Barbell Shrugged - Rich Froning & Angelo Dicicco on The Power of Having Great Training Partners - 211

Episode Date: May 18, 2016

"I'd take good training partners over a great coach any day" - Rich Froning Rich Froning is 4-time Fittest Man in the World and CrossFit Games Champion, as well as a member of CrossFit Games 2015 Affiliate Cup winning team CrossFit Mayhem Freedom. Angelo Dicicco is the 1st 14/15 CrossFit Games Teen champion. Both are from Cookeville, TN.

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we travel to Cookville, Tennessee to interview the world's fittest man, Angelo DiTicco, along with the other world's fittest man, Rich Froning. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Hey, I see you sitting there, lonely by your keyboard. If you want to, just whip your fingers out, put them on your keys. Type in http://www.barbellshrug.com. While you're there, swing on over, sign up for the newsletter.

We'll send you some cool free stuff. And make sure to check out Overtime. It's a sweet place with a bunch of sweet stuff. And last but not least, I know you're trying to find a bitchin' t-shirt to get your mom for her birthday. Head on over to merch.barbellshrug.com. Yeah. Yeah, so I am starting to downregulate. Head on over to merch.barbellshrug.com. Yeah. I think we're good. Yeah, so I am starting to downregulate right now.

I'm getting tired. You're getting tired? Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. We kind of had a blowout earlier. You did have a blowout. I got a little out of hand. You got a little out of hand. Sure.

I'll do what you do today. What did y'all do? Tell us about what y'all did. Well, he was supposed to do what I did today. He technically didn'all do? Tell us about what y'all did. Well, he was supposed to do what I did today. He technically didn't. He did it a little bit faster than I did. But it was clean and jerk 380 pounds for time. And he won by a couple of minutes, probably 15 minutes.

I finally got it, but he finally got it too. Yeah, we both PR'd our clean and jerk today. Good day. Yeah. After we swam. We both swam today. I swam a little bit. I swam like a quarter of what y'all did.

I did probably like 500 meters total. But you're also not used to the volume that we swim. I did way more kicking today than I have ever done in my life. Oh, yeah. Kicking sucks. And my hip flexors were pretty tired. How much did y'all swim today? I think it was like 2,000 yards.

I think we were in a yard pool. 2,000 yards. Usually it's around what we swim is 2,000, whatever're in because i know i got in that pool and and we just what what is what is like the the cross section of that i'd say you were probably doing like 20 yard 25s maybe because one one trip down dude i was so fired up when i saw you aren't you glad you tried yeah i'm glad i tried yeah it was it was definitely a lot. What I was doing before, that was not swimming. Very cool. You're surviving.

That's all that matters. I don't swim. I survive. It's all surviving. You look fine. You're catching up. You look good, too. No.

Especially the kick. Yeah, we were talking about that earlier. Well, later after we saw, and when you were on that paddle board, you were kicking. Terrible. Yeah. Well, that kick is hard. Yeah, you're terrible. paddle board you're kicking terrible yeah well that kick is hard yeah you're terrible terrible wait a minute before we start talking too much let's just at least tell everyone who's listening yeah who we got on here what's up guys welcome to barbell

shrug i'm your host mike mcgoldrick here with alex macklin yo and as always ctp behind the camera and we're here in cookville tennessee in the original Froning's barn with our special guest today, Rich Froning. Hey. And Angelo DiCicco. Hey. Now, we have been here for a couple days and we've done a bunch of cool interviews, but I'm really excited about this one because Angelo is something special. He's the first 16-year-old that we've ever interviewed.

So, with that said, why don't you tell people a little bit about yourself and why we're interviewing you. I won the CrossFit Games for the 14-15 Teen Division last year. Yeah, the first time they had a Teen Division, I won that. And then I guess here I am. I love how he just comes out and just says it. Because we've had guests on the show that they just want to talk about, well, you know, first I started off with this.

They don't want to talk about their accolades. And then this dude's like, yeah, I won the CrossFit Games as a teenager. And by no means did we mean to put you on the spot like that, but thank you for telling people that. But also, he's a cool dude, man. He's more mature than I am. He's been on this earth half the time that I have. Some days he's more mature.

And he's won the CrossFit Games far more many times than I ever will. So, yeah, man, glad to have you. Maybe a little bit more. Like how'd you get into CrossFit? He, him, and Dan Bailey came to my middle school, and they ran us through a little workout. I did not know that. I didn't know that was what kind of started it.

After that, I asked him, I go, hey, is there any way I can come join your gym? And he goes, yeah, we got an intro class. You I can come join your gym? And he goes, yeah. Yeah, we got an intro class. You can come take the intro class. And he goes, I think we'll have a teen class soon. And so I did that. I went to the intro class. And then after probably about eight, maybe almost a year,

then they had the teens class. And then so I was doing that for a while. How old were you when you first did that first workout? When Rich came to your gym? 12 or 13. 12, 13 years old. Yeah, just 13, I think. Yeah.

What did we make you do? It was, it was like, I think it was, it was on the basketball court. I remember that part. It was like, go to the middle. I think you go to the middle and you do, I think it was a warmup. You go, you do some burpees. You come back, you tag your partner, they go. And then, and then we played a game. I think we played like dodgeball or maybe maybe handball

something like that yeah and you get out every time you get out you do five push-ups and then every time you get out uh more you do five extra push-ups so you do five ten until you know okay it was only like it was only like three or five minutes it wasn't a long did you play any sports before you started doing crossfit uh ran cross country and then played a year of lacrosse in there gotcha that's about it yeah and you said earlier played a year of lacrosse in there. Gotcha. That's about it. And you said earlier that lacrosse is your favorite sport. Oh, yeah. Lacrosse is fun.

I still love it. I wish I could do it competitively, but I like this a lot more than lacrosse. So when you did this first workout, was it easy for you or was it hard? How was it? How did you feel? There was running in it, so I was happy. But it was a little bit of running, so I'm like, okay, I can do this. Hopefully there's a lot of running in this.

Were you just beasting everybody else in the school? No, I was probably a solid soaking wet. I was probably 115. So I was tiny, so tiny. So no, I was not an athlete by any means at all but were you like

beating everybody else in the class like did you know that you were at a higher level than everybody else or no not really

no I didn't think so okay now when you started did you get into this with the intention of competing or did you just

like the workouts and want to have fun and you know something different it was just because I liked I like uh, like doing cross country cause it was endurance sport and I knew I wanted to lift weights. I want to get a little bit bigger. So I started doing that for a little bit. And then after that I found CrossFit and then started doing that because it kind of mixed the two pretty good. I keep that endurance. I get lift weights

and have fun with it yeah and yeah i didn't think about doing it as a sport at all gotcha because when i was your age i i mean maybe if kraus was around i would have probably done and enjoyed it as a sport but but i don't know i like to i liked to play a lot of sports and i i liked some things in the weight room i hated running and things like that and i liked i'd like to lift weights but i i never would have thought that i would have tried to pick up exercising as a sport for sure. Well, it didn't exist when we were in high school. I know.

I was going to say, I don't know if it did, if I would have or not. Yeah. Funny story, actually. The last year, Angelo signed up in the open, in the open division. Like, he wasn't going to do the teen. He's like, that's stupid. You know, if I finish, because we knew he was pretty good. And so we were like, you need to, there's's a teen division you should sign up in the teen division he's like no you know there's not

going to be any chance for me to do anything after so what's the point in doing it because they hadn't announced that they were doing the games like angelo you should just just do the team like there's no point in you getting like 30 30 000 yeah place or something 30th if i would have got 30th i would have been ecstatic. So finally, I think you actually registered twice. You registered in the open division and then also in the teen. I didn't even decide to do the teen division until Sunday of the first week. And then so he signed up, and then after it, they announced they were doing the teen games.

