Barbell Shrugged - Real Chalk  — Scientific Fitness w/ Coach Mike Lee  — 31

Episode Date: July 10, 2018

Mike Lee (@mikeleeopex) is Director of Coaching at OPEX (@opexfitness). He has worked for 5 years as an engineer and Project Manager for Rudolph and Sletten, Inc, until a few life coaching calls with James Fitzgerald, founder of OPEX, highlighted his true values. Then his vision became clear. It was helping others fulfill their lives through fitness. Mike found his true passion in health and fitness becoming an OPEX certified coach. In 2013, he transitioned from his engineering role and started coaching athletes all over the world with various levels of fitness. Most notably, co-coaching Valerie Voboril who won third place winner at the 2013 CrossFit Games. Growing up a water polo player and swimmer, fitness has always been an enormous part of Mike’s life. With his engineering background, he utilizes a scientific approach to fitness for proven results. He enjoys being a guinea pig, testing performance variables, pushing health to new extremes and coming up with innovative ways to sustain performance, wellness and longevity with any individual. In this episode, we learn about Mike’s scientific approach to fitness for proven results based on his engineering background. We also talk about what he does as Director of Coaching at Opex, his routine to build confidence, sport psychology – how does an athlete’s brain work, BLGs – Basic Lifestyle Guidelines, and more.   Enjoy! – Ryan and Yaya ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc_lee ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective'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 Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged 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. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/ barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Hey there ladies and gentlemen, this is Doug from Barbell Shrugged. I just want to let you know that we now offer 11 of our top training programs as a part of a single membership site that we're calling the Program Vault. We used to launch training programs every few months and people were always bummed that they couldn't sign up at any time. You had to be around for the launch. The launch was only 4 or 5 days. If you missed it, then you had to wait 6 months or a year depending on what training program we were offering next.

And it was kind of a hassle, even when people signed up for training programs to switch to a different program when they got to the end of their current program or they just happen to be in a new phase of training they hit their their past goal and now they have new goals and new goals require different training programs so inevitably it was a pain in the ass for people to switch programs so we took all that feedback and we decided to just put all of our programs together on this thing we now call the program vault that way all shrugged athletes could have access to all the workouts that we have and move from program to program as they saw fit for themselves makes sense so there's 11 programs three of them are long-term very comprehensive programs where there's you know a warm-up and there's mobility and there's nutrition added in there all the workouts are there there's a cool down there's there's stuff

to do on your off days they're super super comprehensive and those programs last for over 18 months if you want to stick around for that long and there's also eight short-term programs these programs are three months long and these are basically add-on programs so if you are already doing classes at a gym and you don't want to stop doing your classes but you want to work on one particular thing maybe you want to like work on your shoulder health or you want to work on your conditioning like your your aerobic capacity or maybe you just want to work on your squatting strength or your pull-up strength or something like that then we have these short-term add-on programs that are super low volume but

they're just like an extra you know two or three exercises at the end of your workout to help work on whatever those very specific goals are that you have so the three long-term programs are flight weightlifting that's a very weightlifting specific training program it builds it builds you from someone who's more like beginner intermediate at weightlifting and build you up to be a more technical professional style weightlifter you know over the course of 12 or 18 months now we also have muscle gain challenge if you just want to put on muscle mass and you want a higher volume training program this in my opinion is more of an intermediate program if you don't have good technique on the olympic lifts yet you're going to kind of be throwing right to the wolves so to speak that It doesn't ramp you up like flight does. Flight has very specific progressions for weightlifting

to let you learn all the technique over time. Muscle gain challenge kind of just throws you right into it. So ideally, you already have some experience with Olympic weightlifting before you start the muscle gain challenge. And there's a very high emphasis, of course, with the muscle gain challenge on gaining muscle. So that means you've got to eat a lot of food. So there's a lot of emphasis on of course, with the Muscle Gain Challenge on gaining muscle, so that means you've got to eat a lot of food, so there's a lot of emphasis on how much to eat, what to eat,

and your recovery as a part of that program, so that way you can get bigger and stronger. Also, we have Strug Strength Challenge, which is more of a traditional kind of CrossFit-ish program. If you do CrossFit classes at a CrossFit gym, you probably do some strength movements at the very beginning of class. Maybe you do front squats for five sets of five, and then you do a Metcon that's, you know, 20 or 25 minutes or whatever it happens to be. That's more typical of the shrugged strength

challenge where strength is the goal, but certainly conditioning is a key part of that as well. It has more of a strength bias than kind of a regular generalized CrossFit-y type program. So the eight short-term training programs, again, these are about three months long, and they're kind of an add-on program. So the first one is boulders for shoulders. That's a shoulder health and stability program, health, mobility, and stability program. That doesn't mean you're going to be doing a whole lot of jerks and overhead presses necessarily. This is, again, an add-on program. So you're going to be doing a whole lot of jerks and overhead presses necessarily. This is again an add-on program so you're going to be doing a lot of assistance work for your shoulders, your thoracic spine, etc. That way you can have the healthiest shoulders possible. There's the aerobic monster program which is adding in a bunch of extra mostly aerobic

conditioning. You're going to be on the airdyne a lot, you're going to be on the rower a lot, you're going to be doing a lot of monostructural stuff. So you you already have your regular workout, you do strength, you do your Metcon, and then as a very overly simplistic example, you do 20 minutes of rowing or you do 30 on, 30 off for 10 rounds or you're doing a hard 30 and an easy 30 or whatever it is, just a little bit of extra aerobic work. There's the Squat the House program where we add in two leg exercises three days a week. So you might squat and then do some lunges or something like that. Depending on what your regular classes are like, you might already be doing a lot of squatting.

But if you're not currently able to do a lot of squatting and you want to do some more squatting and you just want to add that onto your current training, then Squat the House is a great program. Anaerobic Assault, that is a high intensity interval style program where you're doing very fast Metcons. So you might be doing airdyne sprints, you know, 30 seconds on, 100% full speed, and then take a three minute break and do it again. Or even, you know, five touch and go deadlifts followed by, you know, 10 burpees, rest two minutes and then do it again. But you're doing it all 100 full speed really teaching how to kick it into high gear and move very very quickly when you're doing your metcons there's

my first pull-up which is not going to give you a whole lot of actually doing pull-ups these are this is a program for people that can't do a pull-up yet so there's a lot of assistance work for pull-ups and there's a lot of extra assistance work for just all the muscle groups involved in doing pull-ups everything from just doing extra extra lat work extra scapular attraction rhomboid lower trap work extra bicep work etc to help get you to the point where you can do your first pull-up there's a strongman accessory program where you can be doing yoke walks picking up stones pulling heavy sleds and things like that and then there's two more programs that are kind of a little bit higher volume.

You could do them on your own if you wanted to. And you also can combine these. You could do Aerobic Monster and Aerobic Assault and My First Pull-Up altogether if you wanted to, if you just wanted to add extra volume. But the last two, Open Prep is exactly what it sounds like. It just gets you ready for the CrossFit Open or other similar competitions. You'll be doing a lot of Metcons. And the last one is Barbell Beginner to Meet.

It's prepping you for your first Olympic weightlifting competition. Each program is scheduled between three and five days per week. There's videos explaining all the programming. There's demos. There's technique explanations for everything. And then also you have access to the private shrugged collective facebook group that way you can get advice from ourselves we'll be in there hanging out our guests from our shows we also have a bunch of athletes coaches and strength experts that are friends of ours that are in there too to help you out

if you're interested since i've been talking long enough you can go to shruggedcollective.com backslash vault for all the information. Again, that is shruggedcollective.com backslash B-A-U-L-T. That spells vault. Go there, check it out. If you have any questions, email help at barbellshrugged.com and enjoy the show. Welcome to Real Chalk, a Shrugged Collective production. Mike Bledsoe here. Stoked to be launching this network so that we can introduce you

to amazing content providers like Ryan Fisher. We'll be posting new shows every weekday, so be on the lookout. As a thank you for listening, Thrive Market has a special offer for you. You get 60 bucks of free organic groceries, plus free shipping and a 30-day trial. Go to thrivemarket.com slash real chalk. This is how it works. Users will get $20 off their first three orders of $49 or more plus free shipping. No code is necessary because the discount will be applied at checkout. Many of you will be going to the store this week, so just hit up Thrive Market today.

Go to thrivemarket.com slash real chalk to get set up. Enjoy the show. And howdy, Potness. Potness, in this case, is spelled P-A-T-N-A-H-S. Potness. Those are all you guys. I am here sitting down with my bulletproof coffee. You guys might be able to tell that. It's really giving me that extra little bit of boost this morning recording this little intro for you guys. And I am Yaya. You guys are tuned into The Shrug Collective, and this is a brand new episode of The Real Chalk Podcast. Coming at you guys.

Thanks so much for tuning in. As you guys may have noticed, this is OPEX month, the whole month of July on The Real Chalk Podcast. Coming at you guys. Thanks so much for tuning in. As you guys may have noticed, this is OPEX month. The whole month of July on the Real Chalk Podcast is going to be OPEX month. Ryan and I traveled out to Phoenix, Arizona first, interviewed Mike Lee, which is on this episode, James Fitz, and then the CEO of OPEX as well. The week after that, we flew to San Francisco, interviewed Marcus Philly, whose episode aired first because he's a diva and he wanted to go first. No, I'm just kidding. It just fit better that way. So we put Marcus first. You guys can check that episode out. That was on our channel from last week. This week, we sat down with Mike Lee, who is the director of coaching over at OPEX and such an awesome guy, responsible for so many in-house athletes. And then he also has his online athletes trying to get them on the OPEX method.

