Barbell Shrugged - OPT, Outlaw, CrossFit.com? Blog Programming vs. Individualized Programming - EPISODE 36

Episode Date: November 28, 2012

http://www.FITR.tv  OPT, Outlaw, CrossFit.com?  Blog Training vs. Individualized Programming.  On this episode of the Barbell Shrugged podcast we're joined by the Director of Operations for CrossFit North Atlanta Matt Baird to discuss the benefits of individualized programming. Watch this video on our website at http://fitr.tv/blogs/barbell-shrugged/6963166-opt-outlaw-crossfit-com-blog-training-vs-individualized-programming-episode-36

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we talk to Matt Baird, Director of Operations at CrossFit North Atlanta and competitive CrossFitter. We're going to talk about training history, his journey since 2009, and we're going to talk about individual programming versus blog programming. Get some! Oh! Yeah! What's up, guys? It's CTP, and you're listening to Barbell Shrugged. Make sure you check out our video versions of all these podcasts on our website, fitter.tv. And all of our video versions, we include TechniqueWog, which is our series of technique instruction videos for CrossFitters,

free previews of some of the seminars we put out, and then sometimes come out of the studio and have special video segments such as cooking in the kitchen with Brandy that one time and out in the pool with Lucas, and who knows what the next thing we'll do is. So make sure you check out our website, fit TV and watch the videos as well all right welcome to barbell shrug episode 36 make sure to check us out on Facebook at the like button only if you like us though um well okay if you don't like it anyways just like yeah just like this I don't care

face consequences. Yeah. Announcing the – I'm now announcing we're going to have a live event with Rich Froning on December 4th. We're going to iron out those details. You'll be able to ask questions, and he'll be able to answer them live. You're going to lift in a barn, run in the field, and then shoot stuff with your shirt off. Is that what we do?

Doug's going to announce his entering into the CrossFit world and he's going to take on Rich. Totally. That thing's a great idea. For the title. He's going to stare him down and be like, you. I'm actually going to do my best to not train with Rich because I do not like being demoralized.

So I've trained with that guy like twice. And both times I was like, I I just I'm going to stop training I don't want to do this anymore he just keeps moving the bar and you are gasping for breath on the ground I once trained with him when he was sick he had like flu he still smoked you? yeah he killed me what did you do? what was the why?

what was the why? what stands for workout of the day? cleans and pull ups and rowing I would do that all sorts of stuff. All right, so make sure also go to fitter.tv. That's F-I-T-R dot TV. And sign up for our newsletter so you can be notified of all the cool stuff. Also, we now have quite a few seminars.

If you want to download those. TechniqueWOD.com. TechniqueWOD.com is a good place to go yeah we'll roll and now you also have the new features on there once you share that with the audience the features the new daily features oh yeah totally forgot about that that's why you have a team here to help that's right also make sure to go to the website because you do not want to miss out on the daily bs don't miss that which is a very very short version of barbell shrug no bs get it um that's where uh some of us from the team we take your questions that you guys

have submitted because we're terrible about answering them on this show. It's where we take your questions and we answer them in a pretty concise manner. So far, the videos have ranged. We've been doing it for about a week now. They've ranged from 90 seconds to, what, four minutes. So we keep it pretty short. We're also submitting that to iTunes. Perfect when you're sitting on a toilet at work and you're trying to burn a few minutes. You know what I'm saying?

That is true. Pull out that cell phone, watch a few daily BS episodes, get your learn on. That's right. Work your butt, go to work. We're posting them every day. Was it – we submitted that to iTunes. That's going to be a separate podcast too. Okay, cool.

Did that get accepted yet or are we still waiting? No. Okay. Did Zombie Steve Jobs give you approval for you? Zombie Steve Jobs give you approval for you? Zombie Steve Jobs. So we're going to have that up, so you'll be able to subscribe to that on your iTunes account and stuff too, so you can just get that loaded up.

All right, we're going to go on with the show now. I'm Mike Bledsoe. Got Doug Larson and Chris Moore, the usual suspects, and our guest, Matt Baird. Thanks for having me, guys. Matt Baird is... Are they in for a treat or what? They are in for a treat because Matt Baird is a character. Oh, God.

Don't set me up. Character. And I want CTP, if you could zoom in on his deltoids. And he's got like a $200 Lululemon shirt on on but the way it wraps itself around those deltoids exposing those man creases oh my goodness gracious oh my god matt matt is never shy and then we put him in front of a microphone advice from you bro only the ones that want to fail uh matt is the director of operations at crossfit north atlanta you guys are in the middle of uh expanding so you must be doing something right over there so you know a little

bit about business and running a crossfit gym you're also a crossfit competitor since 2009 and you've run the gamut of uh doing really stupid training and now've, now you've arrived and now all your training is a hundred percent intelligent. I don't know about arrive, but definitely, definitely have some experience. Um, yeah, man, talk a little bit about that. So I kind of started CrossFit and my journey to it kind of very similar to a lot of other people's. I was a college athlete, played college baseball, and then basically it was like, I done with sports how do i get really big you know what i mean like i want to get swole you know what i mean and so it was uh you know the usual the usual suspects in the gym type of thing as far as chest and back on monday and shoulders and legs on tuesday with an emphasis on shoulders and not on legs.

And then, you know, like, depending on if it was a fall season, I would either split buys and tries or obviously I would go big and superset it. Yeah, oh yeah. Buys and tries. And then maybe do like a whole body thing on a Saturday or like do chest again. You know what I mean?

Just trying to get that big bench but um would you bench still pretty big it is it is but this guy told me bench 350 the other day but it also it's funny because truth it is because uh yeah but he actually weighs 220 pounds no it doesn't no apps like that give me a break man no but it's it's funny because and we'll kind of get to that when i did bench all the time and a bunch of fucking chest isolation stuff i benched like 275 and i think i think at the height of my like meatheadedness i weighed like 202 and closed grip 295 and then and got and screamed your way through the gym yeah and like made sure everyone saw it and now you don't try and you bench 70 pounds more well it's funny because i kind of

got sick of that stuff like i was at the university alabama and uh roll tide whatever yeah roll tide that's right and um i had a friend down in down in daytona beach who kind of like y'all sort of was into a more high-intensity, what he thought was functional exercise. But again, it really was just you could just tag it functional bodybuilding at that point. Power building. Yeah, yeah. And he, boom. Coined. There it is.

That's a thing. That's a thing already. That's what you call body blows. Not just body blows, but they're also assholes. Why? I think I still have that covered. Basically, you go from the guy who's trying to get huge to the guy who's trying to get huge

while wearing torn, cut-off sweatshirt shirts and screaming and throwing the weight. The power is meat meatheadedness amplified. Dude, that is fantastic. But anyway, basically, you know, at the end game in that scenario, whereas juxtaposed to CrossFit is all about performance. Juxtaposed?

It's like... Our audience needs you to tone it down a little bit. Compared to CrossFit, where it's all our audience needs you to tone it down a little bit compared to crossfit where it's all performance related the end game for me was really just there was no end game it was aesthetic based it was like everyday evaluation and i wasn't kind of like oh my god i look good or look bad but it was like the whole purpose or reason behind it was that was driving me to go to the gym and train for two hours was, you know, get bigger abs or be stronger. And there was an element of, um, it was day by day.

It wasn't like you, you failed to like look ahead and go, okay, I'd like to get there. What's a reasonable measured approach for getting there? How can I plan the way I approach this to make progress? Yeah. It wasn't calculated at all and it wasn't intelligent. It was more like, um, read up on a program test it you know what i mean and then the end result was do i look better and yeah i'd like to be instead of benching 275 i'd like to really get to 280 you know what i mean but how do you get there

that was i never really i never really i never really implemented that and i'm assuming that's kind of most people's especially in the competitiveas, sort of journey to functional fitness and then to CrossFit. And then somewhere in 2008, my friend in Daytona Beach had opened up a CrossFit gym. And I had tried the 300 workout. And then I had done a series of other CrossFit workouts with him. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, that'll be cool. I'll do my stuff Monday through Saturday, Monday through Friday. And then on Saturdays I'll do CrossFit. And then that sort of turned into, I'm really bored doing what I'm doing. I'm getting nowhere.