And I was like, aren't you glad you listened, dude? He was like, yeah, yeah, I am. Yeah, very cool. So I was going to ask, when he you glad you listened, dude? He was like, yeah, yeah, I am. Yeah, very cool. So, go ahead. Oh, sorry. I was going to ask, when he came in the gym, Rich, did you recognize his talent? I wasn't really there in the beginning of when he first started working out with us. Darren, you know, does most of the coaching there. So, I remember hearing about him and hearing how we had to, like, either kick him out of the gym because he would just hang out all day.

Or, you know, when we would be there and he would be with us, he kind of like get this kid out of here what's he doing but no he's a good kid and uh we they really had to like dial him back from the beginning he just wanted to you know lift as heavy as he could and yeah and do everything and we were kind of like all right let's let's make sure you're doing stuff right before we we let you you vet harped on him for what a year she would let him do is 90. Yvette's your gym manager? Yeah, yeah. She runs a gym. She wouldn't let him use anything more than 95 pounds, right, for like a year, year and

a half. I did. And so, I mean, and it worked. I mean, I think it paid dividends in making sure he did stuff right instead of just trying to get stuff heavy. You learn how to move. Oh, yeah. And you move really well.

Yeah. It took a little while. Yeah. It wasn't a good mover at the beginning and just a lot of 95 pounds on the minute yeah just do a few on the minute that's helped a lot yeah you for for as young as you are like i watched some of your uh you snatching and clean and jerking like you move really really well yeah i tried to yeah what's some of your best uh clean and jerk snatch 235 almost 245 did that workout the other day. Almost got it. And then 275, clean and jerk.

At 16, 17 years old. That's really strong. Yeah, I wasn't doing that at 16 or 17. How tall are you? About 5'10", yeah. And how long have you lifted weights? For real, probably a year and a half, maybe two years. So you still seem pretty tall.

It's not stunting your growth. Yeah. No, no. Not at all. You see that, pretty tall. It's not stunning your growth. Yeah. No, no. Not at all. You see that, people? He's not. That's not being his growth. Yeah.

So, Rich, when did you kind of take him kind of under your tutelage? I'd say in the last year or so probably. You know, we kind of – when he could start driving, we didn't have to, like, pull him around everywhere. So, you know, it's kind of tough because you're like, I don't want to go pick him up from the house but he hung out at the gym all the time with aaron and all those guys i guess i'd say really in the last year or so we've really been like all right angelo come on come hang out with us he's on the text thread with us every day

tries to skip out on the swimming and running sometimes so uh sprinting do it yes um so i want to ask a little bit about you know to do this as much as you are. So most kids are in school. Yeah. You're training a lot. Do you do homeschool? Do you go to high school? What's the word?

Homeschooled. Yeah, this year is my first year homeschool. I have a lady in town who has helped me through the whole thing. She homeschooled her daughter. She's a teacher at the community college here. And so she's been a huge help in teaching us how to do it and not letting me get behind yeah that way i stay on track so i have a schedule to where i can see i'm gonna finish here i'm gonna finish here so like where i'm gonna finish everything so i'm

not falling off track i'm not getting behind because i don't want to i don't want to graduate on 30 do anything school-wide i hear that all the time. Just enough. Just enough. Well, how many times a day do you train on a regular? All day until 5.30. Yeah. 5.30. Usually from 9.30 to 5.30. Yeah. A couple times in there.

Yeah. Interesting. So you'll do like from 5.30 to 9.30 at night. Is that what you're saying? Or from 9.30 to 5.30. Yeah. 9.30 in the morning to 5.30. Yeah.

Okay. And so probably maybe three, four times a day, like, workouts trained typically? Yeah. Yeah. There we go, somewhere in there. A question I have is now you talked about for a couple years, you know, you had Yvette kind of making sure that, you know, you were learning things correctly and Rich was there as well.

But now that, you know, you're pretty proficient in the movements and the training volume's high and you've won the games, you're training with the big dogs daily. Do you dial things back or do you just keep up with what you can? You know, like how do you control that? You know, because you're going to be doing the teenage workouts for a couple more years. And then I'm going to guess that you want to keep going to the next level

and, you know, get to the games and so forth. So are you, like like training for that now or are you training for the workouts that you're presented with now? I don't know. I train. I do usually the stuff that they do. And then if there's anything that I really need to work on, then I try to do that instead.

So, yeah, I just focus on the things that I think I need to focus on, just regular training, focus on the weaknesses, make the strength stronger. I think he's doing a lot of CrossFit, and he's getting better at CrossFit. Sure. When he's a teen, the weights will be a little bit different. He's getting as strong as he can, but also getting as fit as he can. I mean, I think there's going to be transfer over in that. I don't think you can really look at it and say,

oh, where are we getting him ready for the team games versus the CrossFit games? We're just getting him ready for CrossFit. Yeah, I was more like just trying to figure out is it the weights. Right, yeah. Like is he doing regional workout weights? Just depends. Sometimes, you know, like if we know like a certain workout, if it's a team workout, half the time he jumps in and just does whatever we do.

If it's an individual type workout, we'll dial the weight back. And even like if it's a heavy team workout, sometimes we'll have a separate barbell for him. We know, like, you know what stimulus you want from a certain workout. We're trying to get the same out of him. Got it. Yeah, we did that snatch workout the other day, and it was heavy. It went up from, what did it start at?

155. 155, 30 reps, 185, 24 reps, 205, 18 reps. Yeah, you know, you were doing it the whole way. So strong, man. Yeah. Thank you. And, Rich, do you program? I guess so now you're on a team and you do team workouts.

Do you program for your team? We all kind of just program together. I don't think there's any one person that does all the programming. And we're not always doing team workouts. Like we do a lot of individual workouts because there's individual parts of what we do. You know, like last year, there was a couple, you were by yourself, you're a sprint type workout. So, you know, we all just kind of, when we're together, we program together and when we're apart, everybody kind of does their own thing and everybody knows what their strengths and weaknesses are and they need to work on but if we're together

Everybody's kind of doing the same thing. Yeah. Yeah, and when you do program do you take into account everybody's weaknesses? And try to tackle those a little bit But I mean you got six people right so you don't I mean everybody's gonna have a different strength and weakness so it's kind of It kind of every workout or if you know over a day or over a couple days you'll hit everybody's strength and weakness so I think you know as a team we have a few things that all of us could or most of us could work on you know a lot of us Matt and Kristen are really good at running the rest of us need to run a little bit more frequently yeah a few of us are really good at

swimming and some others could need to work on that you know like some of the you know kristen's not the strongest so she's working on that and so you know there's just everybody's working on something they have and they know what that is so they kind of do that on their own yeah when we're together we just kind of whatever we throw up there we just all do yeah right yeah i saw you guys like when we came in the other day uh it's like y'all are brainstorming okay what are we gonna do today that's literally how it is every day most days um you know our strength stuff depending on you know we've been doing that what we call It's like y'all are brainstorming, okay, what are we going to do today? That's literally how it is every day, most days. Our strength stuff, depending on we've been doing that, what we call squats by Dre, but basically small off.

That's awesome. Squat calculus is what it looks like. What is that? Can I explain that, how that works? Yeah, so I don't even know how Dre's sitting over here. I don't know how he came up with it. That's his magic? That's squat by Dre. Squats by Dre.

And so one day he decided he was bad at front squats, so he wanted to start working on front squats, but he also wanted to incorporate cleans. And so basically you take the Smoloff Junior calculator and you go the 6x6, you would do 1x5, so one clean plus five front squats, and then you do 2 plus 4, three plus three, and so on. You do the same thing with all the different 70%, 75%, 80%, 85%. And we don't do four days a week.

We kind of do two days a week or whatever. So you're taking away a squat each time. Taking away a squat and adding a clean. Adding a clean. Who knows? And you were doing those with cleaning jerks the other day, right? Yeah. Sometimes we'll throw a jerk.