It's pretty cool to be talking to him because he has an engineering background and takes that engineering background into fitness. So he is responsible for that scientific approach that OPEX takes to fitness to guarantee your proven results. So we really picked his brain just on that, how OPEX runs stuff, how they calculate what to give their athletes. Every athlete over there is on his own program in-house and online. Super cool stuff. Super cutting-edge scientific technology bullshit, not just kidding, not bullshit, that OPEX is running over there.

And if you guys haven't checked them out, just head over to their website and read up a little bit more or stay tuned in to Real Chalk all month to listen to opex month some stuff that we talked about with mike is confidence built through routine which is something that he keeps on preaching to his athletes so we talk about what their routine looks like how to tweak their routine for every single athlete's sports psychology is also a big factor that he talks to his athletes about. Wow, that sentence took forever to get out. How do athletes, well, I might just call it right here, guys, honestly.

I'll say it again. How does an athlete's brain work? And that's a lot better. So he sits down with his athletes at least once a week just discussing their goals, their beliefs, their motivation, where does all the energy come from, how do they feel, all that good stuff. They have the BLGs in place over at OPEX, the basic lifestyle guidelines. We'll talk about that and so much more. I'm just going to stop talking and let you guys jump into the episode. But before I do,

don't forget about our little special code that we have going on right now. We finally hit 1,000 members on our Chalk online programming. So we have 1,000 people all over the world following Ryan's programming, the same stuff that I do every day, the same stuff that everybody does

over at CrossFit Chalk every single day, and you guys get to check it out right now completely for free. Just head over to CrossFitChalk.com, sign up for Chalk online, and use the code SHRUGGED for the entire month of July, or as we like to call it, OPEX month, and you guys get to sign up for the programming for free. You guys get the CrossFit programming and also sweat, which is more of a conditioning, body weight-based type of training. All right.

This time I'm really done. You guys have fun with this one. Here. We're good here. All right, boys. All righty, y'all. Real Chalk Podcast coming at you. I'm Yaya sitting down with Fish.

We traveled all the way to Phoenix, Arizona. We're at OPEC sitting down with Mike Lee, Director of Coaching. Is that correct? Yeah, correct. Okay, cool. So we have a couple of athlete interviews or OPEC interviews coming up. Mike's going to be the first one sitting down with us. We'll give you guys a general rundown of what he does here at OPEC,

how things are run, and then we'll try and get into more of like the nitty-gritty stuff as we go on. Always like to give you the stage first, let you introduce yourself, and then we'll take it from there. Yeah, great. Yeah, so I'm the director of coaching here at OPEX. Mostly what I do is just manage and handle both of our remote coaching program and then our athletes on site is really where my domain lies. I also manage the business, and we have about 12 coaches underneath me around the world,

essentially doing remote coaching for about 700 clients in total. So pretty good and robust system, and it's all built from James' experience in winning the CrossFit Games in 2007 and then the evolution of more people needing good quality coaching and the evolution of the sport. Yeah, it's crazy how I remember James Fitzgerald just, I like that name just always was just like in my head. I was like, Oh, OBT, like James Fitzgerald. And then it turned that into, turned into OPT. And then literally when you think about CrossFit and you think about programming and stuff,

like if you think about something really smart, you're like, Oh, OPT. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like this programming is really good or this programming is really good, but like, this is like the smart stuff. You know what I mean? Like even just like we pulled in on the Uber and like, I just looked up and saw OPT. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like this programming is really good or this programming is really good, but like, this is like the smart stuff. You know what I mean? Like, even just like we pulled in on the Uber and like, I just looked up and saw OPT and I was like, Oh yeah. You couldn't even sleep last night. Cause you're so excited. Legitimately. It's really embarrassing. I get excited about this more than like a first date. Yeah. But no, no, it's cool because that, I mean,

people that see that in James is in and can feel his passion to derive and understand the sport of fitness a little bit better. That's, that's what I fell in love with essentially in, in kind of coming here and being a bigger part of what OPEX is doing now. It's like, I was always interested and intrigued about what's going on inside athletes about what makes them good, what makes them tick. Um, so, and, and, and James was really the only person that was looking into it, right? There's a lot of people that can write good strength and conditioning programming, and I'm not one to say that I'm the absolute best at it.

I think I do it well, but in the same respect, there's a lot of people that can write good programs. But there's so much more involved, and that investigation is what really triggered me on to being with OPEX and following James here to Arizona and seeing what we can do with this thing in the long term. That's literally all I do for my business is I spend a lot of time making programming for my gym.

But programming for a gym is very different than programming for an athlete. Programming for one athlete and another athlete is totally different as well. Yeah, for sure. I think gym programming, separate from athletes, and it should be totally, totally, totally different as well. Yeah, for sure. So, like, I think gym programming, separate from athletes, is – and it should be totally, totally, totally different. So let's say I'm a high-level athlete and I come in here and I need your help. What do the first couple stages look like and how does that go about? Like, if I tell you my goals, let's say I either want to be a really badass human or

I just want to – I want to go to the CrossFit Games. Yeah. Like, there's two, right? Like, one's, like, health and longevity. Yeah, for sure. And one is, like, okay, let's flirt with that line a little bit. Well, I'm glad you brought that up because that's the first question that you always have to ask someone. It's like, are you really in it for the sport? Because as soon as you say that, in my perception of things,

then the health and longevity story goes out the window. Which is fine. Because you want to win, right? You want to be a champion. You'll fucking die and do everything you possibly can to be first and have the gold medal like whatever that means and that's where it gets convoluted as a lot of people see um that you can you can still have this like wellness and longevity approach and you're you're burning you know everything you got to put into a workout um just doesn't work like that for me so if you could

clear that up with the athlete up front and they understand exactly why they're in it and exactly what it looks like well then, then it's transparent. There's no, there's no unclear vision of what the goal is long-term. And if you get an athlete identified with their goal long-term, then, then it's a clear shot. It's like, okay, this is exactly what you need to get, you know, where you want to go. Um, and there's, there's less of like that confusion and the questions of like, well, am I going to be able to, you know, do different things outside of the gym and, you know, be healthy and, you know, go talk about how healthy I am? It's like, well, you're not. And that's important to recognize for athletes,

for them to understand that there comes a time for sure that you can transition out of being an athlete and potentially go to that spectrum. But while you're in it, you're in it for one thing, and that's to win. And we talked about this yesterday too. I kind of, the way I explain it to myself, it's like this graph where you have these like interlocking paths and you have like the one is longevity and the one is just like having success as an

athlete. And I think for the majority of the population, you want to find the sweep spot, like where both of them cross. For sure. But for going to the games and winning the games, you got to be way up over here where longevity is down and just success and fitness is way up and i think that's the same with every sport i mean if you if you want to play football at a high level

if you want to play hockey at a high level there comes a time where you you're probably going to get injured because you're pushing your body to a limit where it's just it doesn't want to go yeah for sure you have to create adaptations that, for sure. You have to create adaptations. That's what people forget. The way you create adaptations is to push people almost off the ledge or you have to find out what people's potential is to understand how you actually create change. Um, so I like what you did. It gave in terms of the analogy of all different sports, because interesting enough, CrossFit is one of those few sports where people don't take a substantial amount of time off after the season. Yeah. Right. So it's like, well, you know, that's, that's interesting to look at because all other sports, they have this, you know, three, four or five month time where they're, maybe they're doing

some training still, but they're not, they're not doing their sport specifically. They're trying to do some things outside of their sport to recover and allow, you know, maximum potential to be reached once they're in season, um, to where that's, that gets murky and really is, is not done well, um, in the sport of fitness but as evolution happens now you're seeing more and more high-level athletes and I'm sure Ryan you've experienced this like you actually don't compete as much as you get further into the sport right right Matt Frazier how many times is he competing this year the games that's yeah he's gonna win the games so now now he in in and granted you know he's maybe an anomaly and a bad example but

you're seeing more and more higher level athletes not show up at, you know, he's maybe an anomaly and a bad example, but you're seeing more and more higher-level athletes not show up at these, you know, bigger competitions or their going team, you know, just to go enjoy it and have some fun in Miami. You know, that's great. And I think it's smart. It's just a smart approach to an athlete. But I think people just forget that. You put health and you put longevity and health, which is like over here, and then fitness or death, which is like that over here and then fitness or death

which is over here the athlete lies closer to death yeah right and you guys both know that being athletes and just pushing yourself to that extent like you know lying on your back every day isn't the most beneficial thing in the world for you absolutely being around the sport for as long as i have like i started in 2007 well i like I was around in 2007 and then I started competing like my first year was 2011 and then

I remember the year that you know Dusty Highland yeah man I remember that one year where he had all the girls on the podium yeah he had trained all of them

yeah and I roomed with Kenny Leverage at the time yeah and him and I were buddies and we were training partners and stuff like that and he was coached by

Dusty as well and I remember looking at the training. Yeah. And him and I were buddies and we trained partners and stuff like that. And he was coached by Dusty as well. And I remember looking at the training program and I remember just being like, dude, what the fuck? Like, it was just so much stuff. And I remember watching him work out like throughout the day. He would either be working out for like four hours straight or he'd be like doing like an hour, like three, four times a day. And I'm just being like, there's no way that that's legit.