This is monotonous. It's not fun anymore. I've been doing this for like four years, you know? Um, and then it was like looking for something else. And then, so basically I actually didn't start with main site. I've always been this like arrogant snob about never doing main site, you know? Cause I was like, I've never done main site. I never based my programming around like doing main site. The only time I actually did main site for a specific amount of time was when I first got to North Atlanta and I was like doing my own thing in the corner, ruining classes. And Travis was like,

yo dude, like you're over here doing fucking snatch and, and bench press and everyone else is doing Eva and they're all pissed off because you're not doing the same thing. So stop it. And so I did main site for like three weeks. You guys shitting on your Liberty. Yeah,

I know. Well, I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't paying a gym bill either. So it was kind of like, what do you do? But, um,

yeah, I got into CrossFit in 2008. And what I did is I actually went to like Jim Jones and then to main site and a bunch of other, um, boxes that had like respectable reputations. Like Chris Spieler's box was one of them at that time.ris spieler's box was one of them at that time uh crossfit jacks was one of them at that time um i don't think y'all were around yet but i don't know if the respect was we were around but i'm not sure we even had a website up

we were founded in 2008 pretty sure you didn't have computers we were founded in the fall of 2007 but our website i don't think we had a website up for a whole year till 2010 i made that first website and then we got blacklisted on google like yeah i made our first blog in like april 2009 yeah that was the first blog before that we had basically it was like a blog it was an iweb website. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And some of the code was jacked up. So Google goes, and Google goes, that's not right. And we were getting banned. I had to pay like $1,000 so we could get back on Google searches. We stretched the budget a little bit at that point.

At that time, yeah. We were like, Doug's not getting paid this month. That's when we moved into the gym. But the most important thing, right, michael is that no matter what you just get you get your foot in the door you get something going you don't wait so you get the perfect fucking website ready you get something up there oh yeah and you start the long march towards better from from that point that's actually probably pretty good advice for people that are just looking to start crossfit when people come into my gym and i'm sure you guys get it too and they're doing a gym gym tour, they're like, you know what? I feel like I should probably get in

shape before I do this. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. Don't think that. Just come in. Just don't wait till everything's perfect. Just get in here. I need to get in shape so I can get in shape. And we'll make it perfect. It reminds me of people who go, I got to get in tan so that when I go to the beach, I don't burn. I got to get gotta get tan first then i'll go get tan well that's that's common knowledge dude everyone knows that i can tell by looking at that hairline you know what you're talking about that's it's more genetic i got high power alleys it's kind of yeah i'm just i'm just high power alleys power alleys like in a baseball field know, that have the power alleys in the right center and left center. These are called power alleys.

That sounds way better than going bald. That's right. I got to say, I got power alleys. That's what I'm going to call it from now on. No, but the headline's strong. It's like a modern Clark Kent kind of look. Well, that's what I'm going for. The enemy has advanced way beyond that perimeter. Yeah, but your coolness sort of like evades your baldness so it's sort of like oh yeah that and that i've always been told my head's too big too big to be fully hair

it just looks too big exactly like i shave it down it almost has the illusion of being closed to normal he's got a helmet on if he grows hair. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, as far as just training, you know, I basically started perusing websites and I've always been kind of like geeky with exercise science stuff and, and trying to figure out kinetics even on an amateur level. So I was doing a bit of that even when I body built.

So it was, I would consider whether it's ego or whether it's truth, like my bodybuilding program to be a bit more detailed and thoughtful than, than the, than just a, a bias tries, but that's essentially what it was. Even if you want to call it high intensity or not functional or not superset this or not it it you know it was still bodybuilding so i got tired of that got into crossfit in 2008 was doing basically crossfit workouts in the university of alabama rec center and basically getting kicked out every day like they're like you can't bring those 60 pound dumbbells up to that track and i'm like okay

and then you know doing thrusters and throwing them on the track because my forearms would blow up like you know i'd be like 20 oh shit like i'm definitely not gonna get all, you know, doing thrusters and throwing them on the track because my forearms would blow up. You know, I'd be like, 20, oh, shit. Like, I'm definitely not going to get all those, you know. And then it basically turned into I went back for spring break. This was in December or January I started doing CrossFit, and then I went back for spring break to Atlanta. And instead of going on vacation, I went down to Daytona Beach to train traincation that's traincation that's a meathead thing that's a meathead tradition sounds like something Matt

Baird would do traincation and so I so I basically went down there and they had um they had already had an established box with quite a few members and I basically just you know I don't want to say drink the kool-aid because that sounds really stupid but you did but yeah but I was like whoa this is fucking awesome it's like you know there was this kid want to say drink the Kool-Aid because that sounds really stupid. But you did. But yeah, but I was like, whoa, this is fucking awesome. It's like, you know,

there was this kid down there who played college football and we kind of hit it off and we started, you know, competing every day and that was an element

of like bringing me back to my old sports days that I thought were gone, which is, you know, what a lot of people like about CrossFit, especially guys.

Did you go for drinks after you trained? No. Okay. It was just the first day. it was just strictly on top of the clothes type of deal but um yeah man i got basically got back and like i had two more days so i went to till i went back to school and i went to north atlanta and met travis and worked out there for two days and he was like hey you're kind of good. Like you should think about competing. And they had the dirty South regionals,

which is when this is back when you didn't have to qualify. You could just go. Yeah. So it was funny because, uh, I actually was going to go, but something happened. I think someone died.

And it's bad that I don't remember. They must've not been too important oh god but uh but but i basically like had to go to a funeral i remember somebody i loved and cared about deeply died like it was like my aunt or something but it was like three four years ago so you know whatever a lot's been done since then. So basically, basically, basically, uh, I missed that, that regional.

And that was when, you know, when, uh, when Brandon Phillips got to the games and that was the 2009 games and everything was, it took like the top seven, you know what I mean?

Yeah. And then the next year CrossFit essentially really started to blow up on a business level and on, uh, and on a United States sort of a national scale and honestly a global scale it seemed like too. And so they implemented those statewide sectionals, right? Oh, yeah. So the next year, I basically trained that whole year knowing like I want to compete.

You know what I mean? Like this is something like I want to do. Like I want to be really good at it. Like I don't know how good I am. Like I beat people in my gym, but how good are they? Um, and, and, you know, when I traveled to other places, I would, I would, you know, get good workouts in or someone would be like, Hey, that guy's really good. And we would trade workouts if we did it a couple of times or something like that. So I was like, maybe I am good at this or maybe i'm not or so basically fast forward to february of 2009 or i guess 2010 right is that nine or ten when what was that sectional 2009

oh the section was in 2010 yeah because 2009 you went straight to regionals right so yeah i basically trained that whole previous year leading up to that sectional in 2010. And then that February it was like state sectional. I'm pretty, I was at stone mountain. I was there like 40 to fucking degrees. I was there watching worse. It was a good event because my boss helped throw the event. So I can't throw them under the bus and tell me it was like 40 degrees and basically the first workout was run without row a thousand meters and run up fucking stone mountain which is like demoralizing because you've trained and by the way i didn't back then my training was like um you know lift like i'd clean monday and then do a metcon and like what was the metcon who fucking knows and then tuesday it was like oh we should probably deadlift you know and like how random yeah itcon? Who fucking knows? And then Tuesday it was like, oh, we should probably deadlift. It was sort of random. It was still random,

but the thing, and the thing I kind of was talking about this before, I was still so new to CrossFit that in my opinion, the merits of a smarter program are really found once you start to have an actual base. So you can take someone who gets into CrossFit, right?