Like on the lighter weights, we'll throw a jerk like on the lighter weights. We'll throw a jerk. You just add one jerk on there when you're fatigued. Yeah. Just kind of, you know, help a little bit. And you've been doing this

kind of how long now? About six weeks, probably. Yeah. Four to six weeks, something like that. And how's that? How do you feel? I feel good.

I was talking to Mike about this the other day. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I clean. I think it's working. Yeah, I clean my clean or PR my clean jerk. I was talking to Mike the other day. You know Oh, yeah. I think it's working. Yeah, I cleaned my clean, or PR my clean jerk. I was talking to Mike the other day.

We did CrossFit weightlifting for a long time, and it did help a lot to hit the higher percentages and stuff like this. So this is a little bit lower percentage because we actually base the percentage off of 90% of our clean or snatch, whatever we're doing. And so for what we're doing, the point we are in the year, it's like we need to be able to do reps at a certain weight instead of just always working for a heavy one rep.

Because, I mean, how many times will you see a heavy one rep? Usually once in the games, once at regionals, maybe in the open. And so that's really what percent of the workouts, not a high percentage. So we want to be able to do reps. And, hey, if you get the stars aligned on a certain day and you hit a PR, that's great. But if you can do 315 for reps, that's what I'd rather take, you know. Yeah. Just kind of depends.

Yeah, for sure. Interesting. Yeah, and it's a lot of volume. It is a lot of volume. I was watching, and it's a lot of reps. It's a lot of volume. But I've liked it so far. You know, I don't feel with the volume, you know,

it's a little bit lower percentage, like I said. I'm not feeling as beat up. When I was doing a lot of just what we were doing today, we were doing that for a while, and I just felt like your nervous system's fine. What were we doing today, for those that didn't see it? Well, we did quite a few heavy singles, and then we backed it down to, I don't even

know what percentage. What's 315 of 380? A lot. That's a high percentage. Don't ask us about math. Your dad was teaching us how to count weight. We were doing math when we were treading water. 70 to 80. No, so it's...

We ended up doing 15 total reps. 15 total reps. And so, I mean, that just fries your nervous system. So, you know... So, I'm going to sleep a little bit different. Yeah.

And Angelo, how do you keep up with this type of training? Like, what do you... How do you keep up with the volume and how do you recover? He's 16.

That's how. He sleeps, and he skips the run. I know, man. I wish I was back then. Oh, man. I sleep when I have to. I eat. I try to eat as much as I can.

I leave. I'll leave once or twice a day, and I'll go eat by myself because I need to eat. These guys don't eat much. Just eat your feelings? Yeah. On the way home from the – when I was coming here from the swim, I stopped at Kroger and I got sushi because I was hungry.

Yeah. So I just eat a lot. Yeah. Eat a lot, sleep. Gas station sushi. You don't like – you don't even track how much you eat. You just go and eat.

Just eat until I'm full every time. Just try not to be hungry. Yeah, just try not to be hungry. Yeah, just try not to be hungry. Yeah. What about training-wise? What are some things that you know are kind of a weakness or some things that you would not want to see come up and you're working on them right now?

Handstand push-ups had a lot, or strict handstand push-ups, had a lot of trouble with those. Don't know why. I do them all the time. Try to get better at them. Yeah, long arms. That might be it. And then, I don't know.

I don't know what. Nothing else. I'm the fittest teenager on earth. I like it all. No, I don't know. I like squatting. Going overhead. Yeah, just going overhead in general probably.

Anything overhead. I just don't like pressing. I don't know. Yeah. He doesn't have a ton of weaknesses. He's pretty well-rounded. He runs well. You've only been swimming for a couple months now,

and he's not bad at swimming. He's not the greatest at kicking, but who is good at kicking? Kicking sucks. Oh, my gosh. I feel like I was going backwards today. I know, right? Yeah, have to kick a 150. I was like, come on.

Yeah, that was a lot. I was going to ask, what's it like training with people older than you? And especially these guys. I mean, Rich, you've been on Earth four times. What's it like training with people older than you? And especially these guys. I mean, Rich, you've been on Earth four times. What's it like? I don't know. I've just gotten kind of used to it. It's just like training buddies.

Just how usually is it at a gym? You have training buddies all different ages. It doesn't matter. So, yeah, we have a couple of masters at the gym. I train with them a lot. So I'm just used to training with anybody, anyone who's willing to train. What have you learned from training with this crew? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

I don't know. I don't know what they're talking about. I just do what I'm told. Yeah, I know. I do what I'm told. Train hard and, yeah, just listen to them. Train hard. That's about it.

Are you having fun? Tons of fun. Is every workout fun? Not every workout. This morning wasn't fun Uh, not every workout this morning. This morning was not fun. Yesterday was not fun. Running was not fun. Yesterday wasn't fun. Yeah. Yeah. We were kind of joking. We're like, you know, Angelo, like what I, you know, growing up playing sports, like he's the, he's, you, we were sitting there and we're like, he's not getting the, like the locker room. Like you just, those type of like experiences. But then we started thinking about it and I was like, we haze him pretty good.

So yeah, he's in the locker room. And then we were like, you, you, sometimes you forget the kid's 16, you know, we're all almost 30 and he's hanging out with a bunch of 30 year olds. I don't even know. Like when I was 16, I was, I wasn't hanging out with 30 year olds. That's for sure. But we're actually like children too. so you can't really say that. I'm being serious when I say he's more mature than I am.

Yeah, I agree. It's not a joke. Same. Yeah. Yeah. Have you learned anything from training with Angelo? Yeah, I think Angelo. It's just, like I said, at 16 I wasn't nearly as strong or as fit,

well-rounded as he is. So it's just kind of cool to help him out and have him around and just to see the things that are possible at that age. I mean, I never would have thought a 16-year-old could snatch 235 and still, like yesterday, running. He was running right there with us. So it's pretty impressive. What do they have in the water here?

That's a non-one of them, man. Two CrossFit Games champions out of here cookville tennessee i mean uh from being up here for several times and then you know a week already right now um the community you guys have i mean you guys are like at the pool this morning like i can't get one or two people to come swim with me back home you guys had seven people there and you guys were all doing the same workout no one asked questions they just did it and even if it was too hard or not enough you just kind of dealt with it yeah you adapt you know so like i see that here it's like everyone's training so hard and it's not like dumb training everyone's

just getting better because you know you've got a team you know everyone's kind of following up with that i think it's powerful yeah i think you know we everybody talks about who's their coach and who's coaching who and all this stuff. And I think coaches are important. I think you need somebody that gives you some type of direction. But I would take training partners any day. I've said that several times. I'd take good training partners over a great coach any day.

I couldn't agree more. Right. I mean, who's going to push you more than, you know, somebody else right there with you? Because, I mean, if you have somebody that's telling you what to do and you're not seeing them suffer or they're not suffering with you, it's a little hard to be like yeah all right yeah sure you know what are you doing here so um I think yeah like you're I think you hit the nail on the head is is just having the good people around you having the people that'll push you and uh people you have

fun with you know we like to hang out with with each other so it's a good time did you always train with a bunch of people or did you usually train by yourself? I feel like we kind of like go in waves, you know, some days you like to just walk out to the garage, nobody there. You don't have to push hard. Like, you know, some of those days where you're just beat up a little bit, but you want to move. Um, you don't want somebody there, but, uh, for the most part, I guess, yeah, I've always had people around me to push. Um, now I feel like everybody's a lot more well-rounded, so they're pushing me in all different areas. I used to have different people that would, you know, certain people would push me in this area. Somebody

pushed me in this area and somebody, you know, whatever it was, gymnastics, strength, or, uh, just endurance stuff. Um, but it's kind of funny that we kind of like, it was like a revolving door of people, you know, you had the morning crew, that is whoever, and then the afternoon is a completely different crew. And then those people sometimes would get burnt out because we trained a lot. So we've been through a few different cycles of people. But we had fun.