Right. But these people were going on the podium. And OPT was still really big, and all his people, no one was really going to the games, and it didn't make sense to me because I'm like, he has a system. This person is just trying to kill you

and get all of your skills down. Let's talk about what it looks like, what you're trying to achieve through your system, and why is the person maybe not go to the games level like why do you not have as many people going to the games as someone who's just doing a bunch of a laundry list of things yeah yeah well i think it always comes down to the the athlete themselves so if you look at the different people that you know we mostly work with and granted you know i'll i'll have two individuals at the games probably a a couple teams. We have collectively six to eight masters, two or three teens.

So we have a pretty good plethora of people that are using our system, which I think is just a more educated approach to development and periodization of a CrossFit season. And what we like to tell people is we want people to be able to do fitness for an extended period of time. So the kick-to-shift philosophy, Those humans can only be resilient for so long for the evolution of them. Uh, it gets caught up with just, you know, shit being thrown on a wall essentially, and they can adapt to it because they're resilient humans. Um, but it's not

necessarily the training program specifically. Now there's a lot of people where all you need to do is actually just add more training and they get better and better. And you're like, what the fuck? But there's a lot of, there's a lot of athletes that could honestly do any program. And, and that's mine. That's, you know, misfits, that's Invictus, that's comp train, that it does not matter. They can do anything and still gradually get better in relation to the sport. Cause what they need is the sport specifically, right there. And confidence.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So if you're doing the sport more than your confidence, when you go into a regional setting, you're like, well, I've done all this different styles of, of training. It doesn't matter, you know, what energy system, or if they know what energy system they're training, all they know is like, okay, I've done, you know, 50 chest to bar pull-ups and workouts multiple times. I know how this is going to feel. When athletes get to that point, their resilience is so high. Like I said, they can do lots of different styles of training and actually variance is better for them. So as you get further in training and your training age gets older and you get, you know, higher adapted to things,

you got to change the stimulus more often. So that kind, you know, that shit on the wall, do everything is a great approach for them because they consistently have different training stimuluses. Um, so I think for that type of, of client, you know, and I, I won't take credit for, you know, some of their success, but it's like a Marcus Philly, just one of my clients that's had success been to the games multiple times, you know, well-known athlete, but you should, you look at his training and variance. You're like, wow, there's a lot of different styles mixed in here. I'm like, yeah. And he constantly gets better. So it's, it's hard to say, you know, that our system is much better than the next,

et cetera, when you're talking about high level athletes, because like I said, you can, you can do anything and still get better with those people. Now there's a lot of people that are underneath that curve. Um, that's where they, if they go into a system that doesn't have a plan and doesn't show progression and doesn't allow them to have the basis support and training to get to that level. Um, that's when they're there go and try to do anything and really just get spit out and they'll go to the next system or go to the next system. And what we like to say is we plan appropriately, periodize appropriately, and give people a long-term idea of what really it's going to take for them to get to where they want to go. We talked about this yesterday too. And I, I know you have like an engineering background. That's

where the whole like scientific approach kind of comes from. And I I'm in love with that kind of stuff. So like I've been, I've played sports for so long growing up and then football and all that, then CrossFit for so long that now I kind of want to be right in that sweet spot that we talked about where I want to be as fit as I can, but I also want to be as healthy as I can. I don't care about competing. I don't care about making it big. I love working out. I love the whole science behind it.

But the thing that Ryan and I were talking about yesterday, I feel I can tell me if you have any feeling towards that as well that there is something and maybe it's super unexplored that if you just beat the fuck out of an athlete for like a year that that's actually going to make him better like throughout that year maybe it's like super short term right but like the whole scientific thing works well but there's also the complete other spectrum where it's just like I'm just going to beat the fuck out of me for a year and hopefully make it to the games and see what happens. For sure. But the funny thing is that I've done that before because it is – there is some science behind it. There's an age curve though that's associated with it. Oh, for sure.

Right? It's 25 and under. Yeah. And it's like running towards the 20 to 24-year-olds, right, where they can really push it. Because now you even see people like Rich, et cetera. People think, you know, Rich and those guys don't know what they're doing. I'm like, if you look at his training, he understands some things, right? Like there's some ideas.

He's a smart guy. Okay, I get it. So that's why, you know, to your point, the science behind just, you know, giving someone everything is there, there is science behind it because you're trying to see how far you can create or how far you can push them to create maximal adaptations, to see what their physical potential is. And I think that's magic. There's a lot of cool shit in there because you find out if someone really wants to do it. So if someone comes to me and says, I want to go to the CrossFit games, I'm like, okay, we're going to see what you're made of. But in my brain, that's all we're doing. We're testing those limitations to see honestly,

if they really have it. Cause a lot of people look at it and they're like, oh yeah, I want to go to CrossFit games. I'm like, okay, we'll do this workout. And I'll tell you right now, if you're going to be ready in a year to be able to go to CrossFit games and people, people don't recognize that they're like, oh yeah, you're just giving them a bunch of shit. But well, sometimes a lot of shit gives you insight into the human itself. So if you can identify what the human and what makes them tick and if they have potential, fuck, it's magical. And then you lay out a plan that's smart and identified to eventually get back to what? What's the same shit you tested with them the first time? Because what is the sport itself?

What's chaos? It's chaos in a weekend. So if you can identify how they can be ready for chaos, that's even a thing, that's how you train it. So if someone's listening to this right now and then they think they're going to the games and they're listening to this because they saw the word OPEX on the thing,

they're like, oh my God, I want to listen to this one for sure. What does that first day look like for you in that crossfit games athlete you're like all right you want to go to the games do this what does that look like yeah i would start with like a baseline assessment doing some simple simple things like watching their their overhead mobility watching them do an overhead squat there's there's some complex things you know i love i love a snatch i think it's one of the most dynamic things if people move a barbell and move a snatch well you don't see much many games athletes that don't it used to be like this maybe six years ago when we got into it you

could get away with a shitty snatch and bent elbows yeah yeah dude there's no one snatching like that at the crossfit games well back then too if you snatch 200 pounds you were a monster oh right right now it's 300 fuck it's probably 350 soon i'm just totally unbelievable what the evolution of sport has done but but I would snatch them. I would watch them do some sort of knee flexion activity. I love a front squat for variation. Um, and then give them something simple, like a 2k row. Um, yeah, because just think about it. You get complexity, you get absolute strength and then power. Like that's, that's the sport in itself. I think you get a little bit hard in there. Yeah, for sure. Right. Cause there's,

you know, and you know, if you guys have fucking done a 2k row it's terrible yeah you guys just went like yeah i'll never do it again and people that don't recognize that that's that's like okay or someone this is interesting it goes back to our point of just not even being smart enough to comprehend it a good crossfit that just doesn't even know what we'll call it um low perception high resiliency like just we'll call it a dumb crossFitter. Not dumb and, like, mentally dumb, but just goes into a workout and, like, fuck it. I'm just going to do this shit. Yeah.

Like, doesn't warm up, gets on a 2K and rows a 630. And you're like, what the fuck? Right? And then gets on a barbell, just warms up for five minutes, snatches 290. And you're like, okay. There's something here. And then he front squats. You're okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Front squat 400, whatever. We'll just, I'll just throw some numbers out there. But like, if you think about that, man, like as someone like that, I'm like, okay, there's something here, right? There's some potential now, now granted, of course, I probably added in one more gymnastics based piece, maybe a max muscle upset, right? If they're not getting 25 plus reps as a male, I'm like, okay, we got a lot of work to do in relation to the dynamic skill and its complexity. So if you take those complex movements and you just identify those specific things during a day, man, I could tell you if people are going to be good at the sport. So that's an indirect assessment, but it's so easy to look at those and see numbers in relation to what other people are doing in the sport

and being like, you're you're 30 20 seconds away so say they rode a not a 630 they rode a 702 you're like you're fucking you got fucking a long time before you go into crossfit games because there's no one at the games that rode serona 702 yeah for sure and but i'm sure it's not just the the time or the weight that they're moving right there's like other things that you're looking at as well for sure yeah and you're looking uh and it goes back's like other things that you're looking at as well. For sure. Yeah. And you're looking, and it goes back into the low perception thing.

You're just looking to see what they do during the workouts themselves. So if you gave them another just CrossFit workout, whatever, Cindy, just something random and just watch them move. Good CrossFitters have a natural ability to make dynamic contractions, aerobic in nature, right? So us watching someone, you're probably more than, you know, you're probably further on the athlete side of the continuum than I am. But if I were to watch you do chest-to-bar pull-ups, you know, push-ups and air squats for 20 minutes,

you'd probably just walk away from it after, honestly. You'd probably be like, that was challenging. That was a pretty good score. And I would be like, what the fuck is that? I can't like, that doesn't make sense to me, but that's the difference is when you can make those dynamic contractions aerobic, that truly makes you a good, a good cross for the sport. So people are watching Rich and Matt and all of these, you know, Tia even nowadays, and even to Neil in the gym, it's astonishing because what we perceive as to be like something

that's really hard, it's just aerobic for them. Yeah. So they're keeping it repeatable. It looks like they're relaxed. Yeah. They're like, this is cake, right? They get done with the workout. And fuck, I've seen Rich Froning on the floor like three times in my entire life.