And they have a good athletic background and they come in and they're young and they're injury free maybe. And you throw them in freaking Bob's CrossFit gym and Bob is basically just picking wads out of a hopper. Today we're going to do fucking box jumps and kettlebell swings and burpees. And there's no, there's no, there's no, you know, there's no periodization or there's no strength cycle development, this or energy system that, and those people will actually see these exponential gains. You know, they will go from, from deadlifting 135 to 225

in two weeks, and then they'll go from 225 to 3 15 and another three weeks. And then all of a sudden they're functionally fit, you know, and I kind of ran that as its course, instead of doing main site, I would just kind of go on people's websites and look at these crazy workouts. Oh, look at this one, man. It's got one 85 cleans in it and it's 25 minutes and it, you accumulate a thousand reps, you know what I mean? And like that, I would just try to do as many like brutalizing you know like basically make you so sore that it hinders your training for two weeks uh like basically something that would make dog just puke just like and not in

a not in an exercise way and like a house stupid um and you know it was you're cutting your teeth yeah yeah and and and did i make gains yes but were those gains attributed to to um the programming no they were just attributed to the fact that i had been bodybuilding for four years and now i'm testing different energy systems i don't even know what fucking exists you know i don't even i have no idea about really what i'm doing i'm just kind of i'm just kind of doing right and then it's funny i actually you know qualify i got sick like two days before it um i got like awful food poisoning my girlfriend at the time had like gone to publics in tuscaloosa and bought me this like tuna she's like you like fish right i'll cook it for you and

i was like that fish smells kind of fishy. She's like, well, it's fish. And I fucking got super sick and was in the infirmary two days before and hadn't eaten anything. Felt super weak. So I got like 50th on that run going up the hill. You tell her you betrayed me.

Yeah, well, our relationship ended soon after that. No one makes me miss the WOD, Brad. And basically, long story short, I forget what I got. I placed decent or whatever. And then was like, all right, it's on. You know, there's a qualified and there's 60 athletes going down to Jacksonville, similar to how it is now. It wasn't as big. This is actually the year that Richard Froning and, and showed his dominance in the Southeast

and CrossFit was just growing. And basically three weeks or four weeks into my training, um, for, for regionals, I, I completely tore apart my spinal erector and basically popped a hole in my QL. Um, no, I remember this. Yeah. Yeah. And it was, it was basically, dude, I was kind of like everything I had been dropping the ball in school. You know i mean like i don't give a fuck about class or education like i'm fucking i got a double today making all these great decisions in your life like perfect like everything was crossfit centric and training you were broed out yeah oh dude it was you know and as far as training then you broed yourself into injury and almost like falling out exactly and training then and training then i wasn't failing because I still had straight A's.

I just wasn't going, which eventually led into the grades dropping. Okay. Not the failing. This was the cusp of it. But they were starting to get to where I would be like, I hadn't been to this class in two weeks. Fuck, we had papers, so I would just leave. And then you do the old, well, you've already shit the bed,

so you need to drop the class before drop add-in so you get a w versus a wf you know yeah so i did a lot i'll get these codes so that's that so that delayed my graduation i always went to class every day bro you didn't i studied and i did all that stuff so basically and it's funny because training then um this is when Olympic lifting started really sort of taking off in the CrossFit community. And it's funny because I guess that's the evolution of the sport. Do you think it's weird that no one ever thought weightlifting on its own was cool until CrossFit sort of made it really, really cool? On a general front, like on people who just want to be fit and strong, started really idolizing weightlifting.

And for years and years and years and years on its own, no one was impressed with weightlifting. It sort of sparked in the CrossFit world. Well, I think personal trainers just refuse to teach Olympic lifting. It's too hard. Well, it's hard to know. It's hard to know how to coach. And then you start throwing...

Yeah, something sparked with CrossFit that made the average personal trainer want to learn how to coach. Like 40-year-old soccer moms now fantasize while they're doing housework or working at the job, like, oh, what if I could ever snatch X pounds? When did that ever happen before?

Well, I think two personal trainers... Never in the history of the world. You can say that with confidence, right? That that never really happened. I agree. The quality think two personal trainers never in history of the world you can say that with confidence right that that never really happened the quality control on personal trainers even today is so um sort of sketchy man non-existent yeah that like that like teaching olympic lifting takes a certain knowledge base of of of exercise in general and a lot of these guys just don't have that not to mention the fact that olympic lifting is really fucking difficult and and like how are you going to feel if you're a personal trainer if you're looking like an idiot in front of a client you're just losing money at that point oh sally can't do it well we don't even want sally to attempt it because i can't

fucking do it you know what i mean so yeah it's just i feel bad for sally even if she is hypothetical yeah yeah but as far as training wise um it was funny because why did i why did i train why did i tear my erector and i was definitely over trained like my body was definitely well you're pretty if there's one thing i can say about you in contrast to what you did yesterday you you made me proud i had a tear in my eye when he worked up to 285 in a snatch i missed 285 yeah you had a you had a a routine non-eventful miss you didn't like it

crushed by she just pulled it in a right position and you stopped I kind of hit it oh you're gonna try that again you said no

no you said no and in previous years two years ago you would have done that shit I would have done that for 20 minutes especially because I've hit 285

so I would have been like oh something and if I didn't hit it that day my mind would have been all like that it's like so i would have been like oh something you know and if i didn't hit it that day my mind would have been all like that's a huge my mind would have been all like oh my god you've gotten weaker like what the like in a week huge that's a huge point that shows sort of maturity and training is that when you know it's easy when you're younger what just more naive just to keep pushing all fronts all the time but learning when to hold back and to not do something is one of the hardest lessons in training. Learning when to not try the thing again.

Yeah, well, I've got this sort of thing. Learning when to do it and when not to do it takes years of time. And this has taken me, this has honestly taken me until this year training with C.J. Martin. Shout out to C.J. Martin. To realize is like, dude, all those missed attempts, dude dude that's just hindering your recovery like you oh yeah like like every missed attempt is i and i mean this is sort of a a sort of a hyperbole hyperbole example but it's kind of like like it's like every missed attempt you can think about is another hour that you're just going to need to recover in another hour you just need to recover

another and even though that's not fact so if you're just weightlifting it's probably fine but if you're weightlifting and yeah man doing a 5k for recovery, like your body, your body, you got to measure things out. Your body needs, especially with CrossFit and all the amount of work you're doing, even if you have the most intelligent program for you, you probably need more recovery than you think. And even probably, you probably need more recovery than you're probably getting. No, you know what I mean? Like quick, how many grams of protein do you today? Well over 200. Wow. How many, how many grams of protein do you eat a day? Well over 200. How many hours of sleep do you get a day?

Eight, at least. How many cups of coffee? Zero. Oh, God. Another one. This guy's not drinking coffee all week long. I've had two. This is my second cup of coffee in two weeks.

Don't you feel alive? Don't you feel alive for the first time in two weeks? I feel stimulated. Are things tingly?ulated. Things tingly? Are appendages tingly? Your fucking nervous system is just like, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. I've actually had exceptional weightlifting the last two weeks. I dropped coffee, and three days later, I hit a PR on my snatch.

And then over the last couple weeks, and part of it is I've been traveling a little bit and working with really high-level weightlifting coaches. So I don't know if it's being caffeine-free. It probably has nothing to do with being caffeine-free. It has everything to do with working with good coaches. New experiences. My weightlifting has been really, really nice lately in the absence of caffeine. You look great, man.

And it's okay. No homo, by the way. Yeah. No homo. Your lifts look pretty good too, man. Thanks. you look great and it's and it's okay no homo by the way yeah your lips look pretty good too man but it's funny because when i was training for uh the 2010 regional uh weightlifting like we were just talking about that's when it was like oh you know like weightlifting is a huge component of crossfit you know what i mean people need to get good at this so what i did this was the

smartest this was me like really individualizing my program is um i found this this blog by uh jason kalipa's coach and it had like all these workouts like all these met cons and it was a strength program and then like these double days of met cons and they were a lot they were intervalized so i was actually like i thought i was like ahead of the game i'm like i'm intervalizing things like i wasn't just doing i wasn't just doing. So I was actually like, I thought I was like ahead of the game. I'm like, I'm intervalizing things. Like I wasn't just doing testers. I was actually like, I realized the difference between training and testing, you know, and like training.

And so whether the work rest was legitimate or not, I was just like, I was intervalizing some days and then I was fucking testing CrossFit wads the next day. At this point, you're like, you know, just. At this point, I'm like inflamed beyond belief. You're fencing yourself like a sports scientist. Yeah. Experiment on yourself.

Yes, and that's... I love that because all... I feel like all CrossFitters, once they reach like a two-year mark, are all amateur sports scientists. You know what I mean? It's a rapidly unfolding weird sport. Do you have your CSCS?