We had fun. Angelo, do you have anyone your age you train with? Or is it mostly this crew? No, it's just mostly this crew. I had a couple of buddies who did it with me for a little while but no no one else did they get into it because of you no if they were in it into it and then we kind of met through crossfit a little bit we were we had the same high school so we kind of talked a little bit yeah and then um yeah they just got i mean i don't know i guess i just got a little more serious with it sure why now i can i

can just guess that there are other teenagers out there who are starting to get into competition and probably look up to you. Do you have anything you'd want to say, like, to give them some advice, like anything that you've learned that you would want to share? I like the idea of the training partners. Yeah, the training partners, that's the biggest thing, I think, because especially on the offseason, I was training not by myself, but I wasn't training with people who were pushing me as hard and I could tell. And so once I started training with

them, I could tell I was getting pushed harder, but yeah, just people who were willing to go hard and want to go hard with you like a lot. Yeah. Yeah. That's so huge. I mean, if you look at any, any sport, especially in the strength world, like all the best weightlifters train together, all the best powerlifters train together. Why not all the best CrossFitters, all the best weightlifters train together all the best powerlifters train together why not all the best crossfitters all the best crossfitters train probably trained it right come here yeah train with you yeah we do we have quite a few people come around yeah you know we should have fun like i said we had we had bridges out here a couple weeks ago uh frazier was here last week last week um and so yeah we just kind of yeah man i mean i just pee on my cleaning jerk like And so, yeah, we just kind of. I was here this week. Yeah. I was here this week.

Hey, man. I mean, I just pee all my cleaning, Jerry. That's right. Hey. Something awesome. So, we got Dre over there, too, who's an extremely high-level athlete. What place did he get in the Open and going into regionals? What were you, 27th overall in the world? And then third in our region.

Yeah. He's not a bad athlete. And actually, all the workouts were not wheelhouse workouts for him i mean he's a pretty strong kid and they were all most of the workouts in the open minus the second one um were all relatively the same workout body weight lightweight reps um gonna tell andre a little bit the legend of andre um the uh he did was it of Andre. He did the second workout. He did the second workout twice in one day. No.

What did you get? Which one was that one, the cleans? 4.24 and 4.27. Was that 16.2? 4.25 and 4.28. So the cleans, the 3.15. He hit 3.15. He got to 3.15 and got into the 3.15 twice in one day.

If the idiot would have waited till at least monday he probably could have finished it but he was dead set on doing it again that night and sometimes you try it seven times however i can't say much i did event four four times twice in one day i just want to get back to that freaking pull-up bar on the muscle ups but and then dre also did a thousand ghd's in 50 minutes tell us that story didn't get rabdohabdo. Did not get rhabdo. I believe rhabdo is a myth. No. One night, I don't even remember how it started. We did a workout. It was like 100 GHDs and 100 push press at 75 pounds, something like that.

And James and Dre were being stupid. And they're like, well, we could do 100 rounds of 10 and 10 back and forth or something like that. And James goes, that's 1,000 GHDs. Dre goes, that's no problem. James goes, you think you could do 1,000 GHDs in an hour? Was that the deal? Something like that. He's like, you think you could do 20 GHDs on the minute until 1,000?

Dre goes, yeah, no problem. James goes, all right, I bet you $1,000 you can't do it. And so we have a text thread between all of us because they were roommates at the time. And James told us all. He's like, Dre says he can do 1,000 GHDs and be fine. And so Hewitt's like, I'll take 200. I'll throw 200 on that. Oh, no.

And I was like, dang it. I was like, Dre's really good at GHDs, and Dre's really stupid. So he'll probably do it. But I don't want to look like a cheapskate, so I'll throw in 200. Oh, no. Sure enough, one Saturday. $1,400 now? $1,400.

Don't anybody get any ideas. One Saturday, he decided to do 20 on the minute. Do what? Oh, it was the morning after he did 60.2 twice. Yep. And so on Saturday, we're all lifting in the garage, and Dre just starts doing GHDs, and we're all just kind of like talking trash, trying to make him laugh to make it hurt.

Around 400, he goes, hey, Angelo, go give me that belt. Straps on the belt. And then he finished it in 50 minutes. Wow. Every round was about 40 seconds, don't you think, for 50 minutes? Well, Dre, what do you going to spend your money on? He already did. He already blew it.

Yeah, well, this goes to another story of Dre. Yeah, we'll talk about this one too. Dre, so Dre, how many times have you ridden a motorcycle? Did you buy a motorcycle with that? No, he did not buy a motorcycle. So his buddy, Dre's from Illinois. Dre moved down here last January. And so he moved down with a buddy.

His buddy ended up moving back to Illinois. And it was this fall. Yeah, I guess it was this fall. And it was starting to get cold up there. So Dre's like, hey, John, let me borrow your, it's an on-road, off-road enduro bike. It's a Yamaha 250ZT, something like that. And so John brings it down. Let's Dre borrow the bike.

Dre comes up here. What do you have, two days? Why don't we just give him the mic? Two days? You want to come talk? Two days. And so he's, Dre, for the past two years, this is another story, Dre's needed shoulder surgery for the last two years.

He got torn labrum. So Dre is going to have an MRI on his shoulder, takes off on the bike. I get a call from Darren. He says, hey, we've got to take Dre to the hospital. I said, what did he do? Oh, no. He was coming down the hill. He's already down the mountain, was going down the 70 down there,

right before he got to that bridge. If you've never ridden a motorcycle, what do you try to do? What's the first thing you want to do? Go fast. That's the right answer. See how fast they go. That logic is kind of flawed in my opinion. Dre's going downhill

trying to see as fast as he can go. Starts to get a little speed wobble. If you've never ridden a bike, what do you do? You lay it down. You grab the brake. Oh. However, or ease off the gas is what you should do. He grabs the front brake.

Oh, okay. Trey grabs the front brake, does a flip over the front of the bike. Oh. He probably landed on his feet and just ran. Going 77 miles an hour. Close. Does three somersaults.

Darren and Jess just happened to be passing him. My cousin Darren. Oh, no. Just happens to be passing him as he does three flips. Lands on his feet. Didn't have his helmet latched. His helmet goes flying off after he comes out of the flip. Starts walking.

The bike thrashed. He's road rashed up. He had sweatpants on. Ate through his sweatpants. Luckily he had a backpack on. So it kind of saved his, helped his fall a little bit. Had to go to the hospital. Me and Ellie had to go pick up the bike, bring it back up here.

It's actually over there. We'll get a shot of that after. So you separated your shoulder. Had to spend a night in the beautiful Vanderbilt Hospital. And you did 16.3 right after this. Yeah. That was a little before that. So never told his buddy.

Never told his buddy that he wrecked his bike. His buddy came down once a couple months later. Dre's kind of like got these scars now that are, you know, from road rash. And his buddy's like, man, what is that? He's like, is that eczema? He's like, yeah. Yeah, your bike gave it to me. He didn't watch that thing.

Never told his buddy until, what, two months ago? His friend came down like for a third or fourth time, and he's like, hey, man, I got to tell you something. I wrecked your bike. And so I think that's – is that where part of your money went to? Or do you blow it on something else? It was mostly towards hospitals. Mostly towards hospitals.

Oh, my gosh. So then Dre also wasn't going to – he was doing all the open workouts, did them all multiple times, and decided he wasn't going to regionals because he had to have shoulder surgery April 5th. First. April 1st, 5th, something like that. And so finishes third in our region. I was like, Dre, you're not having shoulder surgery.

And snatched 265 with a torn leg. I'm like, let's wait until after regionals, you'll be fine. Let's just see what happens. So he's on your team too? No, he's individual. Oh, okay. So, yeah, he's looking good. He'll be all right.