Yeah. Like Jackie was one of them in 2013 or whatever. It was one of the first times because he's like, man, fuck, I had to actually push on that workout to beat these guys. But you just look at those types of workouts and how relaxed and relaxed and calm there, and you're seeing it more and more, they fall on the ground for like 10 seconds. And then what's their like shaking each other's hands. Great job. That was great. And like, it just mind boggling to see what they can do in terms of recovery. So that, that to me speaks volumes when you can start to make those contractions more aerobic in nature, then, um, your, your, your dial then in in the sport i think double unders is such a good example when

it comes to that kind of stuff too i always talk to people about that where the really good cross with athletes double unders to them is the recovery time yeah you know what i mean like they're slowing down their heart rate is getting down like yeah exactly and then there's other people who like they're so tense and they're like just like gripping the rope and their shoulders are burning out i mean i remember doing that what was that open workout last year or this year like a hundred in it it was like it was like a hundred muscle ups a hundred something like this and dude in like the third set my shoulders were just completely blasted there's other people in the gym who are just like yeah hanging out through double unders yeah and

then i get to the muscle ups and i'm like okay let's go like i'm finally here yeah and then they're struggling with the muscle-ups, right? But it's just so interesting that something like that can be so different for two completely different people. Yeah, absolutely, man. That's why I love the sport, though. Yeah. Because there's so much in that. There's so much difference in the training between what you mentioned for yourself versus the other person in your gym.

That's great at double-unders, but they're horrible at upper-body muscle-unders. So it's like that's where the evolution of what we look at in science and people think of as smart training, but all we're doing is looking at, we'll call it a basic assessment and saying, okay, what does this person specifically need based on where they're at to get exactly where they want to go? So I think it's coaches that, you know, that's something that we've just pride ourselves on is just looking at the human and saying, okay, if you can't do, if you, you know, you barely have strict pull-ups, we're not going to keep you right away. We're going to, we're going to do a progression to get you stronger. I mean, that's, that's a very basic example, but you can have strict pull-ups, we're not going to kip you right away. We're going to do a progression to get you stronger.

I mean, that's a very basic example, but you can understand what I mean. We're just doing different variations of that for each one of these more dynamic and fast movements that are involved in the sport now. And out of all the athletes that come to OPEX that can be in-house or online, how many people – let's put them into like three categories, right? How many people really come in here and you're like, okay, yeah, you got what it takes. Like I can see this right away. Like we're going to get you to the games. Then two, how many people you get that are like, okay, we'll train you for a bit. We'll kind of see where it goes and how many people come in here,

they start training and after a while you maybe even know before they know that it's just not going to happen. Yeah, for sure. And so I'll answer your question. So first, the amount of people that actually get to the games, as we know, I don't know how many actual games athletes are in the CrossFit Games. I think there's, what, 40 or something like that. Yeah. It's so small.

It's less than a percent. So the amount of games athletes is probably around that. It's 1% to 2% of people that are actually going to qualify for the crossfit games yeah um the reality is and i think something that we do well is tell people that there has to be something bigger than going to the crossfit games for them to be involved in fitness like you have to have something more that it means to you and you got to do it for a better reason than just going and getting some some cool reebok shit and being able to wave to the crowd. I actually love that. Have a bigger why. Yeah, for sure. Cause if you don't, man, you're going to be fucking unfulfilled and it's constant. Like,

you know, a lot of people that get to the level of the CrossFit games and they go, and then all of a sudden, like, it's like, okay, that was a great experience, but they're still left with the kind of this empty feeling like that, that, that wasn't, that wasn't quite why I was in it. I thought it was because that's, what's perceived to be the top level of fulfillment in the sport. But if people can, that's why there's so many athletes who that go to the games, they get like 28th or something and then they never go back, never go back. Yeah.

Right. Because ultimately they're not in it for the right reasons. So I think if you, that, that first level, there's, there's individuals that are separating themselves right now, right? There's a clear list of people that you could probably put put there's probably 15 to 20 of them in the world you're like they're going to be at the games however long they want to be at the games yeah right and then there's that next tier which is like the 20th place of the games on that you're like yeah you're gonna have to work really really hard to make it back to the crossfit games um but that's

their pinnacle i think those people that are are in that area that put everything into their following year, they really want to go back to the CrossFit Games. And people that don't, they figure out, they get 12th at the regional the next year, and then they go be a weightlifter, right? Yeah. That's like the big thing now. Yeah, right? You switch up and do Spartan races and weightlifting.

So just back to the point is I think if you can understand. Spartan races? That just hit me. Yeah, fish is if you can understand. Spartan races, that just hit me. Yeah, fish is never going to do a Spartan race in his life. I actually did one back in the day. Me too. Yeah, I did one. Yeah, me too.

It's actually in Malibu, oddly enough. I did one in Temecula. Okay. Which actually not too far away. Yeah, for sure. But it was part of a CrossFit competition. It was a three-day weekend. Okay, that's cool.

And the last day of the competition was a Spartan race. Yeah, I think that's interesting. I think that's great aerobic development and pain. It was the best, most awful experience ever. I mean, they had the obstacle course at the Games last year too, right? Yeah, yeah. Tennille won that, obviously. So I love that work.

And I think they'll have another evolution of it. It was really good to watch. It was fun to see the heats and just watching people win. I love when they do stuff that's fun to watch. Yeah, for sure. Like the half marathon row. Yeah. Yeah.

Same thing. What is the first regional's workout this year? Yeah, triple three. Yeah, triple three. It's not even a run. It's a fucking true foam run. Yeah. For like 20 minutes.

You're just like sitting there like, oh, man, we're still going. It is a good test of fitness though I'll give them that oh for sure I like the workout it really is yeah but as like an entertainment factor it's like because if you're in the stands you can't even tell where everybody's at you know you're just on a two-fold and you're waiting for the first person to get off

let's go real quick back to these athletes who come in and you're like you know what it's just not for you and they just refuse to believe that and they just keep just hitting it. Yeah. So what does that look like and what does that conversation look like? Oh, for sure. That you have to have.

Well, then you throw them into the fire. You say, okay, well, then here's the tests and here's the scores that my CrossFit Games athletes are getting. Yeah. Let's see where you sit then because that's the truth, right? You can't hide from the truth. Now I have no problem of someone aspiring if they're truly aligned with a goal saying, I really would like to put together a plan that's going to help me get to where I want to go. And eventually if that is the CrossFit game is great. But the reality is, you know, not everyone's going to make the CrossFit games. So that's where the conversation has to be like, okay, well, why

are you in it? If you're in it, what do you get from going to the CrossFit Games? And too many people are in it for Instagram followers, for the Reebok clothes, and just to say they're a CrossFit Games athlete, right? That's, if you have- That does blow my mind. Right? But that's a super real thing. It's 100% true. But it's so interesting. Just hear me out on this. You'll notice a very big difference between the people that are in it to be at the CrossFit Games and be present because their number of posts in the weekend is what? One or zero. Yeah. Right?

It's like, oh, I got here. And at the end of the weekend, like, fuck, I went for it. But the rest of this population, it gets gray because they're still posting about their sponsors and smash packs and all this other shit. It's like, are you competing right now? Like, I cannot. It just blows my mind. I mean, even outside of the games. Like, if you look at Matt Fraser, Matt Fraser never posts anything.

And, like, that guy must be getting sponsorship deals offers from left and right. The only thing you ever see him post every now and then is, like, a Nike post, right? And that's for sure because he has to. But other than that, like, there's nothing ever like, ever like oh my god look at all the fucking free protein i just got like he doesn't care dude he just wants to go in his basement and work yeah dude frowning has an instagram that's called what's rich doing because rich can't post what he's doing yeah exactly yeah right i mean what's rich doing is actually comical it's like all right if you're not gonna post it i'm gonna fucking post it. Yeah, and business aside, like I get – and I'm happy that the sport has gotten to a point where athletes are making some money.

And that's great. So I don't knock sponsors. I understand it. But there comes a point where, like, you got to tell your sponsors, like, hey, I want to be exposed. And if I can put my everything into this at the end of the day, at the end of the weekend, you know, I'll say thank you. And I'll, you know, give you props because I went for it all weekend. And I think most sponsors will be like, fuck. Yeah, man, go concentrate on your workout, you know, do your thing. And then afterwards just say, Hey, shout out to these guys. Thanks for supporting me through this, blah, blah, blah. Um, but it's just interesting because, you know,

people can get in it for the right reason. Just going back to your point, you know, that conversation about like longevity and actually getting the games and maybe not in getting the games. It's like, well, then, then all of a sudden it becomes less about the games. It becomes more about why they're in fitness, why they love training. Like you mentioned, it's like, you know, I love fitness. I train every single day of my life. I enjoy it. I'm not going to ever compete at the CrossFit games. I'm very aware of that. But it's a big part of myself, my emotional state, everything, right? It really sets me up. Yeah, routine and rhythm. So for an athlete, even though they can strive to always improve their potential, get to their maximum, and if their maximum is good enough to make it to the

CrossFit games, fantastic. And if not, at least you created some transparency and some clarity about where they sit. Yeah, 100%. So let's take it to the opposite end of that spectrum. So someone like me who is out of competing, but I love, one, I love working out. Two, like fitness has always been a big part of my life. Three, I like looking good in the summer on the beach, right? That's kind of like where it comes in. And I also want to have a donut and a taco every now and then and just like yeah still be able to do that while living healthy yeah how do i find that sweet spot for me where like the fitness and longevity thing completely crosses over and we've been talking a lot about people especially we're in austin about how many times do you really need to work out a week anymore if if that's not the goal like

if i don't want to go to the games you know what i mean and a lot of people were saying like dude if you i think what's really important though too and tell me if this is something that you've experienced if you've built a certain baseline as an athlete so like i've been working out for fucking 15 years every single day right so now i can get to a point where i can like start scaling it back a little bit and now i'm fine if you've only done fitness for like a year and a half, even though you've hit it hard for a year and a half, maybe you can't scale it back just as much as someone who's been doing it for 10, 15, 20 years. Yeah, for sure.