He's like, no, bro. I own CrossFit fucking Kennesaw kinesol crossfit i am my own thing crossfit you know what i mean but what i did is i took that those conditioning wads and they were they were good workouts um and then i slapped like a 12-week performance menu cycle on top of it so in the am i remember that in the am i AM I did Olympic weightlifting and these were like full on Olympic weightlifting, two hour sessions, you know, snatch 80% double snatch, 85% single snatch, 90% single by three snatch pulls 85, 90, 95, a hundred percent. And then front or back squat and snatch deadlift too on days. And then Tuesdays, you know, your your your power versions of the lifts and then

Wednesday you're off and then Thursday I know they had a Wednesday but I was like no that's too much you need to take Wednesday off from lifting and then get it back Thursday so so I'm basically following performance venue four days on I'm training conditioning five days on and is it any wonder that like four weeks into my training my back was like uh we're gonna tear and basically i tore my spinal erector dead lifting like uh i was doing that mcgee wad oh yeah that work out is a 30 minute amrap with 275 deads and i kept on like torquing from right you're doing the over under yeah you were like torquing from right to left and that and duggled to you know that'll that shifts your ql and all that tension torquing back and forth

pop my ql and the trauma from that basically was isolated in my like the pressure basically isolated in my erector and just freaking tore it and that was 90 days of of nothing from april 9th until basically 90 days later i did nothing this guy this guy like nelson mandela when he had to go to jail for 30 years this is dude this is dude this was like this was like you know this was a pain dude this was painful because the best part is like this is your time in the wilderness the best part yeah oh dude finding yourself this is when batman is in the underground jail you don't know if he's gonna come out because he's on the bench with a hurt trying to fucking climb the wall, dude, basically.

Bane, in your self-conscious, is telling you you're never going to train again. Dude, I'm telling you. And it's bad. And it's bad. You're never going to train again.

It's bad. Because if you remember, I was neglecting school. So at that point, when you can't train four hours a day, you have to go back to school because you're like,

fuck, what am I going to do? Sit here and watch first take on ESPN six times? So I went back to school and you're like fuck what am i gonna do sit here and watch like first take on espn six times so i went back to school i was like well these grades suck you know what i mean so i concentrated on that and did like running and basically started i basically couldn't take it after three or four weeks of not doing anything so i did like bodybuilding again and it was you're dipping into the weeds now you're dude it was phase this was a dark time this was a dark time and uh basically rehab myself back um actually emailed bill star uh the famous strength and conditioning coach and was like bill fucking help me i'm a crossfitter i don't know if

you like crossfit but i've done something awful and my fucking back is completely torn i've went and got an mri like i've i've got a small earache those stars don't ask what the fuck is this he's like who the fuck is this and how did he get my fucking email i emailed him and like two weeks later he actually sent me he was like once you can uh once you can like bend over without like injury pain it's just or without without like you know injury pain it's just your hurt pain he's like take the exercise that you hurt yourself with and do 75 reps of it's like super old school shit dude like i don't know this is probably not the best way to do this but like he basically was like grab he's like whatever you did he's like he did this with squatters like guys who would like tore their back squatting he's like you start with the bear

bar and you do three sets of 25 with the bear bar and then the next week you put on five or you do that for two days and you basically incrementalize kilo wise that's something all the way up and what you're trying to do is you're trying to you're trying to flush all the fucking adhesion out and get fresh blood to the to the sort of injured area and that fresh blood is obviously gonna you know change your life you know basically rehab you to bill star you don't want you don't want old blood in there no old blood don't want to stagnate bill star is the reason why you're here today yeah and so basically then you know i i basically was like all right you know i saw some guys go to the games again.

And I saw Rich do really well at the games. And, you know, saw a bunch of buddies. You know, Brandon Phillips had become a close friend of mine at that time. And he got, you know, he was in fifth and got tenth. And, you know, we trained back and forth. And obviously being a man, I'm like, you know, I can beat you. You know what I mean? And so I trained that whole summer.

And I actually did the exact same thing. It funny just without as much metcon i basically went back to performance menu and once i was able to work out i i was like okay you hurt yourself because you were over trained so what you need to do is you need to you need to phase your stuff like right now is the time to get strong and this was in in the summertime, right after the game. So I was like, you can afford to not be in peak condition. And my, and obviously I started reading more about exercise science and just trying to parallel it to other sports. Like, okay, do you do football players play football six times a week and then go play another football game on Saturday?

Or do they practice skills and do they practice tackling and do they hit the weight room and do they practice conditioning? And that started to make sense in my mind and i didn't have a coach at that point um and so i was like i didn't i knew the concept of periodization i didn't know how to really parallel it to multiple modality fitness but what i did is i sort of went by feel and i was like okay right now you need to lift and you need to get really good at Olympic lifting because I thought that that was going to sort of be the crutch of the competitive athlete. And I still think that reigns true. My example is like how many top level CrossFitters do you know that are great Olympic lifters? Most all of them.

Now, how many great power lifters do you know that are CrossFitters that equals them being great competitive CrossFitters? And it's kind of like I know a ton of guys who deadlift 550 but don't have any conditioning but i don't know really know a bunch of crossfitters that snatch 270 that aren't on top of their game as far as conditioning and i think that a lot of the mechanics and the necessary um types of fibers you deal with in muscle and in olympic lifting translate to the explosive capacity of crossfit and i think that it's so different neuromuscularly right as far as the the the the demand it puts on you um lifting wise as far as using your brain to lift i think it's just good movement too yeah like if you have a good snatch and a good clean and jerk. You move efficiently.

Then you're probably going to move pretty efficiently even if you're doing a muscle-up. I'm interested to see what Doug has to say about all this. The people I see that do not snatch very much weight also have a really hard time. Like they move poorly. They move poorly during the snatch. They also move poorly when they do muscle-ups. They move poorly when they do everything. Yeah.

You're not going to find somebody who has a picture perfect snatch and you throw them something else and they can't do it that doesn't happen like if they have a great snatch they probably do everything else pretty well yeah um i like the i don't know i've been in olympic lifting for maybe a year and a half and then i i got on a set of rings i did a muscle up like immediately before i even knew what a muscle was and it's just because of good movement yeah my work capacity sucks by the way so i can brag about one thing what is your kind of take on all that i think people that that have good squatting leverage tend to be good crossfitters just people that have really long backs and short torso excuse me

um long backs and short limbs excuse me tend to be good squatters and good weightlifters and you're you're exactly that you're you're a prototype weightlifter you have a super long back and pretty short limbs yeah and that's part of the limbs yeah and that's part of the reason that deadlifting is so tough for you but but weightlifting you're you're so good at and you excel at yeah i think i think a lot of crossfitters are like that even if you look at guys like like rich he has a pretty long torso and pretty short limbs and he tends to do good at weightlifting i mean he, he's strong all the way around, but he's better at weightlifting relative to how good he is

at deadlifting. He's a better weightlifter than he is a squatter or deadlifter, right? Like you would think a guy that snatches 295 would have a 650 pound dead, but that's not necessarily the case. That's not the case at all. You're actually in the same boat. Super long back and your deadlift's not near what you squat.

You would have been a great weightlifter. You out squat your deadlift if i would have had by a lot somebody to teach me the importance of positions and flexibility when i was in high school i could have made a good run at being pretty good at the lifts i think i think you would have a high level weightlifting football and power things set into my elbows and destroyed them you know so basically yeah i kind of rehabbed myself back actually at john coffee's gym um and people that don't know john john is like a very very um seasoned weightlifting coach he's been in the industry by season you mean insane aluminum pepper and just insane and just and very accomplished he's coached i think over 20 American champions and I think 10 uh maybe world champions he's taken two

girls to the Olympics he is um as Greg Everett put him the lost prophet of weightless of weightlifting and basically John kind of explained my industry injury to John and and kind of gave him what Bill Starr had given me after and I kind of ran Bill's rehab program for two weeks and after I was able to like lift again John kind of built me back up, um, basically snatching and cleaning and jerking, squatting, doing pulls and reverse hypers. And I got to the point where in basically August I felt really good. And actually that's when I met you, um,

traveled up to Memphis and was weightlifting and hitting PRs and getting better at weightlifting, but still, you know, very, very raw. And that's when, you know, we decided we were going to do the USAW. Yes. And that's when I met McGee and our friendly rivalry began, who I'm still better than. Love it. And basically, dude, that was kind of, and I think it's weird because that's what I think when CrossFit kind of took off in general is right around there when, when money started coming in, when they started doing things with USAW and, and holding