So about the team, we didn't even talk about it. Your team won the CrossFit Games Affiliate Cup last year. How was that? It was fun. It was a good time. We had fun. No, it wasn't. To be honest, it wasn't really expected.

We were, you know, we knew we would fare well was our plan. You know, you always want to go into any competition wanting to win, but we knew we had some holes and needed some stuff to work on. But we were just there, you know, not just to have fun. You know, we wanted top ten, top five, something like that. And then just kind of slowly kept creeping up the leaderboard. And going into the final event, we were in second. And I was like, hey, might as well win this thing right here, so let's do it.

And so it was a good time. It was cool to actually, you know, share the win with other people instead of, you know, it's cool, it's great to win the CrossFit Games as an individual, but to see what everybody sacrificed and to work with people day in and day out and just to see how happy it makes them, it was a cool experience. What's it like training with a team and doing the team? It's different. It's different personalities,

and you've got to figure out how to motivate those different personalities. I'm not very good with crying. I'm horrible with crying. Somebody starts to cry. I can see that. Seriously, like just kind of walk away. Yeah. And so luckily, you know, James and Matt are a little bit better, a little bit more nurturing

where I just kind of like get real awkward and just like. You get all Jamie Dugan on them. Yeah. Just kind of like walk away. You have this sign in your, in your home garage, Jim, it's like the butthurt free zone. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's like the butt hurt free zone. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's just different, man.

It's a different animal, I guess. And you're also on everybody else's schedule, too. So it's like trying to figure out when certain people can train. And it's just a different animal, but it's fun. How do you approach your own training now that you're with a team do you um more are you still trying to be specialized i still know still trying to be the fittest individual that i can yeah um because i think you know with the games the way it has been the last couple years i mean it's not you can't really especially i feel like in the first couple years you could have like somebody that was really strong a male female is

really strong one that was really good at gymnastics and then kind of a jack-of-all-trades. I think now we're to the point where it's like everybody has to be well-rounded. Yeah. That most events are taking all six people in some way, you know. So just be the fittest individual that I can be and work on the team. Find other people. Fit individuals. That's right.

Exactly. What were some of the – so what was the lowest place you were in at the games as a team? Like 22nd, something like that. You know, we started out well on the swim. We did not do so well on the one-mile run. And then we had another one or two events that were just not – didn't go real well. Not according to plan. But, you know, we just kind of slowly kept creeping slowly kept creeping and then i think by day day three i think

we were fourth or fifth or something like that yeah just kept moving up what kind of helped the momentum turn around i think it was just like you know we pizza pizza pizza No, I think it was just, for one, we're pretty, we're used to the higher volume, and everybody's kind of used to just the feeling like you're beat down on day three, I guess. And so for us, it's just another day where everybody else is kind of, you know, you can tell it's starting to hit them a little bit.

But then also, we never really got down on each other. Everybody was just, you could see other teams, there was kind of some inner struggle. you can tell it's starting to hit them a little bit. But then also, we never really got down on each other. Everybody was just, you could see other teams, there was kind of some inner struggle. We never really, you know, things went bad. It was like, all right, when you see, when you train with people like that day in and day out, you know they're putting forth their best effort.

It's not lack of trying while we did bad on certain events. It was just those events weren't good for us. And so there's no reason to get upset. There's nothing you can change. There's nothing you can do about it. So it's like, hey, just on to the next event. And so I think we did a good job of that where it was like, all right, we're not going to get down. Hey, we know running was not a good thing for us,

and let's just move on to the next event and try to make up some time. So it sounds like you kind of serve as the leader slash the coach of the team. I wouldn't necessarily say, you know, everybody has their different different leadership roles. You know, like like I said, Matt and James are more they can they're more of the nurturing type. I'm more of the I just lead by example. Right. I'm not like a like a get in your face pep talk type of guy. I'm more of like, hey, let's go do this and I'll just –

Sack it up. Yeah. And so the girls are – Ellie's kind of our punching bag. We make fun of her a lot. She's the comic group. If you go to his channel, you can see a lot of videos of him. Yeah. Well, didn't she make some weird comment yesterday?

Like I can't remember what she was saying, but it was just this obvious, like really? You didn't know? It's every day. Oh, I said, does anyone have any floss? And she said, yeah. I have some in my car. I can't leave home.

I'm really crazy about keeping my teeth clean. And we all looked at each other like. Not that kind of floss. I think you were like, no, he meant voodoo floss. Ellie, no, I knew she was going to say dental floss. I know Ellie does not have what you're talking about. But she knows, too. She was laughing dental floss. I know Ellie does not have what you're talking about. But she knows, too.

She was laughing about it. She's Ellie. So she's the comic relief. And then, you know, Kristen's real straightforward. Whatever you tell her to do, she's going to do it. So she's super easy to manage. And then Lindy's been the same way. She's just – all three of the girls actually are just, hey,

what do you need us to do and we'll do it. And is everybody on your team now? Was that the team that you took to the games last year? So we switched Lauren with Lindy. Lindy kind of came, moved down here and has stepped into Lauren's position. And Lauren did great for us. She was kind of a, not a last-minute add, but she stepped up last year when we had somebody that was going to be on the team decided not to be on the team.

We were kind of stuck. And so she decided, we said, hey, Lauren, we need you. And she was like, all right, I'll do it. Just full-time mom. Yeah. How old is Lauren? 41 years old. Full-time mom, full-time job.

Wow. Yeah. She did well, really well. Do you feel like that now that you kind of have a team, maybe like what's – because now you've got a kid now. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a two-year-old.

So how do you balance that? It's actually a lot easier yeah I was gonna say to to I'm I'm in a better place training wise where um I probably train out train just as much maybe not as much but close to as much but when I'm done training I'm done training I'm not thinking about training I'm not you know that's not my number one priority my number one priority is being a dad and so so it's been really good to give me something else to think about and not be so, I mean. It may take some pressure off. Yeah, for years I've been obsessed with being the fittest man on earth.

That was literally, you know, I woke up every day. That was my plan. That was what I wanted to do. And so now it's like now I want to be a good dad. So now I wouldn't say CrossFit is more of a hobby, but it's still my job, but it's less stressful. Yeah, for sure. Is that part of the reason why you job, but it's less stressful. Yeah, for sure. Is that part of the reason why you kind of went to the team route? Yeah, for sure.

You know, I didn't feel like I could give competing as an individual as much attention as I would want to to be as competitive as I wanted to. And then I also felt like me trying to do that would take away from me being a dad, and I didn't want to do that either. So it's not fair for her. And my wife, you know, I wouldn't say I was a crappy husband, but I was not as present as I should be for a couple years just because, I mean, you've got to be selfish.

To be the best in the world at anything, you have to be selfish. Absolutely. And you have to be a little obsessive. And how old is your daughter now? She'll be two in July, July 7th. So she is 100 miles an hour. You follow me on Snapchat, you see that. She's literally 100 miles an hour from the time her feet hit the floor

to the time she goes to sleep. But she's fun. What's your Snapchat for people who just want to follow you on Snapchat? I don't even know. It's like froning.rich or something like that. I don't know. Maybe we'll follow up on that one. Are you fitter now?

I'd say I'm more well-rounded. Probably fitter, for sure. You're stronger. I'm stronger. Better at running, better at swimming. PR just cleaning jerks today. Yeah. Better at running, better at swimming.

I think I'm fitter. Very cool. Angelo. Yeah. Sorry. I went quiet over there for a minute. I've got'm fitter. Very cool. Angelo. Yeah. Sorry. Went quiet over there for a minute. I've got some questions for you. Yeah.

Tell us about your games experience, what it's like qualifying, what that step is for a teenager, and then what it's like actually being there and your last year experience and winning. Yeah. So we just go straight top 10 in the 14-15 division and the 16-17 division. Just go straight to the games. So you get top 10, you go to the games.