The misconception is that CrossFit, we'll call it mixed modal fitness, isn't and can't be implemented into a training program for someone like yourself and be very beneficial. It's the way it's prescribed, right? So that's the difference. So for you, I wouldn't give you shit kickers that are going to leave you on your ass every single day. But you can still do mixed modal training. You can still do kettlebell swings, burpees, and double unders. It's okay.

There's a lot of variation in the training. That's actually very quality and healthy for people, you know, so a great strength base, good bodybuilding and some quality mixed modal aerobic work. Like that's fantastic and keep people, uh, entertained and also healthy for a really long time. It's just the misconception of now the sport has convoluted in that you have to be lying on the floor and going all out. Like, can you do that every once in a while? Absolutely. But is it good to be doing that every single day for someone like yourself? Well, not so much. And it's fun every now and then too.

You know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. Like every now and then you're like walking to the gym and you're like, hey, I'm going to get this shit on myself today. Yeah, that's okay. But you got to remember too, you have to look at the evolution of recovery. So for you, the recovery process is balance and rhythm in life, right? So if you're getting sun every day, you're going to sleep on time, you're drinking water, you have a good nutrition profile,

like all those things line up, well, then you can have some, a capacity to increase the amount of training consistency, right? So the amount of training is always relied on how much you can actually recover from the training because if you're kicking the shit out of yourself six, seven days a week, but you can't recover it, well, then it's doing the opposite to your body in terms of, you know, getting that curve to line up perfectly. Absolutely. So, you know, if you have a good lifestyle and good rhythm and good routine and quality of life is high, vitality is high. We could say happy, horny, and healthy. Like you have those three H's.

I like that. Great. Right. It's, it's, it's a great philosophy. It's like, okay, if you have those things, then, you know, train, you know, with some consistency four days a week, three days a week. I think it's always in relation to the human. So if your schedule doesn't allow you to train five days a week, then why are you trying to finagle it? Because someone told you that five days a week is the magical, magical number. Yeah. Um, the stress from that can actually make you more. Yeah. Worse, right? Like if you're like, I have to work out, like I call them cortisol monkeys, right? It's just someone that needs to rush. And I'm sure you guys see it coming to your gym.

They come in and they're like, oh, I've got to get the shit kicked out of me today. If I'm not lying on the floor, I can't go to work. It's like, well, that's the opposite of what we want. Can we dive in physiologically what's happening to the person who just kicks the shit out of themselves all the time? Yeah, for sure. Because I want everyone to know this. And we've talked about it on different shows, but to listen to you talk about it, it'd be great. For sure. Let's tell them like, what are you doing to yourself when you fucking ruin yourself

every single time? Physiologically what's going down? Yeah, for sure. Well, you just, we'll, we'll keep it pretty simple cause it's a, it's, it's, there's some complexity to it, but let's keep it simple. Like you have hormones, right? And hormones give you lots of different things. We'll call it the happy, horny, healthy philosophy. You have those things and you become vital. That means hormones levels are usually relatively good. You have a support, you have energy, you have this steady rise of energy, not having to drink coffee at 12 PM and then at 4 PM to get through your work day. Like you, you know, those people. So first off, they need to work out in the morning to get cortisol up. That's because they're not recovering at night.

So sleep is important. If we sleep through the entire night, we have a steady rise of energy. But people that don't have that energy, they need a spike to actually get their adrenals to give them some stress hormone. Yeah. Right. And what is that? It's burpees, double unders and sprinting. Right.

To get the kick shit kicked out of them. So they actually get some cortisol. Right. To have energy to go throughout the day. And then that's actually with, especially mixed in with the caffeine. That's like a downward spiral, right? That was my next point, right? You get up to 10 AM or 9 AM. What's their first thing? Well, it's a meal, maybe some carbohydrates because they're craving it based upon the cortisol response. And now what do you do right after that? Drink a 16 amounts of Americano, right? Okay. Bam, hit your adrenals again. So at this constant hit of the adrenals and of your system, your body is working incredibly hard, right? To give you what it needs to function throughout the day. I mean,

mental acuity is challenged, right? Insulin levels are all over the place because you don't regulate blood sugar well, right? It's just the steady, this is chaos, right? So in physiology, as you go further on throughout the day, your body becomes fatigued. It can no longer keep up with the stress response that it's being asked for. So what happens? Well, you go to more caffeine, right? Or you go to carbohydrates, you go to some sort of sugar because you're craving it, right? And that's the worst thing you could possibly do. And the reason why you're craving something like that, especially the sugar is just because you're so depleted, right? Exactly. You have nothing left. And if we go through that constant cycle, like you said, over and over again, every single day, there eventually becomes a time

where we cannot burn anything else. Right. So first goes, let's say the adrenal glands are working too hard. All of a sudden now you're burning hormones to give you energy. And after that's depleted, you're in a world of shit because it's very challenging to come back from that. And what most people don't recognize is they need to actually just go to the beach, walk, and do nothing for a month. And that's it, right, to come back and be able to apply the adequate amount of energy to get healthy again. Does it take that long, a month, for people who are really fucked up? I think it takes longer than that. I think it's going to take years for a lot of people that have done that. Just think of someone that's been in your gym and you probably

have these people that comes in every day and you know, these like, you're like, Oh yeah, I can identify this person. But you know, they've been coming in for the last four years or three years and that's what they do. They've been doing it constantly. And what you'll see with those people is over time, they'll be inconsistent where they're forced to take a long rest period. Or as coaches, you know, as a responsible coach, I'd be like, dude, get out of here for a while. Like get out of here and go rest, go walk in the sun. Because it's just such a slippery slope. Once it starts to go downhill, it's very, very challenging. It takes a long time. And, you know, as coaches, I don't think it's necessarily our jobs to be looking into blood work, et cetera. Like we should refer out to, to, to good individuals that can give them some advice and how to get those levels back up.

But what we are responsible of doing, I believe is telling, you know, athletes to recover is like, get out of the gym, go rest. Like it actually have some time to get your system back up to where it needs to be. Yeah. And I think it's so cool to what you were saying about like, especially getting out into the sun and being outside and just kind of taking some time away from the gym. The more, my favorite thing about having this podcast is the more and more people talk to the more and more I learn, because Ryan put it perfectly. He's kind of like he, what Ryan said is basically you're giving me like the rundown of your five favorite books, right? Like the five greatest things you've ever read. That's good.

You're giving me that right now. So I'm reading like five books as I'm talking to you. Yeah, cool. So the one thing was A, like just working out less. And then B, a lot of people, especially in Austin that we talked about, were all about like getting outside and grounding and being in the sun and vitamin D. For sure. And it's so incredible the change that I feel myself going through immediately

where now I'm okay with just waking up, going to the beach, meditating, getting a little bit of sun, and then starting my day and not working out that day. Yeah. And I'm completely fine. It's great. And I feel better because I'm not stressing about, like, oh, my God, I have to fucking make it to the gym today somehow. You know, there's so many, like, and I think all of us are, like, kind of used to that because our lifestyle was like that for so long. Especially when you want to compete, then I think it's a different animal. Like, then, okay, then you have to be here at 6 a.m.

No doubt about it. Then maybe you have to switch up something else in your life that allows you to be here at 6 a.m. and go 100%. But if you don't have to, you know, you feel better throughout the entire day. And I think it comes back to, like, the stress levels and all that stuff. We're just like, I'm okay with not working out today as long as I get to be outside or do something else. Yeah. If you can do a couple of things really well,

right, right. You drink half your body weight in ounces of water per day. You get sunshine and have a good circadian rhythm, which means, you know, you're rising around the sun when the sun comes up. And then as you,

as the sun goes down, you're kind of in more restful state. You're getting ready to go to bed. You get sunshine per day and get sun on your skin. And then as you, as the sun goes down, you're kind of in more restful state. You're getting ready to go to bed. Uh, you get sunshine per day and get sun on your skin. Um, and then you have purpose. Like if you can have those four things every day and then move blood, right. Doing some sort of movement. You said walking on the beach, we say weight training, we say whatever it is. Uh, but if you can do those things, then I think that's a great, simple, simple way for longevity, um, and health. And people

try to overcomplicate it because we all sell something. And I get that and understand that everyone wants to emphasize that their system is the best. I totally understand it. But what, what I love about our system is that we've simplified. It's like, you just do those five things. Now is there iteration and details in that we have conversations with clients on all the time? Yeah, for sure. But we try to overcomplicate it so much, right? And people don't want it to be that simple because we say, okay, just do these six things for the next three months. That's all you're going to do, right? And all of a sudden now they feel better and better. They're more motivated and all those

things start to come back. And I think that's powerful, but it's the consistency of those things where people falter, right? They, they, they want the quick fix and unfortunately being healthy and like, like having longevity, um, hat being happy, horny, healthy, right. That takes work and it's, and it's challenging and you, people have to really, it's crazy to me that people don't think that that should be hard. Like, Oh man, dude, do you you – like when people ask, like, how did you look like that? Or like, I want this body. Let's say you're training someone and it's a girl and she's like, I want to look like that. They're in the gym and they point to like the most ripped chick in the gym.