these different events outside of just, yeah. Cause USAW is known for money. Well, I think, I think CrossFit brought the money to USAW, but I think, I think that's kind of what, I think that's when it became kind of like from backyard fitness to kind of like starting to be on a big scale. And that's, and that's honestly, I think when the level of competition started to pick up, I mean, it's always been really good. I mean, the guys that have been at the games, it's no, it's no surprise that there's incumbents at the games every year, you know what I mean? But I think that, you know, if you look at it today the level of competition compared not juxtaposed right no compared to small words even 2009 it's it dude it's a words are like the same size it's a

completely different it's a completely different ball game man they're completely different letters shut up yeah so it's just and basically so basically my training was periodized then but was it like periodized for regionals no and then basically i guess after the break we'll talk about i basically changed my training the guest is calling the break yeah i basically changed i changed i changed my training i actually changed my training after the usaw i had like peaked myself and it was funny because that was the first time i had ever felt like my fitness peak like i peaked myself for that competition and actually did a good job of it and then what i didn't realize is after you peak you can't maintain what you peaked so i was kind of like i fell back into this like fuck man i'm

like getting small tweaks and i'm like doing shitty and so the training needed to change and I changed it actually. You basically learned all these lessons the hardest possible way by destroying yourself and having to rebuild every time. By doing so. I'd basically changed my training January of that year going into the 2011 regional. So. Yeah. Just real quick before we take a break.

How was that Metcon up in Colorado at elevation? Oh my God. I know for me, for me, I thought I was going to die. Like three rounds. And I was like, I think your face said it all.

And I was like, is Mike purple? I do know. I do know. It's funny. Cause, um, I did pretty well at it.

Um, my big thing was out there as I was like, I really want to go to the games. You know what I mean? And I think I can go to the games. And there was all these athletes from the games, you know, Austin Maliolo had gotten like sixth. And James Hobart had been to the games twice.

And he had gotten like 10th and 12th or whatever. And there were all these guys in my heat. Pat Burke, Josh Everett. So I was like, if you really think that's a realistic thing, then you need to beat all these people in this Metcon. And I think the only person I lost to was josh or i was a pat burke i think he won it and i think i got second in that metcon in that heat so i was like i was like okay like i'm not delusional right now like i can beat these guys it's just a question of

i guess confidence and execution like do you have the confidence to do so and on that day do you do you execute you know what i mean that was the workout was fucking, I just remember, I remember feeling really, really good. Was it 10 minutes? I think it was 12 minutes. I felt really, really good like three, four minutes in and started to feel like normal exercise induced fatigue. Kind of like, okay, your system's starting to slow down, but keep grinding. You feel good. And then right around seven minutes, I was just like like i felt like i was breathing through a straw it was just it was

it was unbelievable and i kept going but like it kept going with this element of just like pain but that that shouldn't have been there like i was like oh god this is fucking you know normally you can recover on double unders like i just just like i can't fucking breathe oh you know and then remember that that guy that cameraman was in my face y'all were sitting y'all were sitting right there and i couldn't breathe and he was like shooting me getting this like epic shot which i probably would have liked because it would have resulted in like cool footage of me exercising and i was like michael tell you i was like get the fuck out of the way the camera guy was like sorry dude sorry i was laughing so hard when that happened i came like right over to my jump rope was like move i was like sorry man so yeah

so we have arrived now at the at the break break point we'll come back and talk maybe some specifics about what lessons old matt has learned yeah during the break uh ctp is going to teach us how we're going to talk to rich froning in a couple weeks because we haven't figured it out show us how you peak yourself one or two times a week especially like after work when you get home and you're kind of bored you guys gonna peak yourself you know all right guys taking a break. All right. We're back. We're talking about Matt Baird's journey through CrossFit hell.

And the last thing we talked about was USAW. Baird and back again. Failure, injury, and anger. You can have that for your memoirs, by the way. Baird and back again. Story of Matt Bd and then fear injury and anger fear injury and anger yeah um we're talking about the usa w crossfit meet and then kind of rolling into 2011 regionals yeah so i had i had like peaked myself basically training for me which was really just random still. And then, um, like I said, I didn't really know what to do after you peak. And then my fitness started

going to shit and my numbers started going down again. I wasn't, uh, training really. I'm still training hard, but I wasn't getting any results. And, uh, thank you. And so that July, I actually started with James Fitzgerald on his big dog blog, right? I think that's Optimum Performance Training, or I think it's OPT Experience, actually. And basically what he did is he was one of the first, and I think the only at that point, to have what has become sort of common practice now um your own blog which is basically this this sort of this sort of advanced main page this sort of advanced prescription for the want to be or the competitive athlete right all the blogs up to that point were focused around athletes in their gym and it wasn't

for like being a competitive crossfitter right so literally the way this went dude is like i it was on a monday and i was doing performance menu in the morning and i was like i'm gonna do amanda and i had finished snatching after two hours and then had picked up my first snatch of amanda after muscle ups and my back tweaked again, like right where I tore it. And I was like, what the fuck? So I was like, you should just not do exercise today and come back tomorrow hard. And then I sat, I basically sat down that whole day.

I was like, what am I going to do about my training? Like shit's going wrong right now. And I kept like tweaking my back, just nothing major, but just kept on like giving me signs again. Like you're going to fucking hurt yourself. So I basically had a couple of buddies that were following OPT.

I think at that point, uh, AJ Moore and Nate Schrader, um, and they were like, and Rory Hanlon. And they were like, dude, get on this. Like, this is, this is it. Like, this is, this is what it's all about. Like he's training smarter. He's going to open your eyes to a different type of CrossFit training. And it's not just, um, you know, trying to kill yourself every day and see how much you

can lift. It's, it's done. He, you know, he's got, he's got the science and he's got the background. He knows more than you do about you. So just fucking trust him. Um, and basically that Tuesday I started with him and trained my ass off, man, and saw more gains in two, three months of training on his generalized format than I had ever seen on my own, including when I first started CrossFit. So there was something to this, and I actually used that to train through the Open.

I think I got like eighth in the Southeast, and then I actually used that to train. Seventh. Seventh, yeah. No, I don't know no no yeah something like that you play something something something in the top about you and mcgoldrick tied or something like that yeah and then basically and then basically different regions went down to regionals um and i've always said i wanted to go to the games but it was weird it's kind of like that it's cross it's a weird sport and that either you have blind optimism and you're really successful and you have this confidence to execute or it's sort of a prove it to me that you can do it sport i.e like yeah being go to the games is really awesome and then you go to the games now you have the confidence to go to the games right so it wasn't until probably

a month before that that um i had developed like yeah dude i think you can do this like you did well in the open i'm getting fit i was actually training up at faction at that point because my college town had been brutalized by a tornado. So I had moved up to Memphis to train and I was training with all you guys and kind of getting better day by day. And then went down to 2011 regionals. And the only thing that I was still bad at, I felt, was basically running and deadlifting. Right. And so I had positioned myself, long story short, I was in third, um, at the 2011 regional. And then that deadlift box jump workout came up and I basically felt like going out to that, like I was in perfect position,

all the rest of the workouts played to some strengths of mine. I knew I was going to do well. And it was literally just, I felt like defeated. Like I was like, dude, you are going to fuck this up. You know what I mean? And I felt like a soldier that was about to just be slaughtered going into battle. You were falling on your own sword. Yeah, man. And I literally went out there and did just that sort of like, you know, maybe if I had better confidence at that point, um, I would have done better, but I got, you know, I think I, I think my finishes for that weekend was like fifth, seventh, 33rd on that word on that workout, then fourth, fourth and sixth. So I had like one finish outside of the top eight, but the way CrossFit had gotten to that point, it was so competitive.

The field was so competitive, similar to what happened to Mike McGoldrick that year. You know, he has one finish outside the top 10 like myself, and that puts you in seventh or sixth place or whatever. I finished, you know what I mean? And yeah, Mike, Mike and I tied, but I actually beat him in the world, which was awesome to see. I beat him. I was ahead of him by one spot.