That's kind of how it is for now. And I think as it grows, they'll make a qualifier just because there's not as many kids doing it right now as there is masters. So once they see it grow, I think next year, if not next year, then the year after that we'll definitely have a qualifier or something like that. Cool. Just because I think when it grows it makes it more fair. Angelo actually bumped up an age group this year too. Yeah, I was about to ask you about that. How many people, last year it was 14, 15?

Yeah. How many teenagers do that, do you know? No idea. Not an idea? Okay, so they take top 10 in the world yeah and then you go to the game so you there's 10 competitors at the games that you compete against so the scoring that's actually pretty slim too oh yeah really small you have that event it's hard right so this year you turn 16 so you're now in the new 16 17 it's the same thing but obviously like 14 15 year

olds going to 16 and 17 year olds like that's a big jump. Yeah, that's a big jump. A lot of kids develop. Yeah. Tell us about that. So last year there was a lot of kids who didn't do it for the same reason that I wasn't going to do it, just because they didn't want to. They didn't want to, I guess, do the teen division and just miss an opportunity, maybe see how far they can get in the region or whatever,

see where they're at in the region. Because I know that was kind of my goal. I was going to just see where I'm at in the region because i know that was kind of my goal i was gonna just see where i'm at in the region see what i need to do things need to work on but going to teen route was obviously the best route and then so yeah we have kids who did that last year coming to the teen route and they're stepping up a lot so there's a bunch of names i haven't even seen up on the leaderboard and yeah there's a bunch of fit kids this year a lot of fit well. Well, you're also on the lower end of the curve of that. I mean, there's a big difference between when you turn 16 by the time you're almost 18.

Like some of these kids are almost 18, so there's a lot of development that's still going to happen. Oh, for sure. I remember playing any sport growing up. If I'm playing in like a 15- to 16-year-old, like if you're playing bantams and hockey and you go to midget, it's like night and day difference, how much bigger and faster, you know, the kids are. So yeah. Yeah. I weighed 130 pounds my sophomore year. And then my junior year, I weighed 165. So it's like, yeah. You know? Yeah. There's a,

especially for some kids. Testosterone. Yeah. Right. Good stuff. Free stuff. Free testosterone. Yeah. Um, so tell us about the experience at the Games. Did you have any, you know, what were some of your lowest placements? What were some of the biggest challenges you had? I, yeah, I loved being at the Games. Didn't ever think I'd get to actually compete there, or at least for a long time. It would be a long time before I thought I'd be there.

And getting to go there was a huge deal for me, a huge deal for my family. We were excited. Yeah. So, yeah, just because we didn't go we were gonna go the last year that he won 2014 but things just didn't play out we didn't we ended up just going just going on a regular vacation so I was finally glad to go out there because I've never been out there and never been to California never even been um what west of the Mississippi yeah yeah never even been out there so yeah it was a big deal going out there and then being there was just a great experience yeah tons of and then i had i'd

made some friends through social media that um like who like uh some of the other teens yeah some of the teens early four or five other teens that i'd made i'd made friends with and we went out there we got to finally meet so that was really cool yeah yeah it was awesome i love social media yeah yeah you see it i mean we we become good friends through competition you know that's actually how we met and yeah good you know had developed a good relationship and i've got a ton of friends from through competitions oh yeah i will be friends with forever i feel like um so this year tell us uh the story about how qualifying because you actually did qualify this year in the 16 and 17, which is super impressive. Why don't you walk us through that?

So this year was a lot tougher, yeah, a lot tougher. Numbers-wise, placement-wise, it was hard. Like workout-wise, it wasn't as hard as it looked. I was – third workout almost kept me out just because I was three reps short of a top ten. I got 22nd. If I would have got three more reps, I would have been a top ten finish. It would have been no question. Oh, wow.

That's crazy. Probably would have finished fifth in the open somewhere up there. What was the third workout again? The third workout was the power snatch. Yeah, snatch bar muscle-up. Right. Yeah. Workout I thought I would have done good on just kind of caught me off guard a little

bit. Wasn't ready for it. Was it the muscle-ups that gave you the – The snatch. The snatches. Okay. Weird. Yeah, just shoulders went., shoulders and grip just went.

It was weird. How many rounds did you get on that? I have no idea. A lot. I got 103, so whatever that is. It's like seven to change. It's still a good – It's a really good score.

It's still a good score. Like I said, it's just so competitive this year. And, yeah, that one kind of almost kept me out and so after the fourth week i was in 11th which was pretty stressful yeah i was texting these guys like i don't know if i can do it i go this might this might uh this might be it i might not be able to make it and i talked to darren his cousin he he's like uh my main guy i go to because he's like he's kind of been my coach through all this. He had no doubt in me.

He knew I'd make it to the games. I said, I don't know, this year might be pretty tough. I don't know if I can make it. He goes, you're going to make it to the games. He goes, no way you're going to miss the games. After the fourth week, sitting in 11th, I woke up Monday morning. I did 16.5 on Friday. Pretty good score, but didn't know if it was good enough,

and that was the stressful part. Didn't know if it was going to be good enough, and just couldn't sleep, just so, so anxious. So Monday morning, I wake up. Going to redo it anyway. Monday morning, wake up at about 5 or 6 a.m. I have a fever. Over 100.

I have a fever over 100. I walk upstairs. I'm like, Mom, I'm sick. And she's like, aren't you going to do that workout today? I'm like, yeah, I was going to. I I walk upstairs. My mom, I'm sick. And she's like, aren't you going to do that workout today? I'm like, yeah, I was going to, I go, I don't know if I need to, I might be able to squeeze in without redoing it. So I go to the doctor and I get, get some medicine. And I, I watched the leaderboard all day, watching it all day. And then I finally, I'm like, I'm going to have to do it. I go, it's close. And I don't want it. I don't want to be like 10 seconds away. So I show up at his house. I'm like, Hey, going to have to do it. I go, it's close and I don't want it. I don't want to be like 10 seconds away.

So I show up at his house. I'm like, Hey, let's do this thing. I want to go home and sleep. Like I'm going to do this. I'm going to leave and I'm going to go sleep for today, tomorrow and the next day. So I get there and he said, I wasn't going to redo it. He wasn't going to redo it. I was like, I don't care.

I just got back from California and I was like, I, that workout was stupid. I was like, I don't care. I just got back from California, and I was like, that workout was stupid. I'm not doing it again. I was like – I start warming up. He grabs me. I go, what are you doing? He's like, I'll do it with you. And so we both end up doing it.

But he went – he got a lot better. He did a lot better. I did 40 seconds faster than I – And then I got a lot better. I got like 21 seconds. Yeah, just enough. And, yeah, squeezed my way in. It was close, but I squeezed in.

And then went home and slept. Do you think because you were working with Rich, that's how you got better at that workout? I think so, yeah. And then the whole crew was there. So, like, James was my judge. I think Dre was there. Afternoon crew at the house was there.

Mike and all that. The regular crew was there. Power of the training environment. Quite the support crew. They knew what I needed to do, and they all helped me through it. So, obviously, I was happy. How good did it feel when you were done? So bad.

So bad. How good did it feel? It felt so bad. It felt terrible. I was so dehydrated, all cramped up, like laying on the floor. I never felt like that. I never want to feel like that again. Yeah, because you were sick.

Oh, yeah. I can't imagine doing that. So, like, I hang around there, and I'm like, I got to go home. I'm leaving. We. I never want to feel like that again. Cause you were sick. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I can't imagine doing that. So like I hang around there and I'm like, I gotta go home. I'm leaving. We didn't see him for like four days. Yeah. Oh yeah.

I slept. Everybody's like, you did it. You did it. You're like, I'm done. Slept all day Tuesday. And I go,

maybe I'll start doing something else. Wednesday slept all Wednesday, Thursday. I get up. I'm like, I kind of feel better. And I just stayed at home all day Thursday. And then Thursday night was the first day I worked out.