And I'm like, do you understand like every single thing that that girl does? Like she's here every day. She eats this. She goes to bed at this time. She does this. She does that. Like if it was as easy as you want it to be everybody would look like that yeah and like that's it's as simple as that i think everyone either wants to take a pill and it's done or they or they think

that it's like a thousand steps and they make it so complicated that it's it's not achievable yeah well and on the other hand too is just just because she's to rip this trick in a gym doesn't necessarily mean she's the healthiest. Oh, yeah, absolutely not. That's the perception of what health is. She might be on a completely opposite spectrum where you don't want to be at if you're not training on that level. Yeah, and just what we see. Not happy, horny, and healthy.

Yeah, what we see in media, though, is that those people are considered the top echelon. Totally. Top echelon of the sport, and that's where it gets, again, back to sport versus health and longevity, because for females themselves, like to have a percentage body fat and et cetera, and like all those things, it's like, well, what's the goal? Well, are, do you want to have kids? What does that really look like for you? And that's, that's an uncomfortable conversation that you, that I'm, you know, more and more inept and okay

with having that. You know, when, when I started having a conversation with an athlete, a female, especially that says they want to go to the CrossFit games, I'm like, more inept and okay with having that. When I start having a conversation with an athlete, a female especially, that says they want to go to the CrossFit Games, I'm like, okay, there are some things that we need to have conversations on about what's going to change in physiology, et cetera. Because the way they have to push themselves now with the volume requirements in the sport, it changes things. It's a simple thing. It just changes things in terms of what their capacity is to do and to be a woman essentially in development over time. Yeah, you stop having your period and... Yeah, it's... Let's talk about that real quick. We don't have to dive super into that, but if you have a female athlete that comes in and wants to go to the games, is there a way that you guys

ensure both? Like that she is able to still have kids and be healthy enough and still go to the games or is it you're done with this and you go into the games yeah i think there there's a time period uh component too because i think it's it's well and and people have done it so they've done crossfit and had kids like that that's it's it's not that it can't happen it's that the probability is not on your side okay in to the intensity. So I think as long as that's explained to the individual, they understand exactly what they're doing to their bodies to push themselves to maximal potential. I think if that's there, then there, there is this zone afterwards, but we, we don't know there's, there's not enough research and

studies done currently to say like, okay, if a female does CrossFit for X number of years, that this intensity, what's going to, what's it going to look like in physiology afterwards? Now, what we do is routine maintenance throughout the entire process. Of course we want them because there's a lot of good things for, for women when they do have cycles and that should be a natural thing, right? It's a detox method. There's a lot of good stuff that gets, uh, gets, gets released from the body, et cetera. So if we can encourage that, or at least support that on multiple different levels, even if they're not having a cycle, like what do we do? Will we give them the shake plate? We do all these different detox methods is going to clean out their blood, um, just to maximize the toxicity of their systems. So if we can do that consistently

throughout the entire time, then at least we're mitigating some of the risk and potentially in some of the inflammation they may have by not having a cycle. So there's lots of ways to do it, but I think it comes down to the clarity of what they really want to get into it for. Because a lot of people that want to have babies, like I'm going to train them completely different than I would across a games athlete, obviously. So I think it's getting clarity around if that's really the goal. And if that is the goal, then having them understand and being okay with that being

the goal, and we can build towards that. That's actually a perfect segue into my next question, because I think one of the things that you guys do very well here at OPEX is understanding the athlete on a human level as well. So it's all individualized, one-on-one coaching. So I think that gives you guys the opportunity to dive more into their personal life as well and understand one thing that we're talking about there, why and like what they're doing. But I think that also other things that may be stressors that they might not see as stressors that can then influence training in a poor way. Yeah. Right. So what are some things that you

guys do to be able to start that coach athlete relationship? Yeah, well, one thing is just having a great conversation initially when they get started because if you can develop trust in a relationship between coach and client, and I'm sure you guys have had coaches that you're like, yeah, we had a great relationship. If you look back, they were trustworthy. They were compliant. They communicated well. They were reliable. They were there when you needed.

They weren't a cheerleader, but they were there when you needed it. So trust is so important. If we can create that foundation in the relationship, then ongoing, you, you get the athlete to tell you things that maybe they're, they're a little bit, you know, uh, nervous to tell you, right? So if you can create that line of communication, then all of a sudden you find out things that really can open up some great stuff for them as an athlete. You find out their fears. You find out why they held back. You find out all these different small details that maybe if you didn't have that kind of relationship built,

they're going to hold in. Oddly enough, in competition time, all those things come out anyway. So you're like, wow, I just learned so much. Because in stressful, high stressful times, those things, they rear their ugly head and you're going to find out pretty much everything about the client. So I think that's the first step is having great communication through consultations and communication with the client. Because if you can do that again, the trust is there. And also their their understanding that you're looking out for their best interest in terms of where their goals sit is clear. Cause I'm a coach. I asked a client where they get, you know, where they want to go. And then I make sure that all the pieces align that show them that that's, that's exactly the, the breadcrumbs to get to the next step. Um, and where, you know, where I'm, I think that

the evolution for me as coaching is when the breadcrumbs don't quite line up is bringing those things back together for the client. And that creates even more trust because then things like emotional stressors, physical stressors, mental stressors, there's so many things that really working on the relationship and ensuring that I'm progressing. Then the client's like, okay, this is, I know what I need to do. And they get more focused. So they're hyper-focused. There's trust. Then I think the continuum and progression for the client is endless. And I think that's it. That's, that's ultimately why I've kept clients. I have clients, Pat Tennille for almost five years. It's just that kind of relationship where she knows that there's no one else that understands all the different aspects of her life and how they all come together as good as I do. That is awesome. I like that.

And I think most of the people listening to the show are more regular CrossFit coaches at regular CrossFit boxes. And if you would have an answer to this, then that's totally fine. But how would I, right? I'm a coach at Ryan's gym. I'm a coach at Chalk. Yeah. How would I take that same mentality and kind of apply it to more like a group setting? For sure.

Where obviously I don't have time to sit down with every single person. Yeah, yeah. I think, too, and I've coached group classes as well, for sure. So I always found time just to say like a couple of things to each person. And maybe that's something that's already preached in, in gyms. I've been like coaching in a CrossFit gym for some time, but I always try to find some time to, uh, have a little bit of conversation with the person. So I think that just the small things, like you remember, Sally had, uh, this soccer game that was really important to you. You're like, hey, how'd that soccer game go?

Bam. She sold on another year with you just because of that small little understanding, that small little reminder. I'm huge on that. Yeah. So if you do that, I think it's communication. That's the lost art of coaching. We fail to understand that communication is almost – and behaviors are so important to humans. We think that they like the program.

Granted, I know how important the program is. Believe me, I love programming. I geek out on that shit all day. But the communication and that transparency and understanding how great they appreciate the relationship. And even if it's just minute, it's such an impactful story for them long-term. So if you can keep doing that and you can put some time and energy, let's say you put 90% in your programming now and 10% in this, shift it to 70-30 and just really see shit, I bet you anything that they're going to come back and really, really be with you long term just because of that connection. That's a huge thing, I think. I think it goes back to talking about your purpose as well. Like, people have work and they have their daily lives.

And, like, they get so excited to come to the gym. And if you remember something about their day, like, they get so pumped on that. Like, I love when people ask me about like anything I have going on. I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah. Like unless it's like, you know, you have a broken leg, you have a cast in your leg and everyone's like, how'd you break your leg? Yeah. Yeah. But that's yeah.

That's what I mean. It's just like the obvious questions are the obvious questions. But just to answer something that's a little bit like only you and that person. No, that's for sure. That's really, really. Yeah. Even when they get back from a trip or something, you're like, how was Mexico? And they're like, oh, yeah. Yeah. It was cool. Yeah. You remember that shit. That's really, really cool. Yeah, even when they get back from a trip or something, you're like, how was Mexico? And they're like, oh, yeah, Mexico was cool, actually.

Yeah, you remember that shit. It's just such a difference. And that's something that I take pride in. I write notes for all my clients just to understand where they sit because I put a lot of emphasis on the relationship because I think if our relationship is good, then the training, like I said, there's a lot of good strength and conditioning programs. I do write good training.

That's going to succeed. They're going to get better. Like I guarantee it as long as they're aligned with everything that I'm giving them. And I, and they understand like, as long as I put these pieces in place, I'm going to continue to get better. Um, and then we let the relationship really just grow. And all of a sudden the trust develops and then the clients just kind of in this like flow pattern, we'll call it the flow state where they're getting better at training.

