. So in that sense, I am conservative. I'm looking for the area under the curve to improve, not for specific metrics to improve. I'm not saying like, oh, I need my back squat to be 15 pounds heavier the next time I test it or something like that. Yeah. What do you think about gym owners seeking to go to the CrossFit games and having that balance between, you know, running the business and, and being a high level competitor.

I, I want to hear what your answer is on this, AJ. Like I, I, I think it's feasible. I don't think you're ever going to be able to give your members 100, 100% if that's what your, what your goal is in order to go to the games. And we were talking about this earlier and I need to be a high level competitor in any sport, especially something that's now starting to is. In order to go to the games, and we were talking about this earlier, and I need to be a high-level competitor in any sport, especially something that's now starting to get as developed as CrossFit, it's a full-time job. And if you're doing that, you cannot be running the gym as a full-time job.

So it's a tradeoff. I think it's why athletes are never the most successful business owners, why they're an athlete. Absolutely. Because you will sacrifice. Just naturally, to be an athlete, even if you're on a team, you have to be selfish. You know, I got to eat right now. I don't care there's a class going on.

I'm going to be eating, and that's going to affect your coaching. And I think it's possible, but only if you've built a support team around you that allows you to do that. Absolutely. If you're going to build a team and you have the right partner and they understand your strengths, your weaknesses, and what you bring is maybe you're running the classes and they run the gym. It's a tricky business.

Personally, for me, I think whenever you go all in on something, you put the blinders on to everything else and it's a benefit. It's also not a benefit. It's a double-edged sword because you're able to put the blinders on but you'll ignore everything else and everything will go to shit and that's and that's the thing i think a lot of people um me specifically i this year was eye-opening for me i had to i committed to backing off on my training because i'm one of those types of

people where if i commit to something i have to go all in on it. And I told myself that I and I still believe it. I could be competitive in the sport if I did go all in on it. But I would not be able to do it alone. And I don't think I would be happy doing it. So the tradeoff wasn't there for me. And I think there are there are people out there that could probably do it, but not by themselves. I think in order to run a successful business and go to the games or be high level in any sport, there's no way you cannot have a good support team. Now, you're good enough to go on a team.

Yeah. How long do you think that got left before where you can't even make a team unless you're a full-time athlete? I think that'll be the case in probably three or four years. I think team, unless they change the rules, like where you can be from any gym, at which point it will be then. But the way I see the team athletes going and a lot of the individual athletes transferring over to team, you're looking at the standard for even the regional team athlete becoming higher, especially now with the introduction of the 35 to 39 Masters. What I think you're going to see is a lot of snapping. I'm snapping at people. What was that?

I think what you're going to see is a lot of athletes do individual until they realize, holy crap, this is getting really, really hard. And then they're going to go team until they can hit that 35 Masters category, at which point they'll go back to being an individual. So seeing that wave as the wave matures, team, 35 will take them back, and then so like you'll see like someone gets introduced to crossfit when they're 17 18 years old they become an individual competitor after let's say four years five years of good training 22 23 years old

they have a four to five year individual career until i see most guys tapping out probably around 30 years old in the future of the sport right um because of recovery issues though a 30 year old does not recover like a 22 23 24 year old noticed yeah noticed right yeah um and then they they take that break they go to team because at that level right now they still have the capacity to sustain that volume and that power output until 35 which point they can go back into the individual competition. That's my guess. Yeah.

Sounds good to me. Yeah. I'm not competing in Masters. No? How old are you? 35. I'm right at the mark. Didn't I see your name on the leaderboard?

I was right at the top, yeah. No, he just did one round and looped the video. Oh, that's a good tactic I hear from those guys. Oh, man. Had to bring that up. Oh, he just did one round and looped the video. Oh, that's a good tactic I hear from those guys. Oh, man. Had to bring that up. Oh, man. I'll be honest. I'll be honest.

Did you watch the video? I couldn't tell until about the third round. Me neither. That's the thing. I was like, I'm a pretty good eye. I'm a pretty good coach. And I was like, that was a good editing job. If it wasn't for that little stumble with the jump rope every round,

I wouldn't have caught it. That's what I heard. Got him. Oh, no, no doubt, no doubt, because no one picks the jump rope up that way every time. Every time, yeah. But I was like, ah, shit. Awesome.

If people want to find out more about what you're up to, where should they go? So website's maxeffort.fitness. I don't do a lot of social media or stuff like that. I live through the gym, basically. So, yeah, maxeffort.fitness. Uh, I don't, I don't do a lot of social media or stuff like that. I live through the gym basically. Uh, so yeah, max effort.fitness and hopefully, uh, if anybody actually needs to reach out Zach at max effort.fitness. Yeah. Yeah. This gym is 16,000 square feet. You're in Las Vegas. Uh, being a drop in here is super common. Your class, it sounds like your classes have drop-ins almost all the time. Yes. And everyone likes to come to Vegas.

I know I do. Yeah. And then throw down. So if you're ever coming out here. Make sure you come to the gym before you go out. Or don't drink. We've had multiple people come in. I was about to ask that. If you're getting married out here, bachelor party, pre-pump session.

If you want to get married in the gym it's available so yeah we're talking about you yeah so this is this is the deal how much we're going to charge for this what do you think what do you think it's worth to people i don't know i'm thinking 10 grand wow all right i'm down if you want to do that 10 grand uh you can get married at a crossfit max effort i'll perform the. We'll do a custom workout. It'll be a reception and everything. We'll throw down. It'll be a CrossFit gala.

CrossFit gala. You should reserve the right ahead of time to pick their walk down the aisle song. Oh, Brides and Barbells. If I'm going to get married in my gym, I pick the music. AJ's my new marketing consultant. Brides and Barbells. Brides and Barbells. We'll supply either one if you can't figure it out on your own.

Wads and weddings. Oh, there we go. GoDaddy.com. Go buy that domain. Awesome. Thanks for joining us today. Absolutely. Thanks, guys.

Yeah, thanks, Zach.