I beat you in the world. I was ahead of him by one spot on this stupid little Google Doc. It was a weird point. It was a Google Doc. Yeah. So I was beat him by one spot in the open and then one spot in the, so yes, I'm still better than him. Um,

and then basically used OPT, used OPT throughout the summer. Um, squatted a little bit with Chris Moore, which is awesome because if anything, I learned that I do not know how to use my back and hamstrings correctly. And that was like something I needed to fucking figure out. Oh, you flop it onto the box

yeah i just didn't i just my i didn't i talk about like intelligent fiber like i just did my hamstrings were not i just did not know how to make that mind body connection and use my fucking hamstrings um and that that had hindered my deadlift along with my levers and my and my squat um and i think that i think that at that level, the, the better you squat, the more complete you are, not necessarily the better athlete you are, but the more complete your strength is. All right. So like, I think when I started squatting with you guys, I was squatting like three 30 and then I squatted four Oh five to that box. Right. And then when I realized is that, um,

I got stronger, but as soon as I started conditioning, that was like strength in a vacuum. Like if you just train powerlifting, as soon as you go into multiple modality fitness, it sort of all goes away. And I had made like a 20 pound gain. So basically then I was at three.

Yeah. It's like a, it's a short, the frequent squatting is like a short term neurological hack. Yeah. Like is a, you get extremely confident and that, that skill, how to move the weight and pretty sharply. Yeah. Like it's a, you get extremely confident and that, that skill,

how to move the weight and pretty sharply. Yeah. That's why squatting frequently is a good way to get stronger. Yeah. You're practicing a lot. Exactly. You don't get intimidated by weights and you have the confidence to keep your form and all that good stuff.

Yeah. Story changes a bit when you start adding in other stuff. Yeah. Running and, and like I said, like you made a point earlier about how so many misses takes away from recovery. If you're just doing

powerlifting or weightlifting alone, the approach to do heavy frequent training is probably your best way because you just practice all the time. Oh, yeah. You just snatch,

keep going until you make it. Figure out what you're doing wrong. If you also have to do max effort... Burpees and deadlifts and... Burpees and max effort like ring muscle- ups or something afterwards. You got to take it easy on your shoulders a little bit.

Cause there's only so much, only so many pebbles you can pick up at once. Right. Matt Barrett. Exactly. Right. And, and so,

and the big thing then is I trained with James that whole year. And I was like, I'm going to the games. Like you were right there. Um, you know, like you can do this, have the sort of the confidence i've

struggled a little bit like mentally as far as like when things go wrong like kind of doubting my fitness which i've kind of got shirred up now i'm training with sort of an individualized approach with cj martin um but i trained basically all throughout the year ended up doing basically the exact same in the open got like eighth or seventh or basically top 10 again and then basically did the exact same thing. Do you think that's because other people were kind of doing the same thing you were doing? I do. Like, like everybody took it to the next level that year.

I do, man. So did I get better? I know I didn't. And that's actually why I ended up. Well, you didn't get better compared to other people, but you, your own fitness had improved. Right. But, but, but, but you have to look at it, in my opinion, quantifying your fitness. Like, yes, you can. Yes. For your own sanity, you have to look at it individually. opinion, quantifying your fitness like yes, you can

for your own sanity, you have to look at it individually like yes, you got better this year, you snatched versus last year, you snatched or this year, this system is stronger but the idea is that this is a sport of comparison and if I beat you last year and you beat me this year

like what, like there's something wrong, you know what I mean? Um, and so basically I ended up starting off 2012 regional. I got third or second in Diane. I was in second and ended up actually like retweaking my back. I was like deadlifting sideways, but, but, but I was going so fast that the judge was like, turn your bar towards the crowd or I'm going to no rep you. So I kind of did a like was sideways and turned it back over and didn't feel it until that that wad, that clean pistol row wad and was sitting there on that 2K basically rowing at 85 percent. Like my back feels like shit. And then basically went and pick up that two 25 and was like,

and you can't pick that up anymore. Um, and ended up withdrawing from the competition. I think in eighth, I kind of battled all weekend with injury and just battled my own arrogance and ego. And finally at the end was like, dude,

you're not going to be able to even pick up three 45, let alone do it 21 times. Call it. It was fucking heartbreaking learned a lot from it though man and what i learned out of all that is that that journey that i kind of just explained over the last eight hours has basically brought me to the fact that if you expect to be the best in the world at something you have to take the necessary steps to be the best in the world at something and if you're trying to go to the CrossFit games, you are essentially saying that you want to be the best in the world at something.

Now, obviously, Rich is the fittest man out of the best of the best. But if you go to the CrossFit games, just like any CEO is the best at his job, right? Or, you know, a professional baseball is the best baseball players, the best at his sport. Like that is what you are saying. It's what you're proclaiming. Um, and so why was I trusting my fitness, um, to an online format that was, that was for everyone? Because if it's for everyone, it's really for no one, right?'re like because because how do you because how do you how do you differentiate like dude my levers doug just said are different than than than your levers so if dude what if james is programming for a guy with different levers than me or or

james talks about essence of athlete you know my essence like i can get better at is that a real thing they say that he taught what does that mean he kind of coined it and basically what his the short his theory is it's basically like um like you can develop you can develop you can develop capacity in different ways based off the type of athlete you are so like if you're more of a long-range athlete training you short-range high power a lactic power stuff is going to wear you down whereas training within your essence is going to make you better whereas i'm more explosive kind of short burst training me long range aerobic which is basically what james's theory is on crossfit

is how you get better you train long range aerobic stuff and then ships kind of fall where they may well if i'm the exact opposite then training long range aerobic stuff does not help me it actually wears me down and that's actually what i experienced last year was for the first time i experienced that i needed an individualized format i needed a a program that was specifically designed for me and it took me failing again on basically the stage to go to the games to realize that and And what it was was the fact that dude, more often last year I had to take extra days off. Cause I just felt worn. Cause I felt like,

Oh my fucking God. Like I just cannot move. Like I can't, I felt over-trained. I felt overwhelmed. I felt like, uh, there was a point dude where I didn't sleep for like two weeks.

Cause my body and my CNS was just so just just gnarled man i was suffering what i thought was adrenal fatigue and like i would start to go fast and my and my body would just feel like it had no fluid in it no energy and i wasn't lifting heavy and everything was a chore and it became like really it really mentally fucked me because i was like dude what is going on like you're you're sad i was man You were sad. I was, man. You're sad. Things aren't going your way, you get a little sad. And what it did is it –

Yeah, talk about it. I'm happy it happened because what it did, and for all the listeners, what it is, man, and this is opinion-based, is if you are following a generalized blog template, regardless of the name, OBT outlaw, uh, hyperfit, um, there's going to come a point where you maximize your potential on that given, uh, page, that given program. And it will not be until you sit down and pay someone or you, you know, reach around to, to make the, basically let them program for you that you realize that give a guy reach around again program you can't afford it you can't afford it you gotta

you know what i mean that like your the merits of the individualized program are are what are what is needed you know and people have given me, well, rich doesn't do have a coach. Yeah. Well, dude, rich is an anomaly. And to compare yourself to rich is like you being a basketball player and trying to be like, well, magic Johnson didn't shoot a thousand free throws every day after practice. That's setting yourself up for failure, trying to. And so what you need to do is you need to realize to try to maximize your

own potential and not base it off other people's a good example of that is rich funny he eats mcdonald's and stuff so why can't i yeah i got a feeling too that rich probably puts more thought into his programming than he lets on and you got to realize too um i couldn't be such a key part of your life and you're not put a lot of dedication towards it. That's what all he does. I mean, well, see thinking about during large chunks of the day, if not, how can he get better and develop this thing that he's already mastering?

I mean, of course it's a big, well, the idea too, is that rich trains by feel. And in order to train by feel, you have to be very intuitive with how you feel. So that in itself, you are training,

thinking about it. How connected are you with your emotions and feelings? Um, I'll tell you, how do you answer this question, right? How do you feel, man? I feel great, man. How else do you feel? This is Barbara Walters. It's funny. It's funny. Make him cry. Fitness is so important to me. Um, that it used to determine like my, my, my overall demeanoranor like if i was going really well in training i'd be i'd be i'd be really awesome boyfriend and i'd be a really good friend but if shit's going wrong i'm a piece of fucking shit which curiously enough makes you an asshole yeah

so so yeah and i was like that too like i'd have like a i had like a it's so silly to look back on like i had a bad squatting session so i'm to come home and be a dick to all my friends and family because, oh, my training didn't go well, bro. Yeah. I used to do that. Yeah, he did. I remember. I'd bomb out of the meet and be a dick for a week at work.