Their lifestyle is good. You know, everything's starting to become more fulfilling. Their job is getting better. Energy is good. They feel better. They're less down. Like that's, that's magic to me, even with an athlete or a regular client. Yeah. And I think it's a respect level kind of that you start building through that too. Throughout my career as an athlete, there were always two coaches to me. So two like completely different ways of coaching. One was kind of gaining the respect through fear. So that was like my football coach who would just scream and yell.

And if you were, if your toe was on the line, you had to fucking go run and do all that stuff. And then there's the other spectrum of the coach who it's almost, he builds respect through love, right? You have so, you care so deeply about them and you know that they care so deeply about you that whatever they throw at you, you know it's not because they want to hurt you or because they have whatever. It's because they know that's what's going to make you better.

And I think that's, to me, that's always been the better version of coaching. Yeah, for sure. I think all humans are different too. I think everyone responds to a different type of coaching better. Yeah, for sure. I think everyone responds to a different type of coaching better. I've got some males, even some females, that respond to a more aggressive approach. I use Nick Saban as an example because I just read his autobiography, and he was very much like that. He just is relentless.

He doesn't say hi to anyone when he walks in the training room. His assistant coach is defensive coordinator, walks by and looks right at him, doesn't say a word, just walks to his office. Some people can respond to that because they have such great respect on the talent that that individual is pushing you towards. And they recognize that although it's not done through nurturing, like giving hugs, he is always looking out for his players' best interest. He wants them to get to the next level. He wants them to be successful and how coaches articulate that I think is different per person.

So I think that it's always fun because you get to be a chameleon as a coach, and that's what I love about it, having so many conversations with so many different people. You have to kind of adjust your communication type. You have to adjust your behaviors potentially to adapt and attach or connect with the human that you're discussing, male versus a female, masculine versus feminine, lots of different ways that you can look at it. But that's just so exciting to me because you can really impact change because that person now all of a sudden has a bigger connection. And now when you discuss with them how important it is to chew their food, for example, or something like that, they're like, okay, I'm going to chew

my food now. Right. Instead of like, got to fucking chew your food and screaming out. And they're like, okay, let's try. And then and then two days later they're like I can't even come to the gym right now because I don't want to tell them that I didn't chew my food last night right you see the difference it's all the downwards right right sure we've actually come to the five love languages book and like yeah we're back yeah and turned it into like a fitness conversation thing for each person yeah it's great man yeah how each person needs their own yeah of communication. Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting that, you know, yeah, I, I like that book just for understanding how different humans are and being able to classify

them and just look at them as, you know, that not, not as like, eh, that's, you have your own biases and perceptions of people. And all of a sudden now you're just working on how I need to best connect with this person, not even looking at what you originally originally thought of or your biases of them yeah and I know one thing that you were always always very big on and we talked about this a little bit before we started the recording as well it's just kind of like the mental game yeah of crossfit and like the mental health of your athletes um if you want to talk about that for a little bit yeah that's great I think that there's a lot of people that ask the same question and we got into this a little bit but the question needs to be if the athlete is really prepared

and ready to put it all on the line. Um, so much goes into mental preparation, et cetera. And I think there's a big component to meditation going through the workouts, understanding how you're going to execute your plan. Um, but then it's another thing to actually go out and do what you meditated. Um, and I think that's the disconnect. I think a lot of people try to find ways out. And I think us all as athletes, we can look back to situations and be like, yeah, there's been a couple times where I'm like, I don't know about how this is going to go. So you're going through your mind like, well, is this going to go okay? So that kind of, those kinds of nerves just create this grayness where the athlete can either go put it out online, go for it. Um, or they're going to hold back a little bit. And again, in stressful situations, you find so much, so much about people. Um, so I think mental training itself comes from the training build and specifically the consistency

of the training throughout the entire year. If you're practicing multiple scenarios where there's pressure, where you have to go on broken, where you are happy, you have people watching all those things have to come into training process throughout the year, which create the confidence to go into a competition setting and, and, and go for it. Um, it also comes from, we'll call it athlete IQ. Um, and that means that the individual has a lower perception of like, you know, worrying about any of these other stressors and a really high resiliency tolerance, which means that they're going to go out and go for it. Now, whether they blow up, they might blow up. They might go for it and it completely explode.

But as a coach, like I'm like, man, you went after that. So I can appreciate that. Right. But I can appreciate that as a coach. You're like, wow, you did everything you possibly can to work through that. And, you know, thank you. That's it. You know, that's it. You leave it at that. Right. But I can appreciate that as a coach. You're like, wow, you did everything you possibly can to work through that. Um, and you know, thank you. That's it. You know, that's it. You leave it at that, um, to where I'd rather see that than someone that, you know, finishes middle of the pack and they're like, Oh, that's a great weekend. I'm like, what? Like that, you know, you just never really flipped that switch. Yeah. You can see the disconnect. So I think that's the magic

in mental coaching and setting athletes up for success. First comes the training and exposure and consistency of them, understanding how to be confident in those scenarios. The second comes with the conversations leading up to the competition that's like, you know, consistently remind them, like, you're going to have to risk it all. Like, are you going to be okay with the vulnerability of being out there on your own? Because in a competition setting, although there's people around you, like, you're on your own.

Like, you know that about regionals. Like, you know, you gotta, you gotta do the work. There's no one else that's helping you. Like there's no one else out there. And it's just you too. Like you can't let the other person who's way ahead of you, like get into your head. Cause sometimes that person dies out. He's like, it's first time. It's his first time at regionals and he's just fucking going for it. It doesn't know. Yeah. It doesn't know that after that 50 minutes later, you're done, you know, like a thousand meter row, 50 thrusters and like you go to a pull-up bar too soon. You do 28 and it's over. Yeah. You can't do two more, right? You fail. I mean, you see that even

at this year at the fifth workout with the dumbbell box overs, like, you know, most people that are going accelerating in that work, including Tennille and Colleen, Colleen won that workout and Tennille got second or third. Um, you know, they were last to the bike and one of the last people onto the box. And mentally you just need to be in the right place. Yeah. that workout and Tennille got second or third, um, you know, they were last to the bike and one of the last people onto the box and mentally you just need to be in the right place to understand that. But that comes from this conversation that we had before. Like, this is your pace. Don't get overworked. Don't try to speed up. Just stick to what we have, what we discussed. And then, you know, on the back end, it's just, it's just, you allow some magic to happen for

athletes. I think you have to have that in there. Athletes will be athletes, and if they want magic to happen, they're going to make it happen. And I absolutely love that feeling too. I mean, like I said, when I first started CrossFit, I always had this suicide pace mentality, right? I'm just going to go as fast as I can, and when I try to hang on, I'm just going to see what the fuck happens. And then as I progressed, I got smarter and smarter and pacing and breaking it, like knowing me as an athlete and my abilities. And nowadays, I fucking love that feeling. Like even just in a regular class where I go to chalk where I'm working out with the class and we start with a 50-calorie bike buy-in before anything else.

And I'm the last one off the bike. Yeah. Right? But you're sitting on the bike and you see people getting off and you just kind of start grinning and you're like, okay. Yeah. We'll see where you're at in 20 minutes. I know something you don't. Yeah, exactly.

But that's the magic. That's the intelligence. That's the athlete IQ that is so important that athletes have to have the capacity to develop that in the training practice. That's where pacing and interval style training, energy system training comes into play because you recognize and understand that you don't always have to go all out with high intensity. Again, we think and perceive, you know, Rich and Matt going all out in these workouts and they're not at all six times a day. Right. And it's just like, they're that much better than everyone else. And that's just the crazy thing about those guys is they're so much more fit than people. We think that they're going a hundred percent, but they're going like 80 to 85, right? Just cruising,

right? Which is unbelievable. So if you have that athlete IQ, the mentality aspect, I think is, is something that's innately inside people. I think if you, you won't make that decision to go for it, then you have a lot of work to do personally, not in the gym necessarily, personally to get through some shit to understand why you're really in it and why you're not willing to risk it all, fail in the middle of everyone and have them laugh at you and you not give a shit, right? To go on to the next workout. Because I used Tennille, for example, two, three years ago when she made the games the first time, she got 33rd on the first workout. Second workout was strict muscle up.

And it was like, all right, you know, make your decision. Even this year, you know, getting 16th on the first day and she was just in mud just in relation to elevation and sickness before and a bunch of different shit. But it's like you either make a decision after that to go for it and put everything out there and try to die trying, or you hold back and you don't make it, right? And you just use that as an excuse and something to sit on. Like, oh, yeah, this happened. So it's just like – and that's the difference between what I believe a true athlete that's ready mentally and one that's not. And what are some of those techniques that you use to coach that mental toughness?

I know you guys do like a meditation session like right before you start working out. What are some other things that you guys use throughout the day? Yeah, I think there's some great books that athletes can read. I think one, yeah. We always do a book recommendation. Okay, got it. Relentless is one.