It felt terrible. Yeah, I was happy to make it. Yeah, man. So you were truly tested. Oh, yeah. You fought back. That's pretty awesome. Great story.

Rich, do you coach him at competitions or will you coach him at games? I was just thinking about that. I didn't last year just because the games. I was like, you know, we had Lakeland. I was just trying to get out of there as soon as I could. So this year I'll probably hang out a little bit more, try to help them out when I can. We get there a little earlier too.

So it just kind of depends on what, you know, our schedule is. I mean, you don't really have to do anything at regionals or anything like that. So it'll be a little bit different. When did the teen divisions compete at the games? Same time as the Masters. So Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday leading up to the individuals. So what do you like to do outside of working out?

Because you work out all the time. Do you have anything else? I mean, you're a young dude. It's not a wrong answer if you don't do anything. Yeah, I have a girlfriend. There's a girlfriend that he met in CrossFit. She lives in Iowa? Iowa, 10 hours away.

Couples that wad together, stay together. It's all good. She does Olympic lifting, though. Yeah, she's a real good Olympic lifter. I mean, he lifted at the Nationals last year, right? So he did an Olympic competition last year. Oh, so you went to Youth Nationals. Yeah, Youth Nationals.

Yeah, I did that, and then I was supposed to compete. She competed at Junior Nationals, and I was supposed to compete, but I ended up – I had a little back issue, just nationals. Yeah, I did that, and then I was supposed to – she competed at junior nationals, and I was supposed to compete, but I ended up – I had a little back issue, just tweaked. It wasn't anything bad. And so I just kind of skipped on that because it was so close to the open. I didn't want to risk anything. So I just went up there with her, and she set some new PRs. I think we're looking at collegiate nationals now,

and she's going to do good there, I think. She's older. Yeah, she's there, I think. She's older. She's older. Yeah, she's a little bit older. She's a little bit older. At the time. She got her first muscle-up in the Open, right? Bar muscle-up?

Yeah. Oh, very cool. Got her first muscle-up like two weeks before that. She got her first bar muscle-up, and then she just leaps and bounds away from where she was. I think me and her being together has helped her so much, helped me a lot. Because, one, I get to coach her a lot much helped me a lot because one um i get to coach her a lot she needs a lot of coaching she's not she's not like uh careful about what you say she's not one of those people she's not like she doesn't need training partners she needs

she needs someone there she needs someone there pushing her like sure in the band in the background kind of so what he meant to say is he really enjoys coaching and hanging out with his wife, and they have a lot of commonality. My wife? Girlfriend. Girlfriend. Jeez. I'm just trying to – We're both brainwashed.

Trying to help him out here. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. You don't say anything incriminating. Yeah. So you help her with CrossFit, or does she help you with weightlifting? Yeah.

She's helped me a lot with weightlifting because i'm not i'm not good at uh at competing i i kind of get stressed out she's she's good she gets a little stressed out too but she's she's good she's good in the weightlifting aspect and i'm not as good there with the high stress one lift i'm better with the high stress let's go really hard yeah i like crossfitter yeah and yeah so uh, we met probably a month before the games. Then she came out and watched the games. Then the rest is history. Are you going to give her a shout-out?

She's probably going to get mad if you don't give her a shout-out. Yeah. Yeah, Kendall. Her name's Kendall. Kendall Beardsley. And, yeah, so we've been together. Don't mess this up. Don't mess this up.

Nine and a half months. Ten months. Oh, it's in months? Okay. Ten months. Not even a year. Not a year yet. Close.

Close. Still. It's close. I thought we were going to have to change the subject real quick, man. That's so funny. I was doing that by the time. No, I knew it was nine months. I think, yeah, definitely nine months.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Keep talking to it. Definitely. That's all I'm saying. That's all I got. Post this, yeah, definitely nine months. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Keep talking to it. Definitely. That's all I'm saying. That's all I got. Post this. That's all I got on that.

So what do you like to, like, in your free time, you like to play other sports or? Yeah, we play, well, we play, I like spike ball a lot. Spike ball is probably. Yes, I brought mine. Yeah. I like spike ball. Sorry, I got excited.

We haven't been playing that a lot lately just because regionals. It's crunch time. Yeah, we got to. We got to. Do you ever play hockey with this dude? No, I don't play hockey. I don't know. We try to get him to.

He's just too scared. I don't know. I just don't like it. He's afraid of getting hurt. Come on, man. We went and played the other night and I witnessed the greatest.

You know what? I want you to tell a story. Maybe. Rich, can you tell a story? Rich, tell a story because it involves CTP. CTP is behind the camera there. Legend of the greatest

hockey player of all time. The legend was born that night. 100%. Please tell us. So I got the – I don't even know how I got the puck, where I got the puck. It was just past half court because we don't do blue lines. We just have one half court.

And so I'm kind of not by myself. I guess I am. A little bit of a breakaway. A little bit of a breakaway. And so skate up to the goalie, little wrister, bounces off. CTP's there to clean up the garbage. Literally, what? This guy.

One minute before that, he's skating around filming. He's like, you know what? I think I'll give this hockey thing a chance. Let me come out there, guys. And so we give him a stick. Literally gets on the floor as I'm grabbing the puck. Ten seconds into playing, he goes out and he scores. And this entire place went nuts.

It was so funny. The video was on my Instagram and also on his Instagram. I think another thing, too, is like I think people, listeners out there think, okay, this is just like a pickup game of hockey. Y'all threw on the full regalia. Regalia. Rich tried to downplay.

He was like, oh, yeah, we're going to play hockey. And it's just a couple of dudes. Nobody knows what they're doing. Me and Kurt, we're sitting there watching. You guys put on, like, shin guards and pads, and we're like, this ain't for me right now. It's like it looks like the NHL out there. Oh, man.

Yeah, you've never watched before, so it's viewed a little differently. But, yeah, I mean, it was a blast. It was the first time I played in, like, four years. And you know what? It's a good time. I wouldn't have played if I hadn't come up and hung out. And when we had messaged each other, I was like, hey, I'm coming up.

Should I bring my gear? And you were like, oh, yeah, we're playing. And I was almost asking just, like, as a joke, but I was like, man, I have to go to my attic and get my stuff out. It was so much fun. We had a blast. It was so much fun. And for the most part, everybody there was pretty laid back.

And, you know, we were just there to have some fun. Like I've said before, We had a blast. It's so much fun. And for the most part, everybody there is pretty laid back and we're just there to have some fun. Like I've said before, I think it's some of my best conditioning sessions. Oh, smoke. You're done. You just can't.

Oh, hey. Hey, Jake. Who's making all that racket? One of the tenants of CrossFit is like, play new sports. You know what? You're right.

I stopped playing for a while to be honest because I was so worried about training and I would get hurt. How is this going to affect my training? I mean, you can't always control that. You can get hurt in training.

Yeah, exactly. Obviously not being stupid, but it was just so much fun. You haven't been injured in a while. Knock on wood. I haven't had any serious injuries. I mean, I had shoulder surgery when I was in high school, but that was from CrossFit. Tweaked my back a little bit after the 2010 games,

but nothing, I mean, everybody has, like I've always said, you have one gremlin that kind of moves around. It's nothing major, but it's always just kind of aching. Doug Larson says that. It moves from your shoulder to your knee. It always, like, bounces around. The conservation of pain. Conservation of pain.

Doug said that once. He's like, pain never leaves the body. It just goes from one place to another. What's kind of your gremlin? My right knee, if I sit in flexion for too long, like in a backseat, it literally feels like it wants to explode. It's just my right knee. Yeah, mine too.