You understand, man. I bombed out of this powerlifting competition. That's what I trained for for 12 weeks, man. Yeah. Now I'm like, it fucking matters. Your boss is like, I don't give a fuck. It matters zero. It's not important, really. And a lot of it. You've got to have a life, matters. Zero. It matters. Zero. It's not important.

Really. And a lot of it, you gotta have a life too. A lot of it, you know, I'm very happy right now, but is that because, you know, I've now got a, an individualized coach and CJ Martins, uh, basically helped me erase all the weaknesses that have sort of kept me from doing exactly what I want to do. Maybe, but we'll see. I think, yeah, maybe. We'll see this spring. I also think, though, that part of the merit

of having an individualized coach and something that you guys offer with being so knowledgeable and so experienced is the fact that you can be there for an athlete. And having sort of a faceless or big face blog, how accessible is your coach? How can you, how can you tell your coach? Yo man, during, during the fifth minute of that set, I felt my arm forearms blow up and I'm, and was that lactic, was that lactic threshold or was this that, or today I felt like my breathing was off. All those things change my program. And all those things have determining factors on,

hey, man, my posterior chain is smoked today. You know, that determines what goes on. Maybe I don't want to do your max good mornings to failure-wide that you randomly picked out of your ass and put on the website. And I think that what it also does is a good coach has these intangibles. And I know that Doug and Mike are really good at that. And so are you, Chris. And it's the fact that the mental side of CrossFit is almost as important,

if not more important, than the physical side. Because at the end of the day, man, you need to be mentally locked tight. You need to be like a fucking ship. It's just like made of steel, dude. Like mentally, you need to have the confidence that if you really believe that you're one of the best in the world, you need to prove it. And it needs to be unrelenting. And when shit happens and shit falters in competition, it cannot falter your approach or your perception of your fitness or um or your confidence man because at the end of the day at the end of the day if you're in that last heat

at regionals everyone is pretty much the same fit fitness level like like everyone can do 50 fucking unbroken this and snatch this and clean that and run this or row that at the end of the day it's confidence and execution like at the end of the day dude that's all it boils down to at the end of the day, dude, that's all it boils down to. And like, and there's some out, there's some, there's some outliers with that. Like I was talking to CJ about the fact that like, you know, he really believes that Joss Bridges and, and, and, and rich, you know, they are genetically gifted, you know, they produce ATP faster and, and their, their ability to utilize the oxygen. High concentration monoclorians in the bloodstream. That they breathe in.

Their body's ability to utilize the oxygen they breathe in may be different on a measurable level. But honestly, man. They're basically X-Men. Yeah, basically besides that. Besides them being like fucking mutants. You make a good point. It's just complex execution.

I think it's way more how and why you do something, not necessarily what you do. Yeah, man. You got to approach things very specifically and you got to have a clear rationale within your own brain as to why you're doing something and why it's the right thing you should be doing.

If you have any doubts, it doesn't matter how well the thing is put together, you're not going to do well. Exactly. And that's why when evaluating my sort of journey this year and where I was going to go with my programming, I chose an individualized coach versus continuing to follow a blog format, which I've been successful on, man.

And arrogance aside, I've gotten really good at CrossFit. But it's kind of – All things being equal, I'm really awesome, okay? It's okay to say that. I'm just really kick-ass and awesome. But the next step was the fact that i needed to work on my mind and that was more along the lines of yeah individualized program i know is going to give me better results of course it is it's fucking for me yeah we trained yesterday and i actually noticed that you're

a lot less of a basket case than we used to train together we're trying to even read my angela poems a lot it's really helping we trained a lot a couple years ago and and that's a basket case a lot of it yeah and then yesterday you didn't you didn't lose it one time it was crazy and you also trained really well and i appreciate that and a lot of that and honestly a lot of that is due to having an individualized accessible coach like if you're one of your athletes comes to you and is like, Mike, I'm struggling or Doug, I'm struggling, dude. Can you help me out?

You're not going to be like, yo, dude, suck a cock. You're going to be accessible. You're going to be accessible because number one, they're paying you. And number two, this is, you're doing what you love. This is what you like to do. You like to train athletes. Your success is their success is your success so you have a vested interest in their success i just want to say something sometimes our athletes may feel like we're saying that but i'm telling them what they need to hear

not just tell them to go piss off yeah sometimes. Sometimes I'm like, no, you do need to try harder because sometimes that is the right answer. Yeah. But sometimes it's not. But anyways. For you, it would never be the right advice. Oh, just keep trying harder because you're really trying too hard often. Yeah. And dude, I think the biggest thing that I've said through this ridiculous explanation of my CrossFit experience is that like is that you know i probably should have found a

whether it was a local coach or a or a coach sooner and and really evaluated my weaknesses and that sounds really easy like i know a lot of competitors that train themselves and they train their weaknesses but have even the best athletes should have coaches and and here's my thing is is this the scary thing is would rich be even better if he had a qualified coach you know how scary is that you know what i mean what if when you see red what you see is what i call blue you know you ever thought about that like like uh i remember when mike mike mcgoldrick and i went out to meet OPT and he was talking about Miko Salo and how, like, if you really push yourself to the absolute red line,

which is what you should be doing in competition, right, then you fucking lay down and you lay on the floor because it hurts because I don't care how fit you are, right? And that's something, like, I was always like, you'll ask Mike, I'll be like, I never lay down. Freaking never. You know what I mean? But like,

I also never push myself. Yeah. But, but dude, like if you really redline, if you really push your body beyond your mind, at the end of it, you're gonna,

you're gonna lay down and hurt. And he was like that whole, James was like that whole Sisu bullshit. He's like, the scary thing is, what is that? Miko Salos. He's,

it's his, his tagline sisu i don't know what does that mean i don't have no idea does it mean like some kind of some kind of norwegian word for like push beyond limits yeah who knows something like that like whale vagina or something i think i think he said like he doesn't lay down because that's what like dogs do animals do that when they surrender and like james was like dude that means that that guy doesn't really know his full capacity. And what I'd like to do is get my hands on him. Right. And see no homo on that and see like what his real capacity is that forces him to lay down.

Cause if you know that, well then you can tap into that, dude, you can dance on that red line. You know what I mean? So I do that. All the, all this experience has brought me to the fact that, like,

dude, individualized training is really the end-all, be-all for me. And it probably is for anyone who really thinks they have a legitimate shot at becoming very great at what they want to do. I'm sure, like Doug, you would say that's probably true for people who want an efficient path towards fitness, too, even if they're not as hardcore as Matt Baird. You have to train in red line to the point where you have to lay down? No, no, no. I'm saying it's good to have a program

that's sort of tailored a bit to what you want to get done. Oh, no, I totally agree with that. Like, if I come in and I'm just a regular dude and I want to improve my shoulder mobility or something because I have a former injury when I used to play baseball 10 years ago. I've got some specific things I've got to do before I want to get fit. It's not always just for the extreme guy. That's the idea of individual programming.

It can help the average person. That's a great point. If you have a torn QL and you don't know what to do, then that's just all the time you have to spend searching blog to blog to blog, finding the perfect workout. When someone that knows you and knows that about you can just go in there and write a workout that's tailored for your specific situation help you avoid three or four rounds of injury strengthen that damn thing that's the biggest thing dude is like i got with cj and he's like dude your fucking back is weak like we need to that is a problem and it's not a problem because like oh bro you lose the deadlift while

it's like dude that is a problem for life. Like, like you're going to die. Your fucking back is weak, dude. Like we, and so a lot of my training, we overemphasize posterior chain work to the point where, how'd you approach that? Did you,

what'd you add in to, to address the back? Um, most recently with his guy, I would say, dude, right. You know,

we periodize everything. Like right now we were training for the American open, um, and the outlaw open, um, we periodize everything. Like right now, we were training for the American Open and the Outlaw Open on Palm Springs, but a lot of squatting and then a lot of accessory work, which I think a lot of CrossFitters don't do, and that might be a topic for another day. But, dude, I think accessory work for the CrossFitter is something that a lot of CrossFitters are like,

oh, like RDLs or like good mornings or likedls or like they start viewing those things as good mornings as not functional reverse hyper or like glute ham raises weighted sometimes i program some of that stuff and i see people leave the gym before they do something they do that i'm like the reason the reason that you hit that fucking squat pr was not because you because you squatted monday it's because you squatted and you did that reverse hybrid because you you cleaned and you did those rdls it's less important when you don't have weaknesses but if you're like for me when i came off my back injury probably in a similar vibe as you it's like that's what allowed me to then train again was was taking away the weak links right right once you can do

those all those things to a good level like if you can do if you rattle off 30 glute ham raises with body weight with perfect form, your hamstrings are now good to go. More of that won't really help. But if you can only do like two glute hams before your hamstrings pop off the back of your butt, you need to do more of this. It's identifying the weakness. Because this is a weakness for you. The way I saw that, man, was actually if you look at it on a global scale,

the Chinese, their weightlifting system, they, they identify that as weakness correction system. So they're not Bulgarian and they're not Russian influence. The Chinese label themselves as a weakness correction program. So yes, they are Bulgarian in essence, as far as intensity and volume, but they also are Russian and exercise selection per individual. So like that's the individualized program. You said in tit city. So that's them. Obviously, some drugs help too.