It's a Kobe Bryant story of how he came back from his Achilles injury. Oh, I like that. That's cool, that's awesome. Yeah, it's a really fantastic book. He just has so many great parallels into just having the right mental state and understanding what it takes to actually get back to where he was, which is on top of his game again. It's just

incredible to understand how much he went through, but also how fucking hard he worked to get back to it. Absolutely. Right. That's, that's really important. There's the gold medal mind, Jim Aframor's book. And then there's also the champions mind, both by Jim Aframor that are both bestsellers, but are both fantastic ideas on creating that championship mindset. They also give framework and some like lessons for you to actually work through to practice over and over again, to get exposed to like these things, a negative self-talk and how to work through some of those things.

And I think that's great. I think if they're, they can learn from those things and they can have some frameworks to kind of stop that when it starts, I think then you set yourself up for a really fantastic evolution. So I think resources are fantastic. And then yeah, practice in the gym. Cool. Awesome. Those are great recommendations. I'm actually really excited to read that. My last question, I don't know about you, but I only have one more. One of the things that I saw on your blog like a few days ago was you talking about how routine can build confidence.

Yeah. And one of the things that I geek out on super hard is having that routine. So I have like a strict morning routine. I have a strict nighttime routine. I agree. I've actually picked up a bunch of your stuff because Austin O'Neill. Yeah, cool. I started CrossFit at Winnie City in Chicago.

Oh, cool. Yeah, great. He was my coach. Awesome. And I've been following him. And so I started CrossFit at Winnie city in Chicago. So he was my coach and following him. And so I've picked up a bunch of your stuff. I always do the lemon salt water stuff in the morning, um, the chewing your food kind of thing. So any kind of little life hacks that you have or like routine stuff, just lay it on me. Yeah. I think, I think the biggest life hack is just getting into a machine. People don't recognize how important it is because there's such eradicated schedules and people are too busy to figure out how this can be consistent. What they don't recognize is how much more consistent it can make you and how much more efficient it can make you throughout your day. Um, so yeah, I think, um, you can go

back to what we call the basic lifestyle guidelines, which is moving blood, you know, drinking 50% of your body weight in ounces of water, uh, getting up when the sun comes up, going to bed when the sun goes down, sleeping through the entire night. That's something that we'll touch on right now. Might as well get into it. But your room needs to be completely blacked out. It means blackout shades.

You can't see your hand in front of your face. No cell phone in the room whatsoever. If you have any lights, make sure it's a salt lamp or something with a red light that doesn't affect or stimulate the light, the eyes at all. We keep hearing that just everywhere. Every person we talk to. Yeah. It's massively important. Yeah. Just based on how much media is available, how much we do Kindle and computer and iPhone, like all these different evolutions, lights, reading lights, all you're doing is causing a

stress response and you have to recognize that. So that's, that's massively important. If we're going to go back to happy, horny, healthy, the two free things that we can do to support that or sleep the entire night in a completely dark blacked out room, um, with no wake-ups to go to the bathroom and then get sunshine per day. I pee three times a night. Yeah. That's a problem. I know. I don't know how you stopped that. Yeah. Well, you got to remember that most of the time, not always. If you guys were 60 years old, I could understand you getting up to go to the bathroom because there's differences in controlling your bladder, et cetera, at that age. Um, but now all your, all you, it's essentially just a stress response. The reason that you get up is caused by some sort of change in blood sugar

or cortisol, right? It's not caused by you having to urinate. Oh, okay. So it's caused by that. And what's your action? You wake up and you have to go to the bathroom. It's just the thing you do. So what you want to be dreaming about peeing. I'll be like, I'll be like in a pool or something. I was like, Oh my God, I'm so good. Or like, I'll be like hiking some trail, like in Norway. And I'd be like, Oh, I have to pee. And I'm like, Oh my God, I'm fucking sleeping. You know what I mean? Like, there's a couple, there's a couple of tricks in your brain. Really, you have to trick your brain. So 90 minutes to two hours before bed, no water.

That's something that you can consistently do that at least lets your brain know, like, okay, I didn't drink water for a substantial amount of time before sleeping. Like, okay, I can rest now. The other thing is develop a better nighttime routine to get yourself into a more parasympathetic state, right? Because when you're stressed out and we're going like, oh, and we don't meditate, we don't calm down before bed. Well, you're still in this unrestful state. So all of a sudden you're going to have imbalances throughout the entire night, which are going to cause you to dream about pee, which are going to cause you not to get in like a deep REM sleep. Um, that are going to cause, you know, wake ups throughout the entire night. Um, so develop a great nighttime routine, meditate, calm down your

nervous system, get into a restful state, no drinking water, you know, up to two hours before bed, no food up to two hours before bed. That's something that's, you know, can work relatively well for someone that's not sleeping through the entire night. And we also have to look at just what the meal is prior to bed and to ensure blood sugar is balanced. I know that seems funny. You're like, well, we're talking about pee here. Well, all you're trying to do is regulate cortisol and blood sugar or insulin throughout the entire night. Awesome. That's so interesting. And when you say meditation, is there a difference in between my morning meditation and then my nighttime meditation?

I think so. I think, well, I think it's different for every person. I think nighttime meditation needs to be reflection or however you can get into the most calm state as possible. Now, meditation for a lot of different people is different. Like I just, I don't think there's one way to meditate and you have to like be in this Zen state. I think stretching can be meditation. I think, you know, there's journaling. I think reflection can be meditation.

I think all those things can be massively beneficial. So you need to find something for the individual that gets you into a really calm, rested state. And that's meditation for that individual. but it needs to be with no lights. You know, and we use, I tell people all the time, okay, if you have to do something at night, you're going to watch a show, get blue blocker glasses, put them on. At least that gives you the different light reflection into your cornea and your eye. And you're not, you're not, you're not having a stress response from whatever you're watching. So yeah. Cool. Sounds good to me. How about you fish? No, that was, that was Cool. Sounds good to me. How about your fish?

No, that was, that was great. The P thing is something I've been really, I wanted to work on that really bad. Cause I wake up a lot to P. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's uncommon. It's not talked about a lot, to be honest. Um, uh, there's a book called lights out that you both have to read. Yeah. It'll explain everything in terms of what I talked about in physiology and just understanding rhythm and balance. And it also gives some recommendations on how to, how to get past that. But ultimately you're just not calm enough before bed. So you're not in a deep enough sleep to where your eradicated blood sugar levels or, or, or spikes in cortisol are not resisted by the CNS or the nervous system. So it's causing a spike. And all of a sudden, when you come into that, uh, like that, you're

going to go to the bathroom and you have to go back to bed. And really what I say is like all you're doing is napping at night. You're not sleeping. You're just napping in between wake-ups. Yeah. No, it's incredible for sure. I wear the Whoop 2 and it breaks down your sleep into different stages, right? Awake, light sleep, deep sleep, REM sleep.

I get like 15 minutes of REM sleep at night. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a problem. Literally. Yeah. I bet. All right. Yeah. We'll check out that book for sure. Fish, you got anything else you want to add? No. I'm stoked on how that was really good. Just for you guys out there who want to know a little bit more about this man right here, where can we find you? Opexfit.com. Yeah. Mike Lee Opex on Instagram, Mike Lee on Facebook. And I don't know when this is coming out, but I'll be I'm around at lots of different events and competitions. I love coaching athletes and communicating with other people just about, you know, the development of the sport. So come find me.

Love it. Cool. That was awesome, man. And then Yaya, you want to talk about your graphic design? Yeah. So you guys know me, Yaya at Yaya's View on Instagram. I do all the graphic design stuff, everything related to the podcast, the video, the... A lot of the stuff on my story. A lot of stuff on Fish's stuff, a lot of stuff that you see for the gym as well. Got the new vlog coming out. So I want you guys to check that out for sure. Phoenix Trip has been pretty cool. So we've been vlogging this the entire time as well. You guys can check out Austin, Venice, everything else we've been doing. Just head over to Real Chalk on YouTube and smash that like button and subscribe button. Yeah. And then, Fish, what do you have going on?

Yeah, you guys know me. CrossFit Chalk, Chalk Nation. If you guys want to be part of the online programming community, be part of the gym from a remote location, you guys can check us out at CrossFitChalk.com and sign up and be an online member and be members with thousands of other people. All right. Sounds good to me. Mike, dude, thanks so much. That was awesome.

Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. Appreciate it. All right. Is your brain growing or what? That was a super fun episode. Like I said, OPEX month all week. So come back next week for James Fitz. That's going to be super fucking awesome.

Or skip back one episode to listen to Marcus Philly. You guys are going to get the whole OPEX experience this month. As always, guys, if you guys have any other questions left, feel free to hit me up at yaisview on Instagram. You can find Ryan at Ryan Fish on Instagram or simply the Shrug Collective at Shrug Collective on Instagram. Always love hearing from you guys. Thoughts, remarks, comments, concerns. Ryan loves naked dudes. So if you just want to send him like a bunch of dick pics over there, he loves that stuff.

That's his favorite. So go ahead and send those over to at Ryan Fish. Slide into those DMs and make his day. Other than that, we're going to make your day right now. You guys get to join Chalk online completely for free. We finally hit a thousand members online. So you guys now get to check it out for free. Head over to crossfitchalk.com use code shrugged for your first month completely free and follow what Ryan programs for me, for everybody here over at CrossFit Chalk and why we're all looking so goddamn sexy in our bathing suits.

Beach season is here. Time to get shredded. Shrugged at CrossFitChalk.com gets you a full free month. And I'm Yaya. I'll see you guys here next week.