And then my shoulders, just every once in a while. One thing I figured out, like I was having awful shoulder pain. Like anytime I'd hold anything overhead, awful. My wife bought a, before this, prefacing this, she bought a pillow top, like roll out, you know, one of those like eggshell, like thicker than eggshell memory foam things. And so she bought that a couple months before. And so I noticed after a couple months, I was like, man, my shoulders hurt. And like, and I was laying in bed and I just felt like my shoulders were caving in. So the one night I took

it off, rolled it up. she's got double on her side and now I don't have any. Shoulder pain went away the next day. It was crazy. I've had a lot of clients that would say, man, I've got really bad achy shoulders, like something we did in training. And I'm like, make sure it's not the sleep. Are you sleeping on the side?

Because I've done that too. I woke up and I'm like, God, training. I look at it and I'm like, make sure it's not the sleep, you know, like are you sleeping on the side? Because I've done that too. I woke up and I'm like, God, like training. I look at it and I'm like, I didn't do anything. I slept on it and just done that. Well, we also learned that you're unbreakable. Bone density. Yeah, you got a DEXA scan pretty recently. DEXA scan this weekend.

Yeah. And what were some of the, like what was your body fat? I was 11.2. Most of my body fat is held in my quads, apparently. My right arm is smaller than my left arm. What else was there? What was else besides the bone density was, like, off the charts. Like, I think what we were looking at.

Yeah, I think it was for the 99 percentile, it was, like, one point something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a Z score. Yeah. Yeah, and it was, like, one point something yeah yeah yeah there's z there was a z score yeah yeah and it was like one and yours was like 4.8 yeah and like hewitt hewitt's on our team who's 2.5 his his bone density or whatever was 2.5 yeah and mine was 4.8 so adamantium yeah basically bruce willis um and you say your body fat was 11.2? 11.2. Yeah. That's DEXA. Yeah, people think that I guess you're like leaner than that. Yeah.

Your number is lower. But I think you still have to have some fat to do what we do. Yeah. You know, I think some – you look at like skin calipers and stuff like that, but there's the measurement error on that stuff is so high. Yeah. When I calculate with those, I'm not necessarily doing it to find a specific percentage. It's point A to point B.

I want to measure the change. Right, right, right. Percent change. Yeah, what are some of the things that you've been doing, I guess, for recovery? Oh, man, I think, honestly, I think sleep, for me, has always been the biggest part of my recovery because I don't do a ton of, luckily, we have a chiropractor

that anytime we text him, like, hey, bro, I need something I need something yeah right there his wife's a massage therapist so anytime we need something she's right there but you know as far as just like you know I don't do any of the cryotherapy or do a ton of ice baths or anything like that I think the biggest thing for me has always been sleep however I'm not getting a ton of sleep anymore because I have a two-year-old. Dad, Dad. Yeah. That likes to kick me in the face. A karate kick me in the face. Yeah.

You know, but it's part of it. Man, I had some experience with that. You know, we got a new puppy a few months back. Sometimes I think puppies are harder than kids sometimes. Someone told me that. I mean, I think they're just being nice. No, I've had two puppies and a kid, and sometimes the dogs are harder than the kid. Yeah. Angela, what about you? You, uh, do you have anything that you want to, I was going to ask if you have anything that you want to share, like plug or people you want to thank that help with your training, your parents, your mom,

your mom's going to watch this by the way. I love, Mom. I may not be out by Mother's Day. I guess my mom's the only reason I'm on here. She said yes. She said it was okay. She said it was okay. Oh, yeah. I did call. We had a nice conversation.

That's cool. Any sponsors or anything? Anybody help you out? Look down on your chest? Yeah. FitAid helps me. Yeah. Yeah.

I do love FitAid a lot. They've sent me anything I want. Yeah. Yeah, just anything I need, I message Aaron. He's usually my guy, my go-to. Oh, yeah, Aaron. Aaron, yep. We're good friends with all them.

Great people. Oh, yeah. I love those guys. Yeah, they're great. They help me out at the games. At the games, I'm like, hey, I'm pretty tired. They're like, oh, we got a couch in the back. You want to come sit down?

Yeah. Oh, we've been back there. And then, Wadapalooza, same deal. Go back there, sit down. It's nice. Yeah. I like those guys. Awesome. What about you sit down? Yeah. No, we've been back there. And then, Wadapalooza, same deal. Go back there, sit down. It's nice, yeah. I like those guys. Awesome. What about you, Rich?

Normal. Got Rogue. Where do we start? Rogue, Reebok, Reband. What else I got? Advocare. It's great. Get to go to NASCAR races with them, so it's fun.

Awesome. Where can we find Rich Froning? Where can you find Rich Froning? Where can you find Rich Froning? At Rich Froning, I think, is both my Instagram and my Twitter. I've got to figure out my Snapchat. I think it's froning.rich or something like that. I feel like somebody had already stolen Rich Froning at that point. I think CTP is looking it up.

If you want to see what we do day-to-day, we have What's Rich Doing? You can check that out on CrossFitMayhem.com. If you want to come train with us for a weekend weekend we actually got one of those coming up this weekend literally we it's what it says train with rich and so we literally friday night people come in hang out we work out a couple times and then do a little barbecue workout workout all day saturday workout in the morning sunday have some fun so So it's been – this will be our third one, and we've had a good time with it. Very cool. Very cool.

Angelo, what about you? Are you on social media? Yeah. Angelo underscore to Chico is my Instagram. Yeah. It's my Instagram. So Angelo. It's on the shirt, right?

D-I-C-I-C-O. D-I-C-I-C-O. There you D-I-C-I-C-C-O. There we go. D-I-C-I-C-C-O. There you go. And then Twitter is Angelo underscore. And then D, this one's a little bit easier, D-C-H-I-C-O. D-T-Chico.

So just as you say it, D-Chico. Oh, got it. Yeah. Cool. Cool. Oh, got it. Yeah. Cool. Cool. Cool. Hey, basically, we talked about the Shrug Strength Test. Today we launched it.

We've been working on this new thing, the Barber Shrug Crew, called the Shrug Strength Test. It's a three-day test that we built. It's a bunch of different exercises. I bet you can't do it if you can't score. That's a challenge. The gloves have been thrown. The gloves are off.

Three days, you take the test how many times did it take you to clean 380 I was doing clean pulls this guy slapped me on the back

which I've never done before and I highly recommend it because I went white I was like it was crazy

I couldn't believe it worked seven times later but yeah it worked we got it so yeah the stroke strength test three days of test four or five movements each day no five or six I couldn't believe it worked seven times later, but yeah. It worked. We got it. So yeah, the Shrugged Strength Test.

Three days of tests. Four or five movements each day. No, five or six movements each day. Go through the movements. We have, go to shruggedstrengthtest.com. Sorry, I'm all over the place. Slow down. Shruggedstrengthtest.com.

You do it seven times. We'll show you. Yeah, seven times to try. We got movements. We got videos on there that show you how to do each movement. After you get done with it, we've got an easy page for you to fill out all your results. Once you do that, we send you a big package with all this feedback based on which weight class you're in and then some ideas on what we think you can do to get better at this.

So it's really cool. It's a lot of good information. And it's absolutely free. So check it out. ShrugStrengthTest.com. I really want to see if Rich will do it, though. It would be interesting. I'm being honest.

I don't know if he can. Actually, well, this is a side note, but one of my coaches, Zach Greenwald, he plugs some of your numbers into his spreadsheet. He does a lot about strength ratios. He actually said that you were, like, the most balanced strength-wise, and everything is – your overhead squat apparently is your best lift. Like what's your overhead squat? Best, I think 380 was the most we've ever done.

And he said like everything was 90% of that, which is insane. And for your best lift to be the overhead squat is insane. It's kind of weird. Extremely efficient. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool, guys. Very cool.

Angela, man. You did great, man. Good job. Thank you so much for coming on thank you again thanks for listening everyone

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