But dude, the Chinese are a perfect example of that. All their programs are individualized. They'll do knee extensions. I think it's going to help them. Yeah, they're not following we're Bulgarian, we're Russian. They are, okay. They're Chinese. Okay, Lou.

Okay, Lou. They take a little Bulgarian. They take a little Russian, add a little sweet and sour sauce, mix it up in a bowl. A little sriracha. A little sriracha. Eat it down. Yeah, man. And they are all about weakness correction.

If you are fast, but you lack pull strength, you're going to fucking be doing pulls. If you have pull strength, but you lack squatting strength, you're going to be be doing pulls. If you are, you have pull strength, but you lack squatting strength, you're going to be fucking squatting. You know what I mean? And it sounds simple, but like, why aren't more people fucking doing that? It takes a critical thinking skills.

You can explain, you can explain to people how to do something. And that takes like five, 15 minutes. Then it takes the next five, 10 years to the next, to know the why behind all that. It just takes time.

And you know, something, something to keep in mind for, for competitive athletes is that, you know, I've always been mildly obsessed with the why, but sometimes the why can hinder you. Sometimes you just need to go be an athlete and turn your brain off and see what your body's capable of. You know, and that's something that I tell my clients is don't let your mind be your limiter. Let your fitness be your limiter.

You have a PowerPoint slide deck in your head, don't you? Does anybody know what this is? This is a question mark. Sometimes questions are good, but when are they bad? I can see you pausing dramatically and pacing back and forth in front of your clients. With a

on my face. Yeah, like a shit-eating grin like, does anybody know why? Pause awkwardly. I'll tell you why. Find your own limiting factors in your life. That's how I make money. Your goals, your business. That's how we do it.

All right, guys, we're going to have to shut it down here. Some of us have to go train. Should we make a closing point? Each one make a closing point? Yeah, let's, we'll do that. We're going to let Doug speak for the third time today. Some of us have to go train. Should we make a closing point? Each one make a closing point? We'll do that. We're going to let Doug speak for the third time today. I always get excited to hear Doug talk.

And then when I'm around, he never fucking says anything. I just want to fucking learn something, man. Just fucking say something. It's hard to get a word in with three of you guys. Go ahead and promote your shizzle. My shizzle? Actually, I think the best product to promote for this episode is probably Simple Strength. It's probably the most relevant product.

Have you watched that yet? No. Oh, no? He didn't even know about it, I guess. He looked on his face. He was like, I've never even heard of that. What is it? It's Chris's strength seminar. Go tell him about it.

Doug will tell you. Yeah, I did a strength seminar in in april was it it was back in the spring yeah like 25 pounds a little heavier than i am now but uh i took the time to gather in looks good people a lot of uh i took all the the last years of my my thoughts on training really sort of broke away from the typical. I started delving into other questions and then really sort of asked myself more of the whys and how could I break things down to a simple approach to where I could communicate very complex ideas about why you would choose to do something like a complicated periodization approach

but put it into terms where if I told it to my mom, she would know exactly why i would choose to do that and like package it yeah i packaged it in very novel ways the strength seminar is simple strength is like sort of a a novel approach towards laying out a rationale to training from beginning to you know experience in advance to where you could grasp very complicated ideas about why you would add in variation, choose different exercises, max out frequently. Like purpose, finding purpose.

But give somebody a tool where they can understand and go coach themselves with that knowledge. Removing it from a black box, a mysterious thing that only these fancy coaches know and empowering, like Prometheus giving fire to the common man. Taking these ideas and giving it to you. Taking an idea like periodization and making it completely obvious and intuitive. Do an example like picking the lowest hanging fruit first.

Why would you not want to pick the fanciest thing first? People want to do that. But if you can say, well, if you can lay out a rationale as to why you would pick the easiest path first, that allows you to achieve more later. And using this analogy of picking the base yeah that makes sense to people versus laying out a rationale a powerpoint about macro and micro models of periodization and randomization and variance no one knows no one knows or cares what you're talking about but if you can make it relate to them then they they feel empowered by us That's the purpose of that program. Where can I get that?

That was my plug. That was fitter.tv or we can I don't know I can show you some of this. You can go to fitter.tv I've got to leave town

my fiance is like very angry at me right now. I'm about to say you said you were really happy right now that life was really awesome. Yeah. You talked about training

I was going to say is your fiance also helping you be happy? You should probably say that because she's going to listen is your fiance also helping you be happy you should probably say that because she's going to listen to this shit she's

sometimes I love you don't you have any other plugs besides the very awesome one of my stuff no the only other

thing we need to talk about is how to sign up to make sure you're on the list to see the live event with Rich next week

at a minimum if you're not on the newsletter list then you need to be on there because we'll send out the link to the live event in the email week at a minimum. If you're not on the newsletter list, then you need to be on there because we'll send out the link to the live event in the email. Love that guy, Richard Froning.

If you sign up on the newsletter list, you'll definitely get an email to find out at least how to get on that list. We're not even going to pretend that Richard's not super handsome. He's a sharp guy. He's a sharp looking guy. When the guy's really good looking

And you don't want to sound gay You just say sharp It's like dude accepted Bro looking fit and sharp bro Looking so sharp He's like oh Chris He is a sharp looking guy That way it doesn't sound like

You want to like touch him But you do No you don't Matt anything you want to promote I know you got a couple things uh well if you're in atlanta where should you train yeah obviously we uh spot crossfit north atlanta we're atlanta's second oldest crossfit and uh jan one we'll be opening up our new 17,000 square foot facility complete with separate separate 6,000 square foot space devoted to strength and conditioning and competitive athletes.

Jeez. Okay, so we'll have 7,000 square feet for main class area. And then another 6,000 square feet for just competitors. And then office space, you can come see me in my new office. Wow. Director of operations. Boom, operating that shit. Love it.

But yeah, man, we open up Jan 1 up january the premier spot in atlanta yeah man it's gonna be awesome we're uh we're really excited we're gonna try to get some um some pretty key sponsors going and uh and really take this thing to the next level i think the the idea you know for all the crossfit owners out there um and i'll be charging royalties for this if you haven't figured this out already is um diversify your product man because at the at the end of the day crossfit's gonna still be around but it's not going to continue to grow 30 a year so what are you going to do and the answer is strain the conditioning excellent uh what are you going to do and uh you you do uh some programming for folks you want to promote that at all if you need help yeah if you need help

whether you're an aspiring athlete or already a competitive athlete, whether you're a sports specific, go ahead and email me at matt at crossfitnorthatlanta.com and obviously we can talk about goals and strengths and weaknesses and more importantly,

just your approach and what you're looking to do. Do they need, do they, I can't talk. Do they need to live in Atlanta to send you an email? No, no,

I've got, actually got a, I've actually got an ultra endurance client right now in India. So, Cool email? No, no. I've actually got an ultra endurance client right now in India. Cool. India. Very cool.

So, yeah. You guys need help? Has he paid you in rupees? Well, not yet. Okay. I think he's referring to the reach round from earlier.

That's what we've worked out. All right. From India. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks for coming on, Matt. Appreciate it. Great show. We'll have to do it again

Shin Kui later guys Shin Kui it was great